7 ms·

What I learned reporting in cities that take belongings from homeless people

incredible1 2y ago
[flagged]
- utopicwork 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - incredible1 2y ago
    Receiving a reply like this makes me know I am doing something right.
    - utopicwork 2y ago
      [flagged]
- zenethian 2y ago
  Wow what a horrible, self-centered, inhumane way to look at this.
  - incredible1 2y ago
    I find the over-the-top righteous indignation on this topic a bit humorous. I just want to treat the homeless fairly, like the rest of us. We're all equals as human beings, no? How are they paying back in to local government? Heck, they've all but taken over public libraries in the biggest cities in the US, but they get to pay absolutely nothing for them? You don't think it's a bit dehumanizing or at least infantilizing to treat the homeless like they don't owe anything for the resources they use? We're primarily talking about grown adults. I'll add, I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek in my initial comment, knowing that there is no way these cities are making money off of programs like these. The actual effort of gathering up homeless peoples' belongings and storing them must cost a lot. And there's no reason to think they're selling the items to try and make up the money.
bradleyjg 2y ago
But our reporting shows there are more effective and compassionate ways for cities to deal with these issues. Their reporting did no such thing. Neither the article itself nor the linked guide have any case study naming a single city trying something else and having it work. It’s an attempt to create a fact recursively.
- cess11 2y ago
  The tyrants following their own policies might be more effective and compassionate. At least that's a suggestion implicated in the article.
  - s17n 2y ago
    It's the "effective" bit that the article doesn't address whatsoever.
    - cess11 2y ago
      OK, so if the tyrants were to follow regulations and court orders, why couldn't that possibly be more effective?
- MaysonL 2y ago
  https://ofhsoupkitchen.org/best-cities-to-be-homeless https://ofhsoupkitchen.org/best-cities-to-be-homeless 6 cities that have made substantial inroads on their homelessness problems. The way to do it seems to be to offer homeless people homes.
  - czhu12 2y ago
    The title of this article is “6 Best Cities To Be Homeless in the US”. The article also says that two of them have made little to no progress with their homelessness (san Diego and Berkeley). And the others are still struggling with the problem. The article seems to answer the question of: where is it easiest to live on the street, as it mentions Berkeley and San Diego having good weather, therefore, being easier to live outside. The only success story seems to be Houston which famously has a low cost of living. I’m not sure this qualifies as a solution to the problem.
GenerocUsername 2y ago
"their belongings" Having had my car prowled by homeless several times, and any yard decoration pillaged over the years, the objects in homeless camps are 90% stolen and 9% donated, and 1% actual belongings of a person
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  The link through to the other article with specific examples is illuminating. It's a lot of medication and paperwork, and little relics of a more normal life before. Photos of loved ones, ashes of a dead spouse. Nasty work to post this comment here.
  - aksss 2y ago
    Not nasty, a fair observation even if over generalizing. Let’s not shy away from the reality. Yes, mementos of past lives and paperwork do exist as a fractional though important part of the whole, but the point that by volume much of the material in an encampment is stolen is not nasty, but reflected by any visual tour. If you’ve been through the experience of having anything and everything gradually stolen out of your yard and car if it’s not bolted down, with the police not giving a flying F about your loss or the problem systemically, it’s annoying to listen to such deference and enablement. That frustration isn’t the best guiding light for policy, but being dismissive of it or shaming the contributing elements of society into not expressing the frustrations they live with is not a healthy way to address the problem either.
    - giraffe_lady 2y ago
      > If you’ve been through the experience of having anything and everything gradually stolen out of your yard and car if it’s not bolted down, with the police not giving a flying F about your loss or the problem systemically, I've been through the experience of being homeless. I have some opinions about the degree to which the police cared about my problems too. I once stole a tarp out of a yard in the face of an incoming blizzard I was hoping to survive. My sympathies are never going to be with the yard guardians here.
JohnMakin 2y ago
I live in an area with massive homeless populations and in an area where the average price of rent has raised nearly 50% in the period since COVID-19. I've seen a startling amount of what I can only describe as "new" homeless in this same period, and a growing cruelty in the way my city and surrounding cities have decided to deal with the problem. I think systemically, the cruelty might be a little bit of the point - fear of homelessness has way too many times in my life gotten my ass out of bed in the morning for a soul-crushing minimum wage gig. Being poor or sick or mentally ill should not be criminalized, unfortunately, that ship has long sailed.
- nelsoch 2y ago
  """- fear of homelessness has way too many times in my life gotten my ass out of bed in the morning for a soul-crushing minimum wage gig. Being poor or sick or mentally ill should not be criminalized, unfortunately, that ship has long sailed.""" It doesn't help with all the layoffs that subsequently caused people not to be able afford previous living conditions- which means having to have had to relocate far- far away from family. A lot of former IT colleagues of mine have degraded their way of living to sleeping on friends couches or leaving the industry altogether for manageable pay. Personally, I've always had the paranoia of getting axed for being sick 'at a bad time' for one of my previous employers. My current company seems to be mostly sympathetic, which has left me in a awkwardly distrustful/appreciative state. But with things winding down right now- I'm not sure where my future lies come the turn of the year.
acabal 2y ago
Some time ago I read You Can't Win[1], a 1926 memoir by a hobo-by-choice named Jack Black. He describes his life as a hobo in various cities (including SF!), and the picture he paints of the turn-of-the-century will be eerily familiar to anyone living in a major US city today: huge numbers of homeless hopelessly addicted to wine and opium (called "hop") that was cheap and easily accessible in streets and flophouses; tent cities lining the outskirts of town; entire communities of people living in that fashion and outright refusing to re-enter society. The big difference between now and the turn of the 20th century is that back then, the law had little to no tolerance for public vagrancy. Jack Black describes dodging sheriffs, being locked up for the crimes of vagrancy and burglary, spending long stretches of time in prison and emerging completely unreformed, immediately returning to his life of encampment and crime. Even though ultimately his behavior didn't change, the law made him spend significant lengths of time removed from society. I don't know what the lesson is here, if there is one. While a century ago their approach also didn't solve the problem, it did result in more livable cities for everyone else in the meantime. Perhaps one takeaway here is that it the problem isn't truly "solvable" given how we have structured our markets-based society. [1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jack-black/you-cant-win https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jack-black/you-cant-win
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  Per your own post you claim two things - that a very similar (and possibly worse) problem existed with ruthless enforcement, yet the problem was still bad. Why is then your conclusion/question that we need more of that, or I guess to more accurately paraphrase what you said, less compassion than we have now? Those things don’t really seem to logically follow.
  - ozzzy1 2y ago
    Yea, I'm not seeing this compassionate approach we have been doing for the past decades apparently.
    - bradleyjg 2y ago
      We spend an enormous amount of money. Unfortunately most of it goes to well meaning, but ineffectual do-gooders rather than actually solving any problems. Voters very much want a compassionate and effective solution. They just aren’t being offered one.
giraffe_lady 2y ago
[flagged]
- ChoHag 2y ago
  [dead]
Fin_Code 2y ago
As with most homeless issues the problem is a hard one. You can't let them accumulate trash. These sweeps are the only practical way of dealing with the issue. Is there more humane and compassionate approaches, maybe. But storing and proving ownership of property would be difficult and fraught with issues. As with most other social issues. If you want this compassion find a way to pay for it yourself. The city is already operating on the input of its citizens and would love for you to take the issue off their hands.
s17n 2y ago
"She told me she knows that her belongings are an “eyesore,” so she tries to keep them out of the way." If only all homeless people were like this. As someone who lives in an epicenter of this stuff, I don't think that encampments / people living in tents on the street are inherently a problem - its the small number of homeless people who aggressively spread trash and human waste everywhere that are making the neighborhood unlivable for everyone. Probably these people are dealing with mental health crises, maybe they are just dicks, but either way we have to get them off the street and I'm pretty sure the only way for that to happen is through oppressive policies.
- ChoHag 2y ago
  You don't see the homeless people who keep themselves and their belongings out of your sight.
- mmooss 2y ago
  That's true in every neighborhood - everyone has that one neighbor who doesn't take care of trash, has problems with rats, etc. We keep trying to signal out people without housing as different, but it's never true. It's just the house that's missing. > we have to get them off the street and I'm pretty sure the only way for that to happen is through oppressive policies. Who cares if you think something is an eyesore? Maybe you're an eyesore to me; can I arrest you? Your words are much more obnoxious and dangerous than the unhoused person you describe; can we jail you? Only oppressive policies will work. You'd better start standing up for human rights and freedom before it's too late. Oppression is a crime against the rule of law and human rights, not a policy.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Calling trash and human waste on the streets an eyesore trivializes the discussion and gets us nowhere. Human feces in the streets is a public health issue, as is trash that invites rats which - lest we forget - are partially responsible for spreading one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.
    - 2y ago
exabrial 2y ago
In nearly every US State, if someone trespasses on your property and abandons their assets on it, you're completely allowed to dispose or liquidate their assets after a reasonable amount of time. If they've been warned about their trespass (signs, verbal warnings, etc) this period can pretty short or require no further attempts. To my knowledge, no state has provisions that you must care for or even attempt to reunite the owner with their property.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  There may not be a legal obligation, but there's still a moral obligation.
  - exabrial 2y ago
    There's also a moral obligation to not trespass.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Even if trespass was comparable to taking everything that somebody owns, two wrongs don't make a right.
- mmooss 2y ago
  If people have no home of their own, where do they put their assets?
  - exabrial 2y ago
    You're allowed to keep them on your person. This isn't difficult.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      Could you keep all your assets on your person? What do you carry every day?

[flagged]

utopicwork 2y ago
[flagged]
- incredible1 2y ago
  Receiving a reply like this makes me know I am doing something right.
  - utopicwork 2y ago
    [flagged]
zenethian 2y ago
Wow what a horrible, self-centered, inhumane way to look at this.
- incredible1 2y ago
  I find the over-the-top righteous indignation on this topic a bit humorous. I just want to treat the homeless fairly, like the rest of us. We're all equals as human beings, no? How are they paying back in to local government? Heck, they've all but taken over public libraries in the biggest cities in the US, but they get to pay absolutely nothing for them? You don't think it's a bit dehumanizing or at least infantilizing to treat the homeless like they don't owe anything for the resources they use? We're primarily talking about grown adults. I'll add, I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek in my initial comment, knowing that there is no way these cities are making money off of programs like these. The actual effort of gathering up homeless peoples' belongings and storing them must cost a lot. And there's no reason to think they're selling the items to try and make up the money.

But our reporting shows there are more effective and compassionate ways for cities to deal with these issues. Their reporting did no such thing. Neither the article itself nor the linked guide have any case study naming a single city trying something else and having it work. It’s an attempt to create a fact recursively.

cess11 2y ago
The tyrants following their own policies might be more effective and compassionate. At least that's a suggestion implicated in the article.
- s17n 2y ago
  It's the "effective" bit that the article doesn't address whatsoever.
  - cess11 2y ago
    OK, so if the tyrants were to follow regulations and court orders, why couldn't that possibly be more effective?
MaysonL 2y ago
https://ofhsoupkitchen.org/best-cities-to-be-homeless https://ofhsoupkitchen.org/best-cities-to-be-homeless 6 cities that have made substantial inroads on their homelessness problems. The way to do it seems to be to offer homeless people homes.
- czhu12 2y ago
  The title of this article is “6 Best Cities To Be Homeless in the US”. The article also says that two of them have made little to no progress with their homelessness (san Diego and Berkeley). And the others are still struggling with the problem. The article seems to answer the question of: where is it easiest to live on the street, as it mentions Berkeley and San Diego having good weather, therefore, being easier to live outside. The only success story seems to be Houston which famously has a low cost of living. I’m not sure this qualifies as a solution to the problem.

GenerocUsername 2y ago

"their belongings" Having had my car prowled by homeless several times, and any yard decoration pillaged over the years, the objects in homeless camps are 90% stolen and 9% donated, and 1% actual belongings of a person

giraffe_lady 2y ago
The link through to the other article with specific examples is illuminating. It's a lot of medication and paperwork, and little relics of a more normal life before. Photos of loved ones, ashes of a dead spouse. Nasty work to post this comment here.
- aksss 2y ago
  Not nasty, a fair observation even if over generalizing. Let’s not shy away from the reality. Yes, mementos of past lives and paperwork do exist as a fractional though important part of the whole, but the point that by volume much of the material in an encampment is stolen is not nasty, but reflected by any visual tour. If you’ve been through the experience of having anything and everything gradually stolen out of your yard and car if it’s not bolted down, with the police not giving a flying F about your loss or the problem systemically, it’s annoying to listen to such deference and enablement. That frustration isn’t the best guiding light for policy, but being dismissive of it or shaming the contributing elements of society into not expressing the frustrations they live with is not a healthy way to address the problem either.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    > If you’ve been through the experience of having anything and everything gradually stolen out of your yard and car if it’s not bolted down, with the police not giving a flying F about your loss or the problem systemically, I've been through the experience of being homeless. I have some opinions about the degree to which the police cared about my problems too. I once stole a tarp out of a yard in the face of an incoming blizzard I was hoping to survive. My sympathies are never going to be with the yard guardians here.

JohnMakin 2y ago

I live in an area with massive homeless populations and in an area where the average price of rent has raised nearly 50% in the period since COVID-19. I've seen a startling amount of what I can only describe as "new" homeless in this same period, and a growing cruelty in the way my city and surrounding cities have decided to deal with the problem. I think systemically, the cruelty might be a little bit of the point - fear of homelessness has way too many times in my life gotten my ass out of bed in the morning for a soul-crushing minimum wage gig. Being poor or sick or mentally ill should not be criminalized, unfortunately, that ship has long sailed.

nelsoch 2y ago
"""- fear of homelessness has way too many times in my life gotten my ass out of bed in the morning for a soul-crushing minimum wage gig. Being poor or sick or mentally ill should not be criminalized, unfortunately, that ship has long sailed.""" It doesn't help with all the layoffs that subsequently caused people not to be able afford previous living conditions- which means having to have had to relocate far- far away from family. A lot of former IT colleagues of mine have degraded their way of living to sleeping on friends couches or leaving the industry altogether for manageable pay. Personally, I've always had the paranoia of getting axed for being sick 'at a bad time' for one of my previous employers. My current company seems to be mostly sympathetic, which has left me in a awkwardly distrustful/appreciative state. But with things winding down right now- I'm not sure where my future lies come the turn of the year.

acabal 2y ago

Some time ago I read You Can't Win[1], a 1926 memoir by a hobo-by-choice named Jack Black. He describes his life as a hobo in various cities (including SF!), and the picture he paints of the turn-of-the-century will be eerily familiar to anyone living in a major US city today: huge numbers of homeless hopelessly addicted to wine and opium (called "hop") that was cheap and easily accessible in streets and flophouses; tent cities lining the outskirts of town; entire communities of people living in that fashion and outright refusing to re-enter society. The big difference between now and the turn of the 20th century is that back then, the law had little to no tolerance for public vagrancy. Jack Black describes dodging sheriffs, being locked up for the crimes of vagrancy and burglary, spending long stretches of time in prison and emerging completely unreformed, immediately returning to his life of encampment and crime. Even though ultimately his behavior didn't change, the law made him spend significant lengths of time removed from society. I don't know what the lesson is here, if there is one. While a century ago their approach also didn't solve the problem, it did result in more livable cities for everyone else in the meantime. Perhaps one takeaway here is that it the problem isn't truly "solvable" given how we have structured our markets-based society. [1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jack-black/you-cant-win https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jack-black/you-cant-win

JohnMakin 2y ago
Per your own post you claim two things - that a very similar (and possibly worse) problem existed with ruthless enforcement, yet the problem was still bad. Why is then your conclusion/question that we need more of that, or I guess to more accurately paraphrase what you said, less compassion than we have now? Those things don’t really seem to logically follow.
- ozzzy1 2y ago
  Yea, I'm not seeing this compassionate approach we have been doing for the past decades apparently.
  - bradleyjg 2y ago
    We spend an enormous amount of money. Unfortunately most of it goes to well meaning, but ineffectual do-gooders rather than actually solving any problems. Voters very much want a compassionate and effective solution. They just aren’t being offered one.

giraffe_lady 2y ago

[flagged]

ChoHag 2y ago
[dead]

Fin_Code 2y ago

As with most homeless issues the problem is a hard one. You can't let them accumulate trash. These sweeps are the only practical way of dealing with the issue. Is there more humane and compassionate approaches, maybe. But storing and proving ownership of property would be difficult and fraught with issues. As with most other social issues. If you want this compassion find a way to pay for it yourself. The city is already operating on the input of its citizens and would love for you to take the issue off their hands.

s17n 2y ago

"She told me she knows that her belongings are an “eyesore,” so she tries to keep them out of the way." If only all homeless people were like this. As someone who lives in an epicenter of this stuff, I don't think that encampments / people living in tents on the street are inherently a problem - its the small number of homeless people who aggressively spread trash and human waste everywhere that are making the neighborhood unlivable for everyone. Probably these people are dealing with mental health crises, maybe they are just dicks, but either way we have to get them off the street and I'm pretty sure the only way for that to happen is through oppressive policies.

ChoHag 2y ago
You don't see the homeless people who keep themselves and their belongings out of your sight.
mmooss 2y ago
That's true in every neighborhood - everyone has that one neighbor who doesn't take care of trash, has problems with rats, etc. We keep trying to signal out people without housing as different, but it's never true. It's just the house that's missing. > we have to get them off the street and I'm pretty sure the only way for that to happen is through oppressive policies. Who cares if you think something is an eyesore? Maybe you're an eyesore to me; can I arrest you? Your words are much more obnoxious and dangerous than the unhoused person you describe; can we jail you? Only oppressive policies will work. You'd better start standing up for human rights and freedom before it's too late. Oppression is a crime against the rule of law and human rights, not a policy.
- throwup238 2y ago
  Calling trash and human waste on the streets an eyesore trivializes the discussion and gets us nowhere. Human feces in the streets is a public health issue, as is trash that invites rats which - lest we forget - are partially responsible for spreading one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.
  - 2y ago

exabrial 2y ago

In nearly every US State, if someone trespasses on your property and abandons their assets on it, you're completely allowed to dispose or liquidate their assets after a reasonable amount of time. If they've been warned about their trespass (signs, verbal warnings, etc) this period can pretty short or require no further attempts. To my knowledge, no state has provisions that you must care for or even attempt to reunite the owner with their property.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
There may not be a legal obligation, but there's still a moral obligation.
- exabrial 2y ago
  There's also a moral obligation to not trespass.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Even if trespass was comparable to taking everything that somebody owns, two wrongs don't make a right.
mmooss 2y ago
If people have no home of their own, where do they put their assets?
- exabrial 2y ago
  You're allowed to keep them on your person. This isn't difficult.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    Could you keep all your assets on your person? What do you carry every day?