City limits.
A way to reduce homeless drug problem in my area?
- Thread starter Finklejag
- Start date
It's about removing/changing incentives. The only reason why society tolerates chronic homelessness is because the law says we have to.
We used to have state hospitals and orphanages, but they were closed down for a variety of good and bad reasons. This is where todays homeless would normally be.
But there's been homeless way before laws and there's still homeless in states that doesn't tolerate them.
State hospitals were for the mentally ill, not specifically for the homeless so it's not like the hospitals closed down and then there was homeless everywhere all of a sudden; an increase sure but not the source. This doesn't help the cause at all though when the state wipes their hand clean. Illinois did this; closed multiple state hospitals down in the 80s-90s, and released their patients into the public with nowhere to go and nothing to do. "Not my problem" is pretty much what they said. Guess who's problem it is now?
And then what?
Not Portland's problem.
You can’t straighten a wheel adjusting only one spoke. Having written that, I’ll say tough love is the best option.
Housing, jobs, and whatever other problems made them use drugs in the first place.
Place is scary
Just say what you really mean already.
Typical, force your problems onto someone else as long as you don't have to deal with it.
There's a lot to discuss here, all states closed their state run mental hospitals due to a combination of two factors. It started with JFK and the well-intentioned Community Mental Healthcare Act, which never ended up fully materializing. And unfortunately it failed to account for the fact that a lot of people with some types of mental illness will never be able to live fully normal lives, they need to be watched and forced to take their medication.
But then Reagan came along and cut funding even futher and deinstitutionalization came into effect full force. Now, lots of those sick people that should be getting proper treatment and care at hospitals are taking up space in jail cells, which are costing even more than they would if they were in a proper mental hospital, by people who are actually trained. The corrections workforce has become the largest group of mental healthcare providers in the country.
A lot of people are still homeless and they get stuck on drugs and instead of us trying to actually help them and get them the care they need, some people would rather just keep kicking them out of places because "it's not my problem". Talk about lack of empathy.
Yep. Hard to be homeless when it's freezing out. Did you know San Jose is preparing a safe sleeping site?
This will also make it better to bring needed resources to our disadvantaged.
The biggest problem with street people in urban areas are their concentration. If they weren't all attracted to certain areas where there aren't sufficient resources to take care of them, it would be much easier to help them.
If every city was intolerant of loitering, many of them would go back to their home town and move in with great Aunt Martha who probably needs some help anyway. Here on the West Coast where the weather is nice and so are the people, a huge percentage of the so-called homeless are actually not from around here. They come here because that's where the free bologna sandwiches and blankies and tolerant police officers are.
Contrary to popular belief the vast majority of homeless are not simply down on their luck having lost their job. People like this are in the minority and rapidly move back into normal society after a short while.
Most of the homeless fall into one of several categories: the mentally ill, drug and alcohol addicted people, and lifestyle choice homeless AKA vagabonds, and often some combination of the three. The mentally ill should definitely receive public help. Unfortunately, as a society, we've turned the mentally ill into a policing problem and we've chosen to provide mental health beds primarily in county jails. The addicted, on the other hand, definitely benefits from those county jails through having a chance to dry out. The third category of lifestyle choice homeless have the right to live however they choose so long as it doesn't impact the communities where they live. This is where vagrancy and loitering laws have their place.
The irony of that statement.
No irony there since I do actually volunteer locally here to help with the homeless.
Drug and alcohol addicted people would do far better with proper rehab and vocational training than putting them in jail. Other countries have great success with preventing repeat offenders by offering people like that and other low-level offenders not only proper rehab and treating them like human beings, but offering great vocational training so when they leave they can actually go enter the workforce.
I was thinking it was a statement which could be applied towards some of the homeless.
People have to want to get clean/sober, otherwise all the assistance in the world is in vain.
60% of homeless people have jobs, bottle money isn’t the issue
Only 30-40% of the homeless have drug, alcohol or mental illness issues.
Likely 100% of The most visible ones due however. Those that don’t usually are better at covering
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We last visited Portland in 2022.
I'd have to say that reports of its decrepitude are greatly overstated.
As compared to quite a few other large American cities, it's actually quite nice.
Yes, Portland has long tolerated the homeless, but they aren't typically obnoxious or aggressive, as they are in many cities that are intolerant of them.
Homelessness has various causes, with mental illness and addition being chief among them. The irony is that with proper treatment and medication, the seriously mentally ill can often function well in society and so can the addicted, to become job holding taxpaying citizens.
You want to reduce homelessness?
Put the resources needed into getting homeless people the help they need and watch homeless numbers dwindle.
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