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Half the dysfunction with political efforts to ameliorate homelessness is the toxicity of touching a difficult issue. Homelessness is beyond any one term or ind

Half the dysfunction with political efforts to ameliorate homelessness is the toxicity of touching a difficult issue. Homelessness is beyond any one term or individual to solve. Certainly you cannot cure the addictions, disabilities or madness of these unfortunate people overnight. The only solution people would actually like is if the homeless were to disappear.

pc_edwin 3y ago
I can solve it in under a year. These are either mentally I'll people or people who refuse to maintain the minimum amount of civility required by modern humanity. They should either be forcefully institutionalised or forcefully removed with imprisonment for repeat offence. Public streets are public property, this is no law that allows this sort of lunacy. Everywhere else these ... are atleast thrown away to some dark corner under a bridge or street.
- alpineidyll3 3y ago
  In a way we don't disagree. I think citizens would be quite happy with a solution which makes the homeless invisible by sequestering them. Its probably also the best for the health of these people. But remember how we got here. Reagan shut down the asylums because they were expensive, messy and "inhumane". 20 years after reinstitutionalizing we will lament the cost of sedation and imprisonment.
  - pc_edwin 3y ago
    California spent $4 billion a year on homelessness. Thats roughly $35,000 per homeless person (115,000). IMO it shouldn't even that much to institutionalise/imprison/forcefully remove these people but even if it did cost as much or more, it would still be worth it. Imagine what would clean safe streets do for these cities, it would create such a huge rebound!
- drewcoo 3y ago
  I hope there's also room in those institutions to try to reform sociopaths with draconian ideas about social problems. If not, I want to play Judge Dredd this time!
  - pc_edwin 3y ago
    I don't get how these ideas are draconian. Forget the fact that its whats the most liberal countries do, what else do you propose? Whats draconian is the current state of affairs. Letting these people rot and devolve further whilst ravaging our cities, nobody wins here. These people need help and those who don't need help are knowingly causing public harm. Public harm as in harming the public in the public spaces where the public pays ungodly amounts of taxes to keep them safe.
- ModernMech 3y ago
  > I can solve it in under a year... forcefully institutionalised or forcefully removed with imprisonment for repeat offence. Yes, if you criminalize homelessness and imprison all the homeless in hospitals and prisons, I think you've technically solved homelessness. Your problem though is that to do so, you've gone full fascist, so now there's a new problem.
  - pc_edwin 3y ago
    There is a huge difference between being homeless and choosing to camp on a public street in metropolitan areas. Its not only illegal, its immoral. If they aren't mentally ill, you forcefully remove them to the outskirts of the city. If they still keep coming back then you imprison them. If you think this is fascist, then you are dangerously loosening the definition of fascism. You must see how playing with these words like this is extremely dangerous? Does "the boy you cried wolf" ring a bell?
    - ModernMech 3y ago
      If you think forcibly concentrating groups of undesirables into camps isn’t a hallmark of fascism, I have to introduce you to the 20th century. > If they aren't mentally ill And what happens when the people making the decisions on whether or not someone is mentally ill are religious conservatives who believe homosexuality and transgenderism is a mental illness? Are you aware that religious conservatives often call leftism a mental disorder? They call wokeism a “mind virus”. Maybe you think you have a good idea here with your homeless concentration camps, but all I see is a back door to prosecution and persecution for people you just don’t like to see. Today that’s the homeless, and when they’re gone you’ll move on to the next group. First they came for the socialists…
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Aren’t you just describing the modern prison system? I believe the fascism comes from doing it to non-criminals, or communism if you count china’s re-education camps. Also, the British invented concentration camps during the Boer war. Work camps were a thing in the USA during the Great Depression. Supposedly a good thing, but I guess it depends on perspective.
dalbasal 3y ago
Agreed. And the resolution has been terrible. Politicians (and voters) pick a position. They act on it, or don't. But, nothing is ever planned executed at a scale where it is expected to solve or make a visible dent in the problem as a whole. So maybe your "position" is "housing first." It's popular, backed by academia, and it goes ahead. At this point, resource efficiency, overall scale of impact and such don't matter. The action is "housing first" or it's "community centred" or "drug-free," "Jesus saves" or whatever... and that's enough. Ideology>efficacy when you don't expect to get anywhere anyway. These big, ideologically charged, "toxic" issues are such that no one expects to "solve" them. So, they act at the operational level spending whatever resources they have without real strategics. Strategy becomes replaced with abstractions.
polalavik 3y ago
first sane response - yes its a generational to multi generational problem. We are dealing with the outcome of decisions made long ago. There are now two issues: (1) all the currently homeless (2) the people in the pipeline to be homeless. The people homeless now require a completely different solution than the "pipeline" of people we need to help stay out of homelessness. Unfortunately, politics is too short sighted to ever solve an issue that will truly take a decade+ of good policy to fix. And, as you mentioned, tackling the now problem is almost too toxic to touch, politically. Rock and a hard place.

pc_edwin 3y ago

I can solve it in under a year. These are either mentally I'll people or people who refuse to maintain the minimum amount of civility required by modern humanity. They should either be forcefully institutionalised or forcefully removed with imprisonment for repeat offence. Public streets are public property, this is no law that allows this sort of lunacy. Everywhere else these ... are atleast thrown away to some dark corner under a bridge or street.

alpineidyll3 3y ago
In a way we don't disagree. I think citizens would be quite happy with a solution which makes the homeless invisible by sequestering them. Its probably also the best for the health of these people. But remember how we got here. Reagan shut down the asylums because they were expensive, messy and "inhumane". 20 years after reinstitutionalizing we will lament the cost of sedation and imprisonment.
- pc_edwin 3y ago
  California spent $4 billion a year on homelessness. Thats roughly $35,000 per homeless person (115,000). IMO it shouldn't even that much to institutionalise/imprison/forcefully remove these people but even if it did cost as much or more, it would still be worth it. Imagine what would clean safe streets do for these cities, it would create such a huge rebound!
drewcoo 3y ago
I hope there's also room in those institutions to try to reform sociopaths with draconian ideas about social problems. If not, I want to play Judge Dredd this time!
- pc_edwin 3y ago
  I don't get how these ideas are draconian. Forget the fact that its whats the most liberal countries do, what else do you propose? Whats draconian is the current state of affairs. Letting these people rot and devolve further whilst ravaging our cities, nobody wins here. These people need help and those who don't need help are knowingly causing public harm. Public harm as in harming the public in the public spaces where the public pays ungodly amounts of taxes to keep them safe.
ModernMech 3y ago
> I can solve it in under a year... forcefully institutionalised or forcefully removed with imprisonment for repeat offence. Yes, if you criminalize homelessness and imprison all the homeless in hospitals and prisons, I think you've technically solved homelessness. Your problem though is that to do so, you've gone full fascist, so now there's a new problem.
- pc_edwin 3y ago
  There is a huge difference between being homeless and choosing to camp on a public street in metropolitan areas. Its not only illegal, its immoral. If they aren't mentally ill, you forcefully remove them to the outskirts of the city. If they still keep coming back then you imprison them. If you think this is fascist, then you are dangerously loosening the definition of fascism. You must see how playing with these words like this is extremely dangerous? Does "the boy you cried wolf" ring a bell?
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    If you think forcibly concentrating groups of undesirables into camps isn’t a hallmark of fascism, I have to introduce you to the 20th century. > If they aren't mentally ill And what happens when the people making the decisions on whether or not someone is mentally ill are religious conservatives who believe homosexuality and transgenderism is a mental illness? Are you aware that religious conservatives often call leftism a mental disorder? They call wokeism a “mind virus”. Maybe you think you have a good idea here with your homeless concentration camps, but all I see is a back door to prosecution and persecution for people you just don’t like to see. Today that’s the homeless, and when they’re gone you’ll move on to the next group. First they came for the socialists…
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Aren’t you just describing the modern prison system? I believe the fascism comes from doing it to non-criminals, or communism if you count china’s re-education camps. Also, the British invented concentration camps during the Boer war. Work camps were a thing in the USA during the Great Depression. Supposedly a good thing, but I guess it depends on perspective.

dalbasal 3y ago

Agreed. And the resolution has been terrible. Politicians (and voters) pick a position. They act on it, or don't. But, nothing is ever planned executed at a scale where it is expected to solve or make a visible dent in the problem as a whole. So maybe your "position" is "housing first." It's popular, backed by academia, and it goes ahead. At this point, resource efficiency, overall scale of impact and such don't matter. The action is "housing first" or it's "community centred" or "drug-free," "Jesus saves" or whatever... and that's enough. Ideology>efficacy when you don't expect to get anywhere anyway. These big, ideologically charged, "toxic" issues are such that no one expects to "solve" them. So, they act at the operational level spending whatever resources they have without real strategics. Strategy becomes replaced with abstractions.

polalavik 3y ago

first sane response - yes its a generational to multi generational problem. We are dealing with the outcome of decisions made long ago. There are now two issues: (1) all the currently homeless (2) the people in the pipeline to be homeless. The people homeless now require a completely different solution than the "pipeline" of people we need to help stay out of homelessness. Unfortunately, politics is too short sighted to ever solve an issue that will truly take a decade+ of good policy to fix. And, as you mentioned, tackling the now problem is almost too toxic to touch, politically. Rock and a hard place.