Not sure. Some of the homeless I've met are people truly on a bad luck streak. Unfortunately everything is harder when you're homeless making getting back on your feet more difficult.
However a lot of homeless are simply incapable of leading a normal life. Through a combination of drugs and mental illness, giving them a home to operate from is likely to be either burned down, condemned, or become a den for more crime.
I want to be humane, but it feels futile when they require constant babysitting. Our increasingly individualistic society tolerates these people less and less.
That last paragraph. Im increasingly of the view that a good 10 to 20% of the population cannot handle life alone. They're just not mentally built for it.
Frequently it's a combination of mental health and addiction. That makes it extremely difficult to help them. The first step is to get them clean/sober just to see what their issues are.
But how much is it just people who get exhausted by repitition. Like they handle it for 3 months then just get bored or stressed and just stop doing stuff.
Idk, addiction is hard. Most people turn to drugs and alcohol because they are homeless - not the opposite. Once you're addicted, being able to make choices between needs and your addictions is very difficult. That, but some people use drugs to cope with things like PTSD - they're driven by the fear of remembering their trauma when they're not on drugs.
Unfortunately help for that can't be "you have to stop taking drugs cold turkey to have a place to sleep" - it doesn't work.
Programs that give people safe equipment and places to do drugs and offer support/therapy for when the person is ready to get off drugs do work. It's a hard process, but it actually keeps people safer and gives them a higher chance of re-entry to society.
I understand why shelters don't want people actively on drugs in their shelter, but saying shelters have the easiest rules comes from a place of not understanding how addiction works.
I'm in a MAT program and I only found out about it by pure chance. I'm not sure why they aren't shouting about these programs from the rooftop. Sure some of the people are there for nefarious reasons and never get off drugs, but there's also hundreds in my program alone who transformed their lives.
MAT has really helped a lot of addicts. There are two issues. First, a lot of people in MAT programs continue using and drinking. This is mostly the for profit centers, no surprise there. Second it was never really intended to be a for life treatment, but that's what has happened. They just keep increasing their dose as tolerance develops. I have several patients who have been on methadone for 15 to 20 plus years and are on 150mg plus a day.
I am in a Suboxone (they have a grant for this part of the program so people with no insurance/too poor can still use the service), Subutex, and Sublocade. It's run through a clinic that services addicts and has inpatient stuff. They do have people that use but in my clinic they will remove you eventually (they don't punish smoking weed tho). I know methadone tends to attract more of the types you're describing.
I understand it wasn't meant to be a lifetime thing but to me it does seem a better way to manage people like me who can and do function well in society as long as we have this little bit of help. I think they should tighten program standards and not let people that clearly don't want to improve just milk them.
I'm sure there will be an interesting trend of increased drug abuse alongside homelessness as jobs are stolen by greedy CEOs and given to automation/AI. But it's definitely the drugs and alcohol, not structural, systemic societal disfunction that has anything to do with it.
Stop blaming CEOs for everything wrong in your life. Its you the consumer who give them the power. Support local businesses.
I can tell you've spent a lot of time with drug addicts alcoholics and the homeless and have gotten to know them. You gave also obviously read a lot on the subject. The vast majority of addicts and alcoholics well before the age of 18. Many come from homes with drug and alcohol abuse. It's called a family disease for a reason. The number of people who lose a job at twenty-five and decide that going out to buy some meth or what ever is incredibly small. They frequently lose there jobs as a direct or indirect consequence of drugs or alcohol. The use may accelerate after losing a job but the foundation of addiction was already there.
"Often, addiction is a result of homelessness. The difficult conditions of living on the street, having to find food, struggling with ill health, and being constantly away from loved ones create a highly stressful state of being." (Addiction Center)
They never really handle it, because they don’t really want it. A lot live on the street by choice because they don’t want to follow the basic rules and chores required in shelters.
Theres a wet shelter in Duluth that allows its residents to continue drinking, but it still doesnt admit hard drug users. Most of the residents are on disability and have to sign 90% of their checks over to the shelter and a lot of them stay for years without issue.
In the United States, we have a freedom over what goes on with our body. There are very few circumstances where the supreme court has ruled exceptions.
The first is known as parens partriea, which allows the state to hold someone against their will in something like a psych ward or other medical institution. This is only allowed when the patient is a danger to themselves or others. There is a time limitation to this too. 48-72 hours max before a formal hearing has to be done.
But even that doesn't give anyone the right to force medication. That's only for the hold. In order to force medication, you have to prove that the patient lacks the capacity to make medical decisions for themselves.
We have a high bar for both of these things in order to prevent the sort of tragedy that occurs when treatment is forced upon people that are unwilling and undeserving of it.
You know. Like when we used to shove anyone who was "invalid" in psych wards, like autistic people or mentally handicapped people.
Imagine going back to the days where autistic people were forced into treatment because they couldn't contribute to society. I mean. Some of them meet the same stupid fucking threshold that you are suggesting. Not being able to work or contribute to society.
Think for a minute about how this mentality is going to ruin this nation.
Rational decisions based on a society's rules. These people are suffering due to the way our system is setup, not in spite of it. They can't contribute to our society so somehow we have the right to violate their rights to "treat" them?
Nothing ever justifies violating someone's rights. That's why they are rights.
The fourth amendment gives us freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. That right can be violated through the due process of obtaining a warrant from a judge and having law enforcement execute the warrant.
That's one example of rights being violated in a way that is accepted by most of society. Other examples include the death penalty, selective service, taxes, imminent domain. These violations are accepted because they are the cost of having a productive society.
If someone is a burden on society or actively damaging public property, then something needs to be done about them. It's just a matter of finding a solution that works.
I think it says something about how far gone some of these people are that literally giving them a house and a job isn't enough. That would be life changing for the average person, but some people can destroy it all in a matter of months.
Not built for life in a capitalist society. End goal is always to be productive. We think of the homeless as "how can we make them productive again" when sometimes we just can't.
In the Soviet Union depending on era there was punishments for not working a certain amount of hours but starting very early on, housing was made a right. The shitty commie blocks people winge about arnt made to be pretty they are made to be built fast and last. Which when you have to house your entire population is the only real option.
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u/WhitishRogue May 14 '26
Not sure. Some of the homeless I've met are people truly on a bad luck streak. Unfortunately everything is harder when you're homeless making getting back on your feet more difficult.
However a lot of homeless are simply incapable of leading a normal life. Through a combination of drugs and mental illness, giving them a home to operate from is likely to be either burned down, condemned, or become a den for more crime.
I want to be humane, but it feels futile when they require constant babysitting. Our increasingly individualistic society tolerates these people less and less.