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> I've always found it a bit ironic when people intending to advocate for better treatment of the homeless proclaim that homeless shelters are havens of violenc
by monkeydreams 5y ago
> I've always found it a bit ironic when people intending to advocate for better treatment of the homeless proclaim that homeless shelters are havens of violence
This is the equivalent of suggesting that there is irony in the position that one can support animal welfare but still be against the position of beating animals with a stick (rather than an iron bar).
Homeless shelters can be violent. They are certainly full of people with (often untreated) mental illnesses. They are also not a solution to homelessness, but rather a solution to the problem of people sleeping on the street.
Solutions to homelessness often require providing permanent housing to people whom you may not like and who you, personally, may believe do not deserve a "free" apartment or house. It involves giving people a permanent foundation on which they can start to build a post-homelessness life. This is why it is never a popular solution - what I find ironic is that voters who want to "solve" homelessness never actually start with the simplest solution, giving away secure and dignified housing.
A real solution involves notions of security, safety, etc and often requires homeless people, particularly those who have lived homeless for a long time, to unlearn those strategies they have employed in order to survive. Shelters do not provide this type of support.
- emodendroket 5y agoPeople are too shy to say it but I think a lot of them would prefer a much more violent solution to the problem. I mean, what other answer could there even be, if you don't like the status quo and also don't think homeless people should be offered housing? That's the dark secret behind a lot of these debates where people's positions otherwise seem nonsensical, I think.
- xnyan 5y agoAgree. A related dark position that a not-insignificant number of people hold is that it's actually necessary and perhaps beneficial to have a visible homeless class living in unnecessarily cruel conditions as a means of coercion to keep working no matter how terrible your job is. I suppose it makes sense from a certain perspective, but I think the lack of a safety net is a costly economic mistake. Take bankruptcy as an example, you can take risks and if something goes wrong (including bad decisions), you are not necessarily ruined forever because we allow you to walk away from some or all of the debt. There's a cost to allowing bankruptcy, but I think it's worth it even though I've had to "pay" (indirectly) for other's bad decisions. I think about all the value lost to society because we make the danger of not having a job, even for a short time, very high for most members of society.
- emodendroket 5y agoThe technical term for the phenomenon you've identified is the "reserve army of labor."