5 ms·

Right. Just because you something makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean someone should be arrested for it. Criminalizing homelessness and poverty is not a h

Right. Just because you something makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean someone should be arrested for it. Criminalizing homelessness and poverty is not a humane solution and we already have laws for actual crimes.

wahern 8y ago
Neither is a permissive attitude that leaves the homeless, primarily the mentally ill and hard core drug addicts in the SF case, to literally rot on the streets. Fairness and justice do not require relinquishing all expectations of socially normative behavior. There are plenty of freedom utopias around the world where libertarians can live tax free and nonconformists can escape the bondage of community morals, but few of them are places people _choose_ to live.
- hellllllllooo 8y ago
  > Neither is a permissive attitude that leaves the homeless, primarily the mentally ill and hard core drug addicts in the SF case, to literally rot on the streets. No, I'd invest in helping them with the wealth in SF rather than criminalizing people for trying to survive. 60% of the city agreed by voting for Prop C.
  - mc32 8y ago
    Homelessness is an important and complicated issue. I wish we had a national program to manage it. Distribute funds to where the homeless have spent the most time over the last 20% of their time (to avoid “shopping”. That said help is different from ensuring they’re not disturbing the lives of the productive people (who they might rejoin one day).
  - wahern 8y ago
    60% of the city voted to throw more money at the problem hoping it'll go away, money that was easier to part with than certain zoning ordinances, prosecutorial rules, social programs, and other policy choices. Do you work with the homeless? I have a family memory who does, busing to and from 6th & Howard every day. Do you know what's actually going on out there? A neighbor's daughters lives on the streets, willingly. Every affordance is continually made available to her, but she's incapable of pulling herself away and there are no longer any forms of legal coercion available. Shooting up on the streets everyday and literally, physically wasting away is not only acceptable to the community but justified. Real, immediate human suffering is excused in the name of abstract, perverted principles and self-serving indignation. The city spends more than $40,000/yr per homeless person, a sum that has been rapidly increasing for a decade. No city spends more money on the homeless than SF. The reality is that if you're actually homeless and living on the streets you can and will get permanent housing in a matter of months if not weeks, provided you're willing to make an effort at rehab. The intransigence of street homelessness is at this point a deeply structural issue--medically, legally, politically. It has almost nothing to do with money. The affordability crisis is largely borne by those struggling to get by, sharing accommodations or living in vehicles--nominally functional citizens who aren't shooting up and defecating in the streets. Because providing services to the street homeless and housed addicts is priority #1, #2, and #3 at City Hall, everybody else is effectively locked out of housing assistance. And while more money could help these people (and hopefully will), you'd have to actively direct it away from existing street homeless programs. Without reforms that permit and demand the community to coerce treatment for mental illness and drug addiction, no amount of additional funds for street homelessness is going to substantially change things.
    - hellllllllooo 8y ago
      > The city spends more than $40,000/yr per homeless person, That's an absurd myth. The city spends about ~$3,800 per person per year. Or $10.41 a day. Your story is based on incorrect data. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Businesses-must-contribute-more-to-city-s-13178743.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Bu...
      - zdragnar 8y ago
        I wish that article wasn't quite so one-sided. It mentions that 2/3 of 250m of its budget goes towards subsidising or outright housing people, but how many? I.e. if that money went away, how many more homeless would there be? I would imagine that would be a better argument than countering with a different number, since it would actually speak to the effectiveness of their budget. Or, show the budget to be not very effective, though I doubt that to be the case.
        hellllllllooo 8y ago
        Agreed but it does counter the 40k per person number quite effectivly and, to your point, shows that spending money does actually help some people to not be homeless, which were two big points in the previous comenters thesis beyond the anecdotes.

wahern 8y ago

Neither is a permissive attitude that leaves the homeless, primarily the mentally ill and hard core drug addicts in the SF case, to literally rot on the streets. Fairness and justice do not require relinquishing all expectations of socially normative behavior. There are plenty of freedom utopias around the world where libertarians can live tax free and nonconformists can escape the bondage of community morals, but few of them are places people _choose_ to live.

hellllllllooo 8y ago
> Neither is a permissive attitude that leaves the homeless, primarily the mentally ill and hard core drug addicts in the SF case, to literally rot on the streets. No, I'd invest in helping them with the wealth in SF rather than criminalizing people for trying to survive. 60% of the city agreed by voting for Prop C.
- mc32 8y ago
  Homelessness is an important and complicated issue. I wish we had a national program to manage it. Distribute funds to where the homeless have spent the most time over the last 20% of their time (to avoid “shopping”. That said help is different from ensuring they’re not disturbing the lives of the productive people (who they might rejoin one day).
- wahern 8y ago
  60% of the city voted to throw more money at the problem hoping it'll go away, money that was easier to part with than certain zoning ordinances, prosecutorial rules, social programs, and other policy choices. Do you work with the homeless? I have a family memory who does, busing to and from 6th & Howard every day. Do you know what's actually going on out there? A neighbor's daughters lives on the streets, willingly. Every affordance is continually made available to her, but she's incapable of pulling herself away and there are no longer any forms of legal coercion available. Shooting up on the streets everyday and literally, physically wasting away is not only acceptable to the community but justified. Real, immediate human suffering is excused in the name of abstract, perverted principles and self-serving indignation. The city spends more than $40,000/yr per homeless person, a sum that has been rapidly increasing for a decade. No city spends more money on the homeless than SF. The reality is that if you're actually homeless and living on the streets you can and will get permanent housing in a matter of months if not weeks, provided you're willing to make an effort at rehab. The intransigence of street homelessness is at this point a deeply structural issue--medically, legally, politically. It has almost nothing to do with money. The affordability crisis is largely borne by those struggling to get by, sharing accommodations or living in vehicles--nominally functional citizens who aren't shooting up and defecating in the streets. Because providing services to the street homeless and housed addicts is priority #1, #2, and #3 at City Hall, everybody else is effectively locked out of housing assistance. And while more money could help these people (and hopefully will), you'd have to actively direct it away from existing street homeless programs. Without reforms that permit and demand the community to coerce treatment for mental illness and drug addiction, no amount of additional funds for street homelessness is going to substantially change things.
  - hellllllllooo 8y ago
    > The city spends more than $40,000/yr per homeless person, That's an absurd myth. The city spends about ~$3,800 per person per year. Or $10.41 a day. Your story is based on incorrect data. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Businesses-must-contribute-more-to-city-s-13178743.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Bu...
    - zdragnar 8y ago
      I wish that article wasn't quite so one-sided. It mentions that 2/3 of 250m of its budget goes towards subsidising or outright housing people, but how many? I.e. if that money went away, how many more homeless would there be? I would imagine that would be a better argument than countering with a different number, since it would actually speak to the effectiveness of their budget. Or, show the budget to be not very effective, though I doubt that to be the case.
      - hellllllllooo 8y ago
        Agreed but it does counter the 40k per person number quite effectivly and, to your point, shows that spending money does actually help some people to not be homeless, which were two big points in the previous comenters thesis beyond the anecdotes.