re: What is your solution to the homeless problem?

quote:

---

Some federal frickheads, some call them judges, ruled the homeless can be bums and beg. To arrest them and run them out of town is a violation of their 1st Amendment rights. So decree the frickheads! Deal with it!

---

We've always had bums. In the old days they would ride the rails as drifters. Work sometimes, loaf sometimes. They could often stay at boarding houses, which are unaffordable these days.

quote:

---

Honestly won't be long before UBI starts to really start catching on and talked about more seriously.

---

I would be for it if it meant replacing the existing system of welfare 100%. Dismantle the whole bureaucracy.

quote:

---

Seriously though, unless you make them wards of the state and institutionalize them, you're not going to be able to keep these unfortunate people away from population centers any more than you can keep the raccoons and possums away. A fenced in field on the outskirts of town does not give them what they need to survive.

---

Mental Health hospitals have been closing all over the country (really worldwide) over the last 25 years due to severe budget cuts in local, state and federal authorities. Many years ago these hospitals were used to keep these people off the streets and they were pretty much sedated to keep them from being problematic to the staffs. The governments-of both parties-realized they had tons of dollars going to these facilities and the public was screaming for dollars and these were easy ways to cut budgets. Well now they have nowhere to go so they beg on the streets and of course the public is outraged by the very thought that these "lazy" people are living in boxes and under overpasses and shitting on the sidewalk.

What we as a society need to decide is do we want to actually fund mental health which is a great expense or do we accept the fact that they have no where to go and can be a danger to themselves and others. This is a reason for civil discourse as it affects everyone in our society.

To just say they all are lazy and don't want to work is foolish, selfish and uninformed.

quote:

---

Mental Health hospitals have been closing all over the country (really worldwide) over the last 25 years due to severe budget cuts in local, state and federal authorities. Many years ago these hospitals were used to keep these people off the streets and they were pretty much sedated to keep them from being problematic to the staffs. The governments-of both parties-realized they had tons of dollars going to these facilities and the public was screaming for dollars and these were easy ways to cut budgets. Well now they have nowhere to go so they beg on the streets and of course the public is outraged by the very thought that these "lazy" people are living in boxes and under overpasses and shitting on the sidewalk.

What we as a society need to decide is do we want to actually fund mental health which is a great expense or do we accept the fact that they have no where to go and can be a danger to themselves and others. This is a reason for civil discourse as it affects everyone in our society.

To just say they all are lazy and don't want to work is foolish, selfish and uninformed.

---

I think you ascribe too much of the cause of this to "funding." I'm not saying that wasn't part of the consideration, but I'm not sure it was the chief consideration. There were/are other issues involved in why this occurred.

Move somewhere without a large homeless problem?

Mandatory stay at a mental health facility. That's where 99.9% of the homeless belong.

Well sure. Cheaper drugs, broken families, economics, larger population, changing demographics. Plenty of other reasons as to how we got here. Cheap money to borrow making the American dream of owning a home when the individual can't afford a home and then loses the home, easy credit, public education, jobs drying up, small town America disappearing, entitlement programs, 2-3 generations of government funded welfare.

It's a long list but my point was there were many hospitals that kept a lot of this element of society hidden from view and that has mostly dried up and add all of the above issues with it and it is where we are today. And now the band aid has been ripped off, the curtain opened and we all see it in areas of our life and it makes us uncomfortable.

And to address this problem, homelessness, you have to address many other societal problems as they all are intertwined. Gun control, mental health, public education, welfare, social security and immigration are all discussions that reflect one another. All of them affect all of society and all need complete wholesale changes and overhauls-not just throwing money at them-but we do have to realize money does have to be spent.

Until we can have discourse and respect all participants views and eliminate antagonism within the discussions we will continue to have these problems and they will continue to get exponentially worse as time goes on. I like to think that we as an American society still have a need and a want for civil virtue that will allow us to address our problems, create solutions and improve our fellow man while not browbeating the very unfortunate of us. I just hope my thinking is right and this country wakes up and realizes we do need to work together and beating our own chests while claiming everyone else is wrong will not make us better.

Well that's the end of that.

Build work communes for those who are transient. Build looney bins for the others.

Get them off the street.

quote:

---

think you ascribe too much of the cause of this to "funding." I'm not saying that wasn't part of the consideration, but I'm not sure it was the chief consideration. There were/are other issues involved in why this occurred.

---

Plus mental health isn't the primary cause of homelessness

Why do they need to have homes?

They seem pretty adept at living off the grid without any of the responsibilities we have. They get drunk, have sex (sometimes even consensually), and basically live like indigenous people.

Those who want out of that lifestyle can do it, as can those who want it.

I work in downtown Houston and have come to view them as larger, smelly pigeons that don’t always get out of my way.