CDZ Homeless Problem Part II

[Picaro]

Most homeless are living in cars, or with relatives, and they have jobs that don't pay squat

People who are living with relatives are not homeless, and most homeless do not have regular jobs. Let's focus on the actual problem instead of distractions.

Of course they are. Let's focus on real life instead of just dumping on people we find unpleasant and annoying and using the legal system to kick them around for fun. It's like claiming people who are working part time even for one hour a week are 'employed' and then bragging about how unemployment is 'way down n stuff'.

 

[sartre play]

How about a few posts on WHY we have so many homeless,
Why are some fighting for 15 dollars & hour when if we had added a dollar every 2 or 3 years would have increased the min wage & helped the working class,
check out those leaders of ours who voted against any raise.
consider that wages have been stagnant for many years, while the cost of everything has gone up.
housing costs in populated areas have made buying out of reach for many working people, and rent has become 50 to 80 % of a monthly paycheck. lots of questions, not enough answers.

 

[Oddball]

Most homeless are living in cars, or with relatives, and they have jobs that don't pay squat..They're 'invisible', while the street crazies aren't, hence the incorrect assumptions they're all dopeheads, mental cases, and drunks. When one can't even define the issue correctly, no point in then implementing 'solutions' that don't apply.

The dopers are the most high profile and the ones committing the crimes.

The people camping in their cars or small RVs (mostly temporarily) aren't causing problems for the populace at large.

 

[badger2]

Sartre play is correct, and deconstructing the modus operandi of real estate mafias to reveal their capitalist pathologies is right on time and in style. Comparative is the torching of Notre Dame were it deliberate: real estate mafias rely on absurd rent prices while at the same time taking advantage of capitalism's rent victims via a refined type of pandhandling. Government subsidies given to that mafia link to Notre Dame's fire whereby the panhandling is automatic, without having to ask for donations. The Catholic mafia does the same dipshit thing every year by quickly getting in line for government subsidies so that their own don't have to stand in charity food lines but can administer them.

 

[badger2]

The ratio in the 60's and 70's was one week's wages for one month's rent. Boycott the Pimps.

 

[HenryBHough]

Solution:

Give 'em a free bunk and all the drugs and/or booze they want. Take all they want; use all they take. Shouldn't take more than 3 night to permanently resolve the matter.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Most of us agree that homelessness is, in large part, due to substance abuse and mental illness. One problem we face in addressing these issues is that these people can't be forced to participate in treatment programs unless they are an immediate danger to themselves or others.

Like it or not, the only way around this problem is to utilize the criminal justice system as a means for requiring participation in these programs, with the threat of incarceration for noncompliance.

If anyone has an alternative solution to this problem (which hasn't already been tried) please share it.

Creation of a middle ground is out of the question?

What does the middle ground look like?

What I would envision is a eye roll inducing bit of government double-speak but what it boils down to is….

QUARRANTINE.

I will point you to my earlier posts in Homeless I in the CDZ for background. Essentially it is this:
You take those who are arrested for B-Misdemeanors (Criminal Trespass, Public Lewdness, Public Intoxication, minor drug charges, Public Disturbances, Obstructing Public Highways (panhandlers) etc.….) who have no verifiable home address and give the CRIJ system the option of placing them in quarantine which is the “middle ground” between full scale incarceration which usually means one county paying for it and a reservation setting that is set up to take these types of prisoners from a number of counties—about 10-30 counties depending on populations.

Just an aside...Currently what happens quite often is that a person is arrested for Criminal Trespass or having a joint on them and 3 hours later is set free with a Personal Recognizance bond; an agreement to show up for their court date. Since the homeless have no calendar (much less concern)…they don’t show up and now have an FTA on their books. So when they have another arrest, the FTA hits and now there are two charges….which will get the PR bond again more than likely. Each “hit” to the system is a cost that we the taxpayers absorb.

So the thought I have is that we find a middle ground that is less expensive so I propose a reservation system.

The State sets it up; assigning counties to these regional reservations. They build it (spartan conditions to say the least) and have overall supervision. Each County provides the services… Some days Counties A, B and C will staff the health centers, mess hall, sanitation, and other facilities. Other days it’s Counties D, E, and F…etc…. Or one county can supply only Sanitation 7 days a week instead of sending nurses or human services folks. Security is provided by the State. There will be rules that are enforced but it will be mainly to keep the peace instead of punishment.

By and large, the homeless will be in their element. They will be free to roam the reservation, sleep under the park benches in the common areas or in their assigned shelters, urinate on trees, or whatever else there is going on in homeless encampments. The bonus for most of us is that they will be located in the remote (probably near State Prisons) where there is an abundance of land to start with in many cases.

Don’t get me wrong; the costs will be massive. Incarceration costs always are which is why the counties issue PR bonds like they are handing out candy on Halloween. One thing you will not have is the constant involvement of the DA’s office so there is some savings to be enjoyed. The costs you do incur are shared with a number of other counties thus relieving the cost burden, freeing up cells for actual criminals (not those who are merely exhibiting criminal behavior) and, getting the homeless away from the general population (no pun intended) where they are panhandling, exposing themselves, shitting on the sidewalk, spreading disease, and…being honest here…contributing to urban blight. The homeless are able to avail themselves of health resources, a safer environment, and perhaps learn to live in a community setting. But most will learn to game the system the way they game the system now.

Did you see my post on Poor Houses? They were eliminated for a reason. What about a different approach? The Industrial Revolution and Poor Houses walked hand in hand. But as it turns out, they are not more economical and they are an abuse of humans' right to dignity regardless of their financial worth. We need to take a really long look at mental health in this country, and that of course will include drug addiction. Ignoring the problem and bellowing out simplistic answers to punish the poor and the mentally ill is not going to work.

Right to dignity?

You mean, as opposed to all that dignified urination and defecation on doorsteps like now?

 

[badger2]

The idea of a reservation does not automatically mean that they will be in their element, when many will have been born in the cities. Sanitation no matter what location is a fundamental necessity due to risk of communicable diseases.

 

[Picaro]

Most homeless are living in cars, or with relatives, and they have jobs that don't pay squat..They're 'invisible', while the street crazies aren't, hence the incorrect assumptions they're all dopeheads, mental cases, and drunks. When one can't even define the issue correctly, no point in then implementing 'solutions' that don't apply.

The dopers are the most high profile and the ones committing the crimes.

The people camping in their cars or small RVs (mostly temporarily) aren't causing problems for the populace at large.

The already mentally ill are obvious; with the rest, many are only one layoff or vehicle breakdown away. Which comes first for many, the job losses or the dope and booze? I would think being on the streets for a long time would drive many to that, or just the stress of living hand to mouth in an urbanized society. My grandparents were 'poor', but they're among those Depression era types who lived in a small town a long way from any city, and their house on almost 2 acres and large enough for 5 kids cost them $600, and they had a mule, three milk cows, lots of chickens, fruit trees, a big truck garden and lots of free labor to work it all.

You think if somebody put a milk cow or some chicken coops on the balcony or the patio of their efficiency apartment that would be last for long before the cops ran over and fined you? How about plowing up that nice grassy lawns and parks around and planting gardens in those, or grazing some goats and pigs? Will that be okay? Most cities you can[t do that in your own backyard in most cities; ironically some places like Detroit are doing that. In any case, being poor today, even if not homeless, is a very different game than it was before the 1940's, 'good times' or 'bad'.

This is even more true for males; the prison system and county jails are how they're dealt with mostly. Making noises about being lassez faire' and ' free markets n stuff' then turning around and criminalizing poverty is cognitive dissonance at its most ridiculous. Public property is where they belong, actually, and not 'public property' like prisons and jails. In many places in the 'good old days' they could bunk down in the city police depts., or there were 'hobo camps' where the law usually wouldn't bother people. Other places, particularly small towns during the Depression would simply prevent banks from foreclosing on their neighbors, at gun point if necessary, or they would crowd the auctions and make sure nobody would bid more than something like five cents for an entire farm and its stock and equipment, and God help the asshole who outbid that nickel bid.

 

[jwoodie]

The already mentally ill are obvious; with the rest, many are only one layoff or vehicle breakdown away. Which comes first for many, the job losses or the dope and booze?

According to your theory, with record high employment we should have declining homelessness. Want to try another theory?

 

[Picaro]

The already mentally ill are obvious; with the rest, many are only one layoff or vehicle breakdown away. Which comes first for many, the job losses or the dope and booze?

According to your theory, with record high employment we should have declining homelessness. Want to try another theory?

Your reasoning is backwards. According to the facts, we don't have 'record high employment', we have fake numbers, and we don't have 'declining homelessness', either. Only dishonest spin doctors consider somebody working for one hour a week or part-time as fully 'employed', and somebody who moves around sleeping in their cars or on peoples' couches as having homes. Want to try and misrepresent what I said again and 'Touch Me Last'?

 

[candycorn]

The idea of a reservation does not automatically mean that they will be in their element, when many will have been born in the cities. Sanitation no matter what location is a fundamental necessity due to risk of communicable diseases.

I meant “in their element” as far as not being in a locked metal/concrete room. If they want to sleep under the aluminum picnic table in the square of the reservation…sure. If they want to sleep under a large oak tree? Sure. They just are out of our line of sight and are not spreading disease, littering, contributing to urban blight, etc…

Sanitation costs would be shared across the participating entities.

 

[Picaro]

The current welfare system prevents mobility for those who rely on it for survival; they can't just pick up and move to another state or trek to that town in Iowa where the new Wally World or whatever is now hiring, since even Federal bennies are administered by state and local govts., and if someone moves to another state they will have a long waiting period to get renewed for it, usually with a long waiting list.

Federal aid should be truly Federal, and go with the recipients where ever they go in the U.S.; many will indeed leave the ghettoes and be able to even move to small towns, where their benies would go a lot further and would also get their children away from gangs and the like. Compare the results of Katrina refugees who got bused and dumped in Houston's shithole slums to those who got shipped to rural Utah, for instance. Of course, hacks like AL Sharpton don't want to lose such a captive voter demographic, and would lose money if Federal aid were truly Federal and not distributed by him and his cronies.

 

[badger2]

"Participating entities" have less control over plague in California if someone gets bitten by a cat flea. Not all sanitation measures will suffice when an outdoors camping population exists in Lyme country, which latter disease can lead to quadruple amputation in the victim (Oklahoma).

Truly federal is problematic because the subsidies given at the local level are just as coercive when one takes the bait of charity. It is the pathology, for example, (without crossing state lines) embedded in the move-out document of some real-estate mafias: it wants to know where you are going, even if it's none of their business. The question is, does the lease contract support the move-out agreement as a required responsibility? Never mind the important changes to coverage in Medicare and Medicaid related to changing states. We are now in the realm of the American gestapo.

 

[badger2]

Errata: "Latter" here means Oklahoma: tick bite, Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

 

[badger2]

On the What is to be done with the "homeless"? thread, badger 2 no longer has posting "privileges." In answer to Flopper (post #263) in that thread: No, Housing First's idea is thirty years old.

So the scenario is that it is illegal to be on the streets (even if retired?), employers won't hire a street person, and the house (physical address) should come first so that the employer will hire. The LA musician (post #229) was answering to the pathologies according to the Housing First model.

 

[badger2]

Apparently this is the most cutting-edge report, 17 May 2019.

Homelessness is America's Forgotten Crisis

 

[badger2]

Sorry anti-Foxers, "Selling the country to Chinese investors" at timepoint 2:36 is correct. We saw the Triads come to Madison, Wisconsin in a much more confident way in 1995-1997, their heroin was flowing, their women were on the streets, and real estate was changing hands, or, "How To Cleanse Your Drug Money From All Unrighteousness." When was the last time a tenant vetted a landlord?

 

[badger2]

Choose Your Town (www. A Dream Denied: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities)
(site not secure)
www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/crimereport/allcities.html

 

[badger2]

The report has many variations and is difficult to URL. There is a "20 Meanest Cities" in the report.

1. Sarasota
Lawrence, Ks.
Little Rock
Atlanta
Las Vegas
Dallas
Houston
San Juan, PR
Santa Monica
Flagstaff
San Francisco
Chicago
San Antonio
New York
Austin
Anchorage Phoenix
Los Angeles
St. Louis
Pittsburgh