2 ms·

Ever been to LA? Skid row?

albroland 7y ago
That's not a great example. There are incredible resources available in LA for medical care and housing support. The people on skid row are electing to not use them, and they cannot be compelled to use them. It's a mental health/drug issue. You can see a similar dynamic in NYC, where the city cannot turn you away from a shelter, and they've been spending hundreds of millions to put up homeless people in hotels for years. Yet still, there are thousands on the street. Not for a lack of option, but because they've specifically refused these services and outreach, and you cannot force them.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  That's not a mental health issue at all. If you ever visited a homeless shelter, you'd know they're only slightly better than prisons (sometimes even worse, as theft is common) and are definitely not good for transient homeless at all, while the ones with serious issues get kicked out. Shelter is not enough of help and rather terrible at fixing reasons for homelessness. In fact some of the rules in these seem designed to prevent job and house searching. If anything, the programs would have to be extended to allow most anyone to crash and not strip people of hope.
  - albroland 7y ago
    To be clear, we're talking about the people on skid row and in similar situations. I've volunteered extensively with BRC in NYC, I'm very familiar with the conditions of shelters in the US as well as the laws governing them. I'm very curious what rules you think are designed to prevent job searches: curfew? alcohol prohibition? no visitors? The ones who are refusing these services, the ones out in the streets, below the highways, sleeping on subway cars are almost all suffering from substantial mental health or addiction issues, and both the number of psychiatric beds and the ability to compel the sick into them has disappeared over time leaving them on the street. LA homeless outreach is quite extensive - not quite at the NYC level with right to shelter laws that are causing the enormous spillover into commercial hotels - but to compare the people on skid row to lower wage service workers who might find themselves unable to pay rent for two months is wildly disingenuous.

That's not a great example. There are incredible resources available in LA for medical care and housing support. The people on skid row are electing to not use them, and they cannot be compelled to use them. It's a mental health/drug issue. You can see a similar dynamic in NYC, where the city cannot turn you away from a shelter, and they've been spending hundreds of millions to put up homeless people in hotels for years. Yet still, there are thousands on the street. Not for a lack of option, but because they've specifically refused these services and outreach, and you cannot force them.

AstralStorm 7y ago
That's not a mental health issue at all. If you ever visited a homeless shelter, you'd know they're only slightly better than prisons (sometimes even worse, as theft is common) and are definitely not good for transient homeless at all, while the ones with serious issues get kicked out. Shelter is not enough of help and rather terrible at fixing reasons for homelessness. In fact some of the rules in these seem designed to prevent job and house searching. If anything, the programs would have to be extended to allow most anyone to crash and not strip people of hope.
- albroland 7y ago
  To be clear, we're talking about the people on skid row and in similar situations. I've volunteered extensively with BRC in NYC, I'm very familiar with the conditions of shelters in the US as well as the laws governing them. I'm very curious what rules you think are designed to prevent job searches: curfew? alcohol prohibition? no visitors? The ones who are refusing these services, the ones out in the streets, below the highways, sleeping on subway cars are almost all suffering from substantial mental health or addiction issues, and both the number of psychiatric beds and the ability to compel the sick into them has disappeared over time leaving them on the street. LA homeless outreach is quite extensive - not quite at the NYC level with right to shelter laws that are causing the enormous spillover into commercial hotels - but to compare the people on skid row to lower wage service workers who might find themselves unable to pay rent for two months is wildly disingenuous.