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I'm struck by two things while watching this video: 1 - Those tents seem pretty nice. 2 - This is pretty shameful for a society that is right now bailing out

I'm struck by two things while watching this video: 1 - Those tents seem pretty nice. 2 - This is pretty shameful for a society that is right now bailing out executives. I'm generally very libertarian in my beliefs, but tent cities are where I draw the line and agree with social assistance / intervention. They seem to be relatively small right now, but if they grow to large hundreds, or thousands of people, this will become a critical issue.

petercooper 18y ago
Tent cities are going to be preferable, in some cases, to the sort of hideous social housing available (especially here in the UK). At least you can up sticks and walk down the road with a tent.. in social housing, if your neighbor's a drug addict and kids are pissing in your letterbox, you're screwed.
- gordonguthrie 18y ago
  This is outrageous nonsense about UK social housing. There is a small amount of truly awful social housing but the vast majority of it is perfectly sound, full of ordinary decent people. I have council flats in front of me, and to the right of my house and they are full of good people. My brother is a professor of General Practice (a GP/local MD in US parlance) who was on sabbatical in San Francisco 2 years ago. He pointed out to me THEN there were more homeless rough sleepers in Golden Gate Park alone every night than there were rough sleepers in London. Los Angeles had, at that time, 250,000 rough sleepers. The UK (and the rest of Europe) have social (and drug) problems like anywhere buy nowhere are things as bad in the US which effectively has no functioning social security and where whole communities are 2 wage packets from destitution.
  - petercooper 18y ago
    That wasn't the point. The point is that if you have minimal money, some freedom, and plenty of free space, you can just about function (as the tent cities, favelas, and so forth demonstrate). Those are dire places to live but at least you have mobility when the jobs come back.. whereas if you're stuck in social housing you are screwed. The US is full of mobile, resourceful people who have a freedom over the land Europeans could only dream of. They'll get through this however bad it gets. Lazy, dole-riding Europeans? I'm not so sure. (note: I'm not saying "all Europeans are X" but using an adjective to describe a group of Europeans.. sadly some people are stupid enough to think <adjective> <noun> means all <noun> are <adjective>)
patio11 18y ago
The lack of a roof over your head isn't the cause of homelessness, it is the symptom. Addressing it in a more permanent manner would probably require you to compromise on a lot more of your libertarianism than just offering more social assistance. For example, a huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill. If we institutionalized them, which is a nice euphemism for "confined them against their will", they would no longer be homeless. Are you willing to do that? Another major portion prefer camps to shelters or traditional housing arrangements because they just fundamentally do not want to accede to societal norms like "You should work for a living and pay rent", and necessary prerequisites like "In order to maintain that job, you will probably find it necessary to come in to work almost every day, and be sober for the duration". Empirically, a significant portion of the homeless population will trade comfort for autonomy. Living in a shelter means a loss of autonomy, and some people prefer a largely-unsupervised tent or, in a pinch, the streets. NYC used to have significant excess shelter space and tried to force it on a homeless encampment by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church and homeless advocates sued to protect the homeless' right to live outside of shelters. So, again -- are you OK with agents of the state having to physically restrain people to get them into shelters? Because that is what will be required to alleviate this symptom.
- davo11 18y ago
  Some homeless people are mentally ill but this isn't a reason to not have a social safety net. There used to be a term 'noblesse oblige' where the more fortunate are duty bound to look after those less fortunate, to my mind this is where a social security net is required. Some people will for one reason or another, whether by bad luck or plain old stupidity will end up at some point in there life out on the streets. If these people have kids then the kids end up on the streets and no longer receive an education, so they'll end up as criminals or on drugs or something like that. If this cycle is allowed to continue you end up with large areas of slums in cities. If instead when bad things happen there is a security net that allows you to wipe yourself down, get up and move on then the cycle is avoided, or at least it's depth is less. It can become a social welfare problem, but at least you don't have children dying in tents from exposure, and there's always the chance that when things pick up, they'll be able to get a job or at least the children do.
nazgulnarsil 18y ago
libertarianism and capitalism are not at odds with social consciousness and charity. as a libertarian I object only to the mandatory nature of government sponsored regulation and subsidy. instead of having a government sponsored safety net let startups compete to monetize the homeless market. As mentioned a lot of these people are doing day laborer jobs and other miscellaneous things. there is probably a lot of potential there that is only being stifled by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws prevent anyone whose labor isn't worth at least $x an hour from finding employment. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" $3 an hour is better than $0 an hour, and the defining feature would be that everything was entered into as a voluntary contract. Nothing would be forced on anyone. It would simply be giving homeless people an option that doesn't exist now. Imagine: Better Living Inc. offers housing, counseling, and vocational training to the homeless. In the interim the homeless person works for $3 an hour until he has enough saved up to jump start a real life again. I'm betting the numbers add up.
- turkishrevenge 18y ago
  Voluntary? In an absolutist sense, yes. In practice, no. In theory all work in voluntary, assuming you can leave job and still afford to pay for basic amenities like food, housing, transportation, and still provide for your family, etc until new employment is secured. If you cannot do these things, it ceases to be voluntary. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" Well according to this logic, $2.50/hr is better than $0/hr; $2/hr is better than $0/hr; $1/hr is better than $0/hr, and so on. Everything you describe is a race to the bottom in terms of wages. There would have to be a very strong deflationary pressure to bring prices to the point where the above is capable of really purchasing anything. In such a case, the economy would be in shambles anyway, so employment in general would be a huge issue. What you describe is not new and, at its core, totally exploitative. Living in a company town is strikingly similar to this. The employer actually "pays" the worker, $7/hr, but keeps the $4 majority the payment of ground rent, food, etc. Of course, you leave any time--that is until your meager savings are depleted by a raised cost of living--one manufactured by the benevolent boss/mayor!
  - 18y ago

petercooper 18y ago

Tent cities are going to be preferable, in some cases, to the sort of hideous social housing available (especially here in the UK). At least you can up sticks and walk down the road with a tent.. in social housing, if your neighbor's a drug addict and kids are pissing in your letterbox, you're screwed.

gordonguthrie 18y ago
This is outrageous nonsense about UK social housing. There is a small amount of truly awful social housing but the vast majority of it is perfectly sound, full of ordinary decent people. I have council flats in front of me, and to the right of my house and they are full of good people. My brother is a professor of General Practice (a GP/local MD in US parlance) who was on sabbatical in San Francisco 2 years ago. He pointed out to me THEN there were more homeless rough sleepers in Golden Gate Park alone every night than there were rough sleepers in London. Los Angeles had, at that time, 250,000 rough sleepers. The UK (and the rest of Europe) have social (and drug) problems like anywhere buy nowhere are things as bad in the US which effectively has no functioning social security and where whole communities are 2 wage packets from destitution.
- petercooper 18y ago
  That wasn't the point. The point is that if you have minimal money, some freedom, and plenty of free space, you can just about function (as the tent cities, favelas, and so forth demonstrate). Those are dire places to live but at least you have mobility when the jobs come back.. whereas if you're stuck in social housing you are screwed. The US is full of mobile, resourceful people who have a freedom over the land Europeans could only dream of. They'll get through this however bad it gets. Lazy, dole-riding Europeans? I'm not so sure. (note: I'm not saying "all Europeans are X" but using an adjective to describe a group of Europeans.. sadly some people are stupid enough to think <adjective> <noun> means all <noun> are <adjective>)

patio11 18y ago

The lack of a roof over your head isn't the cause of homelessness, it is the symptom. Addressing it in a more permanent manner would probably require you to compromise on a lot more of your libertarianism than just offering more social assistance. For example, a huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill. If we institutionalized them, which is a nice euphemism for "confined them against their will", they would no longer be homeless. Are you willing to do that? Another major portion prefer camps to shelters or traditional housing arrangements because they just fundamentally do not want to accede to societal norms like "You should work for a living and pay rent", and necessary prerequisites like "In order to maintain that job, you will probably find it necessary to come in to work almost every day, and be sober for the duration". Empirically, a significant portion of the homeless population will trade comfort for autonomy. Living in a shelter means a loss of autonomy, and some people prefer a largely-unsupervised tent or, in a pinch, the streets. NYC used to have significant excess shelter space and tried to force it on a homeless encampment by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church and homeless advocates sued to protect the homeless' right to live outside of shelters. So, again -- are you OK with agents of the state having to physically restrain people to get them into shelters? Because that is what will be required to alleviate this symptom.

davo11 18y ago
Some homeless people are mentally ill but this isn't a reason to not have a social safety net. There used to be a term 'noblesse oblige' where the more fortunate are duty bound to look after those less fortunate, to my mind this is where a social security net is required. Some people will for one reason or another, whether by bad luck or plain old stupidity will end up at some point in there life out on the streets. If these people have kids then the kids end up on the streets and no longer receive an education, so they'll end up as criminals or on drugs or something like that. If this cycle is allowed to continue you end up with large areas of slums in cities. If instead when bad things happen there is a security net that allows you to wipe yourself down, get up and move on then the cycle is avoided, or at least it's depth is less. It can become a social welfare problem, but at least you don't have children dying in tents from exposure, and there's always the chance that when things pick up, they'll be able to get a job or at least the children do.

nazgulnarsil 18y ago

libertarianism and capitalism are not at odds with social consciousness and charity. as a libertarian I object only to the mandatory nature of government sponsored regulation and subsidy. instead of having a government sponsored safety net let startups compete to monetize the homeless market. As mentioned a lot of these people are doing day laborer jobs and other miscellaneous things. there is probably a lot of potential there that is only being stifled by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws prevent anyone whose labor isn't worth at least $x an hour from finding employment. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" $3 an hour is better than $0 an hour, and the defining feature would be that everything was entered into as a voluntary contract. Nothing would be forced on anyone. It would simply be giving homeless people an option that doesn't exist now. Imagine: Better Living Inc. offers housing, counseling, and vocational training to the homeless. In the interim the homeless person works for $3 an hour until he has enough saved up to jump start a real life again. I'm betting the numbers add up.

turkishrevenge 18y ago
Voluntary? In an absolutist sense, yes. In practice, no. In theory all work in voluntary, assuming you can leave job and still afford to pay for basic amenities like food, housing, transportation, and still provide for your family, etc until new employment is secured. If you cannot do these things, it ceases to be voluntary. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" Well according to this logic, $2.50/hr is better than $0/hr; $2/hr is better than $0/hr; $1/hr is better than $0/hr, and so on. Everything you describe is a race to the bottom in terms of wages. There would have to be a very strong deflationary pressure to bring prices to the point where the above is capable of really purchasing anything. In such a case, the economy would be in shambles anyway, so employment in general would be a huge issue. What you describe is not new and, at its core, totally exploitative. Living in a company town is strikingly similar to this. The employer actually "pays" the worker, $7/hr, but keeps the $4 majority the payment of ground rent, food, etc. Of course, you leave any time--that is until your meager savings are depleted by a raised cost of living--one manufactured by the benevolent boss/mayor!
- 18y ago