Homelessness is uncalled for

[madhi]

Well, this CBC article plugs the number somewhere between 100K - 200K, with around 250K people homeless at some point in the year. That's about 1%, and the numbers aren't that clear.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/homeless.html

I've heard the official estimates of around 600K - 700K in the US. I'm finding various links to that, but not any souce data, just reports from foundations and news sites.

There's estimates of about 700K in Great Britain
here's an article (PDF) - not sure of the source.

[Cardinal]

Originally posted by madhi
...it's a little simplistic to say things like "they like living on the street because they do drugs and are mentally ill. We should cart them into the boonies so I don't have to step over them on my way to my morning latte." That attitude isn't recognized by anyone who works with homeless people as being a valid solution.

True enough, but outside of those who work with the homeless, I would be willing to bet a very large number of "normal" people would be ready to simply have these people carted off. Let's except the menatally ill from this next line of thought. How much time and money do you continue to spend on getting somebody to get them to sober up, get a job, and contribute to society instead of lying in their urine on a public sidewalk, draining the vitality and resources of our cities? Much like the resolution to crime favored by many on another thread, I would suggest that at some point, after several failed attempts, you write the person off. They no longer have a right to drain resources from 1) the mentally ill who must be treated and taken off the streets, and 2) the homeless who are struggling to get on their feet.

[madhi]

well people may want to cart them off, but it doesn't take much of an imagination to understand how that's not a viable solution.

by "write them off" what are you suggesting? that we have a three-strikes rule for homeless people, wherein we cut off access to social services? or, what?

[Mud Princess]

So many of the chronically homeless people you see on the streets are "dual-diagnosed" -- that is, they are BOTH mentally ill AND addicted to alcohol and/or drugs. This makes treatment a real challenge. People dealing with addictions sometimes suffer relapses; people dealing with mental illness sometimes delude themselves into thinking they no longer require their medication (or, it takes awhile before the doctors treating them can identify the right balance of medication)... And all of this is complicated by the victimization (rape, assault, etc.) of people living on the streets.

So what does "write them off" mean? No treatment for mental illness? No treatment for substance abuse?

Wouldn't it be better to provide them with safe shelter - SRO housing - so that they are not urinating in public, ranting, etc.? The problem is, the funding for this type of housing is severely limited, and no one wants SRO housing in their backyard. Are chronically homeless men and women supposed to live on an island somewhere, or what?

[Cardinal]

Originally posted by Mud Princess
Are chronically homeless men and women supposed to live on an island somewhere, or what?

That may be one of the better suggestions.

I did specifically exempt the mentally-ill from my "write them off" comment, as I recognize their special circumstances. The people I would target are those without mental illness, who, despite repeated attempts by social service organizations, continue to stay on the street rather than make the choices and do the work to be a contributing member of society. Yes, there is a point at which I would advocate withdrawing public funds for their support, and yes, I think that they should be vigorously "patrolled" by the police. We owe that to the vast majority of people who suffer by these peoples' actions.

[BKM]

Of course, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the "deserving homeless" and those who we "just cut off."

I am afraid that there has to be a middle ground between the committed homeless advocates (I admire your commitment, Madhi, btw) who are always willing to "try again," and the drive them into the desert and dump 'em off school.

Interestingly enough, the commercial corridor that I am helping to develop a plan for in Fairfield has a problem with the homeless. We have invited a local homeless coordinator to participate in some of our public workshops. She is surprisingly very much of the "tough love" school. The eprception among the business community is that our police seem unwilling (maybe "disinterested") to crack down in enforcing quality of life laws like trespassing, public inebriation, etc. She advocated very forcibly for more aggressive enforcement.

As for SRO housing-locating such housing in an existing single family neighborhood is of course incredibly difficult.

O/T Rant: As for three strikes, what about yanking the corporate charters of large corporations who commit a felony three times? I believe California is looking at doing this. The concept of "limited liability" has gone way too far

[jresta]

when NJ shut down its "state hospitals" (read:looney bins) it was really just the first step at "privatizing" (read:doing away with)mental health services.

beautiful hotels in towns like Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, and Bradley Beach turned into hundreds of SRO's.

So what you had were hundreds of mentally ill people wandering the streets everyday, some who took their meds, some who didn't. Of course, the places were eventually shut down, one by one, for code violations and by the mid 80's there were a lot fewer places for these people to go.

A lot of them wound up on the street.

It's great that the media likes to hunt down some able-bodied guy who's making a living panhandling and parade him around like "everyday homeless man" but the fact is, he's not.

Everyone on the street has different circumstances as to why they got there. You can't say with any degree of certainty that some bum wound up on the street because he's on the bottle or he's turned into a wino because he lives on the street.

As someone who stands on hot subway platforms on a regular basis i have no patience for people urinating in public be they homeless or just on their way home from the Phillies game.
I also have no patience with hearing a story about how so-and-so is "just trying to catch the bus to get home - could i help him out with a quarter" every other block when i know damn well that if it's not for booze it's for heroin.

I think that if the police were able and willing to give the homeless a hard time a lot of them would stop resisting shelter and treatment because it would be easier than being hassled by the cops all of the time. I would like to see this happen here.
No one should be allowed to sleep on the street as a matter of health and public safety.

but then we as a city would have to decide if we're going to put up the money to provide dignified facilities. We can't expect people to all of the sudden start respecting themselves if the system we're pushing them through treats them worse than passers-by on the street.

that's to say nothing of the employment problem we have. The rate locally is around 6% - and that's just of people looking for work who were recently employed. It's also to say nothing of the the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the region that pay a salary that wouldn't even cover our own housing costs let alone food. It's all fine and dandy to tell people to get a job, even better to train them for said job, but when then there's nothing on the other end it's pointless and disheartening and in the end worse than doing nothing at all because when those people wind up back on the streets, and a lot of them do, they're going to be even more resistant to shelter the next time around.

If we're not going to make sure that people get paid a wage they can actually live on (and maybe even save some money for when the bad times do roll around) and we're not going to provide them with a safety net for the hard times then we can't really complain too much when they're tearing apart our trash bags in the middle of the night looking for scraps of food.

[donk]

I am wading in a bit late. But here are a few examples and comments from my experiences.

One of the primary causes of homelessnes in Saint John and to a lesser extent in Toronto is the deinstitutionalizing of marginal mental health cases. In Saint John they closed centre care and let all but the people that for sure could not take of themselves out into the community. Some of these people had been there for 30 years with no idea of how to function in the outside world.

999 Queen West in Toronto did the same thing about 10 years ago. It lead to a lot of people being booted from care that they had come to rely on as they never learned the skills to be unwarehoused.

On a related note in TO , Home Depot just recently closed "tent city" due to liability and health reasons. this was an area set up by homeless people that did not want the rules of the system to impact them (sobriety in hostels, married couples, "hobos"). these people choose to be homeless, but still wanted a place to stay. Some people were relocated to social housing others to SRO's and others to hotels for a few nights until they figured out what they wanted to do.

[Queen B]

As I read through all the reponses to this post I was uncertain whether my feeling on this topic are more liberal or conservative.
First, I do believe that to correct problems there should be consequences for behavior and as a society I believe we contribute to homeless behavior by rewarding it with handouts, shelters, and food. I liked the stray cat reference.
If people urinate in public, and it is not reprimanded then it will continue. If people are drunk or drugged up in public at 10 AM and it is ok, then it will continue.
As usual, I believe as a society we over react and the pendelum swings to far before coming back to something reasonable. The subject of deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill is still swinging. There have been tremendous advances in the numbers and quality of drugs that can assist the mentally ill with gaining a more normal life. This can make a difference. While I do believe that a great number of people that were housed in institutions can make a life for themselves, I do not believe they all should be out.
I believe that assistance should come at a price. Yes we will provide you a bed for the night but you must sweep this sidewalk or hose down this wall that has been urinated on. You must work on this cleanup crew first. If given handouts, they expect handouts and they will work the system every chance they get.

[jresta]

it's great to say we're going to punish offenders for urinating in public - and well we should. The punishment, however, is a normally a disorderly persons fine. Homeless people will most likely spend a week in jail for it because they can't afford to pay the fine. Jails aren't mental health facilities. Besides, if we want to start punishing things like that on a regular basis we have to fund the courts, the police and the jails first.

but more to the point, jails, like medication, are band-aid remedies. They try to cover up symptoms. They don't do anything to get at the root of things like structural unemployment, the prevelance of addiction in our society, or why mental illness is on the rise.

There's plenty of subscriptions for happy pills floating around in the medicine cabinets of suburbia. The difference there is a safety net. Health insurance, credit cards, and a savings account.

btw - most of the guys cleaning the streets in philly, the employees of the Center City SSD, are the formerly homeless.
Needless to say, it's barely made a dent.

The problem is not that we don't have enough dirty sidewalks it's that we have more empty hands than brooms.

[jresta]

Originally posted by donk

On a related note in TO , Home Depot just recently closed "tent city" due to liability and health reasons. this was an area set up by homeless people that did not want the rules of the system to impact them (sobriety in hostels, married couples, "hobos"). these people choose to be homeless, but still wanted a place to stay. Some people were relocated to social housing others to SRO's and others to hotels for a few nights until they figured out what they wanted to do.

This brings up another issue.

I'm talking about the people who choose to be homeless - not the mentally ill.

I'm not advocating tent cities here and i'm not suggesting that people should mooch off of the commonwealth but -

What if you don't want to work in walmart or mcdonalds? what if permanent housing doesn't really suit you? What if you want to live a more or less traditional aboriginal lifestyle - hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming? In exchange you'd give up all of your rights to food stamps, health care, and public housing.

The obvious answer is "You can't because you'd be trespassing anywhere you went" but if people want to live like that (again, not sleeping in tents in city parks but wandering the wilderness) why not provide them the opportunity? Australia does it and the "ferals" ,as they call them, come out of the rainforests once a month to collect their dole.

The US & Canada are both large countries with a whole lot of federal land to go around and they both claim to be "free" countries, right? So why force people into an economic complex if they don't want to be a part of it?

We could get the voluntary homeless out of our cities, the Christians would take their food trucks out to the forests and hopefully, my commute would smell a little better.

[BKM]

That's certainly an interesting idea, jresta.

Because you are right, there are a percentage of people who DON'T want to live a standard (let's avoid the term "normal" here). Recognizing this is better than condemning them to scavenging in big cities. And, it fits in with the idea that atomized, fast-paced modern urban society is literally making some people mentally ill-or that some people cannot or do not want to adjust to this kind of society.

Of course, finding space for the ferals will be a bigger and bigger problem. And what about ferals who keep drifting back to the cities-because it is much easier to cadge change than live a hunting and gathering existence (especially since few urban dwellers would have the necessary skills). And, I wonder what percentage of the "homeless" would choose this-would such a program be "cherry picking" a few nonconformists, leaving just the lazy, the addicted, and the insane still in the cities-and not really solving the problem?

I'd like to learn more about the Australian ferals.

You do have a point about filling the jails with the drunk and deranged. That's exactly what our police say-the courts and jails can't handle them.

[Cardinal]

I think if a person wanted to live a life in the wilderness it would not be difficult for them to do. There are plenty of National Forest and BLM lands in the west where a person could camp and to a good extent, even live off the land. I do not think that is a solution for the homeless, though. There is a significant distinction between someone who wants to leave the bounds of civilization and someone who merely chooses not to work. The homeless survive not by using their skills and wits, but by begging, stealing, and taking advantage of whatever public or private welfare program they can find. Put them in the wilderness and they will likely die or make a beeline for the nearest city.

[madhi]

Just wanted to say that I'm excited by all of the discussion in this thread and I'm happy that you all have opinions on the matter -- even if they're different from mine.

[Cardinal]

Originally posted by madhi
Just wanted to say that I'm excited by all of the discussion in this thread and I'm happy that you all have opinions on the matter -- even if they're different from mine.

Yes, this is a very good discussion. Too bad about your opinions, but you can always change them to the right ones.

[jresta]

I wasn't really suggesting this as a solution to homelessness. It was more or less an aside. BKM is right, it would more or less weed out the easy cases but i think it would make dealing with homelessness in cities a lot easier. You would weed out a lot of the shelter-resistant people and you could concentrate your resources on those that really need help.

One question, though, is it legal to just hang out on federal land like that? Hunting and fishing as you pleased? what about disturbing the land, for instance if you want to plant some corn for yourself?

Originally posted by BKM
That's certainly an interesting idea, jresta.
Of course, finding space for the ferals will be a bigger and bigger problem. And what about ferals who keep drifting back to the cities-because it is much easier to cadge change than live a hunting and gathering existence (especially since few urban dwellers would have the necessary skills). And, I wonder what percentage of the "homeless" would choose this-would such a program be "cherry picking" a few nonconformists, leaving just the lazy, the addicted, and the insane still in the cities-and not really solving the problem?

If we can spend a few million locally on rehab programs, mental health, and other social services I'm sure we could shift some of the money to put people through wilderness training. We've got a pretty famous one in the Pine Barrens http://www.trackerschool.com

I'm by no means a fertility expert but something tells me that you're not likely to see a large population explosion in the woods and unless it turns out to be a really attractive lifestyle i don't think you're likely to see people turning off their computers and walking into the wilderness.

Here's an essay on the "ferals" in Australia although it's written from an anarcho-primitivist perspective - probably a bit too radical of a discussion for this board. Granted, too, that this lifestyle revolves around environmental activism whereas i couldn't see too many career homeless guys from North Philly moving out to the woods and coming back into town once a month for a protest.

[Cardinal]

Originally posted by jresta
One question, though, is it legal to just hang out on federal land like that? Hunting and fishing as you pleased? what about disturbing the land, for instance if you want to plant some corn for yourself?

There is a great deal of variation from place to place. In many parts of the southwest, you can camp on BLM or National Forest land without charge. The stipulations are usually that it has to be a certain distance from any road and that you can only stay in one spot for a certain length of time. Fishing is more commonly permitted than hunting. In some places a state license may be required. (In many national parks, you do not need a license.) Growing crops would likely be frowned upon, but eating edible plants found in the wild is permitted. So... go out west and pitch your tent near a stream. Enjoy a fresh trout grilled with wild onions, and some huckleberries on the side. Wash it down with cool water, contaminated by arsenic and selenium from the 1950's-era uranium mine just upstream.

[Michele Zone]

Hey, folks. I was going to wait until I changed my e-mail address but I felt compelled to reply to this thread. So I registered today so I can post my 2 cents worth on this thread.

I took a class last year called Homelessness and Public Policy. You can take some or all of this class for free (but also without the academic credit) because the professor is extremely committed to these issues and makes the entire course (except where you post your assignments, if you pay for the class for academic credit) on the World Wide Web at:
http://thecity.sfsu.edu/~bahp/outline582_me.htm

The causes of homelessness are extremely complex. The short answer is that some folks are ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of modern life and need the system to take a sort of ‘paternalistic’ role in their lives.

As someone else mentioned, a couple of decades or so ago, they decided to ‘privatize’ mental health and began releasing folks from mental institutions, giving them their ‘freedom’. This was supposed to be done with the aid of an elaborate support system to help them make the transition. That support system basically never materialized. Many of the homeless today are folks that would have been in a mental institution a few decades ago and SHOULD have been helped to make the transition to life on their own, but weren’t given that support.

I live in California, where only about 50% of the demand for new housing has been met every year, for at least 10 years. That represents a huge backlog of unmet need and is one of the forces driving up the price of housing to outrageous levels and promoting homelessness.

They have been sticking homeless folks on a bus and shipping them out of town as a “solution” for decades. I am kind of disappointed to find that idea repeated here. I would like to see some new ideas tried – with an aim towards actually reducing homelessness rather than merely shifting it around the map.

In an effort to keep this reasonably short, I will refrain from droning on and on about how much it costs the government to keep people homeless by dealing only with the symptoms and not the causes. It really is in the best interests of everyone to try to find effective means to address the issue and not just resort to a ‘blame the victim’-type mentality or a knee-jerk ‘quick solution’ that doesn’t actually solve anything.

Not meaning to beat up anybody. Just giving a view from The Michele Zone.

[Cardinal]

Let's say there are four types of homeless; 1) people who are down on their luck and want to improve themselves; 2) ones with mental problems who are not able to function in the "normal" world; 3) drug and alchohol abusers whose addictions keep them from being employed; and 4) the people who willingly choose to be homeless rather than work.

If we use this typology, which of these people should receive resources from our governments? I would argue that we should invest heavily in those struggling to get back on their feet. Likewise, we should give treatment and perhaps re-institutionalize those who can't function on their own. The free ride begins to get shorter with the addicts. Spend the resources to get them sober, but if they continue to resist treatment, cut off the aid or lock them up in jail. Nothing should be given to those who choose homelessness. Run them out of town.

Just my opinion.

[jresta]

that link about the australian "ferals" didn't show up in the last post for some reason. So here it is . . .

http://www.confest.com/thesis/fiveindex.html

Originally posted by Michael Stumpf
Enjoy a fresh trout grilled with wild onions, and some huckleberries on the side. Wash it down with cool water, contaminated by arsenic and selenium from the 1950's-era uranium mine just upstream.

This is funny and sad at the same time. Of course, contamination goes without saying in bigger cities.

Here's an interesting interpretation:

"Urbanism is capitalism’s seizure of the natural and human environment; developing logically into absolute domination, capitalism can and must now remake the totality of space into it’s own setting. Time, work, environment and joy all have their norms set by modern ways of production."

after the soil and water have been rendered useless for the next 10,000 years or so you don't have much of a choice but to go to the grocery store and buy farm raised fish, hydroponic onions, and bottled water. Or stand in line at the bread truck because beggars can't be choosers.

[Michele Zone]

Michael,
I am so thrilled to see that you have managed to compact an entire semester’s worth of study into a single afternoon and still come up with the time and energy to give us your now informed opinion.
(Translation of Blarney: I will always respect your God-given right to a) choose to remain ignorant on a topic and b) spout off on it anyway. However, if you want me to actually respect your opinion and even possibly sway my supposedly ‘liberal/commie’ views, you got to do better than that.)
Actually, I do not see myself as either ‘liberal’ or ‘commie’. (More like ‘mommy’ than ‘commie’.) However, having lived on one income for a long time, it galls me to see money being pissed away for no real gain. We won’t help these people pay for housing but we will pay the ridiculously high cost of emergency room visits for medical problems that have become severe – largely due to the lack of housing.
I am NOT for just outright paying for apartments for people (although that sounds cheaper than the system we have now, it is likely to be a worse ‘solution’ than the crap we have now). However, the general policy in America today of sticking by our silly ‘rugged individualism’ notions and then calling it humane when we do something for someone after things have completely gone to hell (and at a very steep price) is simply stupid.
People often have the misguided idea that they can choose to pay or NOT pay for something. The fact is, usually, it is not a matter of ‘whether or not to pay to deal with this problem’ but a matter of ‘when do I pay?’ and ‘what quality of solution does that buy me?’ which then significantly impacts the ‘price tag’.

[Cardinal]

Originally posted by Michele Zone
Michael,
I am so thrilled to see that you have managed to compact an entire semester’s worth of study into a single afternoon and still come up with the time and energy to give us your now informed opinion.

My opinions are partly informed by eight years of college followed (and much improved) by fourteen years of professional practice in economic development. As such, they can hardly be fit into a brief posting. What I have given is a very abbreviated part of my understanding of the problems. I would still offer that it is likely to be far better than the academic version, as it is based in reality.

It may surprise some people to learn that our resources are, in fact, very limited. We have to make decisions about how we expend them, and how much of their income the typical citizen is allowed to keep for all their trouble in earning it. I will stick by my point in saying that my first priority will be to the people who are stuggling to better themselves, and those whose legitimate mental or physical impairments keep them from participating in normal society in a normal capacity. After that, I will go sa far as to suggest that the rest be given some number of chances to reform themselves. If they choose not to, then I am all for cutting them off and re-allocating those resources to the people who will benefit from them. Without that accountability and without that threat, we are just wasting our money. If some "charitable" group wants to take these people on, let them. Just don't do it with tax dollars or by mortgaging our future.

[Michele Zone]

Originally posted by Michael Stumpf
My opinions are partly informed by eight years of college followed (and much improved) by fourteen years of professional practice in economic development. As such, they can hardly be fit into a brief posting. What I have given is a very abbreviated part of my understanding of the problems. I would still offer that it is likely to be far better than the academic version, as it is based in reality.

The academic version required hands on work directly with the homeless population in a 40 hour internship (something like a third of my grade) and is taught part time by a full-time social worker dealing issues of homelessness. I am not big on 'ivory tower' stuff either. I prefer professors who actually work full time in their area of expertise.

It may surprise some people to learn that our resources are, in fact, very limited.

Did you read the rest of my post? (Serious question -- not an attack.) I talked about cost effectiveness and how present 'solutions' just piss away a lot of resources.

I will stick by my point in saying that my first priority will be to the people who are stuggling to better themselves, and those whose legitimate mental or physical impairments keep them from participating in normal society in a normal capacity.

That would also be my first priority. I really don't see myself as some bleeding heart liberal.

After that, I will go sa far as to suggest that the rest be given some number of chances to reform themselves. If they choose not to, then I am all for cutting them off and re-allocating those resources to the people who will benefit from them. Without that accountability and without that threat, we are just wasting our money.

That is exactly why I am not 'for' just paying for apartments for folks but the lack of housing is generally the cause of their high medical bills and other expensive issues that we spend far more on than it would cost to outright house them.

If some "charitable" group wants to take these people on, let them. Just don't do it with tax dollars or by mortgaging our future.

I don't have any problem with that. I do not think the government should carry the whole burden. I don't think a 'government only' approach even gets you the best solution (may not even get you a good solution). I just object to your 'run them out of town' comments. Perhaps you don't really mean them.

[chriswerner_1]

Originally posted by Mud Princess
Are chronically homeless men and women supposed to live on an island somewhere, or what?

Well that is not a totally original idea. This was done before. Today the island is called "Australia."

Although it's not quite the same thing. Those banished to Australia were convicted criminals. But I have just the solution: urinating in public.... 3 strikes you're out.... banished to the island-nope-that's it-okbye.

You know, not to open up a can of worms... but maybe Hitler had the right idea... if you're old and not contributing to the "greater good" you get a one way train ticket to the ovens.
(p.s. I am using black humour here and my intention is not to offend anyone, so I apologize in advance)

On a more serious note: In my original post, I was speaking directly of the homeless. I was not speaking of the poor. Being poor is one thing. Ranting to yourself in a storefront is another thing.

[Michele Zone]

Originally posted by chriswerner_1
Originally posted by Mud Princess
Are chronically homeless men and women supposed to live on an island somewhere, or what?

Well that is not a totally original idea. This was done before. Today the island is called "Australia."

Then there' s always Leper colonies. Or Flea markets (not exactly the same thing, but sort of similar). And I could probably think of some other examples if I tried.