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> 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 liv

> 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.
  - petsfed 1y ago
    Some quick googling suggests that 80% of California's land area is rural, compared to 39% of Germany's. Considering they're very nearly the same size, that's considerable. And also understandable, considering that Germany has more than double the population. At no point did I say "don't try to solve the drug problem". I even said as much when I said "help the homeless get their life back on track". What I'm trying to say (and clearly failing at saying) is that "don't even bother with 'x' until we accomplish 'y'" misses the fact that at least as it pertains to dealing with making cities people want to live in, its a complex, interrelated system. In my, highly limited experience, for instance, homelessness drives drug use, because its a relatively cheap escape from the desperate reality of homelessness and long-term unemployment. I'm not here to make excuses for people, but I am here to say that its a lot more complicated than "get rid of the drugs, and people won't be homeless". If it were that easy, then Reagan's War On Drugs would've actually, you know, worked. You should educate yourself on the root cause of the US's opiate problem. While there a lot of recreational drug users who went off the rails, virtually all of the addicts I know personally were initially wildly over-prescribed opiates for a legitimate medical reason, and in trusting their doctor, got addicted. There was a big court case around it. I know, the plural of anecdote is not data, but there is in fact data about it.

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.
- petsfed 1y ago
  Some quick googling suggests that 80% of California's land area is rural, compared to 39% of Germany's. Considering they're very nearly the same size, that's considerable. And also understandable, considering that Germany has more than double the population. At no point did I say "don't try to solve the drug problem". I even said as much when I said "help the homeless get their life back on track". What I'm trying to say (and clearly failing at saying) is that "don't even bother with 'x' until we accomplish 'y'" misses the fact that at least as it pertains to dealing with making cities people want to live in, its a complex, interrelated system. In my, highly limited experience, for instance, homelessness drives drug use, because its a relatively cheap escape from the desperate reality of homelessness and long-term unemployment. I'm not here to make excuses for people, but I am here to say that its a lot more complicated than "get rid of the drugs, and people won't be homeless". If it were that easy, then Reagan's War On Drugs would've actually, you know, worked. You should educate yourself on the root cause of the US's opiate problem. While there a lot of recreational drug users who went off the rails, virtually all of the addicts I know personally were initially wildly over-prescribed opiates for a legitimate medical reason, and in trusting their doctor, got addicted. There was a big court case around it. I know, the plural of anecdote is not data, but there is in fact data about it.