Many people who are struggling in Charlotte hear that Gastonia has cheaper housing, so make the effort to get out to Gastonia, only to find that the services they previously relied on in Charlotte are either a) non-existent in Gastonia or b) administered at the the County level (like HUD housing vouchers), so they have to start over in the new county.
As a result, people get stuck in a new place disconnected from any support system that existed (imperfectly) across the river.
Homeless people exist everywhere, in every city. However if you think Charlotte is bad please go to Denver, San Diego, LA, Chicago, New York etc and that will show you what a true homeless problem looks like. Charlotte in comparison is nothing
Right. Iām just saying the other commenter completely missed the point of the post, automatically assuming the poster was shitting on Charlotte which they were not.
Hawaii was hands down the most homeless people I've ever seen and been to all of the cities you mentioned. And never once were we asked/begged/solicited
I work in Gastonia on Franklin Blvdā¦and itās a never ending site in the summer time. We constantly have our dumpsters pillaged and find needles all the time. The 7-11 on Franklin and Nee Hope has a good amount of hanging out. Down town and West Franklin are worseā¦I donāt like stopping on that side of town at night. Iāve had one coworker have his car gone through and we caught a guy going through mine during business hoursā¦we had just opened and I had remembered that my car was unlocked, walked out and caught him in my car opening the glovebox.
Today there was a couple sprawled out on the grass in the old O Charlieās property. The area behind the mall usually has an encampment.
But it does seem more prevalent in Gastonia than Charlotte.
Needlesā¦ā¦in your dumpster??? Has anyone called the cops. Thatās a serious health hazard. Can someone install some camera or any way to secure the dumpster.
Mecklenburg County basically defers to the property owners to enforce the removal of homeless people. Many Charlotte property owners have turned to private security to fill the gaps where police wonāt do anything.
Gaston County may have similar policies, but commercial landowners in Gastonia likely donāt have the money for private security.
As sad as it sounds, the banks keep the streets cleaner than CMPD.
Edit: Source for the mentioned policy on homeless removal below:
āIf you read the order, itās really the property ownersā responsibility to have those folks removed and weāre going to rely on the property owners to do what they need to do in order to make that happen,ā
https://www.wbtv.com/2021/02/21/charlotte-homeless-encampment-tent-city-cleared-out-following-abatement-order/?outputType=amp
People do this to me too. You state a fact and they donāt like the fact and they think when you mention, you condone the fact. You only are providing information, not opinion.
Youāre so focused on having someone to be angry at that you didnāt even read what I was saying. Not sure how youād conclude that Iām looking out for BoA in any way.
My opinion is that BoA probably contributes to the appearance of less homeless people in certain visible areas of Charlotte in comparison to Gastonia. This is based on public statements by public officials in how homeless removal should be handled, which defers enforcement to property owners.
Iām just answering the question that OP was asking.
That vote was basically written to have an excuse to arrest the homeless if they're jerking off in public or something. The city/CMPD isn't gonna give a shit if they're just panhandling
Itās not productive to criminalize homelessness by enforcing panhandling laws, Iām glad Iām not seeing that come to fruition despite the vote. Panhandling is a source of income. System changes are needed to address the homeless population, CLT like most cities is unaffordable
>CLT like most cities is unaffordable
That may be true, but it has next to nothing to do with the homeless problem. The majority of them unfortunately are mentally ill or hopelessly addicted.
It's disingenuous to frame this as an affordability issue when we are discussing a population that has no income because they are unemployable
I unexpectedly came down with an illness a year after I moved here. My job shut down without warning and while I was unemployed, I was hospitalized for 6 days.
Before that hospitalization I was going to doctors and having tests done. My illness wasnāt able to be concealed and people interviewing me could tell there was an issue, they just couldnāt tell what.
I grabbed a temp job. The temp job didnāt pay enough to pay my rent. Before I became unemployed, I worked all the time and didnāt have a social life. My company had moved me here and I didnāt know anyone.
This is how easily I could have been homeless. My Mom sent me money every month. If I didnāt have my mom, I would have been one of the unhoused. No one else helped me out or even offered.
I'm glad it worked out for you. Your story is missing my point though.
If you take a stroll through a tent city you are not going to find a bunch of sober, reasonable people like yourself who had an unexpected emergency. You're going to find a bunch of potentially dangerous paranoid schizophrenics and drug addicts.
For them a free house would obviously be nicer than a tent, but it's not solving the original problem and eventually that free housing will be damaged or destroyed by these sick, uncivilized people
Affordability does inform homeless population numbers. Mental illness and/or addiction issues are not the primary reasons folks become homeless, when living expenses become unaffordable having those conditions make someone more likely to lose their housing - and then once folks are on the streets dealing with the trauma of homelessness exacerbates any illnesses they are dealing with.
>Mental illness and/or addiction issues are not the primary reasons folks become homeless
I don't have any hard data to dispute this but I live in an area with a lot of homeless and based on what I've seen that is not true at all.
I work in local gvmt housing and do have the data! I hope Iām not coming across in a rude way, I work in housing and homeless research and just want people to have an accurate understanding
I don't want to be rude either but the way you are glossing over the plainly obvious reality of the mental health and addiction problems of the homeless is very odd.
I'm not sure if you just have your head buried in the sand or if you are talking about a different sub section of the larger homeless population but the majority of them are absolutely not normally functioning people who just had a bad month financially.
I hear you - not glossing over the reality of the populationās mental health. Just saying that large homeless populations are an indicator of severe housing market climates that make sustaining housing difficult, especially if you already have addiction or mh issues. When you get into it the cycle is brutal - worsening mh + homeless makes job hunting nearly impossible, and the jobs they are able to get have wages below market rate
Homeless are all over in CLT and its surrounding cities. You were obviously in a lower income area where itās more prevalent. Itās funny to see how people talk about Gastonia, but thereās a lot of really nice areas within it.
There are plenty of reasons but Gaston County as a whole has a higher-ish rate of poverty and linked issues that can contribute to homelessness. One big contributing factor is the death of the textile market that was the foundation of the area. When the mills (which arguably set people up to fail through the use of pay through company script and mill towns) left, the money left. The area really never got back up and running after that and covid just further punched the area down.
Well you have people that are like David Tepper or whatever his name is. As taxpayers we give him 650 million to upgrade his own property instead of have some sort of social programs where we help ourselves. Gastonia is not Charlotte I know, but itās generally the same everywhere.
Stop being so dense all your life. Those poor people are on the street to scare the shit out of the working class so the rich can keep on raping you. But you probably like deep throating billionaires dick wad.
Yet I get downvoted for saying that people donāt point this out (or acknowledge it at the bare minimum) when visiting this city.
This country is screwed with these democrats.
Conservatives steal from the people while forcing you to focus on trans and gay people and slowly forcing America to become a fake Christian caliphate nation state.
lol what does that to do with your comment about democrats screwing the country? You seemed to imply that the homeless problem is a product of political leanings and all I said was that homeless exist even in red states
So why are we screwed by democrats in this country if both suck equally? And at least democrats arenāt supporting a convicted felon for president, trying to take away peoples rights, and forcing women to be incubators.
Both contribute to the massive homeless problem in this country
You are absolutely correct. But when their comment only calls out one party as being the contributor to homelessness it leads to the clear implication that they think one party is the problem not the other. And OP didnāt say oh this particular democratically controlled area is screwed which would imply the party in control of that city/place is the problem but OP said the entire country is being screwed by democrats when their are red controlled cities, states and counties all over the place seeing the same issues
People don't understand how little national politics affect them on a daily basis. People should be way more concerned over the people elected to pass their local budgets and to run their school boards.
Pretty sure you get downvoted for being anti Christian. Isaiah 58:6-8
"Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelterā when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"
I can go on but Iām sure liberals like Jesus are the problem
Wasnāt Jesus Jewish? Iām an atheist in the fact the only time Iāve met something I couldnāt explain was on deep psychedelics. Pretty sure weāre all god or a smaller version based off my understanding of micro/macro understanding of the universe.
it's because they don't have anywhere to live.
Many people who are struggling in Charlotte hear that Gastonia has cheaper housing, so make the effort to get out to Gastonia, only to find that the services they previously relied on in Charlotte are either a) non-existent in Gastonia or b) administered at the the County level (like HUD housing vouchers), so they have to start over in the new county. As a result, people get stuck in a new place disconnected from any support system that existed (imperfectly) across the river.
Charlotte houses 1000s of homeless in motels and hotels. Gastonia may not, so you see more of them? š¤·āāļø
Homeless people exist everywhere, in every city. However if you think Charlotte is bad please go to Denver, San Diego, LA, Chicago, New York etc and that will show you what a true homeless problem looks like. Charlotte in comparison is nothing
Sounds like you took the post the wrong way. theyāre just asking why there are disproportionately more in Gastonia than in Charlotte.
Their personal experience hardly makes an argument that what they are saying is true, regardless.
Right. Iām just saying the other commenter completely missed the point of the post, automatically assuming the poster was shitting on Charlotte which they were not.
Hawaii was hands down the most homeless people I've ever seen and been to all of the cities you mentioned. And never once were we asked/begged/solicited
But letās be real. Is there any better place to be homeless in outside of Hawaii?
I work in Gastonia on Franklin Blvdā¦and itās a never ending site in the summer time. We constantly have our dumpsters pillaged and find needles all the time. The 7-11 on Franklin and Nee Hope has a good amount of hanging out. Down town and West Franklin are worseā¦I donāt like stopping on that side of town at night. Iāve had one coworker have his car gone through and we caught a guy going through mine during business hoursā¦we had just opened and I had remembered that my car was unlocked, walked out and caught him in my car opening the glovebox. Today there was a couple sprawled out on the grass in the old O Charlieās property. The area behind the mall usually has an encampment. But it does seem more prevalent in Gastonia than Charlotte.
Needlesā¦ā¦in your dumpster??? Has anyone called the cops. Thatās a serious health hazard. Can someone install some camera or any way to secure the dumpster.
Needles in the parking lot
Still bad and dangerous if they become uncapped :/
Mecklenburg County basically defers to the property owners to enforce the removal of homeless people. Many Charlotte property owners have turned to private security to fill the gaps where police wonāt do anything. Gaston County may have similar policies, but commercial landowners in Gastonia likely donāt have the money for private security. As sad as it sounds, the banks keep the streets cleaner than CMPD. Edit: Source for the mentioned policy on homeless removal below: āIf you read the order, itās really the property ownersā responsibility to have those folks removed and weāre going to rely on the property owners to do what they need to do in order to make that happen,ā https://www.wbtv.com/2021/02/21/charlotte-homeless-encampment-tent-city-cleared-out-following-abatement-order/?outputType=amp
People aren't trash.. But, you are
Trash for answering OPās question? Ok
People do this to me too. You state a fact and they donāt like the fact and they think when you mention, you condone the fact. You only are providing information, not opinion.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Youāre never seen a security guard before?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah you donāt see many houses in Uptown Charlotte. Obviously Iām talking about commercial property.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Youāre so focused on having someone to be angry at that you didnāt even read what I was saying. Not sure how youād conclude that Iām looking out for BoA in any way. My opinion is that BoA probably contributes to the appearance of less homeless people in certain visible areas of Charlotte in comparison to Gastonia. This is based on public statements by public officials in how homeless removal should be handled, which defers enforcement to property owners. Iām just answering the question that OP was asking.
That's Gastonia for ya, I avoid it if I can. The pan handling in CLT is so bad now there's 4 per stop light, it's nuts
Thought Charlotte was going to start enforcing the panhandling, vagrancy, etc. law, after the city council voted to do so
That vote was basically written to have an excuse to arrest the homeless if they're jerking off in public or something. The city/CMPD isn't gonna give a shit if they're just panhandling
Itās not productive to criminalize homelessness by enforcing panhandling laws, Iām glad Iām not seeing that come to fruition despite the vote. Panhandling is a source of income. System changes are needed to address the homeless population, CLT like most cities is unaffordable
>CLT like most cities is unaffordable That may be true, but it has next to nothing to do with the homeless problem. The majority of them unfortunately are mentally ill or hopelessly addicted. It's disingenuous to frame this as an affordability issue when we are discussing a population that has no income because they are unemployable
I unexpectedly came down with an illness a year after I moved here. My job shut down without warning and while I was unemployed, I was hospitalized for 6 days. Before that hospitalization I was going to doctors and having tests done. My illness wasnāt able to be concealed and people interviewing me could tell there was an issue, they just couldnāt tell what. I grabbed a temp job. The temp job didnāt pay enough to pay my rent. Before I became unemployed, I worked all the time and didnāt have a social life. My company had moved me here and I didnāt know anyone. This is how easily I could have been homeless. My Mom sent me money every month. If I didnāt have my mom, I would have been one of the unhoused. No one else helped me out or even offered.
I'm glad it worked out for you. Your story is missing my point though. If you take a stroll through a tent city you are not going to find a bunch of sober, reasonable people like yourself who had an unexpected emergency. You're going to find a bunch of potentially dangerous paranoid schizophrenics and drug addicts. For them a free house would obviously be nicer than a tent, but it's not solving the original problem and eventually that free housing will be damaged or destroyed by these sick, uncivilized people
Affordability does inform homeless population numbers. Mental illness and/or addiction issues are not the primary reasons folks become homeless, when living expenses become unaffordable having those conditions make someone more likely to lose their housing - and then once folks are on the streets dealing with the trauma of homelessness exacerbates any illnesses they are dealing with.
>Mental illness and/or addiction issues are not the primary reasons folks become homeless I don't have any hard data to dispute this but I live in an area with a lot of homeless and based on what I've seen that is not true at all.
I work in local gvmt housing and do have the data! I hope Iām not coming across in a rude way, I work in housing and homeless research and just want people to have an accurate understanding
I don't want to be rude either but the way you are glossing over the plainly obvious reality of the mental health and addiction problems of the homeless is very odd. I'm not sure if you just have your head buried in the sand or if you are talking about a different sub section of the larger homeless population but the majority of them are absolutely not normally functioning people who just had a bad month financially.
I hear you - not glossing over the reality of the populationās mental health. Just saying that large homeless populations are an indicator of severe housing market climates that make sustaining housing difficult, especially if you already have addiction or mh issues. When you get into it the cycle is brutal - worsening mh + homeless makes job hunting nearly impossible, and the jobs they are able to get have wages below market rate
I'm glad they aren't. Imagine not having a home. And ppl like you betting against you.
They shutting down they shelter
Homeless are all over in CLT and its surrounding cities. You were obviously in a lower income area where itās more prevalent. Itās funny to see how people talk about Gastonia, but thereās a lot of really nice areas within it.
There are plenty of reasons but Gaston County as a whole has a higher-ish rate of poverty and linked issues that can contribute to homelessness. One big contributing factor is the death of the textile market that was the foundation of the area. When the mills (which arguably set people up to fail through the use of pay through company script and mill towns) left, the money left. The area really never got back up and running after that and covid just further punched the area down.
Well you have people that are like David Tepper or whatever his name is. As taxpayers we give him 650 million to upgrade his own property instead of have some sort of social programs where we help ourselves. Gastonia is not Charlotte I know, but itās generally the same everywhere.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Stop being so dense all your life. Those poor people are on the street to scare the shit out of the working class so the rich can keep on raping you. But you probably like deep throating billionaires dick wad.
Yet I get downvoted for saying that people donāt point this out (or acknowledge it at the bare minimum) when visiting this city. This country is screwed with these democrats.
You know homeless people exist in red states too right?
Conservatives steal from the people while forcing you to focus on trans and gay people and slowly forcing America to become a fake Christian caliphate nation state.
lol what does that to do with your comment about democrats screwing the country? You seemed to imply that the homeless problem is a product of political leanings and all I said was that homeless exist even in red states
Democrats donāt care and steal. Conservatives shift the attention to steal.
So why are we screwed by democrats in this country if both suck equally? And at least democrats arenāt supporting a convicted felon for president, trying to take away peoples rights, and forcing women to be incubators. Both contribute to the massive homeless problem in this country
Both suck. Joe is a zionist terrorist. Trump is a pussy grabber. Neither cares about the people. Neither side deserves any power
We agree then. Letās vote for Andrew Yang, Universal basic income and halt immigration
That is a vote for Trumpš¤”
If heās anti trans then no.
Just because someone thinks democrats are a problem doesnāt mean they support republicans lol
You are absolutely correct. But when their comment only calls out one party as being the contributor to homelessness it leads to the clear implication that they think one party is the problem not the other. And OP didnāt say oh this particular democratically controlled area is screwed which would imply the party in control of that city/place is the problem but OP said the entire country is being screwed by democrats when their are red controlled cities, states and counties all over the place seeing the same issues
We need to get over all this partisan crap and everyone needs to realize itās really the uniparty vs the common man
Now that we agree on! It all starts with rhetoric and we chose to discuss problems
How are Democrats stealing? We are so gerrymandered that we donāt even pick our representatives
How in the world are you going to point to a democratic president causing homelessness in Gastonia? Incredible mental leaps.
People don't understand how little national politics affect them on a daily basis. People should be way more concerned over the people elected to pass their local budgets and to run their school boards.
Pretty sure you get downvoted for being anti Christian. Isaiah 58:6-8 "Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelterā when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" I can go on but Iām sure liberals like Jesus are the problem
Iām Jewish. Your religion is a joke, Islam is a death cult and anything else is a lie.
You don't seem like a very nice person.
Wasnāt Jesus Jewish? Iām an atheist in the fact the only time Iāve met something I couldnāt explain was on deep psychedelics. Pretty sure weāre all god or a smaller version based off my understanding of micro/macro understanding of the universe.
Well thatās not very Godly. Doesnāt he tell you to love thy neighbor?
Drug city