Portland Oregon had the ideal solution: build housing here and send all the homeless people to it. Which is almost as far as you can get from anywhere in Portland, so that would be nice. Get them out of the way, where the normal people would not have to look at them.
In the majesty of the law, Rich and Poor alike are forbidden to sleep under bridges.
Just as it’s just as illegal for a poor person to moor their yacht off a public beach as it is for a rich person.
Yeah, one of my most lasting memories of Austin was strolling around downtown on a lovely summer morning, as various businesses hosed turds into the street. 
ISTR that it’s a fairly recent thing, like in the last year or two, that it’s even been legal for the homeless to camp on city land, so this is almost certainly an effort to put things back the way they were.
Except Bybee has rules like any other shelter and won’t except someone not adhering to those rules.
I deal with the homeless every day I work. Many get kicked out of shelters and group homes because they cause fights, steal things, show up drunk or high, show up in possession of narcotics, and/or refuse or stop any treatment for their mental illness. They want to use housing as nothing more than a flop house and refuse to make any of the lifestyle changes the housing authority insists upon.
Your cite has the same rules about these things so the claim that somehow ALL the homeless in the area are there is obviously nonsense.
Sorry, I did mean to convey that all the homeless in Portland are there, just that there had been a plan to shuffle them off to there (my mother is in her late 80s, so what she told me might have been distorted, but she is still quite sharp). As I understand it, the plan to warehouse all the homeless out in North Bumfuck did not actually get carried out as originally put forth.
That sounds like a nightmare in the making.
The idea that housing and jobs is all that is needed to solve homelessness is a delusion at best.
Which did make me wonder what would happen if a random person (not homeless) fell asleep on a park bench on a warm day.
Yup.
I’d suggest fully supportive addiction rehab, and involuntary custodial care for the insane / un-addictable is about the minimum that will stop public spaces from being our de facto crazy houses. With housing and jobs and training for the ones that don’t “qualify” for involuntary custodial care.
Whatever we do, if it’s going to work, it will not be cheap.
Let’s be very, very careful about involuntary anything, including involuntary ‘custodial’ care. Custodial tends to end up all about the ‘in custody’ and very little about care. Involuntary ‘treatment’ also often ends up benefitting others much more than benefitting the recipient.
The treatment and “treatment” of the insane has certainly been a horror show from time immemorial. We can and should do better.
But simply turning them out to live or die on the streets as they might which is our “policy” today is certainly not a humane solution either. And is one with significant downsides for a lot of other people.
Then you’ll need to come up with a better plan or else you’ll start to see harsher treatment of the homeless. It costs money to imprison people, but that may be a cost worth paying
Agreed, on both points.
The problem is that most people don’t want to pay for what it would cost for ‘those’ people to choose treatment, housing, etc, on their terms. No one should have to agree to being out of sight to have a quality of life amenable to them. Out of sight, out of mind proves to equal Bedlam so far in western civilization. America hasn’t gotten it right yet on any meaningful scale anywhere.
You’re right about how these things end up in practice. But in theory this is probably the only thing that will work. I work as the medical attending at an acute care psych hospital. Based on what I’ve seen, the only option that would benefit the mentally ill homeless population is some type of long term inpatient psychiatric care. And yes, I realize that this sounds like I’m advocating a return of asylums. That’s because it is what I’m in support of. IMHO this is the only solution with any chance of success at helping the mentally ill homeless population. No matter how well intentioned and how much money we throw at other programs, the chances of success are essentially zero without a long term inpatient psych care option.
That is helping YOU about the homeless. It isn’t helping them.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.
Anatole France - Wikipedia
I used to wonder about that whole “sleeping on park benches” thing until I visited NYC in August. NYC in August gave me a whole different insight on sleeping outdoors that what I’d experienced in Melbourne Australia.
Many of the homeless have families but can’t or won’t turn to them because they have so alienated them due to their addictions, mental illness, or both.
Dealing with a severe addict in your home is beyond exhausting. They become psychic vampires draining the soul out of you. Dealing with someone who refuses treatment for their mental illness or stops their treatment and medication is just as bad. Someone afflicted with both are an indescribable nightmare for someone trying to have a happy home and live their life.
Putting these people in housing without demanding rehab and mental illness treatment is absolutely no solution. It does not end the problem in any way whatsoever. It just turns into temporary shelter until they return to the streets to shit, piss, puke, accost people and commit crimes (yes, some homeless do commit serious crimes). How is this any answer?
It is a problematic solution. Many years ago, I was in the looney bin, as a patient, for several months. My experience was that, for people that have a shot at stabilizing, it is the worst place you can put them, and for the people that have no path to stability, it is not that much help for them either. You have a cauldron of various degrees of nuttiness, exposed solely to each other for most of the day. This kind of segregation really benefits no one, not even the people that never see it.
In other words, classic asylums are a shit pot stew of we-do-not-want-to-look-at-you. Make it somebody else’s problem is a part of the American ethos that we all need to shed.
(And this is ignoring the overall issue that a large fraction of the homeless population are not crazy.)
While mental illness and addiction are absolutely
major causes of homeless. They only account for about 30%. Just under 30% is caused by not having a job, and a similar number have jobs that don’t pay enough.
So, you’re partially correct. Housing and job opportunities alone are not gonna solve the homeless problem, but it will reduce it by 60%!
And 60% fewer tent cities will go a long way toward making the problem more manageable.