7 ms·

Having been lucky enough to grow up in Western Europe, in a “socialist” democracy, I’ve read a lot about the state of poverty in the US and been shocked by visi

• ido 7y ago
  You don’t need to go to America for that - I live in Berlin and visit SF on occasion and didn’t get the impression there are more homeless people in the latter (nor that it is dirtier).
  • ben_w 7y ago
    I also live in Berlin and occasionally visit SF. The homeless present differently, as does the dirt. In Berlin there is more graffiti, but the homeless can make money picking up glass and plastic bottles for the Pfandgeld. (And as an Auslander, finding spent blanks everywhere after New Year was a big schock).
  • DanielleMolloy 7y ago
    I remember leaving the subway for downtown SF, at Union Square for the very first time. My first impression of SF was playing slalom with all the homeless people right on the street. I've been living in southern SF for four months and often saw a saddening amount of poverty that most people just seemed to ignore. I also regularly saw homeless people that were so mentally ill that they appeared very dangerous (especially for a female). Berlin's homeless people become most visible when they enter the subway to politely tell their story and let people know why they need to beg for money. In terms of danger the organized beggar-robber gang type (which are not really homeless people) may be on the rise, but this is no comparison to what could be seen in SF. While there is the occasional lunatic you have to avoid, you usually just feel pity for Berlin's homeless people. There is also, without doubt a relatively stronger social net that can catch more of these human beings. You may also want to check out www.crimemapping.com for more "cultural differences".
• hyperman1 7y ago
  Welcome to Belgium, Europe. Our Library doubles as a homeless shelter too. Shelter shortage.
  • spanxx 7y ago
    I'm not sure about other European countries, as I live in Spain. Here the situation is different. NGOs and the Catholic Church maintain a network or homeless shelters were people are fed and can sleep for free. The government subsidize these organizations instead of focusing on solving this problem itself.
• michaelvoz 7y ago
  And who are you to dictate what "needs to stop"? This is not tumblr. Your language and tone are not productive. Please suggest solutions and have a civil discussion! Perhaps I'll start: I think this is tragic but the average American feels totally powerless to help. In San Francisco the homeless are almost all mentally ill, often dangerous, people from other states. My suggestion would be to pool money from all cities they come from and fund homeless programs outside of SF, outside of metropolitan areas. Then, transfer the homeless there and give them another chance to restart and get the help they need outside of a revolving door urban environment.
• sandworm101 7y ago
  It gets worse. In my days as an attorney i had contact with people who arent allowed into public libraries. Think being homeless is bad, have pitty for those homeless also convicted of certain crimes. Many shall never again be allowed near a school, park, library or recreation center. They live under bridges without the option of visiting such friendly places. It is easy to help the innocent. Real charity comes when asked to help someone you may hate.
  • michaelvoz 7y ago
    Maybe they should not have committed those crimes. Or are you suggesting they are unfairly punished?
    • Sharlin 7y ago
      Yes, that sort of indefinite exclusion from public locations is certainly unfair. "Cruel and unusual", even, from a Western European perspective anyway.
    • sandworm101 7y ago
      People who have commit crimes are still people. Homelessness should not be used or seen as a valid punishment.
      • michaelvoz 7y ago
        Homelessness is not their punishment. Not being allowed in libraries, schools, etc, is.
        • sandworm101 7y ago
          Homelessness is used as punishment: https://youtu.be/vP0gTksLU8g https://youtu.be/vP0gTksLU8g https://youtu.be/852ZyRIPdjI https://youtu.be/852ZyRIPdjI
          • michaelvoz 7y ago
• luckylion 7y ago
  > it is inconceivable in Western Europe that homelessness would be tolerated near a national monument There are two options for that: a) solve homelessness b) send in the police to make sure the homeless stay where you can't see them. I don't know about other Western European countries, but neither is done in Germany. You will see homeless people in Berlin near monuments. Maybe Berlin is an exception, but I have some doubts. > Given it’s an extremely wealthy country I always have huge problems with statements like these. What makes a country wealthy? The size of the federal budget? The amount of debt? The private wealth of the median citizen? The number of billionaires? And even if you find a country to be wealthy while having social issues - how much should it invest, and how should it prioritize, and who should be paying the extra taxes, or which other parts of the budget do you want to reduce? I don't believe in the "wealthy country" meme in a "look, you have lots of money, why don't you just buy a new pair of pants" way. > The only discussion should be “how do we fix this?” I'm certain that nobody sits there and says "Listen, we must not fix this, otherwise we lose our edge". It's just hard to fix. You can temporarily make homelessness disappear by simply throwing money at it, but you won't solve it. Homelessness in general isn't so much a financial problem as it's a mix of mental health, drug abuse, bureaucracy, broken housing markets and certainly many more factors.
• cbnotfromthere 7y ago
  Having been lucky enough to grow up in Western Europe, in a “socialist” democracy, Neither Switzerland nor the UK have ever been a socialist / "socialist" democracy. Your claim is factually untrue and surprisingly bizarre. "I’ve read a lot about the state of poverty in the US and been shocked by visits to San Francisco and Washington to see so many homeless people." Cities long under administration of the left.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• keiferski 7y ago
  The homeless problems in America have absolutely nothing to do with “survival of the fittest” and your comment is nothing but stereotypes. US cities spend massive amounts of money on social issues and the US is in fact the world leader in terms of donations as a percentage of GDP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitable_donation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitabl... The homeless problem is mostly attributable to laws in the 70s and 80s which released mentally ill patients from hospitals and prevented their future incarceration.
  • frostburg 7y ago
    The US also spends a lot of money on healthcare, but it doesn't really work, because the model is flawed.
    • keiferski 7y ago
      Yes well that means that the system is broken, not that Americans have some sort of “too bad, the weak should die” mentality (as the OP suggested.)
      • ben_w 7y ago
        The “too bad, the weak should die” mentality is, unfortunately, very much the impression I get whenever discussing healthcare with Americans. It’s easy (availability heuristic) to forget this says more about the sort of Americans who are likely to engage in discussion about healthcare than about Americans as a whole.
        • war1025 7y ago
          The main thing I've noticed, as someone who works at a company too small to have cheap insurance and is too well off to get subsidized insurance, is that people who work for big companies genuinely don't think health insurance is a problem in America because their employer is able to get bulk plans where they are paying something like $100 a month out of pocket for absolutely amazing coverage. Then you have the people who used to have great coverage, but it's slowly gotten less good and more expensive over time. They are mainly worried about doing something that will make the problem even worse. Then you have people like me, who are paying ridiculous money for what is basically "catastrophic" insurance, and like to complain loudly any chance we get, mostly on deaf ears because people hope the problem won't come their way if they just ignore it and carry on.
• mythrwy 7y ago
  It is shocking and I agree with most of your sentiment. I'm not sure the issue is "survival of the fittest" mentality though. I think it may be more the idea a person is an individual and can do as they please. That idea is deeply ingrained in America like it's not in many parts of the world, including Europe. The actual laws sometimes don't reflect the idea (for example the draconian laws on drug use vs massive amounts of drug use that actually occurs on the ground in the USA). It's an idea I agree with, and it has some serious benefits in terms of productive capacity and potential for achievement, but taken to extremes, the idea manifests in some pretty ugly ways. It's not that there isn't help for the homeless, more that no one is enforcing help or otherwise structuring life for people. Add to this the pursuit of wealth by whatever means necessary destroys community and aggravates the situations that produce homelessness. I'd also like to point out America is indeed a land of immigrants. Many of these have been from the lower or disadvantaged classes or otherwise people who just didn't fit in with their previous societies. Much of the time they did indeed achieve a better life for their children but sometimes the generational cycle of irresponsibility and squalid behavior didn't disappear upon touching down on new shores. Just my theories. Not sure of accuracy. But it is a shocking state of affairs and shouldn't be as it is.
• salthound 7y ago
  > it is inconceivable in Western Europe that homelessness would be tolerated near a national monument. Name the country. I have lived in many cities and towns across Europe. I know that homelessness is tolerated one street down from Edinburgh castle, next to the parliament building in Budapest, in front of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, in the stations of Rome, and don't even get me started on Brussels.
  • DanielleMolloy 7y ago
    So have you been to San Francisco or other big US cities..? A typical discussion you would have with other expats there was right what the post said: That the degree of homelessness and its ignorance are shocking. These European cities you name are no comparison to SF. Brussels is known to be one of the more shoddy, dangerous places in Europe, I've been there very recently (i.e. even with many refugees who have fallen out of the system on the street) and it still did not compare to the degree of homelessness that can be seen in SF. I have yet to find a whole downtown street full of homeless people in Europe.