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Homelessness: What's a Few Billion More For Social Justice?

itsforthekids said:
How do you constitutionally get people off the streets who don't consent to going? That is the main problem. Now, if we can gather enough legislators to change the constitution considerably, (and it would cost all of us some of our rights), it could be done. Now, if you're like me, and firmly stand by your constitutional protections, we have to realize that there is no fix. We have to do the best we can constitutionally to deal with them. San Francisco for instance, simply allows for them to live on the streets, shooting up, setting up encampments, pooping and pissing all over the place...all while being given free needles, etc. They seem to deal with it.
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You don't need to change anything. There are laws against loitering, trespassing and public endangerment. Large congregations of these people are a health hazard. Nothing about the Constitution prevents states from enforcing laws that keep their cities clean and safe. SF tolerates them out of some misguided idea that they have the same rights as other citizens. They do up to the point where they become a hazard to public safety.
 
veritas1 said:
You don't need to change anything. There are laws against loitering, trespassing and public endangerment. Large congregations of these people are a health hazard. Nothing about the Constitution prevents states from enforcing laws that keep their cities clean and safe. SF tolerates them out of some misguided idea that they have the same rights as other citizens. They do up to the point where they become a hazard to public safety.
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But, they have to go somewhere. For instance, there was recently an issue with a conrail property in Philly that was a shooting up spot...there were over 500,000 used syringes lying about and scores of homeless junkies...when they fenced the area off and cleaned it up, these "walking dead" just moved throughout Philly and have become a tremendous nuisance to the local neighborhoods.
 
itsforthekids said:
But, they have to go somewhere. For instance, there was recently an issue with a conrail property in Philly that was a shooting up spot...there were over 500,000 used syringes lying about and scores of homeless junkies...when they fenced the area off and cleaned it up, these "walking dead" just moved throughout Philly and have become a tremendous nuisance to the local neighborhoods.
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Why are people turning to dangerous drugs in such numbers?
 
I don't personally know anybody who became homeless and/or unemployed/under-employed due to situations beyond their control, but I know a bunch of people who became under-employed due to stupidity. My uncle and 1 brother chose to live at home rather than move to where the good paying jobs are. That works until the parents die. My younger brother would be on the street but our parents did manage to leave the house to him, even though he hasn't worked but 9 years out of the 48 years he was old enough to work and only manages to keep the house by the state allowing him to not pay property taxes. State will take the house once he dies.... He lives on a VA pension, could have had SS if he had worked just 1 more year.
I expect most of us on this forum know people who suffer from that kind of stupid. There are other kinds of stupid, of course, and like they say, you can't fix stupid.
 
itsforthekids said:
But, they have to go somewhere. For instance, there was recently an issue with a conrail property in Philly that was a shooting up spot...there were over 500,000 used syringes lying about and scores of homeless junkies...when they fenced the area off and cleaned it up, these "walking dead" just moved throughout Philly and have become a tremendous nuisance to the local neighborhoods.
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Yes, they have to go somewhere. That is what we need to figure out. The status quo is a failure.
 
veritas1 said:
You don't need to change anything. There are laws against loitering, trespassing and public endangerment. Large congregations of these people are a health hazard. Nothing about the Constitution prevents states from enforcing laws that keep their cities clean and safe. SF tolerates them out of some misguided idea that they have the same rights as other citizens. They do up to the point where they become a hazard to public safety.
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Yes, let's put more people into jail. Yearly cost on average in America is approximately $32,000 per prisoner. Providing shelter for many who are homeless today would be cheaper than throwing them in jail.

An experiment with providing shelter in Charlotte NC cost approximately $14,000 per person per year.
The positive returns have been quite dramatic. A study team led by Thomas surveyed Moore Place tenants four times: right when they moved in, then at six months, a year, and two years later. They found that, after two years, 81 percent of tenants who participated in the survey remained in permanent housing. Before they’d moved into Moore Place, these tenants had been homeless an average of 7 years.
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Another aspect of proving homes for the homeless that was unexpected, lower medical costs.
Not only did Moore Place tenants maintain the roof over their head, but their relationships with the health care system started to change, Thomas explains. Two years into their stay, emergency room visits and hospital visits decreased by 81 percent and 62 percent, respectively (below, top); they also used the county medics 76 percent less. Their total hospital billing decreased by $2.4 million—that’s a 70 percent reduction.
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For those who think giving shelter to alcoholics, drug addicts and the mentally-ill is just another 'socialist' way of stealing from the hard-working people; you basically have two choices - spend even more money on incarceration, police response and medical care OR you could advocate what you think would be cheaper - KILL THE BUMS!

Then there are those who accept the reality that some humans will always have problems and we must determine how best may they be cared for in the least expensive manner.

Handing mentally ill substance abusers the keys to a new place may sound like an example of wasteful government spending. But it turned out to be the opposite: over time, Housing First has saved the government money. Homeless people are not cheap to take care of. The cost of shelters, emergency-room visits, ambulances, police, and so on quickly piles up. Lloyd Pendleton, the director of Utah’s Homeless Task Force, told me of one individual whose care one year cost nearly a million dollars, and said that, with the traditional approach, the average chronically homeless person used to cost Salt Lake City more than twenty thousand dollars a year. Putting someone into permanent housing costs the state just eight thousand dollars, and that’s after you include the cost of the case managers who work with the formerly homeless to help them adjust. The same is true elsewhere. A Colorado study found that the average homeless person cost the state forty-three thousand dollars a year, while housing that person would cost just seventeen thousand dollars.
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veritas1 said:
Yes, they have to go somewhere. That is what we need to figure out. The status quo is a failure.
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Well, lefties believe that throwing money at an issue, regardless of the outcome, is the answer. I guess it allows them to sleep well at night.
 
itsforthekids said:
Well, lefties believe that throwing money at an issue, regardless of the outcome, is the answer. I guess it allows them to sleep well at night.
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Ignoring post #31, are ya?
"For those who think giving shelter to alcoholics, drug addicts and the mentally-ill is just another 'socialist' way of stealing from the hard-working people; you basically have two choices - spend even more money on incarceration, police response and medical care OR you could advocate what you think would be cheaper - KILL THE BUMS!"
 
LowDown said:
Most homeless people have a choice: live on the street were they can do whatever they want or get a minimum wage job, or live in a shelter, and follow the rules. Make it easier to live on the street and that's what they will do.

Unemployment is at an all time low, but homelessness in LA has doubled in the last 6 years. The cost of programs for the homeless has skyrocketed, and the taxes to pay for that have been increased.

I say: Leave LA, leave California before the homeless, the government bureaucrats, the teacher's unions, and all the feel good programs eat all of your substance. Leave them to rot.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/27...ngeles-daniel-greenfield#.Wv9o5wGln5E.twitter
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So "let them eat cake".

Got it.

With that attitude don't drown if I'm the only one around.

You need to learn from your mistakes.
 
Rogue Valley said:
If the Trump administration can find $700 billion for the Pentagon and incur a $1.5 trillion deficit for their tax giveaway to the wealthy, they can certainly set aside some funding for America's homeless.
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So why didn't the Clinton administration do that during eight years of relative peace and little in the way of natural disasters?
So why didn't the Bush 43 administration do that during its eight years instead of fighting two wars and providing aid for Katrina victims while doubling the national debt?
So why didn't the Obama administration to that? Another relatively calm period re natural disasters and the wars winding down while doubling the national debt again?

Did they have no responsibility to fund the homeless? If not, then why does President Trump have such a responsibility?
 
AlbqOwl said:
So why didn't the Clinton administration do that during eight years of relative peace and little in the way of natural disasters?
So why didn't the Bush 43 administration do that during its eight years instead of fighting two wars and providing aid for Katrina victims while doubling the national debt?
So why didn't the Obama administration to that? Another relatively calm period re natural disasters and the wars winding down while doubling the national debt again?

Did they have no responsibility to fund the homeless? If not, then why does President Trump have such a responsibility?
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Sorry. We don't have a time machine. We are here in 2018. The Trump administration.

I'm aware that you think Donnie can walk on water and nothing even remotely bad could ever happen while he's in the Big Chair, but that's not how reality works.

There will always be homeless regardless of who is in the WH. Rather than go rummaging into the past, it's best to work on contemporary solutions.
 
LowDown said:
Most homeless people have a choice: live on the street were they can do whatever they want or get a minimum wage job, or live in a shelter, and follow the rules. Make it easier to live on the street and that's what they will do.

Unemployment is at an all time low, but homelessness in LA has doubled in the last 6 years. The cost of programs for the homeless has skyrocketed, and the taxes to pay for that have been increased.

I say: Leave LA, leave California before the homeless, the government bureaucrats, the teacher's unions, and all the feel good programs eat all of your substance. Leave them to rot.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/27...ngeles-daniel-greenfield#.Wv9o5wGln5E.twitter
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How many "working homeless" are there?

Are you sure "high rents" don't figure in too?

Thx :)
 
Somerville said:
Yes, let's put more people into jail. Yearly cost on average in America is approximately $32,000 per prisoner. Providing shelter for many who are homeless today would be cheaper than throwing them in jail.

An experiment with providing shelter in Charlotte NC cost approximately $14,000 per person per year.


Another aspect of proving homes for the homeless that was unexpected, lower medical costs.


For those who think giving shelter to alcoholics, drug addicts and the mentally-ill is just another 'socialist' way of stealing from the hard-working people; you basically have two choices - spend even more money on incarceration, police response and medical care OR you could advocate what you think would be cheaper - KILL THE BUMS!

Then there are those who accept the reality that some humans will always have problems and we must determine how best may they be cared for in the least expensive manner.
Click to expand...

Where did I write a syllable about jail? Nice diatribe but I didn't say that anywhere. All I said is that states and cities have a right to remove these people from the streets. There is no right to be a vagrant. I also stated that we had to figure out a solution. I have doubts about just putting them in houses. If every homeless person is going to get a free house, what is the incentive to avoid homelessness if you are in such a position? Again, though, I never said a word about jail.
 
Nice try at evading your own words
"There are laws against loitering, trespassing and public endangerment. Large congregations of these people are a health hazard. Nothing about the Constitution prevents states from enforcing laws that keep their cities clean and safe."

What should cities and states do when they enforce laws. We are talking about people with no money. Please provide your solution which would allow cities and states to penalise the offenders without putting the perps in jail.
 
Somerville said:
Nice try at evading your own words
"There are laws against loitering, trespassing and public endangerment. Large congregations of these people are a health hazard. Nothing about the Constitution prevents states from enforcing laws that keep their cities clean and safe."

What should cities and states do when they enforce laws. We are talking about people with no money. Please provide your solution which would allow cities and states to penalise the offenders without putting the perps in jail.
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Who said anything about penalizing them? I said that cities had the lawful right to remove them from the streets. Is that a "penalty"? I also said that I wasn't sure what the ultimate solution should be. Nice try at putting words in my mouth, though.
 
veritas1 said:
You don't need to change anything. There are laws against loitering, trespassing and public endangerment. Large congregations of these people are a health hazard. Nothing about the Constitution prevents states from enforcing laws that keep their cities clean and safe. SF tolerates them out of some misguided idea that they have the same rights as other citizens. They do up to the point where they become a hazard to public safety.
Click to expand...

And how much does it cost to house all those people you lock up for being alive but not useful enough to pay a living?

Its around $40k a year to imprison someone.
 
veritas1 said:
Who said anything about penalizing them? I said that cities had the lawful right to remove them from the streets. Is that a "penalty"? I also said that I wasn't sure what the ultimate solution should be. Nice try at putting words in my mouth, though.
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You continue to evade answering my questions. You write - "cities had the lawful right to remove them from the streets" Then what? The homeless are removed from public view, they disappear - to where? These are human beings, humans suffering from multiple problems, addiction, mental issues and economic ones. What do you think should happen following their removal from the streets?

You aren't "sure what the ultimate solution should be." but you apparently have a partial solution - "remove them from the streets" - while obviously refusing to think through what such actions would entail while apparently refusing to accept that providing housing for the homeless has been shown to be cheaper than just shoving them off the streets. Are you unable to accept that a "socialist" plan of action just might be cheaper than the alternatives?
 
What if...? said:
And how much does it cost to house all those people you lock up for being alive but not useful enough to pay a living?

Its around $40k a year to imprison someone.
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I never said anything about jail. BTW, we didn't used to have our cities awash in homeless people in tents and boxes shooting up drugs. What did we do back then? Yes, we had institutions and places to put mentally ill people which is what most of these people are. We created the problem by misguided, supposedly "humanitarian" policy. Turning people out into the streets is not humanitarian. Now we have to fix it somehow.
 
Somerville said:
You continue to evade answering my questions. You write - "cities had the lawful right to remove them from the streets" Then what? The homeless are removed from public view, they disappear - to where? These are human beings, humans suffering from multiple problems, addiction, mental issues and economic ones. What do you think should happen following their removal from the streets?

You aren't "sure what the ultimate solution should be." but you apparently have a partial solution - "remove them from the streets" - while obviously refusing to think through what such actions would entail while apparently refusing to accept that providing housing for the homeless has been shown to be cheaper than just shoving them off the streets. Are you unable to accept that a "socialist" plan of action just might be cheaper than the alternatives?
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No, you've misread again. I responded to another poster who said we could never get these people off the streets because they had some constitutional right to be there. They do not have a right once they become a public nuisance. I didn't say a thing about removing them and then figuring out the solution. The solution and the removal all have to be part of one concerted effort. We can't remove them if we have no place to put them. That may be into houses and it may not. I'll leave that to others to figure out.
 
AlbqOwl said:
So why didn't the Clinton administration do that during eight years of relative peace and little in the way of natural disasters?
So why didn't the Bush 43 administration do that during its eight years instead of fighting two wars and providing aid for Katrina victims while doubling the national debt?
So why didn't the Obama administration to that? Another relatively calm period re natural disasters and the wars winding down while doubling the national debt again?

Did they have no responsibility to fund the homeless? If not, then why does President Trump have such a responsibility?
Click to expand...

Do you really think the republican congress.would have let Obama spend a dime on worthless.poor.people?

Seriously?
 
veritas1 said:
Where did I write a syllable about jail? Nice diatribe but I didn't say that anywhere. All I said is that states and cities have a right to remove these people from the streets. There is no right to be a vagrant. I also stated that we had to figure out a solution. I have doubts about just putting them in houses. If every homeless person is going to get a free house, what is the incentive to avoid homelessness if you are in such a position? Again, though, I never said a word about jail.
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Actually, most vagrancy laws came about during the depression as.a.way to deal.with wandering hordes of hungry jobless folks.

Prior.to.that hobos had camps, travellers.could.set up.camp on the outskirts.of.town

Now the law requires one to pay someone to.sleep legally.

Which explains why housing costs are.completely disconnected from reality.

Unnatural markets work that way.
 
The basics:

People cost a society money. Unless you are into mass murder, you are going to have to shell out money.

It's actually cheaper to get them off the street.

Shelters are fine, but they were intended to be short term. It's all they are good for.

A depressingly large portion of this population has mental health issues. They often wind up in jail, which is about the worst possible thing you could do to them. Short of having the police kill them.

Some questions are sh*t simple. Do you want to live in a civilisation?
 
What if...? said:
Actually, most vagrancy laws came about during the depression as.a.way to deal.with wandering hordes of hungry jobless folks.

Prior.to.that hobos had camps, travellers.could.set up.camp on the outskirts.of.town

Now the law requires one to pay someone to.sleep legally.

Which explains why housing costs are.completely disconnected from reality.

Unnatural markets work that way.
Click to expand...

This isn't the 1920's. We don't have open fields adjacent to cities where people can just camp out and I'd hate to think what they'd look like if we did. We need a better and more permanent solution.
 
veritas1 said:
Who said anything about penalizing them? I said that cities had the lawful right to remove them from the streets. Is that a "penalty"? I also said that I wasn't sure what the ultimate solution should be. Nice try at putting words in my mouth, though.
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"Remove them from the streets"

And take/put them where?

Trees? Outer space?
 
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