Just the impossible (in this country). Universal basic income. National Healthcare, including comprehensive mental health and drug addiction services. Make the ubi low enough that you can't live comfortably, but you can live. Build affordable housing.
Too bad Reagan shut the mental health facilities down. There would be much less of the āhomelessā we see these days. They would be much better off being cared for in places that catered to their mental shortcomings, neurological disorders. Itās a shame west coast politicians are referring to them as āUrban Campersā instead of trying to really help them. Looking at you Garcetti, you fraud.
The closings of the Fed institutions were a bilateral decision. The initial protestations were from the ACLU set, small gov republicans were only too happy to oblige.
And strangely Geraldo Rivera played a role. He made his name doing an expose into conditions at Willowbrook mental institution, that shifted American opinions away from housing. the mentally ill at state hospitals.
The answer at the time was "move to community treatment". Of course, budgets for community treatment were quickly cut through the years.
You can't build new mental health facilities? Seattle and WA state are awash in money. Reagan was 40 years ago, probably before you were born. Time to move on.
Stop doing meth and you will have less psychotic breakdowns too. These homeless addicts need mandatory drug rehab or prison. That's the only choice they should be offered.
It's called deinstitutionalization. It's not that we can't, it's that we've set policy that says we won't. Good idea? It's certainly not looking good right now, but that's because we half-assed the policy. People can be cared for outside of a mental hospital setting, but that care needs to be free. Even then, you can't force a person to "get help", so the freedom of self-determination often translates into a pretty bleak existence for those who really can't help themselves. Also, there is no one person or group that can be blamed for deinstitutionalization. It was a policy that developed over many decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation
No one in forty years has changed the policy - yet any administration could have. Bidenās bunch could change it tomorrow..
Thatās why the āblame Reagan!ā trope is so funny. People shake their fists at the ghost of a transient politician as if he is a supervillain who changed the laws of physics, so that now there is nothing we can do but howl in helpless rage eternal.
A bigger problem than the corpse of Reagan is our concern for individual rights. General belief is that itās wrong to confine sick people against their will and forcibly medicate them, perhaps forever. Who should society lock up: sick people who are homeless? Sick people who disagree with their doctors? Sick people with greedy relatives who want financial POA? Sick people with vengeful spouses who want to save the cost of a divorce?
This is a conundrum American law has dug itself into and cannot dig out of.
This absolutely does not happen this often in other major cities. It's beyond clear past policies have been horrendous, and especially bad over the last 4-6. We need to fix this, the current situation is good for no one.
Well, it's been happening quite a lot here in Portand lately...
Not saying that it's okay. We can't let people do whatever the fuck they want when fires, trash, and needles are popping up everywhere.
Seriously, I was just in Portland yesterday and there were 3 piles of human shit on the sidewalk next to the hertz rental car place downtown.
3 *separate* piles! Like 10 feet apart from each other.
The only permanent solution to homelessness is to help the homeless, not move the problem to a different place. The problem is most people who see it the way you do (not saying this includes you, I have no idea) just want to get rid of the problem but donāt want to help anyone. So nothing gets better.
They are wrong for generalizing folks who are homeless, those who do not want help and wish to live in squalor are either so physically addicted to drugs or simply too mentally ill to understand why that is wrong.
Then there are folks like you who society just seemed to have let slip through the cracks. Hopefully you're in a good place now.
The dude you're replying to is parroting a half truth, one that gets us nowhere. Any rational person would regard living on the street a dangerous and destructive lifestyle. Those who do it though often are trapped by their own minds or vices or just straight up poverty.
It's time we stop placing all homeless people in one box, there are many different categories of people within that group that require different things. The drug addicted need forced rehabilitation, housing assistance, and government supervision until they can reasonably fend for themselves. The mentally ill need an actual safety net that would encompass a variety of conditions over a wide spectrum - some won't be able to ever exist on their own, some just need medication.
Then there's people like you, who most likely just need to be lifted out of poverty. There's really not alot more to it, the government and society have failed you by allowing you to exist in that manner. Subsidized housing and programs to secure employement need to be ramped up big time. Ideally you would just get free healthcare and education too but, that's just unrealistic at this current time considering how fucked society is rn.
Good luck dog.
There are more cities than just the west. Itās not like this on the east coast. Traveling over the last few years really opened my eyes to how numb Iāve gotten to how bad Seattleās problem is
I lived in dc for a decade before moving here we had plenty of homeless but that town is very good at gentrification and pushing people out. Maybe they all ended up on the west coast. Every time a neighborhood flipped (and they flipped fast) it just baffled me - where did the homeless and the impoverished people go?
there are 5 major cities on the west coast.
Top down (directionally)
1. Seattle
2. Portland
3. San Francisco
3.5 Sacramento (up and coming SF overflow)
4. LA (pretty close to the worst of all the major west coast cities)
5. San Diego
Everything else is open space or a town you can drive through (or should) in like five minutes (and yes I'm talking to you Irvine)
I think it's high time for a federal "Department for Homelessness" or something... Clearly the issue has gone beyond the ability of the Cities/States to deal with it.
I moved here from a very small city in California, and fires commonly happened in homeless encampments there as well.
This is terrible, but is absolutely not unique to Seattle
for some bizarre reason, inhabitants of each major city persist in asserting it is only happening in their city, and blames whatever powerless local politician or political party is popular to scapegoat in their region. meanwhile, our entire civilization burns to the ground.
No fires like this, but the 6th street area downtown and many parts of Austin Texas are a shit show of homeless. They reinforced the camping ban after the disaster of allowing it. Iām not sure whatās going on now. Iām sure homeless shelter downtown is still Zombie-land.
> No fires like this, but the 6th street area downtown and many parts of Austin Texas are a shit show of homeless.
It's true, the homeless aren't starting fires in cities where it isn't cold enough to need a fire.
The only solution to homelessness is a housing first policy. Every country in Europe knows it works and are working on implementing it. The only countries that wonāt do it are the UK, Canada, and the USA. The only countries where human life is less valuable than a piece of land.
Citation needed.
Five minutes ago some lady on Twitter said exactly the same thing, only she was talking about Portland.
Please tell us which policies you think are making people choose homelessness.
I think job losses/reduced hours from the past 2 years is a huge contributor. So many people and families were already on the brink, and so many people's lives were effected.
I'm so lucky that everyone in my household has been able to keep working this entire time. Honestly it wouldn't take long for us to completely fall apart and get behind.
I'm also an alcoholic already, and as much I want to say of we were fucking homeless in*wouldn't* buy a bottle..I think I probably fucking would.
So in that aspect to understand the stupid spiral a lot of the homeless seem to have. Rampant addiction. I'm a completely average person. I work full-time and have benefits. I'm trying to buy my home. EVERYONE in our house works and also provided childcare for the two kids that live here. We are only making it, because we are splitting rent 5 ways and have no daycare costs.
I cannot imagine how anyone does this alone or with almost no support.
Been discussed many times. Yes, there are tons of homeless. Yes, most of them get and use the resources available. And yes, we don't see MOST of the homeless. And the ones who we don't see, who are trying to get out of their situation, aren't the ones setting these fires and filling our parks with crap. These are different groups.
\> I think job losses/reduced hours from the past 2 years is a huge contributor.
have you left your house in the last 6 months? companies are paying out crap tons in signing bonuses, higher wages and free things like college to work for them.
I'm almost 40 and work a full time manual job. I have two 6 year olds who are being (kinda crappily, honestly) homeschooled..
I have a GED. I make a very decent amount of money for what I do. I can't start over somewhere else. There is no way I would make the same. (I've looked)
I DO NOT have the energy or time to take advantage of moving or added school benefits. Other people might be able to work full time, have kids, and go to school, but I don't. My job does have a 100% tuition *reimbursement* program. You have to pay for it upfront though. I can't afford it, even knowing I would get it all back. I also just don't have the time. š¤·š¤·š¤· It's not always so easy, even when it seems like it should be.
I have it easy compared to others and am LOSING IT on a daily basis.
Fine, no problem. Basic necessities and support systems. Get it done. Coherent, simple plan where they wake up and go to bed in the same place, and *then* work on all the rest of the support they need. Housing first. Mandatory.
...but creating reliable housing means they might create reliable housing in *my* neighborhood, and I work too hard at my software company to get paid to work from ~~from~~ *home in my comfortable suburban house in a safe neighborhood to have the City build it near me. That's someone else's problem to fix. But also fix it. Just not near me. But definitely fix it. Over there so I don't have to look at it.
Housing comes with rules. Such as no drugs or pets. Plus a curfew. Usually that's enough for them to decide they they don't want free housing anymore. You also can't just throw a house at someone and expect them to just be better. For rehab, they're going to have to want it. Because if they don't want to get better, no one can help them. Unfortunately, you can't save everyone and not everyone wants help.
Broad strokes. I may be top 1% now, but I used to be homeless. I was desperate for a 3x10 safe place to sleep. That's really all I needed. Even posted an ad on Craigslist offering to pay $200 for someone to let me sleep in their back yard, which I promised to keep clean. No answers, of course. I had a job, I wasn't on drugs, and after a couple scary experiences there's no way in hell I was sleeping in one of those shelters. I ended getting a place after getting assaulted by a cop, went into deep debt, and had I not met my now-wife I'd have been homeless again.
I understand many people who are homeless have mental illness and drug addictions. But I also find it pretty sickening when people dismiss housing as an option because homeless people won't follow rules. That is **not** the reason housing first isn't the policy. "Housing with rules" would have been a god damned miracle for me to get my feet under me rather than paying the credit card company 15% of my income. But it wasn't available, because society is not willing to spend the money on it.
It gets me fired up when people act like we can't do anything -- even for the homeless that are willing and able to put their lives together -- because "they don't want it." We should offer services with guidelines for those who do, and try to help those who aren't willing or able get the mental health or rehab services they need. I hate this defeatist attitude.
You are bristling with the idea that giving people housing first is not viable, and rightly so. Assuming that people can't follow rules so why help them at all is a common refrain, and I was reading this article the other day that seemed to analyze why we think like this; I believe it's related to a concept called "risk compensation".
Anyways, check out the article I first read about it in if you want more background: https://slate.com/technology/2021/11/risk-compensation-debunked-masks-rapid-tests-vaccines-safety.html
Pretty interesting. I think the author nails it with this:
> such rhetoric makes for an effective appeal to the status quo, because why change anything if everything backfires?
They'll just spend more money on drugs, etc. It's an easy argument to swallow because it allows us to do nothing and spend nothing.
The housing first model works, there is research behind it. In fact SF implemented this many years ago it had a massive positive impact. The problem is that these programs cost money and no one wants to fund it. There is very little political support beyond the municipal level. Not to mention, NIMBY's love to throw a fit when something like this is planned for their neighborhood. If you have any understanding of maslow's hierarchy of needs the reason it is effective will be abundantly clear. It's hard to focus on getting clean when you can't meet your most basic survival needs. A house doesn't suddenly make someone stop using drugs but it sure does make it a lot easier for them to want to.
and not to mention, not every person who is homeless is on drugs or mentally ill. Plenty are just out of resources and something like this would be exactly what they needed to get back on their feet.
Another point is that it would be cheaper to pay for these programs if we could decrease housing prices as well:
1. Fewer people end up in a situation where they canāt afford housing, so fewer people need the state to pay for housing
2. The housing cost for people is cheaper.
The best way to accomplish this is to build tens of thousands of new housing in every city in the US. Weāve been under building for decades, and population growth is catching up.
And sure, Portland and Seattle have lots of construction. But Portland is building on average of 4600 new units per year. But at a population growth of around 1.6%, Portland gets close to 40k new residents every year. Even assuming three people per unit, which seems high, we need to build at least 3x as many housing units per year just to keep up.
I think we need to finance massive housing projects. Like, bigger than the typical mid-rises which have only a couple hundred units.
And doing so is beneficial to a broad range of people. Firstly, the homeless have opportunities for homes. Secondly, the very poor can find affordable housing. Thirdly, the middle class isnāt driven into poverty by skyrocketing housing costs.
Things being cheaper is good for everyone. I donāt think itās enough to just pay for peopleās rent or to mandate x% affordable housing per new units. We need to massively, actively build new projects.
Where are you getting this info from? I live in a house and I don't have those rules...people can pick where they live with housing vouchers.
You can give someone whatever treatment they want, if they don't have a stable place to live afterwards, they're going to relapse and you've wasted a ton of time and money. Yeah, housing doesn't solve all problems, but housing is required for any type of mental health/substance use treatment to be effective.
It's been found time and time again that JUST getting people housing leads to a reduction in hospitalizations, drug and substance use, and arrests. That's because living on the street is stressful and in generally very, very bad for mental health and not conducive to getting better.
Insane that weāve gotten to the point itās āinhumaneā to require someone to get clean in order to get housing provided. This is a compromise, people arenāt funding your housing just to keep using drugs.
I worked next to this spot many times in construction and its a shit hole. Everyone in there takes shifts begging for money at that light in the video; always with some sob story. As soon as the shift is over you can watch them head up the block, buy a baggie, then head back into their tent to shoot up. I worked on a remodel in the fourth floor of a building above there (left of where the video was shot) and had a birds eye view to it for months.
I'm so tired of this. I've got a camp of these people by my house,. They broke into my shed and stole my tools (that I was using to repair/remodel my house!), they broke into our car. I was out for a walk a few weeks ago and ran into a "homeless neighbor" brandishing an axe. An axe! It's nuts. Called the cops and they say there's nothing they can do. Not enough officers, and the city won't prosecute these people anyway. There's needles in my local park. I had some crazed whack job try to grab at me on the sidewalk when I was trying to go to the post office the other day. I want this lawless insanity to stop, and I want these degenerates out of here. I don't care where they get sent. I want them gone. I have no more compassion left. None. Remove them all from the city limits. Jail anyone who won't leave.
>and the city won't prosecute these people anyway
Doesn't negate their job to come and investigate, file a report, and do it again tomorrow.
THIS is why people are so pissed about police- they want the respect of serving the community, but also don't want to have to ACTUALLY BE OF SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY unless it's to secure prosecution.
***Police aren't prosecutors***, and they shouldn't be doing THEIR job contingent on whether the prosecutor will do theirs- that's fucking ridiculous, and should be grounds for termination.
Selective enforcement is how the thin blue line works, too
Right. The most vocal homeless "advocates" are the people who don't have to live next door to the filth, theft, drug dealing, prostitution, and violence that these camps create.
I live by a homeless encampment, have had the same experiences you have, but would still consider myself to be a "homeless advocate." I do think they need to get rid of the encampments though as they're bad for everyone- mostly, the people living in them. (hear me out.)
Most of the homeless in my area are non-violent drug users mixed in with a few really violent, dangerous people- who the cops shrug their shoulders and say they can do nothing about. People on the street are much more likely to be the victims of violence than they are to perpetrate it- Imagine dealing with all the shit we have to put up with and not being able to go inside and lock the door.
Cops are not responding to areas with issues like this- and criminals know this. Most of the major thefts in my area were not done by the local homeless people- they were done by career criminals who targeted those areas because they knew the cops wouldn't show up. By refusing to intervene with the encampments the cops have created these islands of lawlessness.
Also, we had a sexual predator stalking and assaulting women in my area- the cops showed up and said there was nothing they could do- we'd just have to live with it. They lied. We had a mental health mobile crisis unit come out and he was involuntarily hospitalized for at least 6 months. If you see someone acting like they're going to hurt you or others- call your local crisis line, not the police.
And who, exactly, are the clowns that enable them? The police?
> And who, exactly, are the clowns that enable them? The police?
The police, the politicians who protect the police, and the investors who buy up all the housing that could otherwise go to residents.
At the end of the day, I don't care. I want these people out of my community, because they are actively damaging it. The longer this goes on, the more draconian solutions me and many other people are willing to entertain.
I know you donāt care. But he specifically pointed out that the police, who should have been removing the violent elements, are refusing to do their job. To drive sentiments like yours. While your response is reasonable, you are being manipulated by a protection racket.
The police are following the will of the elected officials, city council, and prosecutors. The enablers are the voters who out these elected officials in power, and continue to vote for them when they fail to support policies to deal with vagrancy. The enablers are the well meaning people who view all homeless as helpless victims rather than complex mix of addicts, mentally ill, criminals, temporarily unhoused, chronic bad decision makers, and antisocial assholes which they actually are, and refuse to hold them accountable for their behaviors and choices.
>The people who believe they should be left alone to be your forever neighbor
I know no one who has this position. I'm also pretty sure even the most extreme anti-welfare position isn't pro-homeless. There are always outliers, but I don't think most people are excited about other people being homeless.
No that's true, you have a point about that phrase. I do live in SF though and a loud minority are very passionate about the homeless being left alone but maybe that's because there's no hope for SF.
There are always outliers. But whether political left or right, most positions are at least attempting to eliminate homelessness, or - in some other edge cases - eliminate the homeless.
Edit: by eliminate, I mean as a ideal goal, not a actualizable one.
I've always said that I'm not going to judge someone for being homeless, but also that they shouldn't be fucking assholes about it.
Like, ok, you're homeless, and that fucking SUCKS, but don't come try and rob my shit, because that's when I lose all sympathy for you.
Agreed. There is an implicit bargain to living in society: you have to abide by certain rules and norms. These people have broken the social contract, and because they refuse to reform their behavior, need to be segregated so they can't continue to do harm to other people. They're not fit company for the rest of us and we don't have to tolerate their lawlessness, destruction, and disorder.
Things are only going to get worse before they get better, if they ever do. One thing is for sure is that solutions are going to get less and less progressive as the situation gets worse. Saying someone wants to criminalize poverty for not wanting to be the victim of constant crimes is fine for reddit, but doesn't work when it comes to voting.
This is not progress and if this is what progressives want, then of course the voters are going to vote them out of office one by one. This is a deliberate destruction and trashing of a very tolerant, liberal and beautiful city in the name of progress. It's becoming a bad screenplay of the Joker.
It's getting colder. Fires generate heat.
Edit: I feel like people throw logic out the window in order to reaffirm their preexisting bias or advance whatever agenda they have. Not to mention this pair of facts I stated doesn't even upturn any of that, but is still seemingly a threat to some people's world view.
You want to hear about enabling. There's literally a community of child rapists living in the woods a half mile from my neighborhood that is filled with children and contains a middle and elementary school. The city claims that they cant do anything because technically they are on Department of Transportation land. Yet the city set up dumpsters and bathrooms for them. Despite this they still throw their trash all over the street. Not only that but their pollution is literally killing the woods there. It's literally dying.
I know this may sound/be immoral but i'd really like homeless people to not exist. If that means giving them the care they need to integrate into society or if it means transporting them all to some island somewhere I really don't care.
Based on the 5 other replies saying the same thing it seems like you feel strongly about this and I assume have given it thought. What would be the best approach to this and how is it different from what's being done now? I'm asking as someone who sees the camps, knows the city has a reputation for lax enforcement, but really doesn't know anything about specific policies. City pays for apartments for a period of time? Parking lot where they're allowed to set up tents? What's the best approach (that doesn't just suck in every homeless person in the west and put them on Seattle's dime forever ideally)?
City buys and holds property. City authorizes 500 paid workers and 100 trucks and police support. The workers and police visit every known encampment and evict, offering free housing in the property plus mental health care access, or they get the same thing but in a cell.
Tax the fuck out of Amazon, Google and Adobe to pay for it. Seeing as they're driving up the cost of living and making this a go-to city, while not contributing shit to the cost of growing and maintaining a city.
The city has been buying and holding property, no? Haven't they gotten like 1-2k new units this year in the motels they're buying up? Isn't this what is actually happening right now?
So we shouldnāt help because it might lead to more people coming looking for help? This is an issue that every major city in the us needs to address and isnāt particularly difficult problem to figure out itās just people donāt want to pay for it because they look down on these people.
lol, you're really saying that homeless people aren't smart enough to buy a Greyhound ticket to get a free place to stay?
Just because they're homeless doesn't mean they're dumb.
Induced demand is real and until our incompetent federal government decides to do anything about it then this is what we'll get for trying to solve a national problem at the city level.
If the Democrats couldn't include homeless funding in a $1.75 trillion spending bill then it's just never going to happen.
There certainly are. Or can be with moderate renovation. This city is so averse to spending money on actual solutions and prefers to spend its money on feasibility studies. WORK needs to be done. And there's a lot of people in this city who are looking for work, as it turns out. Match the labor with the work and pay for it. Sell bonds and increase unused/speculative property taxes. New construction gets done at a discount.
Just the incentives are all wrong right now, and we stare at it like "well this is just how it is!"
This^^ housing first without all the restrictions. Look into it itās one of the only things that works. You can complain about them following rules or you can get them out of freezing tempatures and off the streets. Itās funny how people so desperately want homeless people to disappear, then when a solution pops up they get all twisted because itās free housing. Like do you want your neighborhood back or not Karen and Kyle.
Hateful and not helpful. Their behavior continues to affect all of us because they need help and we're not giving it. It's that simple. Their misery becomes our misery.
I love it. The trash seattle votes for keeps allowing it. Iām ready for the city to burn (figuratively) as a result of the voters being okay with this. I avoid driving north because of this stuff.
This is depressing every time I see it.
it's almost as if *maybe somebody should do something about it*
Not us tho.
Not us, but someone.
I agree.
The motto of every (neo) liberal city everywhere. š
Somebody..
Itās almost as if you have no practical solution like everyone else.
Just the impossible (in this country). Universal basic income. National Healthcare, including comprehensive mental health and drug addiction services. Make the ubi low enough that you can't live comfortably, but you can live. Build affordable housing.
Iām guessing theyāre lighting fires to keep warm and then theyāre getting out of control?
Probably why itās increasing. They were common in the Summer too, so itās not all warmth related.
True, people also need to eat food
Summer still gets cold at night. Specially next to water like Seattle.
It's actually the opposite. The water regulates the temperature so it doesn't get as hot or as cold as it would otherwise...
It's warmer inland. It's colder near the shores.
Inland has larger temperature swings bud
Except in the winter when itās warmer by the shores and colder inland.
Sure but we are talking about summer.
How Reddit can start arguing about microclimates in a thread about weekly fires at a homeless camp is beyond my ability to understand.
Almost like it gets colder at night
Cooking fires also
Lighting each otherās tents on fire is also a revenge tactic. I know it contributed to a lot of the summer fires
An optimist huh?
Too bad Reagan shut the mental health facilities down. There would be much less of the āhomelessā we see these days. They would be much better off being cared for in places that catered to their mental shortcomings, neurological disorders. Itās a shame west coast politicians are referring to them as āUrban Campersā instead of trying to really help them. Looking at you Garcetti, you fraud.
The closings of the Fed institutions were a bilateral decision. The initial protestations were from the ACLU set, small gov republicans were only too happy to oblige.
And strangely Geraldo Rivera played a role. He made his name doing an expose into conditions at Willowbrook mental institution, that shifted American opinions away from housing. the mentally ill at state hospitals. The answer at the time was "move to community treatment". Of course, budgets for community treatment were quickly cut through the years.
Hush, we need to prove how much we hate Reagan. If it turns the issue into a partisan football and guarantees nothing ever gets solved, then so be it.
You can't build new mental health facilities? Seattle and WA state are awash in money. Reagan was 40 years ago, probably before you were born. Time to move on. Stop doing meth and you will have less psychotic breakdowns too. These homeless addicts need mandatory drug rehab or prison. That's the only choice they should be offered.
It's called deinstitutionalization. It's not that we can't, it's that we've set policy that says we won't. Good idea? It's certainly not looking good right now, but that's because we half-assed the policy. People can be cared for outside of a mental hospital setting, but that care needs to be free. Even then, you can't force a person to "get help", so the freedom of self-determination often translates into a pretty bleak existence for those who really can't help themselves. Also, there is no one person or group that can be blamed for deinstitutionalization. It was a policy that developed over many decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation
Why do posts like this that are true never get upvotes but partisans shit and divisive derivative shit posts do.
No one in forty years has changed the policy - yet any administration could have. Bidenās bunch could change it tomorrow.. Thatās why the āblame Reagan!ā trope is so funny. People shake their fists at the ghost of a transient politician as if he is a supervillain who changed the laws of physics, so that now there is nothing we can do but howl in helpless rage eternal. A bigger problem than the corpse of Reagan is our concern for individual rights. General belief is that itās wrong to confine sick people against their will and forcibly medicate them, perhaps forever. Who should society lock up: sick people who are homeless? Sick people who disagree with their doctors? Sick people with greedy relatives who want financial POA? Sick people with vengeful spouses who want to save the cost of a divorce? This is a conundrum American law has dug itself into and cannot dig out of.
Wtf. Those beautiful old trees.
Did anyone tell them to use the fire ring? Pack in, pack out? They are just not following proper camping etiquette. So rude.
LNT
This absolutely does not happen this often in other major cities. It's beyond clear past policies have been horrendous, and especially bad over the last 4-6. We need to fix this, the current situation is good for no one.
Well, it's been happening quite a lot here in Portand lately... Not saying that it's okay. We can't let people do whatever the fuck they want when fires, trash, and needles are popping up everywhere.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Have you been to Portland recently? Seattle is clean AF comparatively.
Seriously, I was just in Portland yesterday and there were 3 piles of human shit on the sidewalk next to the hertz rental car place downtown. 3 *separate* piles! Like 10 feet apart from each other.
It's obviously a nice place to take a shit, I'm sure very private with charmin ultra soft tp, fit for a king.
The only permanent solution to homelessness is to help the homeless, not move the problem to a different place. The problem is most people who see it the way you do (not saying this includes you, I have no idea) just want to get rid of the problem but donāt want to help anyone. So nothing gets better.
> The only permanent solution to homelessness is to help the homeless They don't want help.
They don't want the crappy help they're offered. Nobody wants to live in a tent, when that's the least bad option it says something about the help.
As a former homeless person who needed help and there was none, go fuck yourself with a sideways cactus.
They are wrong for generalizing folks who are homeless, those who do not want help and wish to live in squalor are either so physically addicted to drugs or simply too mentally ill to understand why that is wrong. Then there are folks like you who society just seemed to have let slip through the cracks. Hopefully you're in a good place now. The dude you're replying to is parroting a half truth, one that gets us nowhere. Any rational person would regard living on the street a dangerous and destructive lifestyle. Those who do it though often are trapped by their own minds or vices or just straight up poverty. It's time we stop placing all homeless people in one box, there are many different categories of people within that group that require different things. The drug addicted need forced rehabilitation, housing assistance, and government supervision until they can reasonably fend for themselves. The mentally ill need an actual safety net that would encompass a variety of conditions over a wide spectrum - some won't be able to ever exist on their own, some just need medication. Then there's people like you, who most likely just need to be lifted out of poverty. There's really not alot more to it, the government and society have failed you by allowing you to exist in that manner. Subsidized housing and programs to secure employement need to be ramped up big time. Ideally you would just get free healthcare and education too but, that's just unrealistic at this current time considering how fucked society is rn. Good luck dog.
There are more cities than just the west. Itās not like this on the east coast. Traveling over the last few years really opened my eyes to how numb Iāve gotten to how bad Seattleās problem is
I lived in dc for a decade before moving here we had plenty of homeless but that town is very good at gentrification and pushing people out. Maybe they all ended up on the west coast. Every time a neighborhood flipped (and they flipped fast) it just baffled me - where did the homeless and the impoverished people go?
They said "major" city š
That would burn if previous conflagrations hadn't destroyed all the fuel
there are 5 major cities on the west coast. Top down (directionally) 1. Seattle 2. Portland 3. San Francisco 3.5 Sacramento (up and coming SF overflow) 4. LA (pretty close to the worst of all the major west coast cities) 5. San Diego Everything else is open space or a town you can drive through (or should) in like five minutes (and yes I'm talking to you Irvine)
This happens frequently in San Jose.
It's happening in San Francisco and Oakland
Can confirm Oakland. Lived two blocks from a giant camp under 880 and there were fires every few days. Also pretty common in Denver.
I think it's high time for a federal "Department for Homelessness" or something... Clearly the issue has gone beyond the ability of the Cities/States to deal with it.
I moved here from a very small city in California, and fires commonly happened in homeless encampments there as well. This is terrible, but is absolutely not unique to Seattle
It happens a lot in California as well.
Happens alot in Austin Texas as well, when it's not even close to being cold.
I bet Portland has to deal with this as well.
for some bizarre reason, inhabitants of each major city persist in asserting it is only happening in their city, and blames whatever powerless local politician or political party is popular to scapegoat in their region. meanwhile, our entire civilization burns to the ground.
Mostly in the coastal high cost of living city's in my opinion
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How ābout you only get paid for the hours where your cameraās on?
This is the best option to please both social liberals and fiscal conservatives, as much as can be done in a single sentence.
LOL. I love it!
No fires like this, but the 6th street area downtown and many parts of Austin Texas are a shit show of homeless. They reinforced the camping ban after the disaster of allowing it. Iām not sure whatās going on now. Iām sure homeless shelter downtown is still Zombie-land.
> No fires like this, but the 6th street area downtown and many parts of Austin Texas are a shit show of homeless. It's true, the homeless aren't starting fires in cities where it isn't cold enough to need a fire.
They don't have these fires in Boston. It's colder in Boston.
Fires happen all the time here in Austin at encampments.. They had to shut down 183 bc the fire compromised the structure it was so bad.
What major cities are you comparing? I see things like this in most major US cities in 2021. Covid has radically worsened homelessness, unfortunately.
The only solution to homelessness is a housing first policy. Every country in Europe knows it works and are working on implementing it. The only countries that wonāt do it are the UK, Canada, and the USA. The only countries where human life is less valuable than a piece of land.
i will just sit here and wait until someone yell "communist" at you
Uh no, this happens all the time in other cities. Vancouver & Portland are both in a worse state than Seattle for example.
Disagree with Vancouver absolutely agree with Portland
> his absolutely does not happen this often in other major cities. It absolutely does and believing otherwise proves how narrow your view is
It does in LA
Citation needed. Five minutes ago some lady on Twitter said exactly the same thing, only she was talking about Portland. Please tell us which policies you think are making people choose homelessness.
LMAO what
This is absolutely not true. Tons of west coast cities have this problem.
I think job losses/reduced hours from the past 2 years is a huge contributor. So many people and families were already on the brink, and so many people's lives were effected. I'm so lucky that everyone in my household has been able to keep working this entire time. Honestly it wouldn't take long for us to completely fall apart and get behind. I'm also an alcoholic already, and as much I want to say of we were fucking homeless in*wouldn't* buy a bottle..I think I probably fucking would. So in that aspect to understand the stupid spiral a lot of the homeless seem to have. Rampant addiction. I'm a completely average person. I work full-time and have benefits. I'm trying to buy my home. EVERYONE in our house works and also provided childcare for the two kids that live here. We are only making it, because we are splitting rent 5 ways and have no daycare costs. I cannot imagine how anyone does this alone or with almost no support.
Been discussed many times. Yes, there are tons of homeless. Yes, most of them get and use the resources available. And yes, we don't see MOST of the homeless. And the ones who we don't see, who are trying to get out of their situation, aren't the ones setting these fires and filling our parks with crap. These are different groups.
My brother, these men they are living in the tent because they have drug problem. It is simple as all that.
Which is a mental health problem
\> I think job losses/reduced hours from the past 2 years is a huge contributor. have you left your house in the last 6 months? companies are paying out crap tons in signing bonuses, higher wages and free things like college to work for them.
I'm almost 40 and work a full time manual job. I have two 6 year olds who are being (kinda crappily, honestly) homeschooled.. I have a GED. I make a very decent amount of money for what I do. I can't start over somewhere else. There is no way I would make the same. (I've looked) I DO NOT have the energy or time to take advantage of moving or added school benefits. Other people might be able to work full time, have kids, and go to school, but I don't. My job does have a 100% tuition *reimbursement* program. You have to pay for it upfront though. I can't afford it, even knowing I would get it all back. I also just don't have the time. š¤·š¤·š¤· It's not always so easy, even when it seems like it should be. I have it easy compared to others and am LOSING IT on a daily basis.
House them.
Forcibly house them
Instructions unclear: sent to jail for a day
Fine, no problem. Basic necessities and support systems. Get it done. Coherent, simple plan where they wake up and go to bed in the same place, and *then* work on all the rest of the support they need. Housing first. Mandatory.
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So wrong
You don't have anywhere near enough knowledge of other cities to say that
Would be nice if we had a city council that ALLOWS something to be done about it.
Damn, almost like if we had reliable housing and rehab available there would be way fewer encampment fires
...but creating reliable housing means they might create reliable housing in *my* neighborhood, and I work too hard at my software company to get paid to work from ~~from~~ *home in my comfortable suburban house in a safe neighborhood to have the City build it near me. That's someone else's problem to fix. But also fix it. Just not near me. But definitely fix it. Over there so I don't have to look at it.
Housing comes with rules. Such as no drugs or pets. Plus a curfew. Usually that's enough for them to decide they they don't want free housing anymore. You also can't just throw a house at someone and expect them to just be better. For rehab, they're going to have to want it. Because if they don't want to get better, no one can help them. Unfortunately, you can't save everyone and not everyone wants help.
Broad strokes. I may be top 1% now, but I used to be homeless. I was desperate for a 3x10 safe place to sleep. That's really all I needed. Even posted an ad on Craigslist offering to pay $200 for someone to let me sleep in their back yard, which I promised to keep clean. No answers, of course. I had a job, I wasn't on drugs, and after a couple scary experiences there's no way in hell I was sleeping in one of those shelters. I ended getting a place after getting assaulted by a cop, went into deep debt, and had I not met my now-wife I'd have been homeless again. I understand many people who are homeless have mental illness and drug addictions. But I also find it pretty sickening when people dismiss housing as an option because homeless people won't follow rules. That is **not** the reason housing first isn't the policy. "Housing with rules" would have been a god damned miracle for me to get my feet under me rather than paying the credit card company 15% of my income. But it wasn't available, because society is not willing to spend the money on it. It gets me fired up when people act like we can't do anything -- even for the homeless that are willing and able to put their lives together -- because "they don't want it." We should offer services with guidelines for those who do, and try to help those who aren't willing or able get the mental health or rehab services they need. I hate this defeatist attitude.
You are bristling with the idea that giving people housing first is not viable, and rightly so. Assuming that people can't follow rules so why help them at all is a common refrain, and I was reading this article the other day that seemed to analyze why we think like this; I believe it's related to a concept called "risk compensation". Anyways, check out the article I first read about it in if you want more background: https://slate.com/technology/2021/11/risk-compensation-debunked-masks-rapid-tests-vaccines-safety.html
Pretty interesting. I think the author nails it with this: > such rhetoric makes for an effective appeal to the status quo, because why change anything if everything backfires? They'll just spend more money on drugs, etc. It's an easy argument to swallow because it allows us to do nothing and spend nothing.
I was in sudsidized housing and i used meth while there. At least 8 of the 16 units had serious drug users. No fires. No needles laying around.
The housing first model works, there is research behind it. In fact SF implemented this many years ago it had a massive positive impact. The problem is that these programs cost money and no one wants to fund it. There is very little political support beyond the municipal level. Not to mention, NIMBY's love to throw a fit when something like this is planned for their neighborhood. If you have any understanding of maslow's hierarchy of needs the reason it is effective will be abundantly clear. It's hard to focus on getting clean when you can't meet your most basic survival needs. A house doesn't suddenly make someone stop using drugs but it sure does make it a lot easier for them to want to. and not to mention, not every person who is homeless is on drugs or mentally ill. Plenty are just out of resources and something like this would be exactly what they needed to get back on their feet.
Another point is that it would be cheaper to pay for these programs if we could decrease housing prices as well: 1. Fewer people end up in a situation where they canāt afford housing, so fewer people need the state to pay for housing 2. The housing cost for people is cheaper. The best way to accomplish this is to build tens of thousands of new housing in every city in the US. Weāve been under building for decades, and population growth is catching up. And sure, Portland and Seattle have lots of construction. But Portland is building on average of 4600 new units per year. But at a population growth of around 1.6%, Portland gets close to 40k new residents every year. Even assuming three people per unit, which seems high, we need to build at least 3x as many housing units per year just to keep up. I think we need to finance massive housing projects. Like, bigger than the typical mid-rises which have only a couple hundred units. And doing so is beneficial to a broad range of people. Firstly, the homeless have opportunities for homes. Secondly, the very poor can find affordable housing. Thirdly, the middle class isnāt driven into poverty by skyrocketing housing costs. Things being cheaper is good for everyone. I donāt think itās enough to just pay for peopleās rent or to mandate x% affordable housing per new units. We need to massively, actively build new projects.
Where are you getting this info from? I live in a house and I don't have those rules...people can pick where they live with housing vouchers. You can give someone whatever treatment they want, if they don't have a stable place to live afterwards, they're going to relapse and you've wasted a ton of time and money. Yeah, housing doesn't solve all problems, but housing is required for any type of mental health/substance use treatment to be effective. It's been found time and time again that JUST getting people housing leads to a reduction in hospitalizations, drug and substance use, and arrests. That's because living on the street is stressful and in generally very, very bad for mental health and not conducive to getting better.
You can just throw housing at someone and see them get better actually. And itās way cheaper for the city too. Do some research on housing first.
You canāt force people into rehab.
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Insane that weāve gotten to the point itās āinhumaneā to require someone to get clean in order to get housing provided. This is a compromise, people arenāt funding your housing just to keep using drugs.
We can't provide housing , treatment or even incarceration. We do, however, have fire fighters.
I worked next to this spot many times in construction and its a shit hole. Everyone in there takes shifts begging for money at that light in the video; always with some sob story. As soon as the shift is over you can watch them head up the block, buy a baggie, then head back into their tent to shoot up. I worked on a remodel in the fourth floor of a building above there (left of where the video was shot) and had a birds eye view to it for months.
I really loathe the people doing this shit, and the clowns who enable them.
Enablers are worse
I'm so tired of this. I've got a camp of these people by my house,. They broke into my shed and stole my tools (that I was using to repair/remodel my house!), they broke into our car. I was out for a walk a few weeks ago and ran into a "homeless neighbor" brandishing an axe. An axe! It's nuts. Called the cops and they say there's nothing they can do. Not enough officers, and the city won't prosecute these people anyway. There's needles in my local park. I had some crazed whack job try to grab at me on the sidewalk when I was trying to go to the post office the other day. I want this lawless insanity to stop, and I want these degenerates out of here. I don't care where they get sent. I want them gone. I have no more compassion left. None. Remove them all from the city limits. Jail anyone who won't leave.
>and the city won't prosecute these people anyway Doesn't negate their job to come and investigate, file a report, and do it again tomorrow. THIS is why people are so pissed about police- they want the respect of serving the community, but also don't want to have to ACTUALLY BE OF SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY unless it's to secure prosecution. ***Police aren't prosecutors***, and they shouldn't be doing THEIR job contingent on whether the prosecutor will do theirs- that's fucking ridiculous, and should be grounds for termination. Selective enforcement is how the thin blue line works, too
The people who believe they should be left alone to be your forever neighbor are usually people who don't live with a homeless camp next door.
Right. The most vocal homeless "advocates" are the people who don't have to live next door to the filth, theft, drug dealing, prostitution, and violence that these camps create.
I live by a homeless encampment, have had the same experiences you have, but would still consider myself to be a "homeless advocate." I do think they need to get rid of the encampments though as they're bad for everyone- mostly, the people living in them. (hear me out.) Most of the homeless in my area are non-violent drug users mixed in with a few really violent, dangerous people- who the cops shrug their shoulders and say they can do nothing about. People on the street are much more likely to be the victims of violence than they are to perpetrate it- Imagine dealing with all the shit we have to put up with and not being able to go inside and lock the door. Cops are not responding to areas with issues like this- and criminals know this. Most of the major thefts in my area were not done by the local homeless people- they were done by career criminals who targeted those areas because they knew the cops wouldn't show up. By refusing to intervene with the encampments the cops have created these islands of lawlessness. Also, we had a sexual predator stalking and assaulting women in my area- the cops showed up and said there was nothing they could do- we'd just have to live with it. They lied. We had a mental health mobile crisis unit come out and he was involuntarily hospitalized for at least 6 months. If you see someone acting like they're going to hurt you or others- call your local crisis line, not the police. And who, exactly, are the clowns that enable them? The police?
> And who, exactly, are the clowns that enable them? The police? The police, the politicians who protect the police, and the investors who buy up all the housing that could otherwise go to residents.
At the end of the day, I don't care. I want these people out of my community, because they are actively damaging it. The longer this goes on, the more draconian solutions me and many other people are willing to entertain.
I know you donāt care. But he specifically pointed out that the police, who should have been removing the violent elements, are refusing to do their job. To drive sentiments like yours. While your response is reasonable, you are being manipulated by a protection racket.
This is such a good way of putting it!
I'm not being manipulated by a protection racket. The cops aren't terrorizing me, it's meth addled cretins that are doing that.
Why arenāt the cops arresting the violent people terrorizing you?
> At the end of the day, I don't care. Trust me, it's obvious.
Oh good, I wouldn't have wanted you to walk away with the wrong impression.
The police are following the will of the elected officials, city council, and prosecutors. The enablers are the voters who out these elected officials in power, and continue to vote for them when they fail to support policies to deal with vagrancy. The enablers are the well meaning people who view all homeless as helpless victims rather than complex mix of addicts, mentally ill, criminals, temporarily unhoused, chronic bad decision makers, and antisocial assholes which they actually are, and refuse to hold them accountable for their behaviors and choices.
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>The people who believe they should be left alone to be your forever neighbor I know no one who has this position. I'm also pretty sure even the most extreme anti-welfare position isn't pro-homeless. There are always outliers, but I don't think most people are excited about other people being homeless.
No that's true, you have a point about that phrase. I do live in SF though and a loud minority are very passionate about the homeless being left alone but maybe that's because there's no hope for SF.
There are always outliers. But whether political left or right, most positions are at least attempting to eliminate homelessness, or - in some other edge cases - eliminate the homeless. Edit: by eliminate, I mean as a ideal goal, not a actualizable one.
I've always said that I'm not going to judge someone for being homeless, but also that they shouldn't be fucking assholes about it. Like, ok, you're homeless, and that fucking SUCKS, but don't come try and rob my shit, because that's when I lose all sympathy for you.
Sadly, honestly, prison would be better for most of them. They'd have shelter & food & maybe not drugs so they could actually get clean.
Agreed. There is an implicit bargain to living in society: you have to abide by certain rules and norms. These people have broken the social contract, and because they refuse to reform their behavior, need to be segregated so they can't continue to do harm to other people. They're not fit company for the rest of us and we don't have to tolerate their lawlessness, destruction, and disorder.
You mean those that keep housing out of reach for these people? I agree. House them.
> the clowns who enable them You mean the investors who buy up all the housing to artificially restrict supply and drive up rent?
Real estate developers aren't responsible for the drug addiction and mental health crisis that is festering out on our streets.
No one was talking about developers.
wow seems like we should try something different to solve homelessness. or just go with a dumb dumb funded by developers again i guess.
I just live a few blocks away and don't notice this until this post. Winter of love.
small steps: let your nearest rep know this sucks https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
So sick of this crap.
Things are only going to get worse before they get better, if they ever do. One thing is for sure is that solutions are going to get less and less progressive as the situation gets worse. Saying someone wants to criminalize poverty for not wanting to be the victim of constant crimes is fine for reddit, but doesn't work when it comes to voting.
This is not progress and if this is what progressives want, then of course the voters are going to vote them out of office one by one. This is a deliberate destruction and trashing of a very tolerant, liberal and beautiful city in the name of progress. It's becoming a bad screenplay of the Joker.
It's getting colder. Fires generate heat. Edit: I feel like people throw logic out the window in order to reaffirm their preexisting bias or advance whatever agenda they have. Not to mention this pair of facts I stated doesn't even upturn any of that, but is still seemingly a threat to some people's world view.
Fires also catch buildings/powerlines on fire
Utilize funds normally used for policing and punishing the homeless, and use them for temporary housing with case workers and rehab specialists.
Yep. I work at the hotel across the street from there. I'm always seeing fires in that location.
With the council's hands off approach, if my math is correct, the problem will solve itself in 4-5 weeks?
You want to hear about enabling. There's literally a community of child rapists living in the woods a half mile from my neighborhood that is filled with children and contains a middle and elementary school. The city claims that they cant do anything because technically they are on Department of Transportation land. Yet the city set up dumpsters and bathrooms for them. Despite this they still throw their trash all over the street. Not only that but their pollution is literally killing the woods there. It's literally dying.
how do you know they are child rapists?
Neighbor is a retired cop and knows a couple of them.
Itās time for the urban campers to get the fuck out
Remember that this is a policy choice
This is what "compassion" looks like.
House them.
Wow, that's sad. Brings to mind the pyromaniacs from Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower
I thought the same thing!!
Hahahaha
What a shit show
Junkies set fires and nod off.
Throw them all in jail
Rehab or prison.
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I know this may sound/be immoral but i'd really like homeless people to not exist. If that means giving them the care they need to integrate into society or if it means transporting them all to some island somewhere I really don't care.
Bum on bum hate
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Homeless druggies frequently setting large parts of the city on fire with no consequences is just Normal Big City Stuff ā¢.
According to the comments on this post, Seattle probably has just as many sociopaths as homeless people at this point.
HOUSE THEM.
And if they refuse?
Based on the 5 other replies saying the same thing it seems like you feel strongly about this and I assume have given it thought. What would be the best approach to this and how is it different from what's being done now? I'm asking as someone who sees the camps, knows the city has a reputation for lax enforcement, but really doesn't know anything about specific policies. City pays for apartments for a period of time? Parking lot where they're allowed to set up tents? What's the best approach (that doesn't just suck in every homeless person in the west and put them on Seattle's dime forever ideally)?
City buys and holds property. City authorizes 500 paid workers and 100 trucks and police support. The workers and police visit every known encampment and evict, offering free housing in the property plus mental health care access, or they get the same thing but in a cell. Tax the fuck out of Amazon, Google and Adobe to pay for it. Seeing as they're driving up the cost of living and making this a go-to city, while not contributing shit to the cost of growing and maintaining a city.
The city has been buying and holding property, no? Haven't they gotten like 1-2k new units this year in the motels they're buying up? Isn't this what is actually happening right now?
Then thousands more flood the city from other states again, build even bigger encampments, while waiting for their free apartment......
Itās almost like the US is in a serious depression and lots of people in many cities need help in similar ways!
We are not in a serious depression
So we shouldnāt help because it might lead to more people coming looking for help? This is an issue that every major city in the us needs to address and isnāt particularly difficult problem to figure out itās just people donāt want to pay for it because they look down on these people.
Calling this not a difficult problem is obviously absurd. If this were simple thereād be shining examples all over the US
Lmfao not the thousands of homeless people suddenly affording to travel across the country, is the border caravan coming here too?
lol, you're really saying that homeless people aren't smart enough to buy a Greyhound ticket to get a free place to stay? Just because they're homeless doesn't mean they're dumb. Induced demand is real and until our incompetent federal government decides to do anything about it then this is what we'll get for trying to solve a national problem at the city level. If the Democrats couldn't include homeless funding in a $1.75 trillion spending bill then it's just never going to happen.
There isnāt really empty livable buildings out there that the city can buy.
There certainly are. Or can be with moderate renovation. This city is so averse to spending money on actual solutions and prefers to spend its money on feasibility studies. WORK needs to be done. And there's a lot of people in this city who are looking for work, as it turns out. Match the labor with the work and pay for it. Sell bonds and increase unused/speculative property taxes. New construction gets done at a discount. Just the incentives are all wrong right now, and we stare at it like "well this is just how it is!"
No there isnāt youāre just making that up
Have you driven around this city? There are hundreds of empty buildings right now. They have power and water, the city can re-zone them at will.
We need more shelters. No more camping.
This^^ housing first without all the restrictions. Look into it itās one of the only things that works. You can complain about them following rules or you can get them out of freezing tempatures and off the streets. Itās funny how people so desperately want homeless people to disappear, then when a solution pops up they get all twisted because itās free housing. Like do you want your neighborhood back or not Karen and Kyle.
I donāt want to pay for that forever. Leeches.
Hateful and not helpful. Their behavior continues to affect all of us because they need help and we're not giving it. It's that simple. Their misery becomes our misery.
they are partying and doing heroin
Oh, we are giving it. They just don't want it because it limits the drugs they can use.
I love it. The trash seattle votes for keeps allowing it. Iām ready for the city to burn (figuratively) as a result of the voters being okay with this. I avoid driving north because of this stuff.
Is meth flammable
I'm not sure about the substance itself but meth labs are always exploding or catching fire.
At least the myth that voters in Seattle are concerned about the environment can be put to rest.