Homeless Folks

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Flubber
there seems to be a lot more of them

I think the key word here is seems They were there before. They were just invisible.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Kidicious

I find this post extremely offensive. Obviously you don't put yourself in the same situation and ask yourself how you would like to be treated.

Good it is supposed to shock people into finally getting treatment for their problems. San Francisco spent 40 years giving cash payments to homeless people and trying to talk them into going into treatment but found that approach didn't work. People used the money to buy more drugs and often became "long term homeless" or people who choose to remain on the streets instead of seeking treatment. The new approach originally used in LA and San Diego but now adopted in San Francisco as well is to make life extremely difficult for people on the street thus making continuing to be homeless impossible. Several homeless shelters are offered though people must take part in reabilitation programs if they want to stay. Its a tough love enviroment instead of the old enable system which means if they go back on drugs they get kicked out of the system for a period of time.

The goal is to force people to change and to provide them with the tools to do so. People who don't want to change normally will find the police harassment to much and will move some where else or will finally face their demons and enter treatment. One thing is for sure and that is simply giving cash and allowing drug addicts to live on the street is no longer allowed and that is a very positive thing.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


I think the key word here is seems They were there before. They were just invisible.

Actually

At lunch I was reading an article on the shelters and their numbers are up by about 20%. Since the economy is booming and should lead to less homlessness, not more, the obvious conclusion is that these folks moved in here from other neighborhoods

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DanS
There's a lot of homeless people in the US who live in their cars. Some even have jobs. I wouldn't guess that this kind of homelessness is due to drug abuse or mental illness.

But I don't think that's the kind of homelessness to which Oerdin was referring. It wasn't the kind about which I was talking.

Those type of people tend to be the "short term homeless" meaning they were living pay check to pay check and for some reason they couldn't make a rent payment so they're on the street. These people tend to stay a short period of time in a shelter, save up enough money to get an apartment, then get back on their feet. They're ahead of the "long term homeless" because they are employable and can hold a job. They just need a bit of short term help to bridge the gap.

The long term homeless are the big problem cases and they're the ones who cause most of the problems people associate with homelessness. They're the ones who are mentally ill or hopelessly addicted to drugs/alcohol.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Guys, can't you tell Space is just trolling?

Unless he's the next Bodd's or Wiglaf or something. Maybe the New Mexico sun is getting to him...

I think he's just discovering the world. Remember, after living his whole life in Alaska, he couldn't even conceive of water-scarcity (in the thread where he said he wanted a lawn).

I think many of his questions are actually similar to the questions that would be asked by children. Not that I think he's a ******, but that his real-world experience outside of Barrow is not much bigger to a child's real-world experience yet.

[Flubber]

Oerdin

I will agree that people just get comfortable in their lifestyle. They appear to accept it. I have seen the same guy on a street corner near my office for two years now. He is articulate and has a modest number of apparent possessions ( a game boy, a bicycle and a large quantity of clothes)

To outward appearances he seems totally competent to work so I frankly wonder why he does not. A shelter can get him get cleaned up and you don't need fancy clothes for industrial or construction jobs. Yet he is there day after day begging in his spot and smoking cigarette after cigarette.

I don't know why he is still there. Perhaps he has a stress disorder that makes him unable to handle work,. perhaps panhandling is lucrative enough that he couldn't be bothered to leave it. All I do know is that to an outsider he appears very fixed in his life. I wonder does he even TRY to get off the street anymore??

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Flubber

At lunch I was reading an article on the shelters and their numbers are up by about 20%. Since the economy is booming and should lead to less homlessness, not more, the obvious conclusion is that these folks moved in here from other neighborhoods

They've had this documented before out here in California as well. In fact one of the main reasons San Francisco changed its policy on homelessness was because the more generous the treatment was and the more the police looked the other way the larger the homeless population got. Many of the homeless are highly mobile since cities often force them to keep moving or be arrested for vagrency. Word gets around through the homeless community that such and such place offers more beds in a shelter, offers more meals per day, doesn't enfoce vagrency or loitering laws, or gives larger welfare payments and people migrate to take advantage of those resources.

In many ways that's a good thing as long as the end result is homeless people are transitioned off of the streets but if you are attracting long term homeless who don't want to solve the underlying issues which caused their homelessness then it is a bad thing. Cities need policies which help people transition off the streets but but which force the long term homeless to either deal with their issues or go some where else. Just fighting for a "right to be homeless" (as some well meaning but misguided people continue to do) doesn't help the long term homeless nor does it make communities safer.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Flubber
Also I don't advocate kicking people out of the park. A homeless person can stay there all day long if they aren't causing a disturbance or mess.

Why did you say that it's not offensive to you for Oerdin to propose harassing the homeless for just hanging out in the park?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Oerdin

. Cities need policies which help people transition off the streets but but which force the long term homeless to either deal with their issues or go some where else. .

If everyone institutes these policies then where do these people go?? Any given city can "ship them elsewhere" but what if everyone did that?


I just find it tragic that there is a disconnect in alberta in two respects:

1. apparent growing homlessness in the face of growing affluence

2. Joblessness in a province where there is a shortage of workers-- a friend of mine is in HR and they are scouring the country looking for tradesmen. Even Labour is tight. Sure its in Fort Mc Murray and there's the catch- they would probably need to pass an alcohol and/or drug test pre placement

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Those type of people tend to be the "short term homeless" meaning they were living pay check to pay check and for some reason they couldn't make a rent payment so they're on the street. These people tend to stay a short period of time in a shelter, save up enough money to get an apartment, then get back on their feet. They're ahead of the "long term homeless" because they are employable and can hold a job. They just need a bit of short term help to bridge the gap.

Are you just pulling this out of your ass? What happens when the registration runs out on their car and they get it taken away? How do they recieve phone calls from employers? What address do they put on the application? How do they find a place to rent with a gap in their rental history?

What makes you think it's so easy for people living in their car to get work and an apartment, especially in San Diego or San Francisco?

[Dinner]

When I was in college and living in Isla Vista, California (a small beach front college town outside of Santa Barbara, CA) we had a lot of homeless people in the neighborhood. Part of it was that the numerous local churches and the one synigog operated a homeless shelter in the nieghborhood but another part of it was college student activisits had aggitated for a "right to be homeless" where homeless people could live in one of the local parks without the police enforcing tresspassing, loitering, or vagrency laws.

The end result was that the park became unusable by the local tax payers who paid for the park, human waste & trash was every where since the one toilet and trash can wasn't enough for the sudden influx of homeless, and there were several fires in tents homeless people set up after they got drunk/high then passed out with a cigeratte. There were also problems with agressive pan handling and the final straw was when a homeless guy tried to rap and 18 year old girl but was stopped by passers by. After that the county government shut down "camp home sweet home" (as the homeless called it) due to health and sanitation reasons.

Most of the homeless there were people who had been homeless for a very long time. Guitar Dave lived in the parks and underbush of IV for 15 years before he finally died of a drug over dose. He used to play his guitar in front of one of the local liquor stores for years and years. He'd ask for change or a beer from college kids as they come out of the liquor store. He was a nice enough guy but he was hopelessly addicted to just about every drug under the sun and he had caught a number od deseases from sharing dirty needles.

Guitar Dave died during my senior year but I remember him and other homeless people in IV as a subject lesson of why we shouldn't tolerate drug addicted homeless people. They need treatment and a strong reason to finally come in off the street or else they'll continue to feed their addiction and continue to be homeless.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Why did you say that it's not offensive to you for Oerdin to propose harassing the homeless for just hanging out in the park?

hmm the thing you quoted before you found it all offensive proposed a two pronged policy of free treatment and help and a crackdown on infractions. I took from that that a person in a park would be free to stay there if they were breaking no laws.

In principle I'm not opposed to finding ways to make homelessness less "easy" IF AND ONLY IF you have alternatives to offer the people.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Are you just pulling this out of your ass? What happens when the registration runs out on their car and they get it taken away? How do they recieve phone calls from employers? What address do they put on the application? How do they find a place to rent with a gap in their rental history?

What makes you think it's so easy for people living in their car to get work and an apartment, especially in San Diego or San Francisco?

I think his scenario is people who HAVE a job but are without shelter for a time.

[Dinner]

http://www.outofthedoorways.org/news/santacruz.html

Article on Camp Home Sweet Home and Guitar Dave before he died. It's to bad these people wasted so much energy trying to create a legal right to let homeless drug addicts stay homeless when they could have helped treat people with drug addictions to help them get off the street. I voluntired to help serve meals at the homeless shelter 4-5 times over the years and everything I saw confirmed that these people had serious problems and needed tough love to over come them.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Flubber


If everyone institutes these policies then where do these people go?? Any given city can "ship them elsewhere" but what if everyone did that?

The point of this is to force people into free treatment. Obviously these people are the die hard cases since everyone else would have sought out treatment before becoming homeless or shortly there after. The soft touch isn't likely to work with these cases and they're going to need topugh love in order to convince them to turn their lives around.