I’ve never figure out how these people are expected to pull themselves out of their situation. Drug use is merely a symptom, the cause is living conditions and an existence that makes being sober untenable.
“Get a job”? Find a job that will hire anyone on the spot, AND that can pay for an actual place to live.
My brother said the same thing. “He can go get a job at McDonalds.”
Ok, do you think McDs wants to hire someone who hasn’t bathed recently? How will he eat after work if he hasn’t been panhandling during the day? What happens between now and his first paycheck? What if he doesn’t have a bank account when that arrives?
It’s as if getting a job doesn’t immediately cure your problems. My brother sorta seemed to be persuaded in that he didn’t push the idea any further.
Sorry that was for the other guy
There are super shady jobs that pay in cash daily. Hang around a Home Depot parking lot before opening and get a gig with a contractor looking for manual labor.
Oh, it’s going to fucking suck, and you’ll feel like you’re going to die on day 1. But work is there for the willing.
So the homeless should be exploited for illegally low wages (a form of slavery) just like we treat certain immigrants?
If your advice to people to help them get out of homelessness is to allow themselves to enter a slave market, you are part of the problem.
I’m saying, if you’re legit willing to work, the work is there and if you’re homeless, no work should be “beneath you”.
If somebody is “legit” willing to work, why are you suggesting slavery is their best option?
That’s fucked up and you have a lot of predatory and exploitative beliefs you should unlearn.
Thank you! Oh my God, sometimes words* escape me, I’m glad you found them.
*Edited autocorrect, always auto-incorrect
You’re setting the parameters. Homeless, no shower, dirty clothes, no background check, instant payments…
If that’s your baseline then there’s your baseline job.
If you think wage slavery is the solution to homelessness, I strongly urge you to look into sociopathy and maybe go get screened.
Not to mention they are not overseen by OSHA, so if you get hurt on the job, and you’re still homeless, you might die!
What contractor wants to smell a homeless guy? How are they going to work? How does the contractor know he’s not a psychopath murderer? Do you even listen to yourself?
Have you smelled a van full of day laborers after they finish a gig? 😂
A significant number of homeless in CA and WA have at least 1 job as far as I know.
Fast food workers make up 6% of the CA homeless population, for example.
they are expected to not exist because they are an eyesore and reminder of human fragility.
nobody cares about them ‘pulling themselves out of their situation’
“Get a job”? Find a job that will hire anyone on the spot, AND that can pay for an actual place to live.
It can be done. The job IS going to suck, and you will hate your fucking life for doing it, but it can be done.
https://www.indeed.com/q-general-labor-l-seattle,-wa-jobs.html
Better if you at least have a drivers license.
https://www.indeed.com/q-lot-attendant-l-seattle,-wa-jobs.html
https://www.indeed.com/q-parking-attendant-l-seattle,-wa-jobs.html
I helped a friend throw sod in a back yard one time. Hardest fucking job I’ve ever done in my life, I’ll never do it again. But it paid. :)
Did you get that job unwashed? Unshaved? I’m whatever clothing that was in laundered? With severe depression and anxiety?
It was done in grubbies on my day off because I knew going in it was a hard, dirty job. Nobody cares as long as the job gets done.
🙄
https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/42660
The problem with homelessness is that each person’s situation is a bit different, now to you it might sound like a massive lump of excuses when heard all together, but to an individual the one or multiple things that prevents them from having personal stability is a massive barrier.
anecdote
I once helped a homeless stranger get a bus back to Alberta because he hitchhiked to Vancouver over 3 months but couldn’t find the opportunity he wanted to (plus the rents here are upwards of 1500USD equivalent for a small studio), so he wanted to go back. He used to work in construction but he got fired and his wife left him. He wasn’t drunk or high, he was just bumming cigs from people and begging for money. Spending a day with him, I found that little things made him nervous and stressed him out, he couldn’t really advocate for himself well, had nothing but a broken android tablet with his expired health card and birth certificate, and he couldn’t read 24 hour time. The intercity bus operator wouldn’t let him on the bus bc he looked too dirty, even though he was a paying customer. I get him cleaned up at the community shower, a new pair of pants, and I book a flight for him (which ended up being around the same as the bus) gave him 50USD equivalent spending money and the addresses of libraries, charities, employment centres in Lethbridge (this is where he came from). At the airport, they were bugging him that he had only 1 valid ID and 1 expired photo ID, I had to escalate for him 3 times for them to allow him through and get accomodations to guide him through the airport. Something that’s normally so easy to get through if you have a ticket and a phone and whatever is a nightmare for someone so disadvantaged.
Trying to apply for work, not get scammed and advocate for yourself throughout a process is honestly a challenge that is tougher than the actual labour. I’d been taking those things for granted myself. Fines and fees for being poor just worsens the problem.
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It shows that you have public services that work so well that they are worth using to someone for whom money is no object.
I’ve seen this personally. Locally, the bus system runs so slowly that only the most desperate people take it. I don’t feel safe riding that bus. It took multiple hours to get to work.
Meanwhile, I used to live in a college town where the bus hits the stops every five minutes. Everyone uses the bus because it’s so convenient, and there’s no reason to feel uncomfortable riding one because the people who ride the bus are just regular people.
Why do they ride it? Because the city has functioning public transportation. Build services that are worth using.
Apparently Japan also has a homeless problem, I don’t recall how bad. But they have a culture that shames them so bad that they go to extreme lengths to mask their homelessness.
Yeah it’s not a perfect society by any means, I’m sorry if that was implied. Lots of shame. But they do a lot of things a lot better than the US
Implemented by folks who surely call themselves good Christians. Boy, Jesus sure would be proud.
If only they cracked down on real estate / investment industry the same way. What a fucked up world.
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https://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/19.htm
16Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18“Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,’ c and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ d ”
20“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
The bible is pretty clear. But most people don’t follow it, or follow some heretical nonsense version of it.
I’ve thrown this in my (rich) family members’ faces before, thanks for the quote.
Another favorite of mine to say to my family is that Jesus was “just a progressive Jew”, and that his main message was you didn’t need to go to the priests/rabbis/temple, everyone can have a direct connection to God. They hate that lol
It’s funny because I thought that’s the group of people that says you can’t just ban something because people will just do it anyway. But they banned homelessness and pretend the problem is solved.
The irony that they talk so much about their rights while they are obsessed with taking mine away.
John 11:35
I’ve been saying this forever, homeless folks need to learn how to levitate so they’re just in the air. Or will the government ban that, too?
The government will get the FAA involved at that point.
No levitation in public spaces!
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Boy, I bet many people are going to comment on this that either A) don’t live in an affected city, or B) didn’t bother reading the article and seeing the nuance in the situation.
Having read the article, the post captures the essence quite well. Cities are criminalising homelessness, often illegally.
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I think you are projecting a viewpoint on to my words that I didn’t assert. Did I say, or even imply, that I am for or against these bans? I stated I believe that people that comment on this will probably have less information than necessary to make a reasonable argument.
You are implying that you’re for the bans, or at the very least, that they’re reasonable because of some nuance. You literally do that again here in this comment:
people that comment on this will probably have less information than necessary to make a reasonable argument.
The default conclusion that most will have is that banning homeless people is a really shitty thing to do. What extra info do we need to reasonably come to the conclusion? Where’s the nuance? I even went and read the first half or so and skimmed the rest(because it seemed repetitive and is more lengthy than I wanted to read) but there’s nothing there that even attempted to change my mind.
The nuance is that there is more to it than, “really shitty.” I’m not going to bring out the yellow legal pad and start up a Pros and Cons list for or against the bans, because there is no point to it. Banning them or not banning them has ramifications that extend so far beyond “really shitty” that it’s a fucking insult to anyone involved that you even typed it out. So, please, save your virtue signalling, I don’t want to hear how “lame”, or “whack” the housing crisis and the homeless problems are. I bet they do over on TikTok, though, so why don’t you waste your time over there so I don’t have to read your bullshit here.
The nuance is that if they built the homeless shelters that are needed, there wouldn’t be “needles in the park and angry homeless people shouting” problems as the article states, because they wouldn’t be in the park where kids play. I get that you’re saying “some people don’t understand what it’s like to live with the burden, danger, and discomfort of homeless people,” but there is no argument for these bans that will ever be just imo.
If it’s like the Midwest, I’m sure there’s a fucking empty ass mall or warehouse or dealership somewhere they can turn into a homeless shelter if one fucking capitalist would just hand it over to the public instead of holding on to it to owe less taxes.
The nuance is that if they built the homeless shelters that are needed, there wouldn’t be “needles in the park and angry homeless people shouting” problems as the article states, because they wouldn’t be in the park where kids play.
I live in a city dealing with this right now, and while I have never been directly involved, I did date someone who was and dealt with their emotional distress every day when they would come home from the shelter they worked at. There isn’t a lack of shelters, at least in my city. What there is is a wealth of people that have been kicked out of the shelters for violence, drug use, and other law breaking offenses.
So, now your argument is “We need to get these people the help they need, then.”
Yep. Doing that, too. Turns out the problem people, the ones that are screaming at kids and leaving the needles around, are the ones that don’t accept the mental health help they need. And, it’s a human rights violation to force them into treatment against their will, so now what do we do?
Well, one option is arresting them. However, that just clogs up an already over burdened legal system (they don’t just “go to jail”, they have to be tried, too, and that means judges, state appointed lawyers, etc.)
Another is fining them, but if they could afford those fines, they would probably not be in as harsh a state as they are now, so that’s off the table.
We can’t outlaw the drugs they are taking because that’s fucking stupid and Reagan was a cunt for trying, so that’s out of the question.
Do you see now why I responded the way I did? It isn’t because I am for the bans or against them. There are nuances to each side. I responded the way I did because all of this is completely fucking worthless to talk about with fucking strangers on a fucking web forum where nothing will fucking happen. It’s a waste of fucking time.
So, yeah, let’s go with your idea and cram all of the homeless into an abandoned strip mall, because that will solve the problems. Who is going to work there? Who is going to cover the cost of construction to get it fit to live in (bathrooms, kitchens, privacy, etc.)? N U A N C E. Nothing is as simple as everyone wants to think it is. We aren’t 1 step away from solving this problem. We aren’t even 100 steps away.
Oh, and before you say “that’s what our taxes should be going towards” when I ask about who is going to pay for all this shit, just shut up now, because I don’t have the breath to waste explaining tax law to someone who thinks that homelessness can be fixed with a fucking vacant strip mall.
Wow dude.
You seem like you’ve been on that pot forever, and can’t decide if you’re gonna shit or fuck off.
One thing is sure as shit though, you love looking down on people.
I… wow.
Yep. You got me. I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Just, please, shut the fuck up, I can’t deal with whatever it is you think you mean.
Fair…
You still haven’t shared your expert nuance after reading a pretty cut and dry article.
Here is a bit more for you, from another reply.
NIMBY people usually stay quiet, and are commonly the largest group of people with the power to change laws like these.
Most people on lemmy can’t see the nuance in ANY situation. But that’s not surprising when the average ages seems to be around 15 or so.
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