Surely there must be happy medium, I’m not asking for the world here!
Edit: Bollocks, deleted the edit. If there isn’t a happy medium between a totalitarian state and the plague, I’m out.
I’m gonna find a nice spot of woodland area to await the great destructor.
I assure you Pike place market and fisherman’s wharf are not free of homeless people. There aren’t tent cities there b/c there’s no open land there. There are for sure people sleeping in alleys and on sidewalks there though.
The homeless halfway housing can only be done on a small scale because the lack of available realestate, and those usually end up getting trashed if tenants aren’t hand picked. Drugs, alcohol, rape, violence etc.
Send a street junkie to rehab who doesn’t really want rehab and they go right back out to the street 1 week later.
Send em to the Looney bin, they get put on meds and become healthy. They then get released into society with no job skills support system or social skills, they stop taking their meds and we go back to square one.
It’s been tried. It has failed. What is currently being tried is failing. Hopefully what gets tried next works.
The scale of the problem is totally blown out of proportion. Come visit and I doubt you’d be overwhelmed by human shit, tent cities, and drug use.
Or don’t. The traffic is the biggest problem we face by far and we could use a few less people on the road haha.
What is being done to solve the problem? That I do not know. I know the scale is bad enough that literally medieval diseases are popping up and that is dangerous to the population at large.
The proposals and actions reported in the article seem slow and too little to late.
I am sure you are right that the reporting does not give an accurate picture of the problem, but the problem is worse than it ever has been, so that part is significant. The part in the article that really bothers me, is that there are 500 veterans with housing vouchers and still have no place to go.
It seems to me a construction boom would be the best solution, but the opposition to that is people do not want to lose value on their houses. Something’s got to give.
What’s being done is a whole host of programs mostly focusing on rehabilitation, skill building and improving the lives of homeless in the hopes that it allows them to pull themselves up and off the streets… And then be able to stay off the streets. Focusing on criminalizing and punishing was the strategy for a long time but didn’t work, so this is now the approach.
Affordable housing is tough because of money and lack of land. And also because who in their right mind wants to live next to one of those developments? I was recently in a meeting (a Seattle suburb) where the city manager pulled us aside and told us that council would do everything in their power to shoot down our affordable housing project because of the lack of taxes it would bring in, and strain on public services it would impart.
Maybe not, but the resurgence of certain medieval diseases is a serious concern, even from a global health perspective.
Look, just come to Dublin, we shall have many pints of fine red ale.
This is where you are losing me. You say the old policies weren’t working, but it also seems like things have gotten much worse with the policies we have now. I can understand the progressive tendency to compare any given outcome to utopia and conclude that something must be done by government. I’m sure plenty were unhappy with the outcomes of, say, 20 years ago.
Being from the east, I don’t follow west coast news very closely. What were the old outcomes?
How are the outcomes we have now improved?
That is why 1/2 of those people are on the streets 
Homelessness was increasing and becoming more widespread. That was the outcome of previous policy strategies.
Homelessness has continued to increase under the new policies.
On what timeline?
Is that controlled for population growth? Where are you getting your facts? Are they legit?
I understand. Sadly, it looks like more government policies that happen to coincide with worse outcomes will be in order.
If we just cut taxes on the wealthy enough it would trickle down so fast it would drown the homeless.
Hah! Touché.
Imagine if we had only done that, or nothing at all, instead of passing a series of policies to make the situation worse.
Given the trend with the old policies was that of a decline, do you have anything to accurately determine whether or not the decline slowed as a result of the new policies?
Totally open to it. Just seems like blaming policy for a decline, when prior policy had a decline, only makes sense if the new policy caused the decline to quicken.
For example, we could pass immigration reform that slows illegal crossings, but illegal crossings will still happen. It wouldn’t make sense to blame the illegal crossings on the policy itself, unless the policy caused an increase.
I’m not an expert on state and local-level policies out west, but I think some basic observations can be made.
It seems like new housing is incredibly difficult to be built on the west coast, despite the vast abundance of open spaces, other opportunities for development and MOST IMPORTANTLY, tremendous demand for housing. Why do you think we have a shortage of housing supply in the face of such tremendous demand?
I’m sure everyone implementing the individual policies had the best intentions. It would be unfairly cynical to assume that the purpose of these policies was to drive up the value of the existing housing and make new construction incredibly difficult, which is what has actually happened.
We have those policies operating in the background, creating a man-made shortage of housing. In the face of this situation, a variety of what I’ll term “sanctuary” policies have been implemented, encouraging people to move there for purposes other than good-faith economic activity. These policies also incentivize people already living there to take up destructive behaviors.
Illegal alien? Come to California, you won’t be hassled. Heroin addict? Come out west, you won’t be disturbed while you nod off on the sidewalk. Schizophrenic and addicted to meth? We have a place for you on the street, because institutionalizing you would be cruel. Have a penchant for petty property crime? We’ve got better things to worry about than your antics. We also won’t judge you for shitting wherever you please, nor do we expect you to clean this up on your own. Doing so would be deeply unfair to the marginalized people. We should be tolerant, understanding and, above all, compassionate to these people.
Etc, etc. Oh and by the way, there’s nowhere to actually live. Good luck building something new. We paid a lot to live in the Mission District, after all. But we love helping poor people. We really do. Look at our great policies!
New York City has more homeless people in a smaller area, (for many of the same reasons, I’d argue), but no massive encampments with nightmare disease conditions. Why is that?
West coast level property values present a more impossible absolute wealth gap required to stay in said high demand housing.
What policy do you think is driving up existing housing values? I was under the impression it was the demand and local cost of living, with the highest wages outside of NYC.
Does an area of land exist in NYC that would allow for said encampment? Seems the answer to this question is apparent.
Are you suggesting we just develop the west coast to NYC levels so they have nowhere else to go but ‘somewhere else?’ Also worth noting you can live outside in California year round without dying of the elements. Fantastic regional advantage if you’re homeless.
So you are contending that the reason for a housing shortage is that the existing housing is too expensive? Wouldn’t new housing be the best and, in fact, only solution to putting housing back within reach? How else can it be done?
Many contribute to it, but we’ve created conditions where the supply is unable to keep up with the demand, driving values to nearly unthinkable levels. If people were free to, say, buy up a single family home worth 8 million dollars, tear it down and then build a 20 unit building, do you expect it would remain vacant?
Perhaps it would, but I would expect people to fill it very quickly, given the demand and a new lower-cost option in the same neighborhood. This seems self-evident to me that many would choose this out of self-interest. We don’t let that happen though, and people employ government policy to ensure it can’t happen. NIMBY.
It does, doesn’t it? There are sidewalks in NYC, just as there are in LA. Central Park could hold a very large camp, yet none are there for some reason.
I’m suggesting new housing get built, and policies that inhibit that be reconsidered. Imagine if everyone in Manhattan got together in 1876 to pass California-style zoning laws. Imagine they thought life was perfect like it was, and didn’t want to see their neighbor’s house torn down and replaced with a 20 unit apartment building. Imagine they passed laws to make it impossible.
Do you think that area and the people who live there would be better off today, or worse?
https://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/21040919/NYC.OverYears.pngYet NYC still has more homeless people and no typhus-infested camps in the middle of downtown. Strange…
There isn’t a housing shortage. There’s an affordable housing shortage. I’m not trying to split hairs, but the distinction is important.
Absolutely. But given the high demand, it would take an INSANE amount of production to bring prices down to anywhere near a reasonable level. And it would be fought heavily by the locals, who stand to see massive property loss and destruction of their personal finances.
I’m more in favor of this kind of thing tbh. I think it could be viable in mass production. Obviously there’s a sea of minutia I haven’t thought through, just high level.
I’ve only been to NYC once. I don’t recall seeing any wide open areas myself.
If the police let people live in Central Park en masse, do you think many of them would survive the winter? Do you think the homeless population is aware of the answer to that question?
I wouldn’t mind seeing California doing what NYC did by building massive infrastructure to house, feed, and maintain the homeless population, along with incredibly strict gun laws to reduce the chance of violence and whatnot. Also would obviously need a prison infrastructure upgrade, as you’ll need to house/feed/etc those that don’t comply.
Obviously I have no idea how the logistics of that work. It’s worth noting how much easier NYC has it, given they have such an incredibly smaller area to worry about compared to the state of CA.
How so? What’s the distinction? There’s not enough housing for the people who seek housing, that’s a shortage. I’m not particularly concerned about the shortages of Malibu mansions. The people who that affects will probably find a way to adapt somehow and end up fine.
Right. It’s almost like it would require a change in policy, isn’t it?
Try putting your shipping container down in the Mission District. Let me know how the locals respond.
https://untappedcities-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/central-park-aerial-untapped-cities1-1-1.jpgI doubt many would winter there, but I’m sure plenty would take advantage of the warmer months. It’s quite a nice spot to set up camp.
I think those are all important parts of the discussion. California is already on board with your gun control ideas too.
Assuming you are allowed to, it will go something like this. Develop the necessary plans. Architectural work, utility work, etc. Acquire the property. Acquire the materials and labor. Proceed with the work.
Now repeat that as often as people are willing and able to do it. I think you’d find many willing to put the work in if they wouldn’t be hauled off to jail for making that kind of improvement.
