Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed
Creating the need for tent cities is not compassionate lol. We can debate whether it is good policy to guarantee every human their own sheltered space, but it is completely disingenuous to act as if we have actually ever guaranteed that in this country.
We can also debate whether we have the legal structure capable of that guarantee, but I also think it is disingenuous to discount that as a solution because of "culture".
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Who said anything about culture besides you? I think it's completely disingenuous to suggest the government can simply build and provide free housing for anyone and everyone who wants it, and that doing so would take care of the homeless problem we have.
There are 70,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County. If you assume a per unit cost of $500,000 (which is probably a conservative number to use), you're looking at 3.5 billion dollars just to house those people who are currently homeless in one county. And more and more people will then come to LA County to take advantage of the sweet deal, and then we're left with a never ending cycle of spending huge sums of money to provide free housing for people in one of America's most expensive cities.
I support building more government funded housing, but I don't think it's the end all, be all answer to solving homelessness. I think the government's job should primarily be to provide emergency shelters. You have the option of being a normal member of society who figures out their own housing, or you can stay in a shelter. We should provide resources to help people figure out their lives, get treatment for substance abuse, etc. But if you don't have housing, and you don't want to be in a shelter, I don't think cities should allow people the option of setting up camp on city sidewalks. Those people should be removed from the streets, and either jailed or institutionalized. That may sound harsh, but I think it would incentivize people who are mentally able to get their shit together to do so.
Just this morning walking into work, I saw group of able-bodied guys outside their little tent village (which totally blocked the sidewalk) taking apart a beautiful new looking road bike, which I have to assume was stolen. They had several other bikes in various states of disassembly scattered around them. They were running a power chord from a light pole that I guess they figured out how to hack into. The whole area looked and smelled disgusting. This type of behavior just should not be tolerated, imo. And why should those type of guys get free housing for life in America's second biggest city, when I have to schlepp my ass to work and live a fairly frugal lifestyle so I can afford to pay my rent and bills? The government should not be incentivizing bad behavior.