Housing the homeless has been shown to work for a good percentage of folks. But no one wants to talk about where they are to go. And keep in mind, housing has to be in a city to provide job opportunities, access to counseling and social workers. Also, what about the ones for whom temp housing doesn’t/can’t lift them to their feet?
The ugly truth is that many (most?) are addicted to drugs or alcohol and/or suffer mental illnesses that often include antisocial behaviors. You want those types of people roaming your neighborhood? If you say you’re fine with that, you’re either lying or have never spent time around the homeless.
Worked downtown for 7-years and they were a constant hassle. One guy was pestering my wife and I told him to fuck off, about got jumped but his buddies didn’t look interested in backing him. Another guy wanted to fight me at lunch one day, in the middle of a huge crowd, because I told him, sorry, I don’t carry cash. On two occasions, same night, two guys got upset when I wouldn’t give them money and followed my wife and I through the French Quarter.
Aside from potential violence, they trash everywhere they go. At my last job, another downtown, the office was surrounded by liquor bottles and filth. And yes, there was more than one dumpster, like the one they slept next to.
Anecdotally, I knew two guys who had a clean place to stay and just said fuck it, living with people is too much pressure, rather live on the streets. What about people like them?
Feel sorry for them all you want, I do, but we have to figure out where to put this housing. One upbeat note, if you can call it that, many of today’s homeless are victims of our housing prices. Those are exactly the sort who just need a leg up and for whom free housing would work best.
…but make sure they are saddled with additional debt and are completely unemployable for the rest of their life with a criminal record. Give them less than no hope. Show them the cowardice of monsters worse than those that housed and fed the masses before they placed them in gas chambers. The feral human suicide machine of the USA is a crime against humanity.
It’s not expensive, it’s great
slavefree labor!-The United States
it’s expensive. very. but the taxpayers pay it.
I don’t reckon they have any issue calling it slave labour, setting as how it’s strictly allowed by their constitution.
I don’t keep up with him as much these days but always thrilled to see old Bob is still around.
It really is disgusting how much money we waste on making sure that the “wrong people” don’t get any of it.
Whenever you think the government is stupidly wasting money when there’s a cheaper and more humane solution, you can bet your neck it’s to funnel money toward corporations.
They usually jump through those hoops to obfuscate the trail and pretend there’s some economic complexity. There ain’t, it’s just laundering a corporate subsidy.
