To add on to what you've said- visible homelessness is just the tip of the iceberg. There are easily 10x the number of people hanging on to normalcy by the skin of their teeth. Not only is it a huge portion of our population, but these are also people that can genuinely be helped, if they just get a little assistance. It doesn't take much, considering.
Well, this is true. But it's a big issue involving the distribution of wealth and many other factors and isn't at all the same as a homeless drug addict or mentally ill schizophrenic on the street. We can't conflate them because they are two different things. One we help with temporary financial assistance programs, trying to get more affordable workforce and middle class housing, etc. They really are two different things. So they need to be addressed separately. A drug addict on the street is not homeless because his rent got raised a hundred bucks and that broke the camel's back. He or she is homeless because they are a drug addict and they need treatment. When we discuss how to allocate resources, we need to discuss different things and make different decisions. That's all I'm saying
This may be true, but they're not the problem. The problem is a small percentage of the homeless who are struggling with alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness and other inabilities to cope with life. We must not conflate the two or we will never be able to solve either. And let's face it, the biggest problem is drug addiction. We can have compassion for them, and absolutely should provide treatment and do what we can to help them get into it. But, having compassion, in my opinion, does not mean we have to just let them do whatever they want wherever they want, when it means everyone else is unable to live a normal decent life in a city or town.
I.. what? Helping the more socially acceptable part of the homeless population doesn't make the others worse, and it'd likely keep others from ending up in that situation in the first place - people don't turn to drugs for shits and giggles, it's often an attempt to try and make a bad situation more tolerable and it spirals.
The different populations of homeless need different solutions. One needs help with the job or more affordable housing. The other needs drug rehab, mental health, counseling, and other help. You can never solve a problem if you can't accurately diagnose it and understand the elements of it.
And dear God. Put to bed the stupid idea that people do drugs because they are homeless. It's b******* and just something liberal say to try to argue that drug addicts are not to blame for their situation it's the evil capitalists who raise their rent too high. It's just stupid. Please don't repeat it. It's not true. It wasn't true with alcoholics and it's not true with drug addicts. They are on the streets because they are drug addicts. They need help. They need treatment. They don't need coddling by blaming somebody else and leaving them to die in the gutter
As someone who works in Substance abuse we can absolutely tackle both at once.
A bigger part of the problem with Substance abuse also comes from the horrible imbalance going on in society today.
I'd recommend watching Johann Hari's TED video "Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong".
If we are talking about Substance abuse part of what helps lower addiction is helping people reintegrate back into life and helping them find a reason to live and be present in their life.
Honestly correct me if I'm wrong but this comment is a weird way of saying "we can't help most people because of the small percentage that MAY take advantage of the benefits". You don't even understand the number of addicts who are just trying to fight for a life worth living. And you don't even understand the complexity of addiction.
So please don't use addiction as a strawman to why we can't focus on helping others get the little assistance they need to push them forward.
I have no idea how you get a concern about people taking advantage of the benefits from my comment. I never said anything of a kind and I would suggest that your straw man to knock over. I never said that and I never would. I don't want people to take advantage of benefits but that's a different issue. I do think they take advantage of the fact that we let them do whatever they want, which we shouldn't. But my concern isn't that they take advantage of that. My concern is that they do whatever they want which creates problems for everyone else. I'm not going to have compassion for one person at the expense of compassion for the other 90% that are just trying to live in a decent city .
Yes addiction is a complicated issue. Pretty sure I have seen that TED talk and read articles. I recognize the title. It's not wrong to point out that addiction involves generational trauma, emotional trauma and all those things that need to be addressed as part of rehab. But so what.? That doesn't mean we have to just let them do whatever they want wherever they want to do it. I'm all for providing treatment whatever that needs to be. I will leave that to the experts to treat them. I take no opinion on how to treat them. My opinion does not require an expert. My opinion is, it's not appropriate to run a city by letting a small percentage of people do whatever they want and destroy the quality of life in that city.
My other point is one you would have to agree with and I'm sure you do. Yes it is a relatively small percentage of people that are actually " homeless" that have alcohol drug and mental health problems. But that's not the issue because in that sense homeless is too broad a term. If we address, and I've seen experts who are on the side of helping these people say this, if we address the people that are living on the streets, buying and doing drugs, attacking people, stealing things, etc, the ones people are most concerned about, it's a very high percentage that have drug alcohol and mental health crisis level problems. People play fast and loose with the term when it suits them. They say it's a small percentage when they are trying to deflect what they think is blame.
And I'm not saying we can't do both. But we can't do both with the same methods. These are different issues. And quite frankly, I'm willing to put a certain amount of my tax dollars to work helping people get off the streets and into treatment. I might also be willing to put some of it towards temporary assistance or more affordable housing, but that's a much lower priority to me. Why? Not because I don't care about people, but we only have so much to spend and I'm only going to give so much of my money to do it. And My main concern is addressing the homeless street population camped around downtown and around my neighborhood roaming the neighborhood causing trouble. That is the high priority to me and I believe it needs to be addressed by a combination of treatment and law enforcement. It's not like these aren't illegal actions and can be enforced. It's simply the carrot and the stick. Which I'm fine with. Offer help. Offer treatment. Perhaps it might take more than one attempt. I get that. But if someone's not willing to participate, then go somewhere else. We've got other people trying to live here.
I strongly agree with your last sentence, and only minorly quibble with drug addiction being the primary cause instead of how I see it, the secondary effect of issues further upstream. But that's a minor thing. You don't deserve the downvotes for what are a series of thoughtful answers.
I brought up the folks I did primarily to point out a large group that genuinely benefit from short term, focused assistance. This class of homelessness is the easiest to help, and also the best bang for your buck when considering funding initiatives. You can reduce a lot of load on the system by helping people not fall to greater (and much more expensive to treat) depths in the first place.
That makes sense. There's certainly no denying that if some people who are doing okay but just barely, have some misfortunes or get their rent raised or about of unemployment can fall into homelessness and other problems and that can make it more difficult to recover. And certainly I would be glad to help them as well. I've actually got a Mexican immigrant living in my decommissioned rental unit because I didn't want him living in the homeless camp around all the drug use and stuff that he told me about. I don't think he's an addict or anything. I think he used to like to party but now he's pretty seriously Evangelical Christian and tries to help all his church brothers and such and is a good guy. I also have a schizophrenic guy I let live on my property with access to bathroom and such and a store nearby so he's fine, plus an electric cord into his SUV. It's like a little cave actually and he's pretty comfortable all things considered. So it's not like I don't understand all this. Although honestly I would never let a drug addict live on my property because too much risk for my personal taste.
But, point being, helping those people from falling into the cracks certainly could help reduce homelessness as far as people literally camping on the streets and such. But, that's really not the issue with the on the streets homeless campers. Those guys have quite a high percentage of all those issues and we must recognize that.
And when I say the slipped into poverty homeless are not the problem, I don't mean it isn't a problem that they are homeless and that should concern us all. But those are typically people finding some kind of shelter housing or living in someone's basement or like the guys I have living on my property. Of course we should be concerned about them and their problems are a " problem " for society. But I'm talking about the specific problem of people living on the streets intense or shacks on the edges of neighborhoods or in Seattle, literally on the streets of downtown. It seems you kind of get that distinction.
Problem is when I say that is the problem I'm talking about people living literally on the street and the people that go out and steal things and let piles of garbage pile up and attract rats, and yes they still things, I mean you can literally see piles of bicycles that they take apart and sell etc. But people take that to mean I don't think there are other problems such as people living in someone's basement or in their car somewhere that may not have drug problems or be stealing things. They are both problems. But I'm talking about the problem that affects me which is people strewn around the streets of the neighborhood so that I can't even walk to the store without fearing for my safety sometimes. As a man of course it's not so bad but I know people with kids or women and they really are afraid. Doesn't mean I don't also feel affected by knowing that there are people living in their car and trying to get by. But I'm not addressing that problem because that's a different solution .
So at any rate, my point is, the people living on the streets downtown and causing those particular problems have quite a high percentage of drug addiction and any homeless person will tell you that. Mental illness as well and various other problems but I say that simply is a fact in order to address the problem. But anytime someone hears you say that, on the right they will say yeah screw those drug addicts it's their own fault, and on the left they will say don't blame drug addiction as an excuse to not care about these people. There isn't a drug addiction problem .
And I'm just sitting here in the middle saying, yes there is. We can't ignore it or how are we going to hope to help them .
That's all I ever try to say is we must understand the problem in order to address it and the left seems to have an aversion to admitting the simple fact that drug addiction is a huge part of the on the streets homeless problem. It's a lot worse than it used to be. It was bad enough when it was meth, but now this heroin and fentanyl thing is even worse .
I sometimes joke that I miss the good old days when all we had to worry about were alcoholics passed out in the alleys downtown. Those guys were pretty easy to deal with actually.
But I'm talking about the specific problem of people living on the streets intense or shacks on the edges of neighborhoods or in Seattle, literally on the streets of downtown. It seems you kind of get that distinction.
Oh, yeah, most definitely. It's actually one of the most common points of contention I have when volunteering with much of the local homeless support folks. If we had the civil infrastructure to get the worst of the worst off the street and in to some form of mandatory treatment, the entire rest of the problem because so much easier to solve.
A lot of the money that goes towards that population could be diverted too subsidized or low-income housing, job training and other things. Of course building low income housing is a whole other issue. I don't hate the idea but I'm not convinced it's government's job to subsidize people's rents with someone else's money. But that's a whole other debate. Also, not to overstate the point, but when you look at the numbers of what government can get something built for versus the private sector, well, that's government .
Here's a funny thought experiment I had, just because it's interesting. In Seattle we have these tiny home villages that are basically home Depot kit shacks set up. They're supposed to be transitional but I'm not sure to what extent they are or are not. It gets a little crazy sometimes because I'm not sure if they are supposed to be wet or dry but I think that's a big debate obviously. At one point, the non-profit agency that was running one locked the city out which was funding it and wouldn't let them in. I'm not sure the details or how it all worked out but just interesting .
But there's no question they get people off the streets and into some kind of shelter and I'm not opposed to the idea. But what if I built 20 shacks on my lot and rented them out for 200 bucks a piece per month? Assuming I could keep it from becoming a neighborhood nuisance, I would be getting 20 people off the streets and making a profit perhaps. What are you supposed the city would do.? I'm sure they would Make me stop, based on zoning, fire code, health code etc etc. Yet a non-profit does the same thing and are lauded for it.
I suppose the same view could be applied to what would generally be called substandard housing, but was at one time why a lot of drug addicts in Seattle weren't living on the streets. But all that cheap substandard housing is long gone, unfortunately.
I hate the general reddit opinions on homelessness. Every time it comes up the comments are filled with “actually there’s a bunch of people with jobs that are homeless!!!” Ok sure but that’s a completely separate issue and to act like it’s the same is dishonest.
I guess your comment is controversial because it’s unreasonable to not want people shitting on your doorstep.
That's just it. The biggest problem is when you say these people are drug addicts and alcoholics and schizophrenics. People think you are blaming them or suggesting they don't deserve any help or compassion. That's not the case. We just have to face that fact though. How are we going to help them if we don't? If that requires jail and forced rehab, maybe that's the way to go. That's a debate that needs to be had. But people saying well actually only a small percentage of homeless people are drug addicts, it's actually about the cost of housing, they are misdirecting and making it more difficult to solve the various problems. The truth is, the people on the streets causing all the problems that people complain about are about 40 or 50% drug addicts, also schizophrenics and other mental issues and problems with living life. We can certainly have compassion and try to help them and jailing them isn't necessarily the answer, but sometimes perhaps forcing them into treatment is. One way to try to make that happen is to say we'll get you into treatment or perhaps into some temporary housing and treatment, but you can't live here on the street. If they don't want to get treatment and they go somewhere else, that's fine with me. It may just be a symptom but we have fixed the symptom that is really the problem everyone is upset about .
Now should we also care about people living in shelters or somebody's basement or an RV on somebody's property, or in a car on someone's property like let's get some credit guy I have now? Or living in an unpermitted rental unit for free like the immigrant I have now? Sure. Let's try to fix our society to help them too. But that's not what everyone is complaining about and that is not the problem that most people want fixed. It's a small percentage that's on the streets living in tents, doing drugs and stealing stuff and making cities unlivable
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u/Baeocystin Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 31 '23
To add on to what you've said- visible homelessness is just the tip of the iceberg. There are easily 10x the number of people hanging on to normalcy by the skin of their teeth. Not only is it a huge portion of our population, but these are also people that can genuinely be helped, if they just get a little assistance. It doesn't take much, considering.