I don’t know what the solution is but it isn’t the status quo. A lot of the west coast cities are having a disproportionate problem with homeless. It’s not clear if people are bussing their homeless or the housing prices or what.
The amount of trash generated by these homeless camps is nuts and ruins virtually every public space. In Portland, it is common to find hypodermic needles littered in the parks. You’ll walk past people on the sidewalk passed out with a needle in their arm or actively doing drugs. Human excrement on the sidewalk. I wish I had some solution but the current situation sucks for everyone.
A lot of the west coast cities are having a disproportionate problem with homeless.
Prices go up, rents go up, wages stay flat.
Oops! Where did all the homeless people come from?!
The amount of trash generated by these homeless camps is nuts and ruins virtually every public space.
We live in a society of disposable things, but we don’t provide homeless people with trash service.
You don’t see the trash you generate, because the city carts it away. Homeless people are forced to live in their own squalor because the city doesn’t cart it away.
It’s far more complicated than that for many of the homeless. A really high proportion have chronic mental health problems like schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder. These people cannot maintain even a basic apartment. Fires are common. As are faeces smeared on the walls, major structural damage, dead animals, bullet holes and use of firearms inside the premises. Throwing a mentally unwell person into a home to fend for themselves doesn’t work. The mental health treatment has to come first. It can take months, if not years, to help them out of their hole.
Another significant portion of the homeless have chronic addiction. In addiction treatment, we say that “a locking door is a death sentence” because the LAST thing you want is to give a junky unsupervised privacy to shoot up as often as they like. Apartments often turn into local hubs for dealing and sex work. This attracts all kinds of unsavory characters and crime - especially violent crime. You don’t want to know what a junky would be willing to do to get a fix. A major part of this problem is called “destigmatization.” This is a great documentary on how it has so thoroughly failed in Vancouver, specifically.
Both groups require intensive support before being given housing. Not after and not at the same time.
No. Housing comes first. You cannot treat mental health or addiction while the patient is experiencing the inhumane conditions of homelessness.
the LAST thing you want is to give a junky unsupervised privacy to shoot up as often as they like. Apartments often turn into local hubs for dealing and sex work. This attracts all kinds of unsavory characters and crime
So you think the streets are better? Believe it or not, all this still happens on the street, except now there is no guarantee of food, shelter, safety, or property. I’m sure the constant threat of starvation, death by exposure, getting robbed, or being sexually assaulted is really beneficial to mental health. Do you really think being on the street stops addicts from using as much as they want? No privacy on the street? These people are already invisible. And no, if you don’t have a door that locks, you don’t become immune to overdosing.
Gonna risk going a bit against the grain here…
I have a lot of empathy for their situation.
I don’t know what the solution is but it isn’t the status quo. A lot of the west coast cities are having a disproportionate problem with homeless. It’s not clear if people are bussing their homeless or the housing prices or what.
The amount of trash generated by these homeless camps is nuts and ruins virtually every public space. In Portland, it is common to find hypodermic needles littered in the parks. You’ll walk past people on the sidewalk passed out with a needle in their arm or actively doing drugs. Human excrement on the sidewalk. I wish I had some solution but the current situation sucks for everyone.
Prices go up, rents go up, wages stay flat.
Oops! Where did all the homeless people come from?!
We live in a society of disposable things, but we don’t provide homeless people with trash service.
You don’t see the trash you generate, because the city carts it away. Homeless people are forced to live in their own squalor because the city doesn’t cart it away.
Give them homes. That’s the solution. It’s actually that simple.
It’s far more complicated than that for many of the homeless. A really high proportion have chronic mental health problems like schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder. These people cannot maintain even a basic apartment. Fires are common. As are faeces smeared on the walls, major structural damage, dead animals, bullet holes and use of firearms inside the premises. Throwing a mentally unwell person into a home to fend for themselves doesn’t work. The mental health treatment has to come first. It can take months, if not years, to help them out of their hole.
Another significant portion of the homeless have chronic addiction. In addiction treatment, we say that “a locking door is a death sentence” because the LAST thing you want is to give a junky unsupervised privacy to shoot up as often as they like. Apartments often turn into local hubs for dealing and sex work. This attracts all kinds of unsavory characters and crime - especially violent crime. You don’t want to know what a junky would be willing to do to get a fix. A major part of this problem is called “destigmatization.” This is a great documentary on how it has so thoroughly failed in Vancouver, specifically.
Both groups require intensive support before being given housing. Not after and not at the same time.
No. Housing comes first. You cannot treat mental health or addiction while the patient is experiencing the inhumane conditions of homelessness.
So you think the streets are better? Believe it or not, all this still happens on the street, except now there is no guarantee of food, shelter, safety, or property. I’m sure the constant threat of starvation, death by exposure, getting robbed, or being sexually assaulted is really beneficial to mental health. Do you really think being on the street stops addicts from using as much as they want? No privacy on the street? These people are already invisible. And no, if you don’t have a door that locks, you don’t become immune to overdosing.
Shameful.