How Bad is the Homeless Problem in Your City?

[Via Chicago]

Seek help

[j korzeniowski]

yikes. well, that explains a lot of tom servo's posts.

anyway, chicago's homeless population has decreased, per this article:

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2016...ar-city-report

[IMBY]

After reading of what it costs taxpayers, on a national average, $47,500 a year to have one homeless person on our streets, I'm looking at homelessness in a whole different light. So why aren't we doing something, like Salt Lake City, for example, to lessen those costs to taxpayers?

Why so much? Those trips to the Emergency rooms, hospitalizations, prescribed drugs, rehab, etc.

I work in a LTC/Rehab facility, and we occasionally get homeless people coming into our facility for Rehab, and once rehabbed, can we then just throw them out the front door? No!

We're under strict Federal/State guidelines, in that we can't release any homeless person unless they transfer to a secure environment, which is the job for our Social Services employees. And, no, a motel is not considered a secure environment! We also have to make sure they have Food Stamps, and most of them end up on Medicaid. Searching for Section 8 housing for them can take some time!

I can't remember just how many teenagers are homeless in Las Vegas, but it's shocking.

But, homelessness has been part of the U.S. for centuries!

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

I don't generally empathize with strangers and have very little sympathy.

Maybe I'm just a little less "human" than others. Hmm.

Sociopathic tendencies would explain a lot about your posts, but they're still not an excuse to spout off baseless bullshit about how we have the best healthcare in the world and about how homelessness is a choice -- not when we don't, and not when it isn't, and the numbers are there in regards to both.

On the other hand though, keep that chin up. I know another sociopath and he has managed to make it work for him. He's a paid GOP political operative! He basically gets paid to be an asshole, all day long, shilling on social media and news forums. It pays so well that he's even bought himself a house with a pool. That could be in your future too if you play your cards right.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

I don't generally empathize with strangers and have very little sympathy.

hallmarks of a psychopath/sociopath.

before, i thought you were just a weirdo, but there does actually seem to be something wrong with you, in your head.

Psychopathy (/saɪˈkɒpəθi/), sometimes also known as sociopathy (/soʊsiˈɒpəθi/), is traditionally defined as a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, egotistical traits.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

[Centropolis]

come on chicago forumers, circle the wagons. don't throw your man under the bus.

[Steely Dan]

^ uh, tom has been a near-constant pest on the chicago threads for ages now.

i don't think you'll find anyone here who would willingly come to his defense.

[James Bond Agent 007]

It has been my observation that, 4 times out of 5, when you read an angry ranting maniac on the internet insulting people, cursing, and generally being really crude and rude, it is a self-professed conservative doing so.

[CaliNative]

You never meet a wealthy homeless person, even a wealthy person with mental illness or substance abuse who is homeless. Homelessness is due to lack of money for housing. The lack of money may be due to substance abuse, mental illness, spousal or child abuse, or just economic bad luck and lack of money (because of job loss, medical expense, gambling, whatever), or some combination of the above.

All homeless people--mentally ill, substance abusers, economic losers, or any combination--deserve a roof over their head, or at least a safe place to pitch a tent or park a car at night. Until more housing & shelters are built, cities (with some federal funding?) should provide safe campgrounds and shelters with showers & bathroom facilities, and security and perhaps social services. The homeless people could clean up, be evaluated for medical issues, and be given appropriate counseling for various issues (substance abuse, mental illness, etc.), and those that can work be linked up with employers. These facilities could be placed in industrial areas, so they aren't wandering around where people live, at least not at night.

Once adequate shelter is provided, homeless people who continue to camp in neighborhoods, in parks, on the beach, or in woodlands can be moved to these new approved places to stay. If they continue to refuse, they can be taken to a place for mental evaluation and a criminal backround check.

It will take years to develop more permanent housing. Until that point, interim solutions like the one suggested should be tried, and could be set up almost immediately.

[CaliNative]

Haven't met a rich hobo yet.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Haven't met a rich hobo yet.

Find me ONE homeless person with a numbered Swiss bank account, and you'll win a prize of some value.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Haven't met a rich hobo yet.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/...wer_of_pe.html

[emathias]

A few homeless do choose to be homeless over the other possibilities available to them. I actually know one homeless man who has repeatedly spurned efforts by Illinois' Health and Human Services to get him housed in favor of living outdoors. He doesn't like to be indoors.

So it does happen. But he's also basically given up on life, expects to die within the next ten years, and doesn't feel he could get a stable job anyway. And, yes, he suffers from mental illness.

But most of the other homeless people I know, even the ones with mental illness, would much rather have a different life that didn't involve being homeless. Most of them come from broken, abusive homes, most have suffered some sort of severe trauma as children and/or as adults. Not all of them - some just sort of slipped into homelessness because of what appears to me to be paralyzing depression unrelated to an particular event(s) - but most of them.

And a surprising number claim to have some sort of big financial settlement coming to them. Perhaps a few do, although I think most who make such claims use it as a mental crutch, convincing themselves that they only have to endure homelessness until that one big check finally comes. Not that different, really, from believing you are destined to win the lottery.

[Pavlov's Dog]

I just got back from Dublin and was surprised at the extent of the homeless problem there. It was basically like most major US cities. Really depressing.

[Sam Hill]

I’ve lived in four cities: Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles (but in a suburban area so I can’t really speak to L.A.’s homeless problem) and San Diego. I’m surprised to see San Diego ranking so high, statistically, as having a homeless problem. It felt really tame compared to San Francisco. It was such a relief to live in Southern California and no longer have my quality of life so affected by riffraff on the streets. Also, after living in San Diego for five years, and moving back to my hometown of Denver one year ago, Denver feels like it has a worse homeless problem. I don’t know how many there are, but there are packs of aggressive panhandlers all over downtown, and it seems there’s someone with a cardboard sign at every major intersection and freeway off-ramp across the city and suburbs. It’s amazing. It’s definitely worse than it was when I last lived here nearly a decade ago. I think legalized marijuana has everything to do with it. It seems the kind of riffraff who are intentionally homeless for the huck-finn lifestyle have moved here in droves for the legal pot. The effect those kids have on a neighborhood is more noticeable I think because of the aggressiveness of their panhandling. So maybe it just feels like the problem is worse here than San Diego.

I don’t know what San Francisco is like now that you have to be rich to live there, but when I lived there, the homeless problem definitely had a profound effect on my life. It was a far worse problem than I witnessed in any North American or European city I’ve ever traveled to. It was definitely near the top of my list of reasons for leaving. During my three years living there, I was mugged a couple times, but that didn’t have nearly as much of an effect on me as the daily stress of having to face certain transit stops on my commute to and from work. I’ve seen things so insane that when I tell the stories to people who have never lived there, they simply can’t believe it and sometimes accuse me of making it up. For instance, I once saw a woman on a bus tear her own fingernail off and start terrorizing everyone on the bus by chasing them around trying to wipe her blood on them. My friends from NYC once visited for a wedding and were so rattled by their experience walking to their hotel in Union Square on the first night, that they made sure to exclusively travel by taxi for the rest of their trip. That kind of shocked me because I assumed NYC, being a much bigger city, was probably worse.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Pavlov's Dog

I just got back from Dublin and was surprised at the extent of the homeless problem there. It was basically like most major US cities. Really depressing.

Homeless problem in Dublin? Let me guess, alcoholism is the major cause? The Irish do love their ethanol, as a general rule, rivaling the Russians. Before you criticize me, I'm half Irish and half Russian, but I'm not alcoholic. I guess I hit the lottery.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

I’ve lived in four cities: Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles (but in a suburban area so I can’t really speak to L.A.’s homeless problem) and San Diego. I’m surprised to see San Diego ranking so high, statistically, as having a homeless problem. It felt really tame compared to San Francisco. It was such a relief to live in Southern California and no longer have my quality of life so affected by riffraff on the streets. Also, after living in San Diego for five years, and moving back to my hometown of Denver one year ago, Denver feels like it has a worse homeless problem. I don’t know how many there are, but there are packs of aggressive panhandlers all over downtown, and it seems there’s someone with a cardboard sign at every major intersection and freeway off-ramp across the city and suburbs. It’s amazing. It’s definitely worse than it was when I last lived here nearly a decade ago. I think legalized marijuana has everything to do with it. It seems the kind of riffraff who are intentionally homeless for the huck-finn lifestyle have moved here in droves for the legal pot. The effect those kids have on a neighborhood is more noticeable I think because of the aggressiveness of their panhandling. So maybe just feels like the problem is worse here than San Diego.

I don’t know what San Francisco is like now that you have to be rich to live there, but when I lived there, the homeless problem definitely had a profound effect of my life. It was a far worse problem than I witnessed in any North American or European city I’ve ever traveled to. It was definitely near the top of my list of reasons for leaving. During my three years living there, I was mugged a couple times, but that didn’t have nearly as much of an effect on me as the daily stress of having to face certain transit stops on my commute to and from work. I’ve seen things so insane that when I tell the stories to people who have never lived there, they simply can’t believe it and sometimes accuse me of making it up. For instance, I once saw a woman on a bus tear her own fingernail off and start terrorizing everyone on the bus by chasing them around trying to wipe her blood on them. My friends from NYC once visited for a wedding and were so rattled by their experience walking to their hotel in Union Square on the first night, that they made sure to exclusively travel by taxi for the rest of their trip. That kind of shocked me because I assumed NYC, being a much bigger city, was probably worse.

I'm from L.A., now live in San Diego County, and have visited San Francisco many times. The 3 vie for "homeless capitol" bragging rights. But you might be right, the homeless in San Diego are a bit more laid back and mellow that those in S.F. and L.A. as a general rule. The problem is awful. Practically every freeway offramp and many onramps have homeless beggars holding signs. At the entrances of stores, you often run a gauntlet of people with outstretched hands. Fortunately, never been mugged or never had a crazy person wave a bloody finger in my face. However, I do keep a supply of quarters in my pocket, and if a homeless person comes across with an honest sob story, I generally dig into my pocket for a handful of quarters.

Something has to be done. The problem is horrible and growing.

[Pavlov's Dog]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Homeless problem in Dublin? Let me guess, alcoholism is the major cause? The Irish do love their ethanol, as a general rule, rivaling the Russians. Before you criticize me, I'm half Irish and half Russian, but I'm not alcoholic. I guess I hit the lottery.

I was just there on business and my only source of enlightenment was talking with colleagues but it sounds a lot like the US. A mix of drugs, alcohol, mental illness and poverty combined with an inadequate safety net compared to most country. Remember that abortion is still illegal in Ireland so a lot of children are born to poor teen mothers incapable of caring for themselves economically, let alone their children.

[Doady]

I don't see a lot of homeless people in Mississauga. A few weeks ago, I encountered a panhandler at the bus station, but that's pretty much it.

Recently there is a story in Ontario about homeless people being fined, essentially for being homeless. For example, a homeless man in Toronto who accumulated $65,000 in fines.

That's the right wing way: cut social programs to help poor people, and then criminalize poor people for being poor.

The homeless man with all those fines is aboriginal, which is a common story in Canada. Lots of drug and mental illness problems among aboriginals in Canada because of the abuse they suffered in the Canadian Indian Residential School System, and a lot of homeless people of Canada are survivors of these schools. This is one of the main reasons for homelessness in Canada.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by Doady

cut social programs to help poor people, and then criminalize poor people for being poor.

Hey now, it works in Kansas, Alabama, Arizona and a horde of other states run by right wing lunatics and we ain't gonna listen to evidence to the contrary...