War On Homelessness Or War On The Homeless?

[Yumyumsuppertime]

I keep telling you: With guns, they can do it far more quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

Guns run out of ammo, axes don't...

With a gun, you can get cash. With cash, you can get more ammo.

[Dyakovo]

Guns run out of ammo, axes don't...

With a gun, you can get cash. With cash, you can get more ammo.

Hmmm... Good point.
Give them guns and axes. Or gun - axe hybrids...

[Yumyumsuppertime]

With a gun, you can get cash. With cash, you can get more ammo.

Hmmm... Good point.
Give them guns and axes. Or gun - axe hybrids...

Perfect.

I mean, it's tongue in cheek, but the fact is that I'm not sure that anything short of the threat of bloody violence will get America to change its approach, and I hate saying that, because I DESPISE bloody violence.

[Benuty]

I keep telling you: With guns, they can do it far more quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

Guns run out of ammo, axes don't...

Not in the U.S they don't.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Guns run out of ammo, axes don't...

Not in the U.S they don't.

In Soviet Union, they run out of bullets to shoot you with.
In United America, bullets run out of YOU...Most often if you are being arrested by police officers and happen to be African-American.

[Nazi Flower Power]

We should build more shelters and government housing. I know someone who recently moved into government housing after a long time on their waiting list, and I think what they gave him is reasonable. It's basically a room, a kitchenette, and a bathroom -- nothing that would make me want to live there, but enough so people can keep themselves clean and presentable and not be a public nuisance. It's the type of subsidized housing where your rent is adjusted based on your income.

The problem with those housing programs is it can take a few years from the time you apply until they have a space available, and some people have trouble keeping a roof over their head during the time they are on the waiting list. The government should buy up vacant buildings and convert them into additional subsidized housing to get caught up on the backlog.

Some of the anti-homeless measures you mentioned in the OP sounds like they would be a nuisance to everyone. I mean, I like having benches to sit on even if I do not need to sleep there. I also like being able to sit on the sidewalk to rest or eat street food.

That said, aggressive panhandling is rude, it interferes with other people's ability to earn a living, and I have no problem with cities restricting it. Being homeless is not a free pass to be an asshole and ruin someone else's business. I had a lot of problems with this when I was selling art on the sidewalk. From what I saw, the panhandlers who got the most money were the gutter punks and the liars rather than honest people in legitimate need, and that has really ruined my opinion of panhandlers. What I said about panhandlers does not apply at all to people selling newspapers or flowers. Those are street vendors, not panhandlers. Some of them might be homeless, but they are part of a legitimate business and the ones I met when I was selling art were respectful of the other merchants in the neighborhood. If an anti-panhandling law is taking down those Spare Change News people, then it's too broad.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

We should build more shelters and government housing. I know someone who recently moved into government housing after a long time on their waiting list, and I think what they gave him is reasonable. It's basically a room, a kitchenette, and a bathroom -- nothing that would make me want to live there, but enough so people can keep themselves clean and presentable and not be a public nuisance. It's the type of subsidized housing where your rent is adjusted based on your income.

The problem with those housing programs is it can take a few years from the time you apply until they have a space available, and some people have trouble keeping a roof over their head during the time they are on the waiting list. The government should buy up vacant buildings and convert them into additional subsidized housing to get caught up on the backlog.

Some of the anti-homeless measures you mentioned in the OP sounds like they would be a nuisance to everyone. I mean, I like having benches to sit on even if I do not need to sleep there. I also like being able to sit on the sidewalk to rest or eat street food.

That said, aggressive panhandling is rude, it interferes with other people's ability to earn a living, and I have no problem with cities restricting it. Being homeless is not a free pass to be an asshole and ruin someone else's business. I had a lot of problems with this when I was selling art on the sidewalk. From what I saw, the panhandlers who got the most money were the gutter punks and the liars rather than honest people in legitimate need, and that has really ruined my opinion of panhandlers. What I said about panhandlers does not apply at all to people selling newspapers or flowers. Those are street vendors, not panhandlers. Some of them might be homeless, but they are part of a legitimate business and the ones I met when I was selling art were respectful of the other merchants in the neighborhood. If an anti-panhandling law is taking down those Spare Change News people, then it's too broad.

I'd be okay with aggressive panhandling laws if they managed to be very specific about what constituted the aggressive type as opposed to the regular kind. Basically, I figure that anyone has the right to ask me for anything, and I have the right to say "No". They don't have the right to block my path, or to hassle me after the initial response, or to intimidate. Get me a law like that, and while I won't especially care for it, I'll understand why some people would feel more comfortable.

[Pope Joan]

In the name of individual freedom (and for the implicit reason that it would save expense for the state) mentally ill persons who were in residential care were deinstitutionalized in the 70s.

Before long, many of them were homeless, or in jail (the percentage of inmates with mental illness has increased drastically) or alternating between the two.

There were supposed to be community programs in place to help these folks, but those got defunded (what a shock! How unexpected).

So, repent of your sin of deinstitutionalization, and establish residential care for those who used to need it. Because they still do.

[The Qeiiam Galaxy]

With axes they can create their own access to shelter, food, showers, etc.
*nods*

I keep telling you: With guns, they can do it far more quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

Replace food stamps with gun stamps. Owning a gun is a constitutional right, not being hungy isn't!

[Yumyumsuppertime]

In the name of individual freedom (and for the implicit reason that it would save expense for the state) mentally ill persons who were in residential care were deinstitutionalized in the 70s.

Before long, many of them were homeless, or in jail (the percentage of inmates with mental illness has increased drastically) or alternating between the two.

There were supposed to be community programs in place to help these folks, but those got defunded (what a shock! How unexpected).

So, repent of your sin of deinstitutionalization, and establish residential care for those who used to need it. Because they still do.

I absolutely agree with you on your approach to the situation, but I should point out that while there were releases in the name of individual rights in the 1970s, those were almost entirely people who chose to not be committed, and there were indeed a number of cases that could be seen as actual human rights violations, and intolerance of what was essentially harmless eccentricity. The mass deinstitutionalization came under Reagan, who was the one who released them back to "the care of their communities" while not providing any funding for their care.

I keep telling you: With guns, they can do it far more quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

Replace food stamps with gun stamps. Owning a gun is a constitutional right, not being hungy isn't!

You could make a decent case to the GOP with that argument.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Never ever declare war on a noun. You will always lose.

[Ethel mermania]

Increase services for the mentally ill.

In most cases homeless folks have mental illness's Or incapacities. For the most part, these folks eitherdon't want to be treated, or they can't get the treatment they need. HomelessNess is not a lifestyle choice, and I think the op is treating it as it is.

[Ethel mermania]

In the name of individual freedom (and for the implicit reason that it would save expense for the state) mentally ill persons who were in residential care were deinstitutionalized in the 70s.

Before long, many of them were homeless, or in jail (the percentage of inmates with mental illness has increased drastically) or alternating between the two.

There were supposed to be community programs in place to help these folks, but those got defunded (what a shock! How unexpected).

So, repent of your sin of deinstitutionalization, and establish residential care for those who used to need it. Because they still do.

The institutions were horrible. Your old enough to remember willowbrook. Geraldo Rivera earned his trip to heaven for what he did for did for the developmently disabled population, that was imprisoned in those institutions.

That said, as you suggest, better care for the population would be an answer to the homeless problem.

[Ifreann]

I wonder if we could use chemtrails to convince people that it isn't a crime against the natural order for people to get things they didn't earn.

[Socialist Tera]

I'm not surprised, they are ending homelessness by starving homeless people to death or making them die from sleep deprivation.

[AiliailiA]

People don't die when deprived of sleep, but it is certainly bad for their mental health. Physical health too I guess.

[Socialist Tera]

People don't die when deprived of sleep, but it is certainly bad for their mental health. Physical health too I guess.

http://www.thoracicandsleep.com.au/late ... ause-death

[Tamoi]

Homelessness is not a criminal issue or a health issue. It is an ecological issue. Period.

That said, homelessness isn't the problem in itself. There should be measures in place to allow people to live nomadically and in temporary structures without it being effectively illegal. Criminalising sleeping is just crazy.

And the solution to not having a house is to make one. Let everyone be responsible for their own needs. This would stabilise the population on it's own.

[Ifreann]

Homelessness is not a criminal issue or a health issue. It is an ecological issue. Period.

That said, homelessness isn't the problem in itself. There should be measures in place to allow people to live nomadically and in temporary structures without it being effectively illegal. Criminalising sleeping is just crazy.

And the solution to not having a house is to make one. Let everyone be responsible for their own needs. This would stabilise the population on it's own.

Ah yes, the unnatural depopulation approach to literally every problem. Well, when all you have is an axe...

[The Carlisle]

Homelessness is not a criminal issue or a health issue. It is an ecological issue. Period.

That said, homelessness isn't the problem in itself. There should be measures in place to allow people to live nomadically and in temporary structures without it being effectively illegal. Criminalising sleeping is just crazy.

And the solution to not having a house is to make one. Let everyone be responsible for their own needs. This would stabilise the population on it's own.

What about those without arms?

[Ifreann]

Homelessness is not a criminal issue or a health issue. It is an ecological issue. Period.

That said, homelessness isn't the problem in itself. There should be measures in place to allow people to live nomadically and in temporary structures without it being effectively illegal. Criminalising sleeping is just crazy.

And the solution to not having a house is to make one. Let everyone be responsible for their own needs. This would stabilise the population on it's own.

What about those without arms?

They'll be denied any help left to die, lest they befoul the gene pool or some other such insanity about the species mattering, but not individuals.

[The Carlisle]

What about those without arms?

They'll be denied any help left to die, lest they befoul the gene pool or some other such insanity about the species mattering, but not individuals.

Sounds hitleresque.

[Ifreann]

They'll be denied any help left to die, lest they befoul the gene pool or some other such insanity about the species mattering, but not individuals.

Sounds hitleresque.

I imagine the glorious Aryan master race will be left to die if their arms fall off, too.

[The Carlisle]

Sounds hitleresque.

I imagine the glorious Aryan master race will be left to die if their arms fall off, too.

So literally worse than Hitler?

[Ifreann]

I imagine the glorious Aryan master race will be left to die if their arms fall off, too.

So literally worse than Hitler?

And it's not even summer!