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So you're saying the homeless and mentally ill in San Francisco are just lazy and grifting the system? There's plenty of data available to show how naive that s

So you're saying the homeless and mentally ill in San Francisco are just lazy and grifting the system? There's plenty of data available to show how naive that statement is. What would be your proposed solution?

atweiden 6y ago
It’s an untenable situation to have tens of thousands of people shooting up heroin, defecating openly on city streets and accosting the public — sometimes violently — while local residents foot the bill. This is a federal issue. West coasters deserve to live in cities with reasonable standards of public health and safety, and local governments are unable to solve the problem through social programs without attracting even more homelessness. West coast lawlessness demands federal funding. Tent city occupants are for all intents and purposes refugees, and we basically need a UN-style refugee camp for them to live in.
- lettergram 6y ago
  Ugh, almost all modern cities have solved this. SF can solve this too. You force the homeless out of the city and attempt to rehabilitate where you can. Also, this is definitely not a federal problem. At most it’s a Cali problem. This is how the US works, local jurisdictions deal with the local problem.
  - mushbino 6y ago
    Force them out of cities to where exactly? It doesn't sound like you've thought this through. What OP meant was that it will take a federal initiative, meaning something that will cover every state and local jurisdiction. If they're forced out of one locality, what's to stop the next one from moving them out of there and so on?
    - cozuya 6y ago
      What the OP is probably trying to say is that TPTB should collectively push-together, no wait, thats not the word, gather? No that's not right either. Ah yes, "concentrate" the undesirables into to some sort of "camp", perhaps.
lettergram 6y ago
Link the data. I’m saying it attracts people who need something. You stop services to people maintaining the status of quo and invest in rehabilitating and upon failure, removing people. The problem is (idk how many homeless you’ve spoken with in SF). Most chose to be there, you have to make it somewhere they can’t live like that. This is a failure of policy. Other cities have solved this, SF can too.
- mushbino 6y ago
  Cut off services and have them go where? Also, how do you ban someone from a city? This is just a purely NIMBY response and not in any way realistic or helpful. You just really don't like it in your backyard and want it in someone else's backyard. I feel like your next suggestion is euthanasia.
  - lettergram 6y ago
    (1) Offer rehabilitation (many homeless don't willingly take advantage of this). (2) Regularly push them out of where they are staying with officers. If necessary, use hoses or w.e. People will either leave because they can't stay there or they attempt to rehabilitate. This is what they do most places outside of California. This method often leads to rehabilitation, because they don't really have a choice. Those who don't want to be rehabilitate leave and start a life the next town over, live in the woods, what have you. It's better for everyone in a society to hold each other accountable -- be apart of the society or leave. Many homeless are drug addicts and / or mentally ill, they need help, but you can't help them (unless they want to). By holding everyone accountable, everyone will be better off.
    - mangosensation 6y ago
      Homelessness is an incredibly stressful situation. As the richest country on Earth, and a very rich city, we can do better than hosing/kicking out with police for people who are already in a crisis situation. The added stress and suffering doesn't seem constructive. I agree that you can't help someone unless they want help. But there hasn't been enough help offered to say that these people don't want help. Shelters have a lot of issues like theft. It's a vicious cycle. I'm sure the vast majority of the homeless are really suffering and don't want to be homeless. A great read based on research, w citations: https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/proven-solutions/ https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/proven-solutions/ I agree we need to hold each other accountable. But we should also take care of each other because it could've been you. If the people who are homeless grew up the way I did and got to go to good public schools, and didn't have the stress of poverty growing up, maybe they wouldn't have fallen into drugs or developed mental illnesses. We need to give people a chance. Leaving a town that you are familiar with must be really stressful and scary. Living in the woods seems impossible nowadays (I certainly wouldn't know how). I'm afraid that if we push the homeless out of society, they would die. And that seems very unacceptable to me.

atweiden 6y ago

It’s an untenable situation to have tens of thousands of people shooting up heroin, defecating openly on city streets and accosting the public — sometimes violently — while local residents foot the bill. This is a federal issue. West coasters deserve to live in cities with reasonable standards of public health and safety, and local governments are unable to solve the problem through social programs without attracting even more homelessness. West coast lawlessness demands federal funding. Tent city occupants are for all intents and purposes refugees, and we basically need a UN-style refugee camp for them to live in.

lettergram 6y ago
Ugh, almost all modern cities have solved this. SF can solve this too. You force the homeless out of the city and attempt to rehabilitate where you can. Also, this is definitely not a federal problem. At most it’s a Cali problem. This is how the US works, local jurisdictions deal with the local problem.
- mushbino 6y ago
  Force them out of cities to where exactly? It doesn't sound like you've thought this through. What OP meant was that it will take a federal initiative, meaning something that will cover every state and local jurisdiction. If they're forced out of one locality, what's to stop the next one from moving them out of there and so on?
  - cozuya 6y ago
    What the OP is probably trying to say is that TPTB should collectively push-together, no wait, thats not the word, gather? No that's not right either. Ah yes, "concentrate" the undesirables into to some sort of "camp", perhaps.

lettergram 6y ago

Link the data. I’m saying it attracts people who need something. You stop services to people maintaining the status of quo and invest in rehabilitating and upon failure, removing people. The problem is (idk how many homeless you’ve spoken with in SF). Most chose to be there, you have to make it somewhere they can’t live like that. This is a failure of policy. Other cities have solved this, SF can too.

mushbino 6y ago
Cut off services and have them go where? Also, how do you ban someone from a city? This is just a purely NIMBY response and not in any way realistic or helpful. You just really don't like it in your backyard and want it in someone else's backyard. I feel like your next suggestion is euthanasia.
- lettergram 6y ago
  (1) Offer rehabilitation (many homeless don't willingly take advantage of this). (2) Regularly push them out of where they are staying with officers. If necessary, use hoses or w.e. People will either leave because they can't stay there or they attempt to rehabilitate. This is what they do most places outside of California. This method often leads to rehabilitation, because they don't really have a choice. Those who don't want to be rehabilitate leave and start a life the next town over, live in the woods, what have you. It's better for everyone in a society to hold each other accountable -- be apart of the society or leave. Many homeless are drug addicts and / or mentally ill, they need help, but you can't help them (unless they want to). By holding everyone accountable, everyone will be better off.
  - mangosensation 6y ago
    Homelessness is an incredibly stressful situation. As the richest country on Earth, and a very rich city, we can do better than hosing/kicking out with police for people who are already in a crisis situation. The added stress and suffering doesn't seem constructive. I agree that you can't help someone unless they want help. But there hasn't been enough help offered to say that these people don't want help. Shelters have a lot of issues like theft. It's a vicious cycle. I'm sure the vast majority of the homeless are really suffering and don't want to be homeless. A great read based on research, w citations: https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/proven-solutions/ https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/proven-solutions/ I agree we need to hold each other accountable. But we should also take care of each other because it could've been you. If the people who are homeless grew up the way I did and got to go to good public schools, and didn't have the stress of poverty growing up, maybe they wouldn't have fallen into drugs or developed mental illnesses. We need to give people a chance. Leaving a town that you are familiar with must be really stressful and scary. Living in the woods seems impossible nowadays (I certainly wouldn't know how). I'm afraid that if we push the homeless out of society, they would die. And that seems very unacceptable to me.