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> What are they supposed to do? America's, and particularly the west coast's, homeless problem is uniquely bad. It'd probably be worthwhile to just scrap whate
by fiblye 6y ago
> What are they supposed to do?
America's, and particularly the west coast's, homeless problem is uniquely bad. It'd probably be worthwhile to just scrap whatever they've been trying these past few decades and adopting methods used by almost any other country out there.
And I know this is an incredibly unpopular statement in HN, but the lax attitude towards drugs is a big contributor to the problem. I don't think people should be in prison for smoking or swallowing whatever they want, but I don't think public intoxication should be permissible either. When I lived in a certain large west coast city, it wasn't uncommon to see someone sitting down on a street corner and pulling out a syringe. It wasn't uncommon to see someone who clearly just took a solid hit of meth and decided to start stripping off their clothes on the streetcar. It was just part of city life there.
The attitudes towards this behavior are known pretty far and wide. Some people actively move to west coast cities because they know they can just give up on everything and abuse drugs all day without a care in the world. Treating drug addiction as some unavoidable pitiable disease hasn't been helping. Sometimes people do need a kick in the butt to get up and get their life together, and I think some cities are afraid of perpetuating the equally harmful effects of the drug war and end up doing nothing at all. Some have legitimate mental illnesses and can be treated in other ways, but most of the people I encountered were people living a completely carefree life in a place with good weather.
- phobosanomaly 6y agoWhat would be the approach you're describing? I'd love some bullet-points and I'd be happy to take them into consideration. The only way to implement what you're describing I can see is arresting people and putting them in prison on non-violent drug offences. That brings with it it's own set of problems.
- afiori 6y agoThe other option is to put more efforts into availability of treatments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
- phobosanomaly 6y agoDecriminalization of drug addiction is a step I'm very much hoping to see at some point in my lifetime.
- WalterGR 6y agoAmerica's, and particularly the west coast's, homeless problem is uniquely bad. It'd probably be worthwhile to just scrap whatever they've been trying these past few decades Specifically in California, among them are: * weather that's survivable without permanent shelter * other states in the American West bussing their homeless to the state * CA Governor (and later US President) Reagan's abdication of the role of the government in aiding the chronically ill (especially mentally ill) and/or homeless.
- tjalfi 6y agoYou can also blame the Supreme Court. The following is an excerpt from [0]. Around the same time, the Court ruled, in O’Connor v. Donaldson, that a Florida man named Kenneth Donaldson had been kept against his will in a state psychiatric hospital for nearly fifteen years. The ruling added momentum to a nationwide campaign to “deinstitutionalize” the mentally ill. Activists decried the existence of mental hospitals that were filled, as one account put it, with “naked humans herded like cattle.” During the next two decades, states across the country shut down such facilities, both to save money and to appease advocates pushing for reform. But instead of funding more humane modes of treatment—such as community mental-health centers that could help patients live independently—many states left the mentally ill to their own devices. Often, highly unstable people ended up on the streets, abusing drugs and committing crimes, which led them into the prison system. [0] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-torturing-of-mentally-ill-prisoners http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-torturing-o...