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Because any homeless discussion instantly turns into an Ad Hominem attack on HN, let me preface this with please don't respond to my comments with that. Taking

Because any homeless discussion instantly turns into an Ad Hominem attack on HN, let me preface this with please don't respond to my comments with that. Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right: Thats a fancy way of saying: parks are not campgrounds. These types of policies are plain wrong, and cities should know better by now. Furthermore, as we've seen time and time again, this is a shortsighted, temporary alleviation that ultimately dooms a neighborhood. Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash that ends up in the ocean, property values drop, and are ultimately boarded up until the encampment moves somewhere else and the cycle repeats. Homelessness is a hard problem to solve because it requires individual attention. Measures like these make it worse, not better. If the city wants to help, the best thing they can do is listen to local charities, outreaches, churches, etc and clear the regulatory path for them.

mass_and_energy 2y ago
Whoops, you forgot to put your sources! Accidents happen, so I'm interested to read this post-edit.
card_zero 2y ago
Some lines that stand out: > The city is waiting for the provincial government to ramp up affordable housing construction. Nova Scotia has not built any new public housing units since 1995. > “One of the largest groups of homelessness we see growing is simply people who don't have enough money to pay rent, and that’s new,” [the director of housing and homelessness in Halifax] said, adding that includes seniors, students, and entire families. > They note that multiple high-rise condominiums are under development in Halifax - none of which, they say, are affordable. “We would like to be treated like people,” said Samantha Nickerson, who lived with her fiance, Trent Smith, at the same encampment [...] “Some of us really are trying hard to get our lives back together and work.” So, have we seen exactly this time and again? In this instance, if property values drop, would the encampment really move somewhere else - why? - or would it move into the now affordable properties?
- Y-bar 2y ago
  Property values don't need to drop for there to be more affordable housing. And even if they were to drop, is that _really_ a bad thing in the medium to long term (e.g. should residential or other land be an investment in and of itself)?
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > And even if they were to drop, is that _really_ a bad thing in the medium to long term (e.g. should residential or other land be an investment in and of itself)? Given that for many people owning their house is the only way to preserve some sort of inheritance for their children...
    - abenga 2y ago
      > Given that for many people owning their house is the only way to preserve some sort of inheritance for their children... This is why the housing crisis will never be solved. Homeowners vote. Homeowners don't want to solve the housing shortage as it will hurt their values. No democratically elected government will ever work to actually fix the housing shortage. Of course there will be token actions and platitudes, but nothing of consequence will be done.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - ashconnor 2y ago
      Well there are no inheritance taxes in Canada so think of this as an indirect one.
    - affinepplan 2y ago
      sucks to suck. don't put 200% of your net worth into a depreciating asset.
      - rootusrootus 2y ago
TulliusCicero 2y ago
The best thing is making their own housing and easing the regulatory burden so that it's easier to make housing in general. The housing that's affordable now, that people praise, was mostly made during a time in which the regulations to build were much less burdensome. A bit ironic, isn't it?
mschuster91 2y ago
> Homelessness is a hard problem to solve because it requires individual attention. No! It's precisely the other way around: it requires federal attention first and foremost. Homelessness is a societal challenge to solve, not one whose burden should fall on those communities that act charitable to fellow human beings and pick up the slack of those just busing the homeless off to the next Democrat governed town. > Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash that ends up in the ocean, property values drop, and are ultimately boarded up until the encampment moves somewhere else and the cycle repeats. They gotta go somewhere, they're humans, not stray dogs, and 99% of the homeless aren't homeless by choice but because society failed to provide for them. I agree an encampment might not be the most desirable thing to have next to a residential area, but on the outskirts adjacent to some commercial zoning it makes sense. Add a bus line, provide basic sanitation and social services on-site... and start building fucking housing.
- MisterTea 2y ago
  > and 99% of the homeless aren't homeless by choice but because society failed to provide for them. I'd like a citation for that claim. > but on the outskirts adjacent to some commercial zoning it makes sense. This only makes sense if you want to ensure they don't break the poverty cycle by isolating them to blighted industrial land cut off from society. This is the same issue plaguing many poor and low income communities which have been placed in undesirable parts of municipalities. > and start building fucking housing. Where's the money coming from?
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    > Where's the money coming from? The Canadian Housing Infrastructure Fund announced in April, presumably. Of course, it's pretty much guaranteed that we'll get a Conservative government next summer and that money will disappear.
  - beedeebeedee 2y ago
    > Where's the money coming from? It should come from taxes on the folks doing obscenely well from our unfair economic system
bryanlarsen 2y ago
> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right Letting people freeze to death is not right either. This a matter of choosing "least bad" of the short term options. There are no correct options in the short term. There are long term correct options, but they are very expensive. > Furthermore, as we've seen time and time again, this is a shortsighted, temporary alleviation that ultimately dooms a neighborhood. Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash that ends up in the ocean, property values drop, and are ultimately boarded up until the encampment moves somewhere else and the cycle repeats. As noted in the article, according to judicial precedence the city has to either 1) provide shelter or 2) allow encampments. Since they cannot do the former in the short term the best they can do is to set up a structure that allows them to choose where the encampments go that does the least harm and the harm that does occur can be mitigated. > If the city wants to help, the best thing they can do is listen to local charities, outreaches, churches, etc and clear the regulatory path for them. Knowing Maritimers, I'm fairly confident they're already doing this.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  The governors mansion in Halifax has like 30 rooms and a giant garden. Maybe they should make that a homeless shelter instead of foisting it upon low income communities.
SaberTail 2y ago
> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right: Thats a fancy way of saying: parks are not campgrounds. These types of policies are plain wrong, and cities should know better by now. How do you reconcile this with the existence of private property at all? The lands of the planet earth were not formed with deeds attached.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Public ownership does not mean nobody owns it.
Throw74949 2y ago
> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals > parks are not campgrounds In most US cities parks are dog toilets. Dog owners took over most public places, and attack anyone who opposed them! > Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash Violent crime, vandalism, trash... All of that applies to dog owners as well.
causi 2y ago
No matter where you fall on the line between "seize all rental properties and give them to the homeless" and "if you can't buy a house you should go starve to death in the woods", I think most reasonable people would agree that giving open permission to set up a zone where laws barely apply and people who live there or happen to be don't get the same degree of protection and law enforcement as you could expect on the sidewalk in front of a Walmart to be a bad idea.
david38 2y ago
You must not have children
christkv 2y ago
I always viewed it as groups. Just homeless, homeless with mental health issues and homeless with addiction. Those last two often overlap. The first group is the easiest to address. The two last ones i personally think need to be treated with institutionalization and detox. Leaving them on the street to hurt themselves and others is in my mind horrendous.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
At the same time, taking a natural resource[land] and reserving it for exclusive whether it be private or public ownership is also not a right. It's a consequence of the myth of necessary order - that the garden is preferable to the wild, that boundaries and order are necessary to function, but like this, the comprehensive ownership of land is in fact the cause of this very issue. If there was a wild or commons, this problem would cease to exist.
cassepipe 2y ago
> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right: Thats a fancy way of saying: parks are not campgrounds. These types of policies are plain wrong, and cities should know better by now. Just want to respond to that specific point. You are right in the absolute but in practice "we" indirectly allow companies/civil groups to use public space for different purposes. Some places are places for everyone to enjoy and having people privatize is a net loss for everyone like parks but a lot of public space is just unused space that nobody has ever stepped on because it's in a weird location or for some other reason and no one really cares to use it. I think it's reasonable to allow people temporarily (while it remains unused for the collective) in those spaces to remove a bit of the pressure of not having a home and having to constantly struggle for the bare minimum.
stuaxo 2y ago
> The city is waiting for the provincial government to ramp up affordable housing construction. Nova Scotia has not built any new public housing units since 1995.
015a 2y ago
I think it’s rightly and plainly frustrating for the sole reason that the e.g. parks, sidewalks, bridges, etc that the homeless live on (and, are now directly christened by the government to do so in Halifax) are quite literally funded by taxpayers for public (read: taxpayer) use. Rightly or wrongly (but let’s be real: often rightly) parents (read: taxpayers) don’t feel safe bringing their children into these areas; young women (read: taxpayers) don’t feel safe walking in these areas. Crime is higher, drug use is higher, broken window theory, etc. Here’s my unpopular opinion: I fully support making homelessness a jailable offense. A bed, meals, and heat in the winter; we’re not talking about the end of the world here, and I’m comfortable with my tax dollars funding that because I _do_ have some empathy for the homeless. But, not infinite empathy. We need better social programs, we need to work with the charities and churches as you say, I’m also very supportive of some kind of jail-adjacent jobs program that houses and feeds the homeless in exchange for employment.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Jail is too expensive. What we need is actually very close to what halifax is doing. We need to legalize encampments, we just have to do it in very limited areas. The city buys a large empty field on the outskirts of town and makes the homeless to go there. Clear any other encampments routinely. This also makes it much easier for charities to help the homeless since theyre all in one place. 24/7 police presence at the new encampment. Will be tough for the people who live close to the field but its the best way to minimize the impact.
  - 015a 2y ago
    Functionally; like skid row? Certainly, that hasn't worked out well for LA; because it literally just doesn't work. Even many homeless don't want to live in places like this, because they inevitably become extremely unsafe, because the idea that a 24/7 police presence has a significant positive impact or is even possible is a fantasy. Police become jaded overnight, like trying to mop up the ocean. No one in the public (read: voters, taxpayers) would support a place like this in their backyard, for good reason. A person pitches a tent ten blocks away; what does the city do? Forcibly move them? They're back ten blocks away the next day. Repeat. Prison being too expensive is, to be fair, true, but a problem local to only some states, and a different problem that we should be motived to solve independent of whether its a tool in the solution of this problem. But, beyond that, maybe my point is more generally (and contentiously) stated as: I believe homelessness should be a crime whose punishment involves the forfeiture of the person's freedom of movement and work. That's a general way of saying "prison" and that's fine, but I'm comfortable stating that governments need to think about building a (undesirable, forced) path toward finding a home for these people, and making them work to earn it. If a homeless person walks this path, gets to their freedom, and reverts back to being homeless again; well, its a revolving door, but at least its one which rotates over a span of years instead of days, and its one that makes a good faith attempt toward rehabilitation.

mass_and_energy 2y ago

Whoops, you forgot to put your sources! Accidents happen, so I'm interested to read this post-edit.

card_zero 2y ago

Some lines that stand out: > The city is waiting for the provincial government to ramp up affordable housing construction. Nova Scotia has not built any new public housing units since 1995. > “One of the largest groups of homelessness we see growing is simply people who don't have enough money to pay rent, and that’s new,” [the director of housing and homelessness in Halifax] said, adding that includes seniors, students, and entire families. > They note that multiple high-rise condominiums are under development in Halifax - none of which, they say, are affordable. “We would like to be treated like people,” said Samantha Nickerson, who lived with her fiance, Trent Smith, at the same encampment [...] “Some of us really are trying hard to get our lives back together and work.” So, have we seen exactly this time and again? In this instance, if property values drop, would the encampment really move somewhere else - why? - or would it move into the now affordable properties?

Y-bar 2y ago
Property values don't need to drop for there to be more affordable housing. And even if they were to drop, is that _really_ a bad thing in the medium to long term (e.g. should residential or other land be an investment in and of itself)?
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > And even if they were to drop, is that _really_ a bad thing in the medium to long term (e.g. should residential or other land be an investment in and of itself)? Given that for many people owning their house is the only way to preserve some sort of inheritance for their children...
  - abenga 2y ago
    > Given that for many people owning their house is the only way to preserve some sort of inheritance for their children... This is why the housing crisis will never be solved. Homeowners vote. Homeowners don't want to solve the housing shortage as it will hurt their values. No democratically elected government will ever work to actually fix the housing shortage. Of course there will be token actions and platitudes, but nothing of consequence will be done.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - ashconnor 2y ago
    Well there are no inheritance taxes in Canada so think of this as an indirect one.
  - affinepplan 2y ago
    sucks to suck. don't put 200% of your net worth into a depreciating asset.
    - rootusrootus 2y ago

TulliusCicero 2y ago

The best thing is making their own housing and easing the regulatory burden so that it's easier to make housing in general. The housing that's affordable now, that people praise, was mostly made during a time in which the regulations to build were much less burdensome. A bit ironic, isn't it?

mschuster91 2y ago

> Homelessness is a hard problem to solve because it requires individual attention. No! It's precisely the other way around: it requires federal attention first and foremost. Homelessness is a societal challenge to solve, not one whose burden should fall on those communities that act charitable to fellow human beings and pick up the slack of those just busing the homeless off to the next Democrat governed town. > Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash that ends up in the ocean, property values drop, and are ultimately boarded up until the encampment moves somewhere else and the cycle repeats. They gotta go somewhere, they're humans, not stray dogs, and 99% of the homeless aren't homeless by choice but because society failed to provide for them. I agree an encampment might not be the most desirable thing to have next to a residential area, but on the outskirts adjacent to some commercial zoning it makes sense. Add a bus line, provide basic sanitation and social services on-site... and start building fucking housing.

MisterTea 2y ago
> and 99% of the homeless aren't homeless by choice but because society failed to provide for them. I'd like a citation for that claim. > but on the outskirts adjacent to some commercial zoning it makes sense. This only makes sense if you want to ensure they don't break the poverty cycle by isolating them to blighted industrial land cut off from society. This is the same issue plaguing many poor and low income communities which have been placed in undesirable parts of municipalities. > and start building fucking housing. Where's the money coming from?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  > Where's the money coming from? The Canadian Housing Infrastructure Fund announced in April, presumably. Of course, it's pretty much guaranteed that we'll get a Conservative government next summer and that money will disappear.
- beedeebeedee 2y ago
  > Where's the money coming from? It should come from taxes on the folks doing obscenely well from our unfair economic system

bryanlarsen 2y ago

> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right Letting people freeze to death is not right either. This a matter of choosing "least bad" of the short term options. There are no correct options in the short term. There are long term correct options, but they are very expensive. > Furthermore, as we've seen time and time again, this is a shortsighted, temporary alleviation that ultimately dooms a neighborhood. Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash that ends up in the ocean, property values drop, and are ultimately boarded up until the encampment moves somewhere else and the cycle repeats. As noted in the article, according to judicial precedence the city has to either 1) provide shelter or 2) allow encampments. Since they cannot do the former in the short term the best they can do is to set up a structure that allows them to choose where the encampments go that does the least harm and the harm that does occur can be mitigated. > If the city wants to help, the best thing they can do is listen to local charities, outreaches, churches, etc and clear the regulatory path for them. Knowing Maritimers, I'm fairly confident they're already doing this.

IncreasePosts 2y ago
The governors mansion in Halifax has like 30 rooms and a giant garden. Maybe they should make that a homeless shelter instead of foisting it upon low income communities.

SaberTail 2y ago

> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right: Thats a fancy way of saying: parks are not campgrounds. These types of policies are plain wrong, and cities should know better by now. How do you reconcile this with the existence of private property at all? The lands of the planet earth were not formed with deeds attached.

rootusrootus 2y ago
Public ownership does not mean nobody owns it.

Throw74949 2y ago

> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals > parks are not campgrounds In most US cities parks are dog toilets. Dog owners took over most public places, and attack anyone who opposed them! > Both petty and violent crime increase overnight, vandalism on surrounding properties skyrocket, the places are littered with trash Violent crime, vandalism, trash... All of that applies to dog owners as well.

causi 2y ago

No matter where you fall on the line between "seize all rental properties and give them to the homeless" and "if you can't buy a house you should go starve to death in the woods", I think most reasonable people would agree that giving open permission to set up a zone where laws barely apply and people who live there or happen to be don't get the same degree of protection and law enforcement as you could expect on the sidewalk in front of a Walmart to be a bad idea.

david38 2y ago

You must not have children

christkv 2y ago

I always viewed it as groups. Just homeless, homeless with mental health issues and homeless with addiction. Those last two often overlap. The first group is the easiest to address. The two last ones i personally think need to be treated with institutionalization and detox. Leaving them on the street to hurt themselves and others is in my mind horrendous.

kelseyfrog 2y ago

At the same time, taking a natural resource[land] and reserving it for exclusive whether it be private or public ownership is also not a right. It's a consequence of the myth of necessary order - that the garden is preferable to the wild, that boundaries and order are necessary to function, but like this, the comprehensive ownership of land is in fact the cause of this very issue. If there was a wild or commons, this problem would cease to exist.

cassepipe 2y ago

> Taking a public asset and reserving it for exclusive use by certain individuals is not right: Thats a fancy way of saying: parks are not campgrounds. These types of policies are plain wrong, and cities should know better by now. Just want to respond to that specific point. You are right in the absolute but in practice "we" indirectly allow companies/civil groups to use public space for different purposes. Some places are places for everyone to enjoy and having people privatize is a net loss for everyone like parks but a lot of public space is just unused space that nobody has ever stepped on because it's in a weird location or for some other reason and no one really cares to use it. I think it's reasonable to allow people temporarily (while it remains unused for the collective) in those spaces to remove a bit of the pressure of not having a home and having to constantly struggle for the bare minimum.

stuaxo 2y ago

> The city is waiting for the provincial government to ramp up affordable housing construction. Nova Scotia has not built any new public housing units since 1995.

015a 2y ago

I think it’s rightly and plainly frustrating for the sole reason that the e.g. parks, sidewalks, bridges, etc that the homeless live on (and, are now directly christened by the government to do so in Halifax) are quite literally funded by taxpayers for public (read: taxpayer) use. Rightly or wrongly (but let’s be real: often rightly) parents (read: taxpayers) don’t feel safe bringing their children into these areas; young women (read: taxpayers) don’t feel safe walking in these areas. Crime is higher, drug use is higher, broken window theory, etc. Here’s my unpopular opinion: I fully support making homelessness a jailable offense. A bed, meals, and heat in the winter; we’re not talking about the end of the world here, and I’m comfortable with my tax dollars funding that because I _do_ have some empathy for the homeless. But, not infinite empathy. We need better social programs, we need to work with the charities and churches as you say, I’m also very supportive of some kind of jail-adjacent jobs program that houses and feeds the homeless in exchange for employment.

HDThoreaun 2y ago
Jail is too expensive. What we need is actually very close to what halifax is doing. We need to legalize encampments, we just have to do it in very limited areas. The city buys a large empty field on the outskirts of town and makes the homeless to go there. Clear any other encampments routinely. This also makes it much easier for charities to help the homeless since theyre all in one place. 24/7 police presence at the new encampment. Will be tough for the people who live close to the field but its the best way to minimize the impact.
- 015a 2y ago
  Functionally; like skid row? Certainly, that hasn't worked out well for LA; because it literally just doesn't work. Even many homeless don't want to live in places like this, because they inevitably become extremely unsafe, because the idea that a 24/7 police presence has a significant positive impact or is even possible is a fantasy. Police become jaded overnight, like trying to mop up the ocean. No one in the public (read: voters, taxpayers) would support a place like this in their backyard, for good reason. A person pitches a tent ten blocks away; what does the city do? Forcibly move them? They're back ten blocks away the next day. Repeat. Prison being too expensive is, to be fair, true, but a problem local to only some states, and a different problem that we should be motived to solve independent of whether its a tool in the solution of this problem. But, beyond that, maybe my point is more generally (and contentiously) stated as: I believe homelessness should be a crime whose punishment involves the forfeiture of the person's freedom of movement and work. That's a general way of saying "prison" and that's fine, but I'm comfortable stating that governments need to think about building a (undesirable, forced) path toward finding a home for these people, and making them work to earn it. If a homeless person walks this path, gets to their freedom, and reverts back to being homeless again; well, its a revolving door, but at least its one which rotates over a span of years instead of days, and its one that makes a good faith attempt toward rehabilitation.