Everybody's Trying To Do The Right Thing, It's Just Coming Out Wrong

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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One of the big complaints coming out of these regions is that the Police had been made impotent on law enforcement.
Much to my own chagrin, drugs are a huge part of the problem.
Opportunities for a middle class existence has all but evaporated as statistics show that most of the homeless are locals to that city who became homeless for a variety of reasons.

I think one strong improvement would be is to make medicine assisted affordable and available to everyone. MAT programs have shown great promise.

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It is financially infeasible to arrest, charge, arraign, sentence and board these folks for every little thing. Not to mention the manpower needed to do this while handeling all the other serious crimes at the same time is not there. As countless studies have shown, repeatedly arresting folks for misdemeanors and low level felonies does nothing to prevent their behavior.

The reasons for chronic homelessness are not hardluck for otherwise middle-class folks. Not at all. Two separate issues IMO.

MAT and programs like it are currently one of the focuses of treating the homeless epidemic. And as shown by the numbers, it’s not really working. I think that is because relapse is so likely for people with no job skills, life skills, and only friends on the street.

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They would do it as long as it’s the government paying the bills, like section 8.

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Keep in mind we’re talking about a specific niche market. I’d wager there’s more than a few regulations that act more as barriers to entry than public safety…but that’s just my cynicism

As above, you’re assuming that those regulations do more good than harm

This is where I think you and I see things rather differently. It’s abundantly clear the consumers of these dwellings (the extremely poor/homeless) will not be footing the bill. Other entities, private or public, will, have and do. My assertion is the private entities, charity, etc., are far more efficient in hiring the builders/entrepreneurs to erect these dwellings and are more agile in who they hire and how than Government, local, state, or otherwise, can due to the various constraints they place on themselves - in some cases, I’d assume, those self-imposed restraints limit the ability of private entities to operate efficiently in these markets…

I don’t care about a lot, i care about a sufficient amount - a lot is relative, sufficient doesn’t have to be.

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Maybe. But aren’t you assuming the opposite?

If the government is footing the bill anyways why does it matter? Or are you saying private sector should build them and the government should pay them? That doesn’t seem like a free market solution to me which is what I think we were discussing.

If charity is going to pay for it why haven’t they? I don’t think the answer is it would happen immediately if we cut a few regs.

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That’s the implication, yes. I didn’t mean it as a bad thing

They happen to be just one of, at least, two buyers - and the demonstrably less efficient one, which wastes time and money routinely. The private entities DO NOT have an endless supply of other people’s money to waste so tend to go with proven, quality and efficient builders…

It matters for other reasons than what I stated above, to be sure - like in an intangible way. The private entities (i’m thinking charity organizations) generally are motivated by their charter, or mission statement, and will most likely be involved on a deeper level, than say a bureaucrat taking on this project as a stepping stone to a bigger/better Government career. This may not be the case always, and the inverse can be true of course; I’m only illustrating that there are meaningful, intangible motivators that are different, some times overlapping, and sometimes diametrically opposed.

They do.

https://www.packard.org/what-we-fund/local-grantmaking/food-and-shelter/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/homelessness/get-involved-organizations-that-help-the-homeless/ar-BBGmT5P
https://www.butlerfamilyfund.org/pdf/ending_homelessness.pdf

https://nationalhomeless.org/
https://www.aliforneycenter.org/

Point is, there are countless private organizations that engage in this type of work and facilitate the type of solutions you seek in government…not to say government can’t or shouldn’t be a player in the market, but keep in mind their solutions are slow to take action, cost more than private entities and tend to be less effective and are rife with bureaucratic waste…again, not to say any, or all, of those don’t occur with private orgs, but I’d much rather have options and competition in this realm than bloated bureaucracy for reasons I’ve stated, tangible and intangible.

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Agreed. However if the government is footing the bill for them as suggested I don’t think they would have as much incentive. The free market will be more efficient here if they have the money on the line.

I was aware of some of these. But the original discussion between me and twojar was about eliminating homelessness. I don’t think we have the evidence to say if government wasn’t in the way the private sector would do it.

I should have been more clear. I’m not seeking the government to solve the problem or be alone in solving it. My initial point was that we could end it if we wanted. It’s not a priority and I’m not even saying it should be merely that it isn’t.

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Fair. I think if the goal is truly “eliminating homelessness” then it’s a fools errand. Of course, I’m probably just splitting hairs in saying a more realistic goal is providing services/locations for those who want help but may not know how to go about or know what they need. We’re probably talking about the same thing.

Fair enough … I tend to come in midway through conversations so, that may have been the case here.

Again, I think we’re splitting hairs. I don’t think it’s solvable even if you were to solve the up-stream problems that would make someone at a higher risk of becoming homeless later in life…Reduce it, absolutely, and to your point, by both public and private means.

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Agreed. Hell I’m not sure if some people wouldn’t choose to be homeless (not on the whole, but a few weirdos).

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You might be surprised how many chronicle homeless people choose to live on the streets. It’s kinda like how folks who have lived in prison for 20-30 years are hesitant to rejoin society.

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I don’t think I was suggesting that. The system couldn’t handle it.

As for the rest of it, I am not suggesting MAT programs, simply making medically assisted opiate medicines affordable and available so that people can have alternatives and don’t have to turn to heroin because in order to avoid being really ill.

The other is , build, build, build. There are people who have vouchers, including veterans who should be the priority. But they have no place to go. It just seems obvious, if you have the means to get housing, but it’s not available, then more housing needs to be built. You loosen the shackles on building, there will be a lot of building and places to put people.
That’s what I think will work the fastest. Give people the option to get off heroin with medical alternatives and build housing. At the same time, there is a lucrative job market out there, lets see what options are there for people trying to get better.

There will always be homeless, but LA, SF, Sacramento, Seattle are out of control.

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Who is going to build all this extra housing and charge low rent? Even with current govt subsidies in place developer margins are pretty darn thin.

What regulations would you loosen? Zoning and building code already allow multifamily and subdividing in many neighborhoods.

How would you go about making police less impotent without burdening the rest of the cjudicial and penal systems, if that is a concern?

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193

I’ve been absent from my own thread for a while, but I’d like to attempt to gather my thoughts and hopefully explain where the good faith position lies.

What concerns me about California is, simply stated, government over-reach. We’ve decided to put the breaks on prosperity in the jewel of our country via an incredibly complex array of government policies. I’m sure good arguments can be made for many of these policies, and I’m not saying they should all be changed or eliminated.

How many thousands of laws and regulations there are, I don’t know. I do know that anyone intent on real estate development has to work within that framework. I recently read an article about a developer trying to turn abandoned industrial property into housing in San Francisco. Four years after initiating the process, and ground still hasn’t been broken. Meanwhile he’s had to pay taxes on the property, maintain it with no return on investment, etc. This is a guy who wants to build in a place that REALLY needs people to build.

The same array of laws has resulted in a framework where police cannot do their jobs. If you watch the 15 minute mark or so of the video I originally posted you’ll see a group of at least 7 or 8 cops verbally engaging with a guy who’s rocked out of his mind on meth. He’s holed up in a trash can screaming at them and spitting at them. Apparently it went on for an hour…

Why is it that a pair of police officers cannot remove a public menace expediently, then get on with other work? If we need more jails, build them. If we need more cops, hire them, and let them work. Etc. The resources are there for government to perform this most basic function. I realize many will object. We’ve been listening to their objections for a long time, and even letting them shape policy.

I don’t follow everything closely, but I always keep an eye on Chicago news since it was the closest big city I grew up to. They don’t catch many murderers there, but the ones they do OFTEN, maybe even most of the time, could have been locked up under past charges that weren’t prosecuted to the extent that they could have been. Meanwhile, thousands upon thousands of people live under the governance of violent domestic warlords.

I don’t expect any of these problems to go away overnight, but it seems prudent to at least examine the policies that may be getting in the way of improved outcomes. It seems prudent to examine spending priorities. It seems prudent to entertain the idea that government policy can often do more harm than good.

It seems that a lot of people aren’t willing to even entertain the idea that a government program with superficially good intentions is actually producing terrible outcomes, let alone an entire array of them. I’m a big fan of Thomas Sowell. His material is easily found on youtube and in libraries if you want to hear someone make the argument much better than I can.

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I can’t get in the weeds because I simply don’t have an intimate knowledge of what’s happening at the geound level.
I would say what ever boundaries are preventing building should be removed and what ever regulations or taxes are in the way of builders turning profit should be removed.

Cops at least should be able to enforce zones where small business doesn’t have to clean shit and needles off the street before they open is a good start.
If someone wants to put me in charge, I would educate myself on the laws, the main problems, the layout and the people. Then put together a permanent plan to end the crisis.

I know people have tried. Most run into bureaucracy, red tape and cover ups.
What ever people are doing now ain’t working. And blindly trowing money at it with out a plan ain’t working.
I don’t understand why you are treating me as an adversary, I am on your side. But this started with something, continues with something and nothing is getting better.
It takes a government to admit it fucked up and one that will work with the community leaving behind all previous bullshit to stop it.
Again, this is not happening everywhere. Why has it become apocalyptic in these areas and not orhers? It’s. Valid question. What went wrong here? Now let’s fix it.
But I can’t fix it, it’s not my problem. I am to distant. But I can comment and muse upon why, where it should be so good, it got so bad?

It’s not California Dreamin’ anymore it’s a California nightmare.

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Do you happen to have the link?

Is this due to regulations that were put in 4 years ago immediately following him buying the property? I could see that very specific scenario blindsighting a developer.

Actually I’m 100% open to the idea. But I have an outstanding question to you and @Pat for a single example in the entirety of US history where the level of demand we see with CA housing saw pricing reductions with standard (non subsidized) development.

Obviously NYC is a failure of an example, but I’d still be open to the concept having the ability to work.

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Im not your enemy here, and you aren’t mine. Hence the thread title haha

Your proposed ideas are either solving a problem that doesn’t exist (zoning and bldg codes), or contradictory (police should enforce all laws, but not overburden the local judicial or penal systems). Much, much smarter people than you and i have tried and so far failed to solve this issue. I wish it was simple.

Regulations and code do little to hinder affordable housing projects. Land cost, and land scarcity along with very low natural ROI for affordable housing is the barrier. How do we get around this, short of huge subsidies?

How do cops enforce all these laws and decency standards if we both agree that the legal and penal departments cannot handle the volume? The small zones where they are typicslly enforced are neighborhoods where residents live. IMO that SHOULD be the priority.

This problem is so far from apocalyptic. It sucks and is bad, but really doesn’t affect normal daily life for most folks. Don’t go believing that a few exceptions and clickbait stories are the rule accross any significant portion of the city.

My observation is that homelessness typically occurs in metro areas. It is exacerbated when that metro area is wealthy with high real estate prices. Homelessness IS a problem in every major metro in this country. I think the problem is worst in PDX/sea/SF/la because of the very limited land and very high cost of living. In PDX, my gut says it is also exacerbated by the hyper liberal/tolerant culture there… Much more so than the other cities.

My question is, what metros have solved a homeless problem? We thought SLC had a few years ago, but their programs have now failed and homelessness is on the rise there again. What examples of long term success on a large scale are out there?

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I won’t just entertain it I’ll agree with it. Unintended consequences happen all the time with government policy. But a lot of times we ask the government to do things that people want the government to fix because they don’t view the free market as taking care of it.

I’m just not currently buying the idea that if government got out of the way magically all this cheap housing for poor people would sprout up in these areas. I have no idea maybe it would, but my guess is no.

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I have an idea. Your guess is spot on.

Source: 0 examples in American history of extreme demand seeing prices decreases with standard free market development

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Phones and televisions?

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Development irt real estate development per the entire conversation.

Edit: but in that vein, both of those items also required massive govt subsidization to grow to what they are today.