4 ms·

I can not afford a place in Manhattan. In order for me to have a home, I had to be willing to live far away from there and do what I can to develop my marketabl

I can not afford a place in Manhattan. In order for me to have a home, I had to be willing to live far away from there and do what I can to develop my marketable skills to hold a good job. Now, I am not at all suggesting that currently homeless folks have the same talents and opportunities as myself and have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Yet, they also have to be willing to move to an affordable area, address their mental health and substance abuse problems and contribute as much as they can to their own upkeep - maybe do some basic agricultural work like pulling out weeds, maybe help cook meals for themselves and others in the same situation from provided ingredients. Nobody is getting me a place to stay in most expensive area of a big city just because I can't afford an apartment there. If my close friend or relative fell on hard times, I might be willing to help them a bit, but only if they take care of their problems and make an effort to partially support themselves to whatever degree they are able to. There is no way I am helping strangers more than my own family. As for having nowhere to go, US is big and sparse enough to give people homesteads to live off the land if that's what they choose to do. And in fact, supporting oneself with fishing/hunting/gathering seems to be common in Alaska and I have no disagreement with people who support themselves this way, whatever you feel is your best option. But public spaces in big cities are there for specific public uses, not homesteading.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
That's something that always smelled funny about dumping thousands of people into downtown San Francisco. Sure, the services are bountiful and the people running the city are willing to go further (maybe only performatively, one could argue) than just about any city on Earth to accommodate the homeless over the needs of the locals. But then, say you recover from addiction or a mental health crisis, what are you going to do in SF of all places? There are no jobs for you. Sane, hard-working, non-addicted locals can barely afford to live there. Teachers, firefighters, and nurses already have to drive an hour from out of town to get to their jobs. Is there a senior ML engineer role waiting for you once you stop screaming your heart out in the middle of Market St? What is the plan, short of relapsing right away? There are no jobs for you, there is not enough affordable housing, you're surrounded by thousands of addicts in the Mecca of unpoliced 24/7 drug markets. That's one hell of a recipe.
- readyman 2y ago
  ML engineers don't clean streets, pick up the garbage, serve food, stock fridges, repair buildings, deliver goods, make the trains run on time, etc., etc. What are you talking about?
  - paulmd 2y ago
    > make the trains run on time incredibly unlikely that post-homeless people are going to get a job that requires DoT background checks and licensing. Becoming a train engineer is an ordeal even for healthy people, let alone recovering ones, it’s an incredibly desirable and gatekept position. the handling of percived “frothers” came up when that guy stole a train and did the rounds… and that’s just how they treat normal people who like trains. How do you think the brotherhood is going to react to someone who was shooting meth 6 months ago? I think that’s a common problem in this discourse, people love to be like “well they should just… drive a train!” and just have no idea how difficult it is to actually do some of these things anymore. Let alone for someone at the bottom without credentials or doors opened to them. Same for prisoners/convicts, which afaik is a way people frequently end up homeless. I don’t want a homeless camp next door either… but at the end of the day if you don’t provide a route out, then you are going to just create a permanent underclass, and they will end up somewhere or other. As a society it is very clear that we just expect them to suicide and save us the mental anguish of pulling the trigger ourselves. You don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here. Where? Not my problem, see you in the ditch in a week. And the only solution anyone in the US will consider is just busing them to California. Given the housing overstock, we can literally just house everyone and call it a day. Doesn’t have to be projects either - if your residential-zoned house stands empty for more than a year, make it eligible for eminent domain and hold a lottery to take 1% of them and house people. That does take money, of course, but that can be levied on long-term unoccupied properties too. Solve multiple birds with one stone, make speculators pay to solve the problem they cause by buying their long-term-unoccupied houses with their own money. “What can be done that hasn’t been tried over and over” lots of stuff, actually. Eminent domain is an incredibly broad power, the state can take your home and give it to a developer to make a shopping mall or gas station if they want. Local jurisdictions have essentially unlimited power unless otherwise constrained by their state. Just people get the vapors when it’s being used to help the homeless and not to develop a shopping mall.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago

That's something that always smelled funny about dumping thousands of people into downtown San Francisco. Sure, the services are bountiful and the people running the city are willing to go further (maybe only performatively, one could argue) than just about any city on Earth to accommodate the homeless over the needs of the locals. But then, say you recover from addiction or a mental health crisis, what are you going to do in SF of all places? There are no jobs for you. Sane, hard-working, non-addicted locals can barely afford to live there. Teachers, firefighters, and nurses already have to drive an hour from out of town to get to their jobs. Is there a senior ML engineer role waiting for you once you stop screaming your heart out in the middle of Market St? What is the plan, short of relapsing right away? There are no jobs for you, there is not enough affordable housing, you're surrounded by thousands of addicts in the Mecca of unpoliced 24/7 drug markets. That's one hell of a recipe.

readyman 2y ago
ML engineers don't clean streets, pick up the garbage, serve food, stock fridges, repair buildings, deliver goods, make the trains run on time, etc., etc. What are you talking about?
- paulmd 2y ago
  > make the trains run on time incredibly unlikely that post-homeless people are going to get a job that requires DoT background checks and licensing. Becoming a train engineer is an ordeal even for healthy people, let alone recovering ones, it’s an incredibly desirable and gatekept position. the handling of percived “frothers” came up when that guy stole a train and did the rounds… and that’s just how they treat normal people who like trains. How do you think the brotherhood is going to react to someone who was shooting meth 6 months ago? I think that’s a common problem in this discourse, people love to be like “well they should just… drive a train!” and just have no idea how difficult it is to actually do some of these things anymore. Let alone for someone at the bottom without credentials or doors opened to them. Same for prisoners/convicts, which afaik is a way people frequently end up homeless. I don’t want a homeless camp next door either… but at the end of the day if you don’t provide a route out, then you are going to just create a permanent underclass, and they will end up somewhere or other. As a society it is very clear that we just expect them to suicide and save us the mental anguish of pulling the trigger ourselves. You don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here. Where? Not my problem, see you in the ditch in a week. And the only solution anyone in the US will consider is just busing them to California. Given the housing overstock, we can literally just house everyone and call it a day. Doesn’t have to be projects either - if your residential-zoned house stands empty for more than a year, make it eligible for eminent domain and hold a lottery to take 1% of them and house people. That does take money, of course, but that can be levied on long-term unoccupied properties too. Solve multiple birds with one stone, make speculators pay to solve the problem they cause by buying their long-term-unoccupied houses with their own money. “What can be done that hasn’t been tried over and over” lots of stuff, actually. Eminent domain is an incredibly broad power, the state can take your home and give it to a developer to make a shopping mall or gas station if they want. Local jurisdictions have essentially unlimited power unless otherwise constrained by their state. Just people get the vapors when it’s being used to help the homeless and not to develop a shopping mall.