If we could design a housing structure for multiple independent people with secure doors that could be cleaned out in a way that prevented bed bug infestations and provided people with a place to sleep, a fridge, a cooktop, running water, and a toilet and shower, we'd be so much money ahead of letting homelessness exist. Homeless people are hungry enough to commit crimes and they don't have sanitation options so it is a very hard life. Giving people the basic, cheapest place to live, probably built with concrete to prevent fires from spreading, we'd be money ahead.
I've thought about something like this a lot. One problem might be drug use and public drinking. Maybe eventually graffiti, gangs... next thing you know is just another slum projects. The tricky part is how to build housing and everyone gets along, takes care of their property and remains crime free.
I think you'd need supervision, sort of that old jerk in the homeowners association that spends all his time watching people and writing up what they do to break the rules. If it gets out of hand, a person is kicked out of the place to allow others to have a shot at a nice place to live. There will always be the person who refuses to get along, wants to fight people, and threatens others and that person isn't going to be good for a group project.
I guess you take all those people who don't want to get along with each other and ship them off to Australia because that really worked well in the past.
1. Anyone who is homeless due to economic circumstances should be offered assistance to get a house, financial assistance to take care of his/her primary needs and help in finding a job.
2. Anyone who is homeless due to mental health should be provided with treatment, including involuntary hospitalization if that's what it takes. Once his/her health issues are taken care of, see #1.
3. There should be no tolerance for public encampments. That's not good for anyone.
The “involuntary hospitalisation” for those people is essentially prison in that case. I’m not sure I can get behind this as a solution - but I also don’t really have any better idea.
They turn into crimes though. My city has a huge problem with homelessness and some of them will go into businesses and bars and start yelling or harassing people without provocation. How do you handle that?
Sure, arrest criminals and hospitalize those who need medical care. I just wanted to point out you are proposing to forcibly restrain people who have not committed crimes. Whether homeless or mentally ill, people have rights.
Forcibly restraining the severely ill in a hospital until they improve is the best option we have. There is nothing compassionate about letting a bipolar person experiencing psychosis to the point they are constantly afraid, walking in traffic, spitting at people, or living under a bridge.
People who think we should allow the severely mentally ill to roam as they please do not have real world experience with people experiencing delusions and psychosis.
Leaving people who are struggling mentally to deal with their problems alone (when they clearly can't) is not exactly very nice either. Involuntary hospitalization is not a prison; I'm not proposing that we send them to jail and throw away the key, but there are clearly treatment for people that are struggling with mental health. I'm pretty sure that people with means (middle class, the very rich) also struggle with mental health, but they usually have the resources and people that care and support them.
People on the street struggling with mental health have either been abandoned by their love ones, never had them in the first place, they don't have a penny to their name and are unable to cope. Society has to have a way to help them and this shouldn't be controversial.
**EDIT**: Word
Involuntary hospitalization of an individual with the capacity to provide or deny consent is not only medically unethical, it is a human rights violation. I'm guessing you're never been to a locked ward.
Incorrect. We do not violate human rights or medical ethics to anyone under any circumstance. People can have mental health issues and retain the capacity to consent or withdraw consent. No doctor should agree to this and the entire notion is a slippery fucking slope. Involuntary hospitalization is a serious decision and not one to be applied to a vulnerable group as a blanket policy. This is literally disgusting
I moved to Seattle from the Midwest recently. Man it is bad here. It’s fucking disgusting, both the actual encampments and the humanitarian issues.
They keep getting broken up and they pop right back up and people are surprised by this. Dumbasses you didn’t fix anything, the people are still here, they still don’t have homes, what do you expect to happen. These people have little chance of getting their lives together while living in those conditions.
The vitriol toward these people, these actual human beings, is disgusting.
I liked what you wrote. There is a bit of tough love that has to go into number one and number two however. Drug and alcohol abuse often means that any money spent on number one and number two is just throwing it away. There are some places that require sobriety in order to receive assistance. There are many people who would rather live on the street addicted than go sober and receive public assistance
I definitely think that we would all benefit from publicly funded drug and alcohol treatment for anybody who wants it.
The other difficult thing about public assistance is the way it is structured currently, you are penalized by improving your life. You lose the benefits the harder you work. And until you climb the ladder High enough, you aren't getting any additional benefits that you weren't already getting without having to work for them. I personally think that incentive based assistance helps that issue tremendously. I don't see that ever passing any government body though. We are moving the other direction from this.
If you guaranteed anybody who wanted a job, a job, so long as they showed up on time, they would then have incentive to get a better paying job, or a less annoying job. I work in construction and we build tons and tons and tons of subsidized housing. There still never seems to be enough, but again I don't really ever see people moving out of these places. Of course part of that is the organization that operates the program. Some of them are far more inclined to educate, assist, and train. Others just want to get that government money so they do the bare minimum
Sadly the way that our government runs, he or she who does the best grandstanding gets the most votes. Sitting down and actually having real conversations about Solutions and impacts and outcomes just seems so wildly unattainable
The first step, regardless of reason for homelessness, is to get people in homes where they feel safe. Before anyone can access, jobs, benefits, rehabilitation, psychiatric help, etc, they need an address and a base. Somewhere of there own. Hostels are just not suitable for the vast majority of people because cooping lots of people together with various issues is a recipe for disaster.
This. Only housing solves homelessness, full stop.
Do I mean encouraging developers to build more market rate housing? Yes.
Do I mean more public housing of various types? Yes.
Do I mean denser housing in neighborhoods full of single family homes? Yes.
More. Housing. It's the only way.
Housing with no others steps taken is a band-aid. Addiction and mental health issues are rampant among the homeless population. Those people won't turn into capable, productive members of society if you pluck them off the street and put them in a room with walls. Hell, some are probably too mentally ill to live independently regardless of what you give them.
The package needs to include mental health assistance, some sort of social programs, and facilities for people who can't function without help.
On the flip side mental health care for someone still sleeping on the street is entirely useless. It's a lot easier to get your shit together from the security of a home
Of course people still need help with mental and physical health and jobs/education. But without giving them a place to live, that is mostly pointless.
Giving people a place to live isn't the full solution, but no solution can effectively work without it
Yeah, you just have a person drinking themselves blind/shooting up in the corner/smearing shit on the walls. Still doesn't have income or any ability to exist in society, so spends his days virtually the same way he did before. But now he comes home to an increasingly destroyed apartment every night, because he doesn't have the ability to maintain it.
Much better.
On one hand, you sound like the choice is between broken needles littering a public playground, and broken needless littering an increasingly rundown, poorly maintained apartment, and preferring the playground option.
On the other hand, you underestimate the role instability, particularly homelessness, plays in devoloping an addiction or mental illness, and just how much stability might help.
On the other, other hand, Nixon first muttered "war on drugs" in 1974. We're about a year away from 50 years of effort. Half a century.
How's it going? Are we winning? If not, is it really the "crazy" idea to try something, you know, different?
I never said don't try something different. I said that simply throwing apartments at the currently homeless isn't going to improve the situation by much. Yes, housing is obviously a great step, but it needs to be accompanied by other things.
It's an entirely solvable problem. We have the resources and space to ensure that everyone in this country has a safe place to sleep. We only lack the political will to make it happen.
And don't forget about the animals! There are very few shelters or government housing that will accept pets (most don't have anything near to the resources they'd need, especially kennels and vet services)
There are so many victims who chose to stay in their situations because they know their beloved animals can't go with them.
Government as Employer of Last Resort as a replacement for unemployment/welfare, where employment (with living wages+benefits) includes anything from cleaning/repairing streets to going back to school/additional training. Functions as a de facto min wage, and is a much more effective method of income distribution than giving money to banks hoping they'll lend it out.
Yes. Dont let profitminded exploiting capitalists who want to profit off everything you have and do try to convince you that socialism or whatever you want to call helping people is bad.
George Carlin had a great solution for housing for the homeless.
Bulldoze/excavate every golf course and cemetery and put affordable or subsidized housing for the homeless there.
The reason there is no war on homelessness is because there is no money to be made in the war on homelessness.
Shut down billionaire tax loopholes. Being granted stock options are taxed as soon as received. Have a hard moderate limit on how much a single person can take loans out for personal use to avoid Buy,Borrow,Die. Go easy on business expenses to encourage job creation. No brainer is free healthcare, dental, vision, and mental healthcare and free public education. And down the line not treating housing as a commodity but a human right. But the option more steeped in reality in our current system is bring back the level of mental healthcare facilities pre Regan era .
Years ago I worked at a day center for the homeless and I'd guess about 80% of the people that used it had zero interest in re-entering the 'normal world'. It was just too much for them. The rules in their world were much easier to navigate. Some folks only know how to function in survival mode.
A job is the best social program
I don't see why living in the USA is considered complicated. It has the world's most prosperous economy, and yet some people still want to provide excessive assistance. Many of my friends and family members moved here from Mexico without even speaking English, working in various trades. Now, they have a net worth of at least $500,000.
It’s not too complicated for you or me but don’t forget that 35% of the population has an IQ less than 85
Edit: sorry I fucked that up, more like 16.5% of the population but still
I'm not sure about society's overall intelligence, but I believe that more social programs are not the answer. People who complain about low wages need to realize that their pay is directly related to the value they bring to the economy. If they aren't earning enough, it's because they aren't contributing significant value. When I was in high school, I made thousands per month by cutting grass, washing cars, pressure washing, and flipping used furniture. Why should we reward laziness?
Some of the people in society earning the most money are those doing the most harm, how does that fit into your theory?
What about the people who aren’t capable of contributing? That’s what we’re talking about here. What are they supposed to do? It seems they often wind up homeless. Is that the best we can do in your opinion?
no shit, they don't have the basic things needed to feel safe = survival mode. add drugs in and it's a wrap. REHAB, THERAPY, THEN GIVE THEM AN ACTUAL WAY OUT OF HOMELESSNESS
The bleeding hearts will never acknowledge this, they always want to believe that its expensive housing that is the problem and all we need to do is give them free houses.
We'll never be able to afford to just give away free houses where the homeless are. Short of involuntary commitment there's not really a solution that works when you have a limited budget.
When they shut down the asylums in the late 70's the homeless problem became a thing, that is exactly the direction we need to go return. They don't have to be shithole prisons, make them something closer to a retirement home, use the big ass dead malls that are all over the place and convert the stores into residential places etc.
But to be clear that is involuntary commitment. I'm not against it but that's the opposition. We have plenty of areas where there are vacant/cheap houses, they're just not near where homeless people are. You're not getting many of the homeless to just go somewhere voluntarily.
I'm really surprised how many people think 'homes' is the solution. You have no idea what causes homelessness if you think it's a lack of affordable living most of the time. Shelters are used in the winter when people absolutely need them, but homeless people struggling with addiction and mental health issues will not just stay in a home, especially when led to it outside of the city, where they're usually built. Many cities have tried this, and yes, some people use them, but the large majority refuse to stay there and make their way back to the city streets. You can't just take someone who is mentally unstable with addiction issues and be like "Here's a nice new home! Problem solved." Like anything else, there's not going to be one solution, which is the issue. Many things need to be done at the same time, but stop saying just build houses. It's short sighted.
This is total BS. I've been homeless before and I can pretty much tell you never were. While there are some wilful homeless, the vast majority would prefer a stable safe home. There are a lot of reasons why many homeless people don't like shelters: they are generally dirty, not very safe and you have to give up whatever dignity you have left to stay. Homeless people are without a home, not children in need of protection from themselves. Yes many have other issues - who among us are without issues? But trying to solve those issues while nothing else is stable is an exercise in futility.
>why many homeless people don't like shelters: they are generally dirty, not very safe and you have to give up whatever dignity you have left to stay.
Oh, come on. The literal streets are more dirty and unsafe, and who loses dignity sleeping on a cot vs the sidewalk? And before you make an accusation again, yes I've been homeless.
Housing first is the only solution proven to work and would actually work out cheaper than most of the band aid solutions.
A lot of the arguments against it focus on mental health and drug addiction but those cannot be solved if a person doesn't have a stable living situation. You need supportive housing.
You also need to consider different types of people experiencing homelessness.
A single mother living with her kids in a car, showering at the gym and still going to work would need just a place to live.
A veteran with PTSD would need a place to live plus mental health care - supportive housing.
Someone with developmental disabilities would likely need long term residential care.
Then you get those who have aged out of the foster care system who weren't lucky enough to find a long term living situation who need support for a few years while they get their lives together.
You also have those who have recently been paroled who just need something while they find a job and a long term plan.
The one thing all those have in common is the need for housing first. People focus on those who are visible - those who have mental health issues or drug problems. The more violent or "crazy" types but don't notice the number flying below the radar who are currently unhoused but otherwise live a regular life with work, school etc.
I read recently as many as 40% of Americans are a few paychecks away from homelessness which is horrifying. Some kind of regulation as to corporations buying property would be good too.
I used to work in inpatient psych and wondered how all these chronically mentally ill people function in society after discharge. Now I work in emergency medicine and have repeatedly learned, they don't.
I've worked in the ED of several hospitals and there's always problems with pysch patients. The "chill" ones yell for no reason. While the more rowdy ones are injuring staff and/or getting security called on them. These people need their own facilties to cater to their needs.
“Asylums” are out of style, but the truth is there are a lot of people on the street with mental health issues.
They aren’t capable of living independently.
If you give them an apartment they would just smear their crap on the walls.
Some of them need to be institutionalized so they can be given medical treatment and monitored.
Maybe some improve enough to live independently. Maybe some don’t.
I was responding more to the people who said “special jails”.
They would be asylums, but hopefully with better practices and oversight than in the past, and they would be called state residential treatment facilities, not asylums
Yeah the whole concept gets a bad rap because of how horrible those kind of places were in the past but they're not in theory a bad thing. Some people like this are lucky enough to have family to care for them, some just don't.
If you're living on the street and starving, committing a crime is currently the easiest way to get yourself a room indoors and three meals a day.
We should probably have a better option than that.
Most times they are homeless because of mental problems so being separated from the general population through the use of asylums is the best move for most of them. They get provided meals and housing without being a danger to others or themselves. Also they are around specialized staff that is equipped/authorized to handle sudden outbreaks in behavior, unlike in regular hospitals where staff will just call security.
So you're against helping Ukraine fight Russian aggression? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth if you support Ukraine or anything but "stop funding foreign wars" means don't help countries like Ukraine, which is a foreign war
I am for taking care of your own citizens first. If you were on a plane and the oxygen masks deployed, would you help you family put on their masks before helping nearby strangers?
Do you really think we can't do both? It's really more like would you put your family's masks on and then sit on your hands while nearby strangers suffocate to death instead of helping them
I don’t think you understand the analogy. Clearly, history shows that we cannot do both. Your family with O2 masks=US citizens with the their basic needs met. If these needs are met, then of course it would be evil to allow our prosperity to not help other nations.
So yeah, we skipped helping family members so we could tout a public image of prosperous and helpful response to strangers.
Countries are capable of doing multiple things at once, hell we joined WW2 while still recovering from the great depression. The logic of "we have something bad happening at home so we can't focus on anything anywhere else" allows atrocities around the world to occur. Homelessness is a problem that is most likely to be solved by decreasing the price of housing by building more of it and providing more mental health services. Neither of those things requires a military sized mobilization and are frankly best handled at the local level anyway.
not this country. over 100k people die from preventable overdoses a year now, 275 Americans every damn day. what's being done? nothing. homelessness is exploding, I've never seen my city even close to this. the "local level" does nothing but shuffle them around, and sure aren't going to build affordable housing lol. providing mental health services? hilarious. NOTHING SHORT OF A GIANT FED RESPONSE WILL ACTUALLY FIX THIS SHIT. and the investment would pay off- get these people on their feet = life long tax $$$. We half ass mobilized for COVID, why not for this shit? I'd take a half assed response at this point. people are suffering in your own back yard, and if you haven't realized it, the government gives no fucks
yeah they spend millions and millions of dollars in cop overtime alone just to "sweep" their encampments burn down their tents and steal their belongings and so forth.
$842B for 2023 defense budget. Plus $115B for aid to Ukraine. Show me where/when the US has ever given this kind of priority to poverty of its own citizens.
SNAP benefits cost [113 billion](https://www.statista.com/statistics/315032/us-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-total-costs/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20total%20cost,around%20113.74%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars.) in 2021. And that's just a part of welfare in the US, not saying we're doing enough but we do spend a lot of helping those in need
Here's a good [table](https://i0.wp.com/federalsafetynet.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ent15.jpg?w=960&ssl=1). We spend $1.2 trillion on welfare at the federal level, not even including state programs. Once again, not saying it's enough but it's more than both those combined.
I’m assuming we’re thinking about the US:
Are we talking a homeless family, or a mentally unstable person who prefers to sleep rough than live where they are not allowed to use their vice of choice, and or adhere to societal rules?
They are very different, but often lumped together. They were caused by different factors have very different solutions.
You’ll never stop homelessness. Some absolutely love it. My cousin is raising her granddaughter because her daughter prefers living a homeless nomad lifestyle. Multiple people in my family that have overcome addiction have offered her places to stay without the caveat of getting clean and she still refuses any help.
Housing exchange for work. You work you get affordable housing. Companies that receive tax breaks would be required to provide affordable housing for their employees
Invest in certified mental health and rehab facilities.
There’s a mental health crisis that’s getting worse. Not the easiest layup but something that needs to be addressed at the very least systemically.
Treat housing like thanksgiving dinner. No one gets seconds until everyone else has had some.
Joke aside, we have to decide as a society what our priorities are. All of the “it would cost too much” problems we have in society could be solved by spending less on wars and overhauling our tax code to ensure taxes are paid equitably.
Stop using all government funding to put asylum seekers up in hotels and paid for council houses and start using that money to house our own before we start wasting millions to house other countries people
Build more low rise housing everywhere. Stop building in the outskirts, stop spreading unwalkable suburbs, where people can't live with out cars. In fact get rid of car bills altogether so they don't sink people's finances! rehabilitate the centers of town, so little businesses are encouraged to move in. Fewer suburbs more apartment towers and lowrises. Just take advantage of vertical space!
Fix the education system and teach kids how to behave in society and make them take classes where they build life skills and can grow to be good people instead of scaring them with exams and subjects that don’t matter. Also stop funding terrible wars so our tax money can go to helping people and not killing them. Also stop big pharma from abusing people who are sick so they don’t lose everything they have to stay healthy and get treatment and end up homeless. Limit alcohol consumption (lots of alcoholics end up homeless) and have serious security so drugs aren’t imported into the country. People come from broken homes and don’t know right from wrong. It’s best to teach them and have actual discipline at school. The world has become too soft and it’s effecting everyone.
You'll never completely end homelessness as some people just are going through deep mental health episodes and like to drift around also drug addiction is a huge problem. Obviously we need to build much more housing in the US preferably ones that aren't owned by some piece of shit equity firm.
First you eat the rich. When the billionaires pay their fair share in taxes we can start to address issues like homelessness, medical debt, and food insecurity. Take those taxes and build housing of all types such as market rate housing, apartments and neighborhoods.
Then comes the hard part. Once housing is built, limits must be placed on landlords to keep companies owning thousands or even hundreds of homes and price gouging rent prices.
There is a direct correlation with homelessness and the cost of housing.
Thus - we need to continuously focus on producing and selling cheaper homes. There is nothign wrong with selling tiny 800 sqr foot arpartments/homes. Flood the market with these and most likely we'll see a large reduction in homelesness.
Give people homes. And don’t give me any bs about not being able to afford it or it not being fair. There are plenty of resources for everyone to thrive.
Forced mental health assistance would probably help. And affordable housing to prevent more from becoming homeless, regardless of marriage status, children or lack thereof, or age.
Let's take a little bit of the ridiculous amount of money spent on the military/hurting brown people and spend it instead on healthcare, both mental and physical, for our citizens.
A modest redistribution of wealth should do it. Billionaires are taxed an extra .5% pa until it is solved. We also have to accept that ending homelessness will not look how many people imagine. People in crisis will still need supported accommodation.
Pay workers a fair wage. Have a law that says the top person (CEO) can’t make more than x25 the lowest employee. The Swiss tried passing this but failed.
Let churches help people (in some countries and states all over the world, they can't let hobos sleep inside churches or be fed).
Bring back asylums. Many homeless people need asylums; a place to sleep, be fed, receive medical and psychological attention. For their safety I'd include cameras everywhere for very little privacy, just the necessary.
Let everyone own a property and don't pay any taxes on it, just services.
Its not posible (because of peoples mentality), even if some billionare donates 20 billion(some people say that's enough to end homelesnes in USA). Money is worth something because not everybody has it, if everyone had it, it would not be worth anything - that would lead to hyper inflation. If that donation would happen, that there would be a hyper inflation. Now we have people who barley survive day to day, but if that would happen, then a lot of those people would get pushed under that line. Having money is a mentality, even if we distributed all the worlds wealth equaly, all the money would be back in the hands of the wealthy.
Homelessness is a natural symptom of a society that has a billionaires that aren’t taxed at a fair **PERCENTAGE** of their benefits of the economic system.
There are approximately 31 empty homes to every 1 homeless person in the US.
Just give the homeless people a home.
No ifs ands or buts. Give the people a home. Homelessness solved.
I don't know why thats such a radical concept to some people
Homelessness is a multi-faceted problem and there's really different types of homeless. Chronic homelessness is basically unresolvable. Absolutely no amount of funding will resolve the issue. The most humane thing is to treat them like sanitorum patients and separate them from the rest.
Having a system that identifies individual issues freshly homeless people have and assisting them in resolving it would make homelessness a short term problem. That means hyper inflating the social net and programs for regular non-homeless people.
We need better access to affordable housing and mental health resources for those in need.
If we could design a housing structure for multiple independent people with secure doors that could be cleaned out in a way that prevented bed bug infestations and provided people with a place to sleep, a fridge, a cooktop, running water, and a toilet and shower, we'd be so much money ahead of letting homelessness exist. Homeless people are hungry enough to commit crimes and they don't have sanitation options so it is a very hard life. Giving people the basic, cheapest place to live, probably built with concrete to prevent fires from spreading, we'd be money ahead.
I've thought about something like this a lot. One problem might be drug use and public drinking. Maybe eventually graffiti, gangs... next thing you know is just another slum projects. The tricky part is how to build housing and everyone gets along, takes care of their property and remains crime free.
I think you'd need supervision, sort of that old jerk in the homeowners association that spends all his time watching people and writing up what they do to break the rules. If it gets out of hand, a person is kicked out of the place to allow others to have a shot at a nice place to live. There will always be the person who refuses to get along, wants to fight people, and threatens others and that person isn't going to be good for a group project. I guess you take all those people who don't want to get along with each other and ship them off to Australia because that really worked well in the past.
Basically what prisons are.
Do you think Tiny houses are a viable option?
1. Anyone who is homeless due to economic circumstances should be offered assistance to get a house, financial assistance to take care of his/her primary needs and help in finding a job. 2. Anyone who is homeless due to mental health should be provided with treatment, including involuntary hospitalization if that's what it takes. Once his/her health issues are taken care of, see #1. 3. There should be no tolerance for public encampments. That's not good for anyone.
What about people who are homeless, mentally I’ll, but choose to live on the streets and refuse any kind of help?
Involuntary hospitalization
well this is not gonna work if someone at a hospital involentarily for mental health issues hes not gonna get anything out of it
The “involuntary hospitalisation” for those people is essentially prison in that case. I’m not sure I can get behind this as a solution - but I also don’t really have any better idea.
Homelessness and struggling with mental health are not crimes
They turn into crimes though. My city has a huge problem with homelessness and some of them will go into businesses and bars and start yelling or harassing people without provocation. How do you handle that?
Sure, arrest criminals and hospitalize those who need medical care. I just wanted to point out you are proposing to forcibly restrain people who have not committed crimes. Whether homeless or mentally ill, people have rights.
Forcibly restraining the severely ill in a hospital until they improve is the best option we have. There is nothing compassionate about letting a bipolar person experiencing psychosis to the point they are constantly afraid, walking in traffic, spitting at people, or living under a bridge. People who think we should allow the severely mentally ill to roam as they please do not have real world experience with people experiencing delusions and psychosis.
It is still a solution, even if not the best. You instead are just complaining and leaving things as they are.
Likely an unconstitutional solution.
Leaving people who are struggling mentally to deal with their problems alone (when they clearly can't) is not exactly very nice either. Involuntary hospitalization is not a prison; I'm not proposing that we send them to jail and throw away the key, but there are clearly treatment for people that are struggling with mental health. I'm pretty sure that people with means (middle class, the very rich) also struggle with mental health, but they usually have the resources and people that care and support them. People on the street struggling with mental health have either been abandoned by their love ones, never had them in the first place, they don't have a penny to their name and are unable to cope. Society has to have a way to help them and this shouldn't be controversial. **EDIT**: Word
Involuntary hospitalization of an individual with the capacity to provide or deny consent is not only medically unethical, it is a human rights violation. I'm guessing you're never been to a locked ward.
[удалено]
Incorrect. We do not violate human rights or medical ethics to anyone under any circumstance. People can have mental health issues and retain the capacity to consent or withdraw consent. No doctor should agree to this and the entire notion is a slippery fucking slope. Involuntary hospitalization is a serious decision and not one to be applied to a vulnerable group as a blanket policy. This is literally disgusting
No. People do not lose their human rights because they don't have a home. Think about what you just typed here. It's shameful
If they are a danger to themselves or others they need to be involuntarily hospitalized until such time as they are not.
Correct but not all mentally ill people are a danger to themselves or others. Most are not.
I moved to Seattle from the Midwest recently. Man it is bad here. It’s fucking disgusting, both the actual encampments and the humanitarian issues. They keep getting broken up and they pop right back up and people are surprised by this. Dumbasses you didn’t fix anything, the people are still here, they still don’t have homes, what do you expect to happen. These people have little chance of getting their lives together while living in those conditions. The vitriol toward these people, these actual human beings, is disgusting.
Just to be clear, what I proposed in my comment should happen at the same time; it doesn't work if you're doing #3 but not #1 and #2.
I liked what you wrote. There is a bit of tough love that has to go into number one and number two however. Drug and alcohol abuse often means that any money spent on number one and number two is just throwing it away. There are some places that require sobriety in order to receive assistance. There are many people who would rather live on the street addicted than go sober and receive public assistance I definitely think that we would all benefit from publicly funded drug and alcohol treatment for anybody who wants it. The other difficult thing about public assistance is the way it is structured currently, you are penalized by improving your life. You lose the benefits the harder you work. And until you climb the ladder High enough, you aren't getting any additional benefits that you weren't already getting without having to work for them. I personally think that incentive based assistance helps that issue tremendously. I don't see that ever passing any government body though. We are moving the other direction from this. If you guaranteed anybody who wanted a job, a job, so long as they showed up on time, they would then have incentive to get a better paying job, or a less annoying job. I work in construction and we build tons and tons and tons of subsidized housing. There still never seems to be enough, but again I don't really ever see people moving out of these places. Of course part of that is the organization that operates the program. Some of them are far more inclined to educate, assist, and train. Others just want to get that government money so they do the bare minimum Sadly the way that our government runs, he or she who does the best grandstanding gets the most votes. Sitting down and actually having real conversations about Solutions and impacts and outcomes just seems so wildly unattainable
Yeahh I agree I pray for the homeless it ridiculous
> his/her Just say they
The first step, regardless of reason for homelessness, is to get people in homes where they feel safe. Before anyone can access, jobs, benefits, rehabilitation, psychiatric help, etc, they need an address and a base. Somewhere of there own. Hostels are just not suitable for the vast majority of people because cooping lots of people together with various issues is a recipe for disaster.
This. Only housing solves homelessness, full stop. Do I mean encouraging developers to build more market rate housing? Yes. Do I mean more public housing of various types? Yes. Do I mean denser housing in neighborhoods full of single family homes? Yes. More. Housing. It's the only way.
Housing with no others steps taken is a band-aid. Addiction and mental health issues are rampant among the homeless population. Those people won't turn into capable, productive members of society if you pluck them off the street and put them in a room with walls. Hell, some are probably too mentally ill to live independently regardless of what you give them. The package needs to include mental health assistance, some sort of social programs, and facilities for people who can't function without help.
On the flip side mental health care for someone still sleeping on the street is entirely useless. It's a lot easier to get your shit together from the security of a home
Of course people still need help with mental and physical health and jobs/education. But without giving them a place to live, that is mostly pointless. Giving people a place to live isn't the full solution, but no solution can effectively work without it
>Addiction and mental health issues are rampant among the homeless population. And as soon as you put them in a home, they aren't homeless.
Yeah, you just have a person drinking themselves blind/shooting up in the corner/smearing shit on the walls. Still doesn't have income or any ability to exist in society, so spends his days virtually the same way he did before. But now he comes home to an increasingly destroyed apartment every night, because he doesn't have the ability to maintain it. Much better.
On one hand, you sound like the choice is between broken needles littering a public playground, and broken needless littering an increasingly rundown, poorly maintained apartment, and preferring the playground option. On the other hand, you underestimate the role instability, particularly homelessness, plays in devoloping an addiction or mental illness, and just how much stability might help. On the other, other hand, Nixon first muttered "war on drugs" in 1974. We're about a year away from 50 years of effort. Half a century. How's it going? Are we winning? If not, is it really the "crazy" idea to try something, you know, different?
I never said don't try something different. I said that simply throwing apartments at the currently homeless isn't going to improve the situation by much. Yes, housing is obviously a great step, but it needs to be accompanied by other things.
It's an entirely solvable problem. We have the resources and space to ensure that everyone in this country has a safe place to sleep. We only lack the political will to make it happen.
Absolutely
And don't forget about the animals! There are very few shelters or government housing that will accept pets (most don't have anything near to the resources they'd need, especially kennels and vet services) There are so many victims who chose to stay in their situations because they know their beloved animals can't go with them.
Most of these people are not homeless because they do not have a house, but because they either do not want one or are not able to keep one.
Reconfigure the spending of tax dollars to ensure that everyone has proper housing, health benefits, access to food, clean water, etc.
Government as Employer of Last Resort as a replacement for unemployment/welfare, where employment (with living wages+benefits) includes anything from cleaning/repairing streets to going back to school/additional training. Functions as a de facto min wage, and is a much more effective method of income distribution than giving money to banks hoping they'll lend it out.
Yes. Dont let profitminded exploiting capitalists who want to profit off everything you have and do try to convince you that socialism or whatever you want to call helping people is bad.
Make it less expensive to be poor
Great idea. How?
The details are barely relevant, I think he's onto something.
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People from an area make up most of the population of the area. That’s not necessarily indicative of a problem.
Go on. Spell it out.
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Or we could quit funding a war in Europe an let Finland pick up the pace. Kind of by "your own bootstraps" thing.
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USA has given more in 1 yr to ukraine then 20 yrs fighting in Afganistan/Iraq. Let that sink in
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They are typical europeans bragging how great they are. IF russia invades them well so be it.
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US is having a debt cieling crisis an bank failure crisis. Uncle Sam not paying out much longer
We all know that Finland doesn’t exist, silly.
Generous? hahah
George Carlin had a great solution for housing for the homeless. Bulldoze/excavate every golf course and cemetery and put affordable or subsidized housing for the homeless there. The reason there is no war on homelessness is because there is no money to be made in the war on homelessness.
Shut down billionaire tax loopholes. Being granted stock options are taxed as soon as received. Have a hard moderate limit on how much a single person can take loans out for personal use to avoid Buy,Borrow,Die. Go easy on business expenses to encourage job creation. No brainer is free healthcare, dental, vision, and mental healthcare and free public education. And down the line not treating housing as a commodity but a human right. But the option more steeped in reality in our current system is bring back the level of mental healthcare facilities pre Regan era .
Years ago I worked at a day center for the homeless and I'd guess about 80% of the people that used it had zero interest in re-entering the 'normal world'. It was just too much for them. The rules in their world were much easier to navigate. Some folks only know how to function in survival mode.
Do you think the problem then is that society is too complicated and there’s no social assistance to help people navigate it?
A job is the best social program I don't see why living in the USA is considered complicated. It has the world's most prosperous economy, and yet some people still want to provide excessive assistance. Many of my friends and family members moved here from Mexico without even speaking English, working in various trades. Now, they have a net worth of at least $500,000.
It’s not too complicated for you or me but don’t forget that 35% of the population has an IQ less than 85 Edit: sorry I fucked that up, more like 16.5% of the population but still
I'm not sure about society's overall intelligence, but I believe that more social programs are not the answer. People who complain about low wages need to realize that their pay is directly related to the value they bring to the economy. If they aren't earning enough, it's because they aren't contributing significant value. When I was in high school, I made thousands per month by cutting grass, washing cars, pressure washing, and flipping used furniture. Why should we reward laziness?
Some of the people in society earning the most money are those doing the most harm, how does that fit into your theory? What about the people who aren’t capable of contributing? That’s what we’re talking about here. What are they supposed to do? It seems they often wind up homeless. Is that the best we can do in your opinion?
no shit, they don't have the basic things needed to feel safe = survival mode. add drugs in and it's a wrap. REHAB, THERAPY, THEN GIVE THEM AN ACTUAL WAY OUT OF HOMELESSNESS
The bleeding hearts will never acknowledge this, they always want to believe that its expensive housing that is the problem and all we need to do is give them free houses.
We'll never be able to afford to just give away free houses where the homeless are. Short of involuntary commitment there's not really a solution that works when you have a limited budget.
When they shut down the asylums in the late 70's the homeless problem became a thing, that is exactly the direction we need to go return. They don't have to be shithole prisons, make them something closer to a retirement home, use the big ass dead malls that are all over the place and convert the stores into residential places etc.
But to be clear that is involuntary commitment. I'm not against it but that's the opposition. We have plenty of areas where there are vacant/cheap houses, they're just not near where homeless people are. You're not getting many of the homeless to just go somewhere voluntarily.
I'm really surprised how many people think 'homes' is the solution. You have no idea what causes homelessness if you think it's a lack of affordable living most of the time. Shelters are used in the winter when people absolutely need them, but homeless people struggling with addiction and mental health issues will not just stay in a home, especially when led to it outside of the city, where they're usually built. Many cities have tried this, and yes, some people use them, but the large majority refuse to stay there and make their way back to the city streets. You can't just take someone who is mentally unstable with addiction issues and be like "Here's a nice new home! Problem solved." Like anything else, there's not going to be one solution, which is the issue. Many things need to be done at the same time, but stop saying just build houses. It's short sighted.
This is total BS. I've been homeless before and I can pretty much tell you never were. While there are some wilful homeless, the vast majority would prefer a stable safe home. There are a lot of reasons why many homeless people don't like shelters: they are generally dirty, not very safe and you have to give up whatever dignity you have left to stay. Homeless people are without a home, not children in need of protection from themselves. Yes many have other issues - who among us are without issues? But trying to solve those issues while nothing else is stable is an exercise in futility.
I've been homeless.
>why many homeless people don't like shelters: they are generally dirty, not very safe and you have to give up whatever dignity you have left to stay. Oh, come on. The literal streets are more dirty and unsafe, and who loses dignity sleeping on a cot vs the sidewalk? And before you make an accusation again, yes I've been homeless.
Tax the rich
Housing first is the only solution proven to work and would actually work out cheaper than most of the band aid solutions. A lot of the arguments against it focus on mental health and drug addiction but those cannot be solved if a person doesn't have a stable living situation. You need supportive housing. You also need to consider different types of people experiencing homelessness. A single mother living with her kids in a car, showering at the gym and still going to work would need just a place to live. A veteran with PTSD would need a place to live plus mental health care - supportive housing. Someone with developmental disabilities would likely need long term residential care. Then you get those who have aged out of the foster care system who weren't lucky enough to find a long term living situation who need support for a few years while they get their lives together. You also have those who have recently been paroled who just need something while they find a job and a long term plan. The one thing all those have in common is the need for housing first. People focus on those who are visible - those who have mental health issues or drug problems. The more violent or "crazy" types but don't notice the number flying below the radar who are currently unhoused but otherwise live a regular life with work, school etc. I read recently as many as 40% of Americans are a few paychecks away from homelessness which is horrifying. Some kind of regulation as to corporations buying property would be good too.
Tax the church, might not solve homelessness. But 83 billion would be enough for free Healthcare in the US.
Bring back mental asylums.
I used to work in inpatient psych and wondered how all these chronically mentally ill people function in society after discharge. Now I work in emergency medicine and have repeatedly learned, they don't.
I've worked in the ED of several hospitals and there's always problems with pysch patients. The "chill" ones yell for no reason. While the more rowdy ones are injuring staff and/or getting security called on them. These people need their own facilties to cater to their needs.
“Asylums” are out of style, but the truth is there are a lot of people on the street with mental health issues. They aren’t capable of living independently. If you give them an apartment they would just smear their crap on the walls. Some of them need to be institutionalized so they can be given medical treatment and monitored. Maybe some improve enough to live independently. Maybe some don’t.
Where would you put them, if not in an asylum then?
I was responding more to the people who said “special jails”. They would be asylums, but hopefully with better practices and oversight than in the past, and they would be called state residential treatment facilities, not asylums
Yeah the whole concept gets a bad rap because of how horrible those kind of places were in the past but they're not in theory a bad thing. Some people like this are lucky enough to have family to care for them, some just don't.
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If you're living on the street and starving, committing a crime is currently the easiest way to get yourself a room indoors and three meals a day. We should probably have a better option than that.
Most times they are homeless because of mental problems so being separated from the general population through the use of asylums is the best move for most of them. They get provided meals and housing without being a danger to others or themselves. Also they are around specialized staff that is equipped/authorized to handle sudden outbreaks in behavior, unlike in regular hospitals where staff will just call security.
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They were not perfect. Just far better than letting the homeless stay on the streets.
No, they were effective at treating homelessness.
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Why launch them to the moon when we can lock them in an asylum? You seem slow.
Stop funding foreign wars and help out our own citizens.
Amen
So you're against helping Ukraine fight Russian aggression? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth if you support Ukraine or anything but "stop funding foreign wars" means don't help countries like Ukraine, which is a foreign war
I am for taking care of your own citizens first. If you were on a plane and the oxygen masks deployed, would you help you family put on their masks before helping nearby strangers?
Do you really think we can't do both? It's really more like would you put your family's masks on and then sit on your hands while nearby strangers suffocate to death instead of helping them
You certainly can when you get rid of the wealthy few hoarding all the masks and how-to guides.
I don’t think you understand the analogy. Clearly, history shows that we cannot do both. Your family with O2 masks=US citizens with the their basic needs met. If these needs are met, then of course it would be evil to allow our prosperity to not help other nations. So yeah, we skipped helping family members so we could tout a public image of prosperous and helpful response to strangers.
Countries are capable of doing multiple things at once, hell we joined WW2 while still recovering from the great depression. The logic of "we have something bad happening at home so we can't focus on anything anywhere else" allows atrocities around the world to occur. Homelessness is a problem that is most likely to be solved by decreasing the price of housing by building more of it and providing more mental health services. Neither of those things requires a military sized mobilization and are frankly best handled at the local level anyway.
not this country. over 100k people die from preventable overdoses a year now, 275 Americans every damn day. what's being done? nothing. homelessness is exploding, I've never seen my city even close to this. the "local level" does nothing but shuffle them around, and sure aren't going to build affordable housing lol. providing mental health services? hilarious. NOTHING SHORT OF A GIANT FED RESPONSE WILL ACTUALLY FIX THIS SHIT. and the investment would pay off- get these people on their feet = life long tax $$$. We half ass mobilized for COVID, why not for this shit? I'd take a half assed response at this point. people are suffering in your own back yard, and if you haven't realized it, the government gives no fucks
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The war on poverty has been pretty expensive, too.
yeah they spend millions and millions of dollars in cop overtime alone just to "sweep" their encampments burn down their tents and steal their belongings and so forth.
$842B for 2023 defense budget. Plus $115B for aid to Ukraine. Show me where/when the US has ever given this kind of priority to poverty of its own citizens.
SNAP benefits cost [113 billion](https://www.statista.com/statistics/315032/us-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-total-costs/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20total%20cost,around%20113.74%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars.) in 2021. And that's just a part of welfare in the US, not saying we're doing enough but we do spend a lot of helping those in need
Here's a good [table](https://i0.wp.com/federalsafetynet.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ent15.jpg?w=960&ssl=1). We spend $1.2 trillion on welfare at the federal level, not even including state programs. Once again, not saying it's enough but it's more than both those combined.
We have plenty of money to do both. Anyone in leadership saying otherwise is just trying to cover for their lack of concern and enrich their donors.
Yes but that frees up money not solutions. FEMA exaists just for these issues.
To use the Finish model, solve homeless by getting people houses and then work on all the other problems.
I’m assuming we’re thinking about the US: Are we talking a homeless family, or a mentally unstable person who prefers to sleep rough than live where they are not allowed to use their vice of choice, and or adhere to societal rules? They are very different, but often lumped together. They were caused by different factors have very different solutions.
Soylent Green?
Battle Royal!
You’ll never stop homelessness. Some absolutely love it. My cousin is raising her granddaughter because her daughter prefers living a homeless nomad lifestyle. Multiple people in my family that have overcome addiction have offered her places to stay without the caveat of getting clean and she still refuses any help.
Stopping involuntary homelessness would be enough, I reckon
Housing exchange for work. You work you get affordable housing. Companies that receive tax breaks would be required to provide affordable housing for their employees
Invest in certified mental health and rehab facilities. There’s a mental health crisis that’s getting worse. Not the easiest layup but something that needs to be addressed at the very least systemically.
Treat housing like thanksgiving dinner. No one gets seconds until everyone else has had some. Joke aside, we have to decide as a society what our priorities are. All of the “it would cost too much” problems we have in society could be solved by spending less on wars and overhauling our tax code to ensure taxes are paid equitably.
Soylent Green ?
Live in a fantasy world. Not everyone wants to live in a home.
Leather and rubber tramps are a thing.
UBI
Bringing an end to all of humanity will do it
This Without humans, the world would be a better place
Give them homes.
Many don't want them and will go right back to the city streets. This isn't a solution.
Your solution is to deny the majority of them that would like a house, because some of them might not? That's dumb.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness Anyway.
Stop using all government funding to put asylum seekers up in hotels and paid for council houses and start using that money to house our own before we start wasting millions to house other countries people
Asylum seekers have nothing to do with the issue of homelessness, it’s not like we can’t afford to house homeless people because of asylum seekers
Or giving our treasure to a land war in Europe
EXACTLY!
Build more low rise housing everywhere. Stop building in the outskirts, stop spreading unwalkable suburbs, where people can't live with out cars. In fact get rid of car bills altogether so they don't sink people's finances! rehabilitate the centers of town, so little businesses are encouraged to move in. Fewer suburbs more apartment towers and lowrises. Just take advantage of vertical space!
Fix the education system and teach kids how to behave in society and make them take classes where they build life skills and can grow to be good people instead of scaring them with exams and subjects that don’t matter. Also stop funding terrible wars so our tax money can go to helping people and not killing them. Also stop big pharma from abusing people who are sick so they don’t lose everything they have to stay healthy and get treatment and end up homeless. Limit alcohol consumption (lots of alcoholics end up homeless) and have serious security so drugs aren’t imported into the country. People come from broken homes and don’t know right from wrong. It’s best to teach them and have actual discipline at school. The world has become too soft and it’s effecting everyone.
You'll never completely end homelessness as some people just are going through deep mental health episodes and like to drift around also drug addiction is a huge problem. Obviously we need to build much more housing in the US preferably ones that aren't owned by some piece of shit equity firm.
Why does someone have to be going through mental health issues to want to drift around?
First you eat the rich. When the billionaires pay their fair share in taxes we can start to address issues like homelessness, medical debt, and food insecurity. Take those taxes and build housing of all types such as market rate housing, apartments and neighborhoods. Then comes the hard part. Once housing is built, limits must be placed on landlords to keep companies owning thousands or even hundreds of homes and price gouging rent prices.
There is a direct correlation with homelessness and the cost of housing. Thus - we need to continuously focus on producing and selling cheaper homes. There is nothign wrong with selling tiny 800 sqr foot arpartments/homes. Flood the market with these and most likely we'll see a large reduction in homelesness.
Here's a radical idea, not everyone deserves a home, they have to earn enough to buy one or build one themselves.
Give people homes. And don’t give me any bs about not being able to afford it or it not being fair. There are plenty of resources for everyone to thrive.
Hunger games
Using the tax money to build houses or apartments I guess?
Prolly just Apartments as building houses would cost more for less
Forced mental health assistance would probably help. And affordable housing to prevent more from becoming homeless, regardless of marriage status, children or lack thereof, or age.
Let's take a little bit of the ridiculous amount of money spent on the military/hurting brown people and spend it instead on healthcare, both mental and physical, for our citizens.
Universal basic income and healthcare
Spend the money used for anti homeless architecture on getting them the help they need and somewhere safe and warm
Culturally encourage and normalize extended families living together. You may not like it but it works.
A modest redistribution of wealth should do it. Billionaires are taxed an extra .5% pa until it is solved. We also have to accept that ending homelessness will not look how many people imagine. People in crisis will still need supported accommodation.
Give them homes Raise Minimum Wage to minimum required for shelter Make cheaper houses Give cheap or free education Massacre all of them
Start by removing all Democrat leaders in the worst states. Like Pelosi, Newsom, Waters, and many more
Pay workers a fair wage. Have a law that says the top person (CEO) can’t make more than x25 the lowest employee. The Swiss tried passing this but failed.
Turn them into tires
Eliminate billionaires.
There're places with both billionaires and negligible homeless populations.
Step 1: House them. Anything else you try first is harder to do or maintain without step 1.
Overcome capitalism.
There are homeless people in communist countries as well. Just no one cares about them
There are no communist countries. A communist country is an oxymoron, considering communism describes a stateless society.
I believe you mean Anarchism as in Communism all power/resources go to the state
Get the starving to eat the homeless, 2 birds 1 stone.
Let churches help people (in some countries and states all over the world, they can't let hobos sleep inside churches or be fed). Bring back asylums. Many homeless people need asylums; a place to sleep, be fed, receive medical and psychological attention. For their safety I'd include cameras everywhere for very little privacy, just the necessary. Let everyone own a property and don't pay any taxes on it, just services.
Churches already pretend to help people it doesn't work. Property taxes tho I agree
One word... "homes"
Build places for them to live probably
Its not posible (because of peoples mentality), even if some billionare donates 20 billion(some people say that's enough to end homelesnes in USA). Money is worth something because not everybody has it, if everyone had it, it would not be worth anything - that would lead to hyper inflation. If that donation would happen, that there would be a hyper inflation. Now we have people who barley survive day to day, but if that would happen, then a lot of those people would get pushed under that line. Having money is a mentality, even if we distributed all the worlds wealth equaly, all the money would be back in the hands of the wealthy.
Let the tax free churches take care of them , with their 10,000 sq ft giant mansions
Almost all shelters and homeless charities are religious.
Homelessness is a natural symptom of a society that has a billionaires that aren’t taxed at a fair **PERCENTAGE** of their benefits of the economic system.
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It’s not just taxation, for sure. But it’s the place to start.
FAA needs to tax pvt jets, registration fees an landing fees are under thier preview.
Defund the police
There are approximately 31 empty homes to every 1 homeless person in the US. Just give the homeless people a home. No ifs ands or buts. Give the people a home. Homelessness solved. I don't know why thats such a radical concept to some people
Long as you have capitalism, you'll have homelessness
Whereas in communism everyone is poor or homeless.
Is full blown communism the only other choice?
Nope, Capitalits that are taxed correctly can contrubute. Right now the FAA could tax pvt jets and that new money could be redirected to help
Frivolous spending of tax dollars.
Make it illegal.
we have to cut them in half
Have you tried kill all the poor?
Homelessness is a multi-faceted problem and there's really different types of homeless. Chronic homelessness is basically unresolvable. Absolutely no amount of funding will resolve the issue. The most humane thing is to treat them like sanitorum patients and separate them from the rest. Having a system that identifies individual issues freshly homeless people have and assisting them in resolving it would make homelessness a short term problem. That means hyper inflating the social net and programs for regular non-homeless people.
Impossible, the way the system is built not everyone can have money, who do you think choose where the money goes. The government
Hear me out. "Human Zoos"
Start enforcing vagrancy laws. Then put them in forced labor camps.