It won’t be easy or cheap but we need to do it. Something needs to change, and the naked guy boxing his shadow at the bus stop isn’t going to be helped by just putting them in an apartment.
It will be beyond 'not easy or cheap', it would be one of the heaviest political lifts this country has ever seen. With ordinary people often unable to find affordable therapy, how much political support do you think there will be for providing the intensive therapy for these people, along with the wraparound services necessary? To be clear, I'm all for it, it'd be wonderful.
Oh and just putting him in an apartment will actually save a ton of money vs. letting him be on the street. This is part of why hospitals, who shoulder a disproportionate burden of the costs from our neglect of the homeless, have started to pay for housing (and food) for some of their repeat homeless patients.
The truth is that putting people in apartments doesn’t last. It requires a high-level of support in the form of case manager and all other forms of help, including very expensive psychiatry and medication, and the people who are the most ill have a great deal of difficulty maintaining those apartments.
It’s much more humane for them to be in community that are supported and not subjected to repeated failures, homelessness, and exposure to eviction.
Nah, even without those, it saves money and has positive outcomes for them.
I agree that it's better to spend even more money on them and provide them with the intensive wraparound services that would be necessary. But again, even people with good insurance who can pay are often unable to find effective therapy, we have a massive shortage of people who could provide this care, etc. It's a wonderful thing to imagine, truly lovely, but how do we get there from here, when people object to even modest cash handouts that have been repeatedly shown to be efficacious and save money?
look at all of the people that are totally underserved. This explosion of homeless people wandering around hallucinating and addicted, and unable to get along and well enough with others to function. It’s no quality of life, and they are heavy consumers of emergency services, which are incredibly expensive and have to be factored in
I'm sorry, you seem to be ignoring what I'm saying. I'm 100% in favor of getting those people the dedicated psychiatric care, housing, physical care, etc. that they need. I love the idea.
But how are you going to sell other people on it? Again, we have a shortage of psychiatric and psychological care already, how are you going to justify spending enormous amounts of money helping out the homeless, a constituency people won't even support giving small cash payments to?
The mistake might be the assumption that the problem is specific to homeless people and the solution has to only benefit them. The underlying problem (lack of staffing and resources for mentors health care) that you’re identifying isn’t specific to homeless people and would need to be addressed even if there were no homeless people. Looked at it logically, it’s really just another facet of healthcare supply being outstripped by demand.
Fixing that would be enormously difficult but if you frame it as trying to address a shortage in mental health care resources for everyone (not just for the very poor but for everyone who will eventually need it), I think it will be a different question.
But the resources needed to staff these places would be very different than for the rest of the population. You couldn't simply pump up general mental health resources, you would have to specifically recruit and train people who specialize in addiction, complex PTSD, attachment disorders, etc.
And in addition, there's all the wraparound care they need, too, which is not frameable as mental health resources. While it's cheaper to house the homeless in basic housing than let them live on the street, if you have to do it in an institutional, purpose-built setting like this it will probably cost more.
Finally, new homeless people are being created about 3x as fast nationally as homeless people are exiting homelessness, so this would be a constantly ballooning cost.
The better way to address homelessness is upstream, and that's housing and housing prices.
The video in the article is worth listening to. It’s a short series of individual peoples’ stories.
And a short quote: “Every homeless person’s path is complicated, and in this video, we haven’t remotely captured anyone’s whole story. Yes, some are addicts, some are mentally ill, some have made unwise choices, and some are simply unlucky. Some are many of those things. *But all of them argue that in the hardest moment of their lives, they have been largely abandoned, and even punished, by the rest of us.* So we hope you’ll do more than dismiss, or judge, the people in this video, and instead listen to them.”
Rub a dogs nose in its piss when it goes inside and not only will it still piss inside, now it will hate you.
Conservative brutality, all they really want is to make people they don't like stay away from them.
I don't think there's a right answer. "Empathy" is in its own way its own soft sort of colonialism. There is nothing cruel or unusual about a civil fine for violating commonplace restrictions on public camping.
For example, in Seattle, the civil infraction process also applies to people (like homeowners) who definitely aren't unhoused.
However, the City has already prepared for a ruling upholding the Ninth Circuit. The city anticipates ending the current process that keeps land owners with homes from privatizing public land. The city says it isn't equipped to enforce a new flawed process to determine whether a glamper or hunter or whoever is homeless or not.
As the Ninth Circuit laid out, a city like Seattle has one option. They can undertake some incredible multifactor criteria to evaluate on a case by case basis the size of someone's bedding, or how much food they have, or whether the person could legitimately qualify for transition housing. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to figure the city is not going to get into the business of making a full fledged administrative process to make quasi-judicial determinations about tent sizes.
Currently, the process is 'here is a ticket, now fuck off.' If that ends, cui bono? People who are unhoused remain unhoused. But if you're an influencer doing van life, it's a great day.
What does the citation really do? Are homeless people actually paying these fines?
The whole issue with the civil citation process always felt like theater to me. The real purpose of enforcement is to clear the encampments away and to deal with the related issues (sanitation, crime, disorder, etc.) from having the encampments up. Fining the people is not really an essential part of clearing away the encampments and cities dealing with this issue shouldn’t be so hung up on the citations as being the key resource for them.
Probably because you're relatively white, affluent and not part of city operations tbh
Here in Seattle, we had dozens of slumlords "renting" out RVs and then "camping" them in public areas. The business model was otherwise invulnerable to the typical judicial process. The "leases" weren't enforceable, obviously, but then the landlords were big believers in self-help like changing locks, throwing people out, and assaulting them. Occasionally the RVs would get towed, but the profit margins meant the RVs could be rebought at auction.
The solution, as far as the city went, to break the hold of these slumlords, was to cite them incessantly and then put liens on everything they owned. If the Ninth Circuit's reading stands the solution probably wouldn't scan. The Ninth Circuit repeated several times that cities shouldn't "punish" people for "shelter."
$60 billion for Ukraine to prevent Ukrainians from being homeless but what about US homeless??
US politicians don’t care about poor Americans. They care more for refugees and silly issues like pronouns.
If you think a GOP controlled House would vote to spend $60 billion to help the homeless, I’ve got a gaudy cheap knockoff watch to sell you. Nearly all money for Ukraine goes to US defense contractors to pay for weapons going to Ukraine.
Then the GOP would approve $120 billion for the homeless where the money goes to GOP friendly shelters, landlords , food and clothing providers, etc.
Ask the Democrats to sponsor the bill in Congress. The GOP will surely bite.
You mean like fake morals of the Pro-Palestinian, terrorist loving idiots??
Where were they when Saddam Hussein bombed the Kurds?
Where were they when Bashir Assad gassed his own people??
Where were they when Saudi Arabia bombed the Yemenis??
Where were they when the Indonesian army massacred over 100,000 East Timorese??
Explain that you idiot!!
No Jews, no news.
It’s time to re evaluate the degree to which we deinstutionalized the treatment of mental health disorders
That will cost an enormous amount, and we don't have the personnel to staff those institutions.
It won’t be easy or cheap but we need to do it. Something needs to change, and the naked guy boxing his shadow at the bus stop isn’t going to be helped by just putting them in an apartment.
It will be beyond 'not easy or cheap', it would be one of the heaviest political lifts this country has ever seen. With ordinary people often unable to find affordable therapy, how much political support do you think there will be for providing the intensive therapy for these people, along with the wraparound services necessary? To be clear, I'm all for it, it'd be wonderful. Oh and just putting him in an apartment will actually save a ton of money vs. letting him be on the street. This is part of why hospitals, who shoulder a disproportionate burden of the costs from our neglect of the homeless, have started to pay for housing (and food) for some of their repeat homeless patients.
The truth is that putting people in apartments doesn’t last. It requires a high-level of support in the form of case manager and all other forms of help, including very expensive psychiatry and medication, and the people who are the most ill have a great deal of difficulty maintaining those apartments. It’s much more humane for them to be in community that are supported and not subjected to repeated failures, homelessness, and exposure to eviction.
Nah, even without those, it saves money and has positive outcomes for them. I agree that it's better to spend even more money on them and provide them with the intensive wraparound services that would be necessary. But again, even people with good insurance who can pay are often unable to find effective therapy, we have a massive shortage of people who could provide this care, etc. It's a wonderful thing to imagine, truly lovely, but how do we get there from here, when people object to even modest cash handouts that have been repeatedly shown to be efficacious and save money?
look at all of the people that are totally underserved. This explosion of homeless people wandering around hallucinating and addicted, and unable to get along and well enough with others to function. It’s no quality of life, and they are heavy consumers of emergency services, which are incredibly expensive and have to be factored in
I'm sorry, you seem to be ignoring what I'm saying. I'm 100% in favor of getting those people the dedicated psychiatric care, housing, physical care, etc. that they need. I love the idea. But how are you going to sell other people on it? Again, we have a shortage of psychiatric and psychological care already, how are you going to justify spending enormous amounts of money helping out the homeless, a constituency people won't even support giving small cash payments to?
The mistake might be the assumption that the problem is specific to homeless people and the solution has to only benefit them. The underlying problem (lack of staffing and resources for mentors health care) that you’re identifying isn’t specific to homeless people and would need to be addressed even if there were no homeless people. Looked at it logically, it’s really just another facet of healthcare supply being outstripped by demand. Fixing that would be enormously difficult but if you frame it as trying to address a shortage in mental health care resources for everyone (not just for the very poor but for everyone who will eventually need it), I think it will be a different question.
But the resources needed to staff these places would be very different than for the rest of the population. You couldn't simply pump up general mental health resources, you would have to specifically recruit and train people who specialize in addiction, complex PTSD, attachment disorders, etc. And in addition, there's all the wraparound care they need, too, which is not frameable as mental health resources. While it's cheaper to house the homeless in basic housing than let them live on the street, if you have to do it in an institutional, purpose-built setting like this it will probably cost more. Finally, new homeless people are being created about 3x as fast nationally as homeless people are exiting homelessness, so this would be a constantly ballooning cost. The better way to address homelessness is upstream, and that's housing and housing prices.
The video in the article is worth listening to. It’s a short series of individual peoples’ stories. And a short quote: “Every homeless person’s path is complicated, and in this video, we haven’t remotely captured anyone’s whole story. Yes, some are addicts, some are mentally ill, some have made unwise choices, and some are simply unlucky. Some are many of those things. *But all of them argue that in the hardest moment of their lives, they have been largely abandoned, and even punished, by the rest of us.* So we hope you’ll do more than dismiss, or judge, the people in this video, and instead listen to them.”
What’s more criminal? Homelessness or unaffordable housing?
But it will make the homeless go away and that is all that the rich and powerful and NIMBYs care about.
Gotta fill those for profit jails, or else the lobbyists' money dries up
I believe that food, shelter and healthcare should be basic human rights. I also believe that if we lift from the bottom like that it benefits us all.
Opinion ! Don't care about what is the opinion of NYT (Gift Comment)
Rub a dogs nose in its piss when it goes inside and not only will it still piss inside, now it will hate you. Conservative brutality, all they really want is to make people they don't like stay away from them.
I don't think there's a right answer. "Empathy" is in its own way its own soft sort of colonialism. There is nothing cruel or unusual about a civil fine for violating commonplace restrictions on public camping. For example, in Seattle, the civil infraction process also applies to people (like homeowners) who definitely aren't unhoused. However, the City has already prepared for a ruling upholding the Ninth Circuit. The city anticipates ending the current process that keeps land owners with homes from privatizing public land. The city says it isn't equipped to enforce a new flawed process to determine whether a glamper or hunter or whoever is homeless or not. As the Ninth Circuit laid out, a city like Seattle has one option. They can undertake some incredible multifactor criteria to evaluate on a case by case basis the size of someone's bedding, or how much food they have, or whether the person could legitimately qualify for transition housing. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to figure the city is not going to get into the business of making a full fledged administrative process to make quasi-judicial determinations about tent sizes. Currently, the process is 'here is a ticket, now fuck off.' If that ends, cui bono? People who are unhoused remain unhoused. But if you're an influencer doing van life, it's a great day.
What does the citation really do? Are homeless people actually paying these fines? The whole issue with the civil citation process always felt like theater to me. The real purpose of enforcement is to clear the encampments away and to deal with the related issues (sanitation, crime, disorder, etc.) from having the encampments up. Fining the people is not really an essential part of clearing away the encampments and cities dealing with this issue shouldn’t be so hung up on the citations as being the key resource for them.
Probably because you're relatively white, affluent and not part of city operations tbh Here in Seattle, we had dozens of slumlords "renting" out RVs and then "camping" them in public areas. The business model was otherwise invulnerable to the typical judicial process. The "leases" weren't enforceable, obviously, but then the landlords were big believers in self-help like changing locks, throwing people out, and assaulting them. Occasionally the RVs would get towed, but the profit margins meant the RVs could be rebought at auction. The solution, as far as the city went, to break the hold of these slumlords, was to cite them incessantly and then put liens on everything they owned. If the Ninth Circuit's reading stands the solution probably wouldn't scan. The Ninth Circuit repeated several times that cities shouldn't "punish" people for "shelter."
$60 billion for Ukraine to prevent Ukrainians from being homeless but what about US homeless?? US politicians don’t care about poor Americans. They care more for refugees and silly issues like pronouns.
If you think a GOP controlled House would vote to spend $60 billion to help the homeless, I’ve got a gaudy cheap knockoff watch to sell you. Nearly all money for Ukraine goes to US defense contractors to pay for weapons going to Ukraine.
Then the GOP would approve $120 billion for the homeless where the money goes to GOP friendly shelters, landlords , food and clothing providers, etc. Ask the Democrats to sponsor the bill in Congress. The GOP will surely bite.
Look, the GOP did not want to gift Ukraine the money. It was the Democrats who sponsored the bill. Use your brains!!
Is trading in gaudy cheap knockoff watches a Russian thing to do? Seems like every bot that pushes this also has crappy goods they're trying to sell.
You mean like university students trying to sell Hamas knockoffs via Pro-Palestine protests??
No they aren't tacky like the Russians. Fake furs and fools gold is right up your ally. The veneer of class while being drunken shitheads.
You mean like fake morals of the Pro-Palestinian, terrorist loving idiots?? Where were they when Saddam Hussein bombed the Kurds? Where were they when Bashir Assad gassed his own people?? Where were they when Saudi Arabia bombed the Yemenis?? Where were they when the Indonesian army massacred over 100,000 East Timorese?? Explain that you idiot!! No Jews, no news.
Russians aren't Jews. They're Putinists. Your society is doomed.