And what else will I complain about when I go downtown? I want to be able to complain about how we need to clean the riffraff of the streets, but it gives me no joy if we're actually getting them off the streets! I need something to fucking whinge about!
There is already an order of magnitude more unused housing than unhoused people- the problem is that the market is involved and that requires winners and losers.
That's why you have people dying of exposure in the richest country in the history of the world. God damn america.
Housing first is a proven strategy in dealing with homelessness. The fact that every state has not adopted these policies to help eliminate the homeless population shows this is more a cultural issue than a lack of housing.
According to the Census there are a lot more empty houses than homeless people. Let that sink in and you start to realize all is not what it seems.
Until someone is safe and has their basic needs met it is impossible to work on issues such as mental health and addiction.
The solution exists but it is going to take a lot of our time, money, and most importantly a cultural shift away from blaming people to accomplish it.
If we could fix our homelessness then we would show that we truly care about our citizens rather than just paying a lip service to our most vulnerable people.
According to the Census there are a lot more empty houses than homeless people. Let that sink in and you start to realize all is not what it seems.
This particular statistic needs to be handled carefully. There are problems with both its definition and its nature. Empty housing has a fairly broad definition that includes housing that is unfinished, in the middle of repairs, or unfit for habitation.
The nature of housing with relationship to homelessness depends a lot on where the homeless people are and where the housing is. Empty housing in towns and cities that are depopulating is unlikely to be all that useful. Simply taking people from cities with high levels of homelessness, ripping them out of their communities, and plopping them down into communities that other people are leaving is not a favor.
Also, you shouldn't just warehouse unhoused people in whatever housing is available. Many of them have mental illnesses that need good access to mental health services, transit, and jobs. Just because they're under a roof doesn't mean the job is done. The housing should be tailored to the various populations that it will be serving.
I encourage you to lookup up Housing First if you have not already. While it may be misleading to say there are 16 million vacant home to half a million homeless people (32 homes for every homeless person), for the reasons you mentioned, it is entirely possible house these people.
No one who knows about this issue is thinking about warehousing people. Like you said they need a stable place to live, access to services, transportation, and work when they are ready.
I understand this building in downtown Vancouver probably had issues with people sleeping here, but placing a bunch of concrete filled pylons is fucked up.
Most homeless i have ever talked to dont want this. They want no strings attached crack homes not crack houses. If you even so talk about how shitty a lot of these people are you get pounded down with how awful of a person you are and blahblah. I have worked with and have been in clise contact with a lot of homeless and much of the time they are disgusting people inside and outside.
Well I don't think we should judge all homeless people based solely off your close proximity to them.
Your position sort of assumes that anybody who disagrees with you only holds their beliefs because they themselves have never had your close proximity.
Downvote cuz youre over generalizing, maybe you get those type of people if youre working in a homeless camp with addicts, then youll encounter the people who have been down in their luck and when theyre addicted they dont see a way out.
People outside of the homeless camp could be completely different cause they havent reached the point of being an addict and homeless where they need that service.
I mean we can just look at historical precedent. Back when the drug crisis started and Nixon decided to start the War on Drugs Switzerland took a completely different approach and started what they called care centers. Somewhere you could go to get heroin of high quality administered by doctors for free, you would also then get somewhere to sleep somewhere to shower and keep your things. Access to social workers and mental Care Professionals to help you get your life back on track.
They saw a 85% success rate within the first year. 85% of people that went into those facilities had a stable job on their own household of some variety within the first year and a follow-up study of how they were doing 5 years later showed that they had stayed employed and housed and not regressed.
But that would require people in the US to be willing to look at them as people and not just criminals who did it to themselves. These people are literally broken, you can't treat their actions as you would a normal person because they are not mentally stable.
Wow, you are an awful person, lmao. You require people to remain in destitution because you anecdotally dealt with rude people? Perhaps they were rude because you're an awful person?
I dont require anyone to be in anything. I was simply giving my opinion. From my experience a lot of homeless prefer to stay homeless because they like that lifestyle. At the same time, we have people like you who want to shower them with things they dont want.
I mean houses cost money, and we know the government don't like spending in the first place, they just worried about public image not the root of the problem
The problem with giving the homeless houses is that if you begin free houses to people you make the big banks and investors lose money. What makes it a problem? Well, where's your money at?
If only we could get governments and communities to back credit unions over banks.
Houses should not be investments. They break down and should depreciate like any other physical asset. If you built your retirement solely on your house then that's nobody's fault but your own.
Your money is in the bank, and banks, which a re for-profit, make a lot of their money on real state and mortgages. Not sure where you get making houses investments from, but for banks, it works out excellently, and when it doesn't, "Too big to fail" demands they (as in their CEO bonuses) get rescued anyway.