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>Have you ever been around homeless people? Yes. At many stages of the descent from "I'm just crashing on your couch until I save up enough for another deposit

>Have you ever been around homeless people? Yes. At many stages of the descent from "I'm just crashing on your couch until I save up enough for another deposit" to "I'm sleeping in my car until I can find a job" to "I'm living in a shanty and rummaging through the trash to turn in aluminum cans for change". Both whilst living in the Bay Area, but also in Oregon and Washington. You're complaining (rightly) about the end stage. I'm saying that nobody starts at the end stage. Hell, I'm actively watching my brother-in-law and his baby mama descend through the mental illness and addiction process, and even though they've been evicted and are now dragging their daughter through the couch-surfing phase, they still aren't at the living-in-tents-shitting-on-the-street phase of that descent. And a major factor, for them was that neither of them could get the kind of jobs that would allow them to both have a stable living situation and do anything but work (because of criminal history resulting from addiction). Its a cascading series of problems that when he lost his license (due to his addiction), he could only work where he could walk, or where he could realistically ride a bus. And in most of the country, if you can't find work within those two ranges, you're shit out of luck. And to be clear, I'm not proposing we just throw up our hands and say "I guess they're just addicted and this is our life now". I'm saying that "just lock up the homeless people" is as much a solution as "well, we've got seatbelts" is for a hydroplaning car. We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless, and 2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order.

constantcrying 1y ago
> We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless, and 2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order. I live in a country with a right to housing. The government will literally pay your rent. Public transit is still full of homeless people. Guess why? Spoiler: It is not because housing is unaffordable or because transit is bad. >Hell, I'm actively watching my brother-in-law and his baby mama descend through the mental illness and addiction process, and even though they've been evicted and are now dragging their daughter through the couch-surfing phase, they still aren't at the living-in-tents-shitting-on-the-street phase of that descent. And you are sure that, if they stayed completely drug-free and sane, they couldn't find jobs which allowed them to pay rent? The problem here are the drugs, blaming anything else is absurd. There is exactly one way to help them and their child get the parents of the drugs and the child away from them until the parents stay sober. Literally every single step in that tragedy, as you describe it, revolves around drugs. Seeking the cure in anything but getting rid of the drugs is absurd. >We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless No, we don't. The only way to stop people being homeless is getting rid of the drugs. Even if the government is legally obligated to pay for housing there are still homeless people because of the drugs. >2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order. No. We need to get drug addicts sober. Anything else is secondary. Do you think your brother in law would be fixed if he got free housing, but remained a drug addict? Of course not.
- petsfed 1y ago
  So, do you live in a country that is notoriously designed almost exclusively for personal automobiles? Whose cities' growth was informed as much by lobbying from the automotive industry as by a desire to use personal automobiles? Do you live in a country where prison sentences are applied in such a way that meaningfully decreases the recidivism rate? I see by your comment history that you live in Germany. You do understand that even California is considerably less urban than your country, right? And to be clear, I'm not saying my brother-in-law doesn't need to quit drugs. I'm saying that the in the US's justice system, just putting him in prison until he's clean will just guarantee that he's in and out of prison until he eventually overdoses, all the while dooming his 11-year-old daughter, my children's beloved cousin, to a life of addiction and abuse herself. Moreover, even if he does get himself clean, because of his criminal record, he's doomed to working those same shit jobs, living at the ragged edge of the poverty line, for the rest of his life, because very few will take the risk of hiring an ex-con. Nobody ever relapsed in those conditions, no sir. Maybe its different in Germany. Maybe getting yourself clean and sober will allow you to live a productive and happy life, and once you've served your time, you're free of the stigma of being an ex-convict. But if the only solution to the drug problem in the US is incarceration, given the current state of prisons in the US, a more humane approach might be mass executions. Which, I recall, Germany has some experience with.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    >I see by your comment history that you live in Germany. You do understand that even California is considerably less urban than your country, right? Is it? Much of Germany is rural, especially manufacturing, you would be surprised. >But if the only solution to the drug problem in the US is incarceration, given the current state of prisons in the US, a more humane approach might be mass executions. My point is that the homelessness problem is downstream of drugs. I have never said, nor do I believe, that just putting drug addicts in prison will solve anything. Especially when the prisons are full of drugs, as they are, even in Germany. I do believe that trying to solve homelessness, while not addressing how to get people of drugs is a pointless endeavor. >And to be clear, I'm not saying my brother-in-law doesn't need to quit drugs. I'm saying that the in the US's justice system, just putting him in prison until he's clean will just guarantee that he's in and out of prison until he eventually overdoses, all the while dooming his 11-year-old daughter, my children's beloved cousin, to a life of addiction and abuse herself. Moreover, even if he does get himself clean, because of his criminal record, he's doomed to working those same shit jobs, living at the ragged edge of the poverty line, for the rest of his life, because very few will take the risk of hiring an ex-con. Nobody ever relapsed in those conditions, no sir. But the drugs clearly started it all. It is the root cause, not the lack of housing or distance to jobs. We both know that had he never taken any drugs none of this would have happened.

constantcrying 1y ago

> We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless, and 2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order. I live in a country with a right to housing. The government will literally pay your rent. Public transit is still full of homeless people. Guess why? Spoiler: It is not because housing is unaffordable or because transit is bad. >Hell, I'm actively watching my brother-in-law and his baby mama descend through the mental illness and addiction process, and even though they've been evicted and are now dragging their daughter through the couch-surfing phase, they still aren't at the living-in-tents-shitting-on-the-street phase of that descent. And you are sure that, if they stayed completely drug-free and sane, they couldn't find jobs which allowed them to pay rent? The problem here are the drugs, blaming anything else is absurd. There is exactly one way to help them and their child get the parents of the drugs and the child away from them until the parents stay sober. Literally every single step in that tragedy, as you describe it, revolves around drugs. Seeking the cure in anything but getting rid of the drugs is absurd. >We have within easy reach the ability to 1) stop more people from becoming homeless No, we don't. The only way to stop people being homeless is getting rid of the drugs. Even if the government is legally obligated to pay for housing there are still homeless people because of the drugs. >2) help people who are homeless get their lives back in order. No. We need to get drug addicts sober. Anything else is secondary. Do you think your brother in law would be fixed if he got free housing, but remained a drug addict? Of course not.

petsfed 1y ago
So, do you live in a country that is notoriously designed almost exclusively for personal automobiles? Whose cities' growth was informed as much by lobbying from the automotive industry as by a desire to use personal automobiles? Do you live in a country where prison sentences are applied in such a way that meaningfully decreases the recidivism rate? I see by your comment history that you live in Germany. You do understand that even California is considerably less urban than your country, right? And to be clear, I'm not saying my brother-in-law doesn't need to quit drugs. I'm saying that the in the US's justice system, just putting him in prison until he's clean will just guarantee that he's in and out of prison until he eventually overdoses, all the while dooming his 11-year-old daughter, my children's beloved cousin, to a life of addiction and abuse herself. Moreover, even if he does get himself clean, because of his criminal record, he's doomed to working those same shit jobs, living at the ragged edge of the poverty line, for the rest of his life, because very few will take the risk of hiring an ex-con. Nobody ever relapsed in those conditions, no sir. Maybe its different in Germany. Maybe getting yourself clean and sober will allow you to live a productive and happy life, and once you've served your time, you're free of the stigma of being an ex-convict. But if the only solution to the drug problem in the US is incarceration, given the current state of prisons in the US, a more humane approach might be mass executions. Which, I recall, Germany has some experience with.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  >I see by your comment history that you live in Germany. You do understand that even California is considerably less urban than your country, right? Is it? Much of Germany is rural, especially manufacturing, you would be surprised. >But if the only solution to the drug problem in the US is incarceration, given the current state of prisons in the US, a more humane approach might be mass executions. My point is that the homelessness problem is downstream of drugs. I have never said, nor do I believe, that just putting drug addicts in prison will solve anything. Especially when the prisons are full of drugs, as they are, even in Germany. I do believe that trying to solve homelessness, while not addressing how to get people of drugs is a pointless endeavor. >And to be clear, I'm not saying my brother-in-law doesn't need to quit drugs. I'm saying that the in the US's justice system, just putting him in prison until he's clean will just guarantee that he's in and out of prison until he eventually overdoses, all the while dooming his 11-year-old daughter, my children's beloved cousin, to a life of addiction and abuse herself. Moreover, even if he does get himself clean, because of his criminal record, he's doomed to working those same shit jobs, living at the ragged edge of the poverty line, for the rest of his life, because very few will take the risk of hiring an ex-con. Nobody ever relapsed in those conditions, no sir. But the drugs clearly started it all. It is the root cause, not the lack of housing or distance to jobs. We both know that had he never taken any drugs none of this would have happened.