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Homeless congregate in downtowns because it gives the most profitable begging revenue. Homeless populations are also surprisingly small, something like %0.5 or
by mahyarm 11y ago
Homeless congregate in downtowns because it gives the most profitable begging revenue. Homeless populations are also surprisingly small, something like %0.5 or less of the population of a metro area. And then on top of that, most homeless people aren't crazy people who shit on sidewalks. It only takes a few hundred crazy homeless to make a downtown core horrible.
They exist because there isn't mental health funding to house and manage them. It's a tragedy of the commons problem.
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoI don't think that's a tragedy of the commons. There's no rational self-interest in people who would rather walk past human misery every day than put a extra couple of dollars towards alleviating it. As you say, proper, civilized mental health funding could go a long way towards fixing this problem; even just funding for public restrooms with full-time attendants would help; but we can't get it. It's hard to put that down to anything other than self-absorbed callousness.
- mahyarm 11y agoI should of added more detail. Any place that offers some semblance of mental health and homeless services gets everyone else's homeless shipped to them, or they just start coming themselves. You need a federal level mental health program that houses and manages homeless, but it's expensive, and these people are the hard cases, often with little hope of recovery.