4 ms·

I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them, New York has them, Austin has them. For decades leading up to the

I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them, New York has them, Austin has them. For decades leading up to the 2010s we were convicting and throwing every homeless person we could in jail, but the problem is that it just becomes a revolving door. Either you accept that an entire class of people need to be jailed for life for the crime of being homeless, or you try and fix the revolving door. Some cities have tried and failed, others haven't tried and also failed. Trying to solve a national problem on a state level is almost always bound to be a failure because the problem has to do with things that occurred 10-20 years ago with Purdue Pharma starting off the whole opioid epidemic. We're just now seeing the height of the problem they kicked off. The other 'unspoken truth' about this issue is that people in the rust belt and such have just as many problems with drugs and crime. The difference is that they have homes and these issues aren't visible until someone dies from suicide or an OD.

bombcar 3y ago
I suspect that when a city gets too dense or too expensive to have really cheap trailer parks is when it starts having homeless issues.
philwelch 3y ago
> I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them… I mentioned SF and LA because TFA is about California. You can ask my question about any city though: for every 1000 broken car windows, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there? I know that number is extremely low in Seattle as well. > Either you accept that an entire class of people need to be jailed for life for the crime of being homeless, or you try and fix the revolving door. It’s not for the crime of being homeless, it’s for the actual crimes they’re committing. What you’re doing here is you’re setting up the homeless as some sort of protected class that’s allowed to victimize the rest of us with impunity. That’s been the cornerstone of policy in cities like Seattle for years and that’s why those cities have the biggest problem. > Trying to solve a national problem on a state level is almost always bound to be a failure It’s definitely going to be a failure if you make your city one of the best places in the country to be homeless and commit crimes.
- _ktx2 3y ago
  > You can ask my question about any city though: for every 1000 broken car windows, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there? I know that number is extremely low in Seattle as well. There's two reasons this type of crime occurs: gang activity and homelessness. People turning to gangs represents a crisis in opportunity. Things like hate groups, gangs, etc do not generally occur in places where peoples needs are met and when opportunity to change your circumstances if desired are bountiful. > That’s been the cornerstone of policy in cities like Seattle for years and that’s why those cities have the biggest problem. The problem is actually both. Progressive policies fail because progressives are allergic to enforcement, conservative policies fail because conservatives are allergic to addressing underlying causes. It's a tale as old as time. If you want to improve things you need to address underlying causes like the housing and opportunity crisis. Enforcement can be used in a way that changes their circumstances rather than putting them in a box. You need both.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Conservative policies can succeed if there is a progressive city just across Lake Washington. Why smash windows in a place where the police will harass you if you can be in a place where they don’t? Well, it works locally at least. I see how treating underlying causes would help, but people are mobile, so doing it with local resources is never going to be a winner. So conservative solutions will show more effect locally than progressive ones, unfortunately, and local voters want to see improvement, not futility. The other problem is that we are still conflating a drug crisis with a homeless crisis, the people busting your car window and stealing your Amazon packages are more likely in the former category even if they might be in the latter.
    - kodah 3y ago
      I agree, having broader agreement on how tackle these issues is key. We don't do that well right now and I suspect that strongly correlates to rivaling political parties in an age of divisiveness that cannot work together to formulate a cohesive plan. I'll say this again, as I stated in another comment, there are different reasons for homelessness. Some people are just in a bad rut and need a stable place to go while they sort their lives out. This is the minimum order of difficulty; build damn shelters, and resource centers, and these folks will get help first. The larger component of homelessness has mental health or drug issues and far more overlap with gang activity root causes. It's worth trying to solve those together and taking an approach that instead of demonizing them for their choices/mistakes seeks to help them set their lives on a more stable path. Mental health related homelessness requires access to healthcare that can fund whatever they need to be on and courts that can recognize this is the case.

bombcar 3y ago

I suspect that when a city gets too dense or too expensive to have really cheap trailer parks is when it starts having homeless issues.

philwelch 3y ago

> I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them… I mentioned SF and LA because TFA is about California. You can ask my question about any city though: for every 1000 broken car windows, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there? I know that number is extremely low in Seattle as well. > Either you accept that an entire class of people need to be jailed for life for the crime of being homeless, or you try and fix the revolving door. It’s not for the crime of being homeless, it’s for the actual crimes they’re committing. What you’re doing here is you’re setting up the homeless as some sort of protected class that’s allowed to victimize the rest of us with impunity. That’s been the cornerstone of policy in cities like Seattle for years and that’s why those cities have the biggest problem. > Trying to solve a national problem on a state level is almost always bound to be a failure It’s definitely going to be a failure if you make your city one of the best places in the country to be homeless and commit crimes.

_ktx2 3y ago
> You can ask my question about any city though: for every 1000 broken car windows, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there? I know that number is extremely low in Seattle as well. There's two reasons this type of crime occurs: gang activity and homelessness. People turning to gangs represents a crisis in opportunity. Things like hate groups, gangs, etc do not generally occur in places where peoples needs are met and when opportunity to change your circumstances if desired are bountiful. > That’s been the cornerstone of policy in cities like Seattle for years and that’s why those cities have the biggest problem. The problem is actually both. Progressive policies fail because progressives are allergic to enforcement, conservative policies fail because conservatives are allergic to addressing underlying causes. It's a tale as old as time. If you want to improve things you need to address underlying causes like the housing and opportunity crisis. Enforcement can be used in a way that changes their circumstances rather than putting them in a box. You need both.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Conservative policies can succeed if there is a progressive city just across Lake Washington. Why smash windows in a place where the police will harass you if you can be in a place where they don’t? Well, it works locally at least. I see how treating underlying causes would help, but people are mobile, so doing it with local resources is never going to be a winner. So conservative solutions will show more effect locally than progressive ones, unfortunately, and local voters want to see improvement, not futility. The other problem is that we are still conflating a drug crisis with a homeless crisis, the people busting your car window and stealing your Amazon packages are more likely in the former category even if they might be in the latter.
  - kodah 3y ago
    I agree, having broader agreement on how tackle these issues is key. We don't do that well right now and I suspect that strongly correlates to rivaling political parties in an age of divisiveness that cannot work together to formulate a cohesive plan. I'll say this again, as I stated in another comment, there are different reasons for homelessness. Some people are just in a bad rut and need a stable place to go while they sort their lives out. This is the minimum order of difficulty; build damn shelters, and resource centers, and these folks will get help first. The larger component of homelessness has mental health or drug issues and far more overlap with gang activity root causes. It's worth trying to solve those together and taking an approach that instead of demonizing them for their choices/mistakes seeks to help them set their lives on a more stable path. Mental health related homelessness requires access to healthcare that can fund whatever they need to be on and courts that can recognize this is the case.