4 ms·

Anyone think it’s not just the cost of housing driving this but largely driven by meth and heroin and mental illness? The visibly homeless people I see on the s

Anyone think it’s not just the cost of housing driving this but largely driven by meth and heroin and mental illness? The visibly homeless people I see on the sides of the road in tents in California aren’t just becoming homeless due to a rent increase—-their drug addiction and lack of treatment for mental illness are the bigger issues. Lack of universal healthcare means if you’re poor and mentally ill, you can easily end up on the street if you don’t have family to care for you. Since Prop 47 passed, heroin and meth are basically decriminalized and openly used on the streets in front of police. Likewise, Prop 57 decriminalized theft up to $950/day so now we have an epidemic of car break ins and theft from stores and no real police response. So I think the people we see on the streets would have been in prison before prop 47 and 57 passed. We definitely need more public housing and to build more houses, but I truly think meth and heroin are the elephant in the room that we aren’t addressing. We just keep giving out needles and don’t even arrest the dealers. It’s insanity.

scarface74 7y ago
I’m torn about this. While nothing good ever came out of drug abuse, even less good comes out of giving the government more power and the “War on Drugs”. I’m okay with decriminalizing drug use but not property crime.
epistasis 7y ago
It's a mistake to conflate the highly visible homeless with unhoused people in general. For every highly visible homeless person there are probably a dozen that try to keep out of sight. And I would also point out that it's far far easier to fall into drug addiction, and for mental health issues to take over, when somebody doesn't have housing or their basic needs met. When you lose your apartment because you can't pay rent and an unexpected expense has tapped all your money, you look to all the resources you can to survive. Maybe you start couch surfing, but eventually you exhaust all your friends. Then when you're on the street, and it's clear that you're unsafe, maybe you look to new groups to hell get by. In that setting, starting down the pa Th if heroin is far easier than when you're working long hours and struggling to make rent. The path from working a job to ending up in a tent in a visible area doesn't happen overnight. It's a long path. And there's a huge amount of flus of people I to and out of homelessness. The counts they do are a point in time, and don't count the much larger number of people that become homeless then figure out how to get out or get assistance.
KirinDave 7y ago
If you're only going by visual indicators then you're going to get a terribly skewed sample. In most municipalities it's illegal to be publicly homeless for any length of time. So all you're going to see is folks living in defiance of those regulations. A homeless family trying to keep their kids warm and fed is not going to risk being sucked into the prison labor racket if they can possibly avoid it.
- diogenescynic 7y ago
  They’re clearly not arresting people just for being homeless. Don’t know what you’re talking about, at all.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    They're absolutely arresting people and confiscating their property if they're settling in urban areas. Most major cities regularly bust up "homeless camps". If the police run you out of any place you try to sleep and arrest you if they see you three times in a week, they're arresting you for being homeless, regardless of any specific law they're citing.
umvi 7y ago
> Likewise, Prop 57 decriminalized theft up to $950/day so now we have an epidemic of car break ins and theft from stores and no real police response This seems insane! $950 is huge, you could fill up a cart with 3 months worth of groceries for less than half of that amount. I'm guessing this means your average Californian has to pay much higher grocery prices in order to cover the costs of loss?
- ericmay 7y ago
  It might have reclassified those thefts from felonies to misdemeanors. https://www.courts.ca.gov/prop47.htm https://www.courts.ca.gov/prop47.htm Idk if it’s the news or what but California seems to be turning into a bureaucratic nightmare. I don’t think more housing (OP) solves much of the issues that California has either.
0xB31B1B 7y ago
The visibly homeless are like 1/4 of the homeless population. Most homeless people live in their cars, sleep on a rotating series of friends couches, or find a situation that allows them to get by, and they are homeless for less than a year. For example 10% of college students in California are homeless and for the most part they’re not crazy drug addicts.
- diogenescynic 7y ago
  >and they are homeless for less than a year. Right, there are different causes and durations of homelessness. I definitely realize the group you’re talking about exist, but like you acknowledge and from what I’ve read those are the temporary homeless who often either relocate or get subdivided housing. This is the group that social services are actually doing well at helping. I’m really just talking about the other group that seems to be exponentially growing in population and is a massive problem related to drug addiction that people want to avoid talking about. Worse, the laws are actively enabling their addictions. Society is just waiting for them to OD and die. I think it’s just an awful status quo that I’ve never seen in any other developed country.
jakemauer 7y ago
Do you have evidence of the $950 figure? I read through prop 57 and it concerns parole boards allowing non violent offenders to be released after they fully complete their initial sentence for the primary crime. From Wikipedia: “ Previously, prisoners were often required to serve extra time by a sentence enhancement, such as those for repeated offenders.” Additionally it allows for juvenile judges to have leeway in deciding if a juvenile should be tried as an adult.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  It was Prop 47, not 57. Classifies theft of up to $950 as Petty Theft. https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-ff-pol-proposition47-20141106-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-ff-pol-proposit... https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_Penalties_for_Some_Crimes_Initiative_(2014) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_P...
- diogenescynic 7y ago
  https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_Penalties_for_Some_Crimes_Initiative_(2014) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_P... >The initiative reduced the classification of most nonviolent property and drug crimes—including theft and fraud for amounts up to $950—from a felony to a misdemeanor. Then read this to see the real world consequences: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/stealing-amazon-packages-age-nextdoor/598156/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/steal... Now you can just walk around stealing packages with virtually no consequences. SFPD all but refuses to cite for theft now.
baby 7y ago
I’m tired of this argument frankly, stop blaming these issues on mental illness.
- diogenescynic 7y ago
  I’m blaming it on our lack of response. If you’re mentally ill and can’t afford insurance, ongoing treatment and prescriptions, then what do you do? In every other country that’s not a problem they have.
  - baby 7y ago
    I blame mental illness on the lack of housing and healthcare. Who wouldn’t go crazy in this situation?

scarface74 7y ago

I’m torn about this. While nothing good ever came out of drug abuse, even less good comes out of giving the government more power and the “War on Drugs”. I’m okay with decriminalizing drug use but not property crime.

epistasis 7y ago

It's a mistake to conflate the highly visible homeless with unhoused people in general. For every highly visible homeless person there are probably a dozen that try to keep out of sight. And I would also point out that it's far far easier to fall into drug addiction, and for mental health issues to take over, when somebody doesn't have housing or their basic needs met. When you lose your apartment because you can't pay rent and an unexpected expense has tapped all your money, you look to all the resources you can to survive. Maybe you start couch surfing, but eventually you exhaust all your friends. Then when you're on the street, and it's clear that you're unsafe, maybe you look to new groups to hell get by. In that setting, starting down the pa Th if heroin is far easier than when you're working long hours and struggling to make rent. The path from working a job to ending up in a tent in a visible area doesn't happen overnight. It's a long path. And there's a huge amount of flus of people I to and out of homelessness. The counts they do are a point in time, and don't count the much larger number of people that become homeless then figure out how to get out or get assistance.

KirinDave 7y ago

If you're only going by visual indicators then you're going to get a terribly skewed sample. In most municipalities it's illegal to be publicly homeless for any length of time. So all you're going to see is folks living in defiance of those regulations. A homeless family trying to keep their kids warm and fed is not going to risk being sucked into the prison labor racket if they can possibly avoid it.

diogenescynic 7y ago
They’re clearly not arresting people just for being homeless. Don’t know what you’re talking about, at all.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  They're absolutely arresting people and confiscating their property if they're settling in urban areas. Most major cities regularly bust up "homeless camps". If the police run you out of any place you try to sleep and arrest you if they see you three times in a week, they're arresting you for being homeless, regardless of any specific law they're citing.

umvi 7y ago

> Likewise, Prop 57 decriminalized theft up to $950/day so now we have an epidemic of car break ins and theft from stores and no real police response This seems insane! $950 is huge, you could fill up a cart with 3 months worth of groceries for less than half of that amount. I'm guessing this means your average Californian has to pay much higher grocery prices in order to cover the costs of loss?

ericmay 7y ago
It might have reclassified those thefts from felonies to misdemeanors. https://www.courts.ca.gov/prop47.htm https://www.courts.ca.gov/prop47.htm Idk if it’s the news or what but California seems to be turning into a bureaucratic nightmare. I don’t think more housing (OP) solves much of the issues that California has either.

0xB31B1B 7y ago

The visibly homeless are like 1/4 of the homeless population. Most homeless people live in their cars, sleep on a rotating series of friends couches, or find a situation that allows them to get by, and they are homeless for less than a year. For example 10% of college students in California are homeless and for the most part they’re not crazy drug addicts.

diogenescynic 7y ago
>and they are homeless for less than a year. Right, there are different causes and durations of homelessness. I definitely realize the group you’re talking about exist, but like you acknowledge and from what I’ve read those are the temporary homeless who often either relocate or get subdivided housing. This is the group that social services are actually doing well at helping. I’m really just talking about the other group that seems to be exponentially growing in population and is a massive problem related to drug addiction that people want to avoid talking about. Worse, the laws are actively enabling their addictions. Society is just waiting for them to OD and die. I think it’s just an awful status quo that I’ve never seen in any other developed country.

jakemauer 7y ago

Do you have evidence of the $950 figure? I read through prop 57 and it concerns parole boards allowing non violent offenders to be released after they fully complete their initial sentence for the primary crime. From Wikipedia: “ Previously, prisoners were often required to serve extra time by a sentence enhancement, such as those for repeated offenders.” Additionally it allows for juvenile judges to have leeway in deciding if a juvenile should be tried as an adult.

WillPostForFood 7y ago
It was Prop 47, not 57. Classifies theft of up to $950 as Petty Theft. https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-ff-pol-proposition47-20141106-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-ff-pol-proposit... https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_Penalties_for_Some_Crimes_Initiative_(2014) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_P...
diogenescynic 7y ago
https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_Penalties_for_Some_Crimes_Initiative_(2014) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_P... >The initiative reduced the classification of most nonviolent property and drug crimes—including theft and fraud for amounts up to $950—from a felony to a misdemeanor. Then read this to see the real world consequences: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/stealing-amazon-packages-age-nextdoor/598156/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/steal... Now you can just walk around stealing packages with virtually no consequences. SFPD all but refuses to cite for theft now.

baby 7y ago

I’m tired of this argument frankly, stop blaming these issues on mental illness.

diogenescynic 7y ago
I’m blaming it on our lack of response. If you’re mentally ill and can’t afford insurance, ongoing treatment and prescriptions, then what do you do? In every other country that’s not a problem they have.
- baby 7y ago
  I blame mental illness on the lack of housing and healthcare. Who wouldn’t go crazy in this situation?