So What Would You Do About the Homeless?

Great Debates
21

Not that this is a solution, but if you get a chance, rent Dark Days Dark Days (2000) - IMDb. It is a documentary that chronicles the lives of people near Penn Station who live underground (some of them for years) in the tunnels of New York. It is a dark, depressing look at who the homeless are, how they got there, why they stay. It is fascinating.

The solution, if there is one, will be complex. There are lots of agencies in place to help them, but as others have said, you have to get them to want to change their lives. That seems to be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

22

St. Petersburg, FL came up with an interesting solution to the homeless problem last Friday.

See what you do is, send in a gang of cops with box cutters to grab and drag people out of their beds, then slice up their tents and other shelters, and then make them get up and start walking, like so many Navin Johnsons at the end of The Jerk.

www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBAXYYK5XE.html

Not what I would do, of course.

23

I think that getting them to want to change their lives is the second biggest hurdle. The first is getting them to trust that these methods will work. The turnover rate for social workers is high, the funding for most programs are tight and are almost always at risk, the programs change locations or are even shut down without almost no prior notice, etc. It’s hard to look to the long term when your stomach is empty, the weather is crappy and most people avert their eyes when you walk by.

24

But we already know the causes of most chronic homelessness - alcoholism and schizophrenia.

We don’t have a reliable cure for either. We can either warehouse them, or leave to their own devices as we do now.

Sometimes, you can’t fix someone’s problems for them.

Regards,
Shodan

25

Honest question: Where do they go? I would think that any country that has severely mentally ill people (aka all of them) would have to deal with people that can’t maintain a normal life but can still move around and survive would have a visible homeless population somewhere. Do they get put in asylums or something like that? We don’t have many of those left in the U.S.

26

This sounds like an excellent idea. For Chief Harmon and his goons, and those who came up with the idea and supported him, that is.

Then give their homes to the people whose dwellings they trashed. :mad:

27

That may be true however the vast majority of homeless people are not chronically homeless:

Duration[17]

* 80% of those who experience homelessness do so for less than 3 weeks. They typically have more personal, social, or economic resources to draw upon.
* 10% are homeless for up to two months. They cite lack of available or affordable housing as responsible for the delay.
* 10% are so called “chronic” and remain without housing for extended periods of time on a frequent basis. They typically struggle with mental illness, substance abuse, or both.

The people we tend to think of first (crazy, drugged out, etc) make up a small portion of the homeless. I’ve read many articles that claim that the vast majority of homeless people are simply the “working homeless” - they just can’t afford a place to live, at least for some period of time.

So yeah we need to provide more treatment and rehab for people with mental problems and substance issues, but I think a lot more of the problems is that folks are just poor and living is just expensive.

Long term fixes? Hm - better education, better job training, maybe public sector programs like the old WPA, or AmeriCorp, the military - they can certainly use large numbers of people.

28

I’ve been homeless.
a) Fund an org that provides services to the homeless; all employees of the org shall themselves be homeless, and shall serve in office a maximum of 3 years, and shall be chosen via a rigorous candidate search looking for the most qualified people. Give them a budget and a set of objectives and outcome goals, geared towards the maximum number of people successfully located outside of supported programming and verified to be doing well without support/assistance at 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years.

b) Fund a separate org to provide drop-in user-run mutual-support counseling, place to sleep, and voluntary/optional psychiatric consultation to those designated as homeless mentally ill and/or chemically addicted (MICA). 75% of staff @ minimum shall be composed of people who have a history of homelessness and psychiatric diagnosis and/or alcohol/drug addiction. Among the remaining 25% of staff, focus on employing people with demonstrated skills at providing vocational and educational counseling, negotiation of service-provider red tape, and general advocacy.

c) Pass local ordinances and state laws that effectively state that you can’t punish the homeless for bieng homeless. You can arrest people for being belligerent, for disrupting the peace, for being violent or threatening violence, or for indecent exposure or even public intoxication or public health risk due to lack of hygiene, but not for not having anywhere else to go. Bathed people in adequately laundered clothing who aren’t through any actions of their own causing a public disturbance cannot be dispersed from public space if they have nowhere else to go.

d) Fund scholarships and tuition assistance for GED programs and colleges that are earmarked for currently homeless people, including offset of housing costs for students maintaining a GPA at or above 2.0

e) Enact municipal and state tax cuts for developers building low cost housing in the form of decentralized buildings of a limited number of units. Develop a formula that kills the tax cut for a given block of city once a threshold of such units within that block has been reached, balancing desire for maximum number of low-cost housing units against desire to avoid funding the construction of a “project” or ghetto.

f) Enact federal subsidies for states that show a net increase in the number of formerly homeless residents being housed, and for states that hit target points of the number of empty living units available at a rental cost of below some “$X” determined by formula that takes into account local statistics (percentiles, average) for housing costs.

g) Enact Federal tax incentives for companies that kick in per each formerly employee employed for 2 years and beyond.

h) Create and fund via joint state/federal initiatives programs for people who have lost housing due to criminal arrest (without subsequent conviction) or psychiatric commitment/incarceration, with grants for first month plus damage deposit towards housing comparable to that which was lost as a consequence of incarceration by itself and/or in conjunction with related job loss; also tie in with job placement, vocational counseling, etc, services for those who have lost jobs as a consequence of arrest or psych incarceration

i) Overhaul public assistance and food stamps (WIC) programs to accomodate otherwise-qualified people who have no permanent address at the time that they apply; create emergency/prioritized channel for handing such applications by homeless persons rather than disqualifying them for being homeless

j) Enact federal legislation that lets one invest up to 4 times one’s monthly rent or mortage + bldg maintenance cost, up to a ceiling per expense locale, determined by formula re: percentile, and ignore the income so diverted when considering taxable income. Also for the lowest percentiles, actively reimburse a sliding-scale percentage of money thusly invested, as such people will not be paying taxes anyhow.

k) Extend the New York City model of residents’ rights to due notice of eviction proceedings, allowances for Motion to Show Cause orders, etc, for any building with more than “x” number of units and/or for corporations and/or demonstratably linked corporations with more than “x” number of units in total.

29

(Told ya it’d be complex.)

I think AHunter3 has some excellent ideas here. The “no permanent address” roadblocks are criminal, if you ask me. Not to mention stupid.

30

Detroit Free Press said today that foreclosures Wayne County Mich. are up 121 %. Macomb a higher scale suburb is up 197 % . Oakland County a high scale suburb is up 94 %. In Macomb it is 1 in every 38 homes. There are apparently a lot of drunken .dopers about to hit the streets.

31

Who were all those people covered with cardboard sleeping in doorways that I saw every morning in London? I’m not doubting you, I just don’t understand what they were doing.

32

Probably the greatest political snark ever written, and one that matt_mcl and I have come to love:

33

There are plenty of homeless in the U.K. Beggars / the homeless have been a problem for thousands of years.

I have no answer, but when I see them, I think: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

34

There are many reasons for being homeless,and one would first have to find out the reason why a person (or family) is homeless.I am afraid there is not one cure- all for every homeless person.

If a person is homeless because they lived beyond their means is one thing being mentally ill or having an addiction is another.

During the depression there was many so called hobo’s who rode the trains and worked for food.

Our family was given help from the government we were given canned meat,dried fruit,flour, rice and powdered milk. We didn’t get to eat what we wanted but were happy for something to put in our somachs and people were ashamed to have to accept charity.

My father and brothers worked for the WPA digging drainage ditches etc. We slept 5 to a bed and were grateful to be out of the cold.

I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything as my husband and I learned that no matter what one’s income was, to get ahead you had to live under it.Not just break even, or charge and jepordize our future; we lived a frugal life but now in our old age when many of our friends are ekeing out a living we have secured our future.

Oprah had a show a few years ago where a woman was living in her Mercedes,she and her husband earned over a 100,000.00 a year,but lived beyond her means. Oprah had a man on at the same time who had children earned $25,000.oo a year, owned his house, a travel trailer,and a boat.and had a savings account.

Perhaps we should have a course in school to teach people who are healty to buy only what they could afford,not what they want. If it is not paid for it is not owned.
Monavis

35

I work in property management and have had to deal a lot with homeless people. I’d say at least 30 to 50% of them just don’t understand how to fit into society; specially, obeying the rules. They get a one bedroom apartment and sign a lease that they will be the only person living there and will obey the quiet enjoyment of the building and have no pets. A month later they have their lover, two kids and a dog in the apartment and we’re getting calls at midnight about the noise. “I can live how I want in my apartment.” No, you can’t and you’re back on the street.

Some people will no accept any boundaries, and you cannot hold onto an apartment and a job when you think like that.

36

Yes, but part of my point is that, in the majority of cases, we don’t need to do anything different about the homeless - they find housing on their own in less than 3 weeks.

I kind of doubt if the military can use an influx of homeless alcoholics and schizophrenics, and the same goes for your other suggestions. The basic problem for those that are chronically homeless is that they can’t/won’t/don’t meet the basic requirements of adult life - either feeding, housing, and clothing yourself, or forming a stable relationship with someone else who will. Even, it seems, if that “someone else” is Uncle Sam. We don’t have a practical cure for substance abuse or serious mental illness. That is the cause of homelessness that doesn’t fix itself. More government spending does not address the root cause.

We can either marginalize them (or allow them to marginalize themselves, which is what we do now), or treat them as less than fully responsible - which translates to forced treatment and/or institutionalization.

Some people, apparently, aren’t up to the tasks of living as an independent adult. Whether or not it is their “fault” doesn’t change much about their prospects.

Regards,
Shodan

37

Shodan, I have read that about a third of the homeless are children. It’s too horrible to even consider.

On the local Nashville news this week, the anchor passed on a message from the local police. It was an advisory not to give the homeless money or even food because it would encourage them to stay in Nashville and we would get the reputation for being a city that’s easy on the homeless.

The “story” absolutely blew me away. The anchor appeared uncomfortable in his delivery – almost as if he hadn’t known what was coming. This is the coldest week in the year. I thought the police were supposed to protect all of us.

What are these people supposed to do – evaporate? Vote to raise their own salaries and adjourn for a five day weekend? Sell their stock?

I saw pictures tonight of a shanty town in Miami. I think there was a Councilwoman who came up with the idea of NOT tearing it down again. Now it is a community of people. There is even a waiting list to get in. These are houses made of cardboard, but at least there is a sense of place.

Maybe in our “nation building” mode, we need to take another look at the poor in our country.

38

Short of involuntary commitment of that last 10% that **Valgard ** cited (since the other 90% are seemingly able to remove themselves from the streets within 2 months), I’m not sure there is a long-term solution. What sort of civil liberties would we be violating if we did round up all the mentally ill and/or substance abusing homeless and forced them into institutions for their own good?

39

Long term, chronically homeless? I don’t know, but I tend to doubt it.

I wonder if “nation building” for the chronically homeless would be any more successful than for the chronically Islamofascist. IYSWIM.

Regards,
Shodan

40

AHunter3, after getting some ink for my printer, I came back to make a copy of your list to put on my wall. Finally, something specific.

Thanks for this. I want to do something.

No, the numbers are much worse than that. One-third of all of the homeless at any given time are children.

Have you worked with the poor much, Shodan? Where have you gotten your impressions?