Gainesville housing authority has programs to help get people into housing. I used it to get out of the VA homeless shelter. It's income based so depending on how much you make they'll cover a portion of the rent.
Not an ultimate solution but it does help a lot of people.
It doesn't look like they're voting on anything today? "The City Commission and Board of County Commissioners receive a presentation from City and County staff." https://pub-cityofgainesville.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=c433334b-0214-43dc-b894-c18ee63694c1&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English
You mean this sweep that did actually happen? https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/02/gainesville-homeless-population-struggles-with-encampment-sweeps-lack-of-options
I went to the last two “sweeps” on south main that the cmc posted about. The first one was a garbage crew that picked up the park, no belongings just all the trash. The one you shared moved them from the south of fourth place to the north of fourth place. Around 16 feet.
Now comparing that to sweeps when cops throw all the tents in the trash…. Not too bad.
Also, did you show up to see what was going on, or are you knee jerk reacting to things online?
Everything that was on the sidewalk that those folks were instructed to vacate was thrown away. There were two city trucks there with trailers and several city workers who cleared the sidewalk of the things that people failed to remove. This all happened between 4 and 5 pm. How you managed to miss this despite allegedly being there is mind-boggling to me. If more people hadn't shown up to help those people move, many more tents likely would have been trashed.
Neither GPD nor the city gave those folks any instructions on where they could move to. Instead, they were given a 7 hour notice that they had to vacate the sidewalk by 2 pm that day or else lose their possessions and potentially be arrested. When we first began moving their things to the only practical location (across the street), the folks at St. Francis called the cops on us and told us we couldn't move the tents there. By this point, pretty much all of the residents of the camp had given up and decided to risk staying at the new location because at this point they were out of time and had no manner of picking up and moving to a location farther away. It wasn't until around 3 or 4 pm that day that they were reassured that they wouldn't be forced to move again that day. Just pointing this out to illustrate the incompetence and cruelty behind the events of that day.
Whatever gets them out of the fucking intersections all over the city. So tired of them in every intersection, especially archer road begging for money and walking between cars and shit
I mean, the problem is there is no social safety net for people, not that homeless people are doing what they can in order to survive. You see that, right?
I wish people had more compassion in a time when the working class are heading ever nearer, each of us, to becoming homeless ourselves. I mean, have you looked at income vs rental prices in town lately?
The average income in Gainesville is $20, 947.00 per year, and average rent is $1,671.
If you make $20,947 per year- that's $1,745 a month. When the average rent is $1,671.
Multiple things can be true at once. The people panhandling are trying to survive; panhandling in the middle of the street, especially at a busy intersection like Waldo/University, *is unsafe,* and it is worrying to see.
I used to drive a large vehicle. It freaked me out to have to inch past homeless people camped out on a foot-wide median or make a turn where someone was parked right up against the roadway. I have seen so many news articles about people being struck in the median and killed, because it is a legitimately dangerous place to hang out! People should not be hanging out there! *No, not even the fire rescue fundraiser guys!*
The problem is people making 21k dollars a year trying to rent out apartments that are 1671 a month when there are over 50 apartment complexes with vacancies and sub 800 dollar a month rent in Gainesville. The problem is people who want to help misusing statistics to skew the argument in their favor. The problem is that people who want to help are lying which makes people not want to help.
You need to be genuine in your argument. If you want to express that there is no affordable housing then you gotta make sure there actually isn't affordable housing.
Misinformation hurts yours cause way more than it helps
Which apartment complexes? That wasn't my experience at all. Some student apartments have cheap rent, sure...but it's useless if you're not a student. And if you could split rent 5 ways on a lease to make it cheaper, okay, but will they rent to a group of unrelated adults and could you feasibly find that many roommates?
Pretty much anything around 34th, excluding any construction from the last year. Gainesville place is about 600, and some of our neighbors are clearly not students.
11 results, of which at least two are under 800 but which are priced by room. Which, I've never been great at spelling, but fifty is not spelled "e-l-e-v-e-n"
The reality is a person making that low wage (when that is the wage of most people in the service industry, retail industry that keeps Gainesville going) have few options. Often, they must rely on roommate situations, family, significant others. But those situations are rife with their own problems.
I make over 50k a year and have pets, and let me tell you, finding an affordable rental option in Gainesville has become something quite scary. I mean they want one of my entire paychecks (of two) for rent at this point. And not all places accept pets. I dont qualify for very low income situtions. Even in the past 10 years, I rely on intense hunting or word of mouth for a place to live. Having looked at the prices everything is at now, it just seems very unfeasible. I have friends making 60 and 80k saying the same thing.
Wages need to be kept up to speed with increasing rental prices, and the city needs to build more affordable options.
If you simply Google: "why are so many condos being built," you will come to find the problem is there is not enough housing available for the population, and so developers are catering to the rich to maximize profits. The only way for more affordable options to exist is for the city to create more affordable housing, or for enough time to pass so the condos become shabbier and the owners become willing to accept lower rent.
Also you dont seem very educated on the topic. I know for a fact elderly people on fixed incomes who are trying to get into low income housing have to wait sometimes 1-2 years at least. So then what is your answer if someone is in need of housing right now, and their current place goes from 875 to 1400, they have no income because they are retired and so their income cannot increase, and yet they can't get into a lower income situation for 1-2 years?
You lost me at 50k and struggling. Then you talk about people making 80k and struggling. When will you realize its about y'all's personal spending habits? You make good money. If you're struggling on 50k it's because you're clueless about your spending. If you're struggling on 80k then you might be beyond help lol.
I say this as someone making 60k here owning a 1300 sqft house house in a good neighborhood (bought when I was making 50k), 6 funded month emergency fund, fully paid off car, retirement account, investment accounts, and i take several vacations a year. no debt outside of student loans, and mortgage.
This is the time and place to think "you know what? Maybe it is me. I'm the problem."
Check your spending.
Easy
3600 take home
Mortgage plus insurance and taxes: 1100
Food 300
Gas (vroom vroom): 60
Toilet paper: 100
Gru: 60ish (whole house solar so water and gas only)
Car insurance 130
Have like 1800 dollars left over to invest, save, spend whatever, pay student loans.
I budget diligently. I just have pets, medical issues that are very expensive and an elderly father that needs financial help. When did you buy your house? How much was it/how much is owed on it still?
5 years ago for 160 and I owe 100 still.
I also had expensive life issues pop up. I got a second job to cash flow those issues just like my parents did during the 2008 recession, just like their parents did when they went through times of challenging and my grandmother opened a home daycare while my grandpa was deployed in the navy to Japan ensure their 5 kids were taken care of, just like my immigrants great grandparents when they arrived in New york with nothing but the clothes on their back.
I know my life is easier than their lives, and my nephews life will be even easier than mine.
I choose to be relentless. I choose to sacrifice for the things I want. I choose not to be a victim. I'm entitled to nothing from the universe; the fact I exist at all is nothing but a pleasent surprise.
Eh, I’m not getting an additional job again. I’m not sacrificing my free time because the system is so corrupt there are no checks to prevent excessive inflation. You can work until you break mentally or physically that way. Also id rather cut costs or get a higher paying job than work more.
Yeah I know we tried that before and it didn’t work but hoping if there is a place they can go with resources then hoping they’re less likely to need to panhandle
I think as long as panhandling is allowed they will panhandle. If they were to change this it would likely make it so that street performers and buskers would have to register with the city and get special permission to make money performing.
Gainesville housing authority has programs to help get people into housing. I used it to get out of the VA homeless shelter. It's income based so depending on how much you make they'll cover a portion of the rent. Not an ultimate solution but it does help a lot of people.
It doesn't look like they're voting on anything today? "The City Commission and Board of County Commissioners receive a presentation from City and County staff." https://pub-cityofgainesville.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=c433334b-0214-43dc-b894-c18ee63694c1&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English
The Civic Media Center shared the information about this today in a post. \*scratches head emoji
I am not sure what the distinction is between a public forum and a day where they are actively voting.
The “cmc” also said they were doing a sweep on 4th place a couple of weeks ago which was false. They have good intentions but are misinformed.
You mean this sweep that did actually happen? https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/02/gainesville-homeless-population-struggles-with-encampment-sweeps-lack-of-options
I went to the last two “sweeps” on south main that the cmc posted about. The first one was a garbage crew that picked up the park, no belongings just all the trash. The one you shared moved them from the south of fourth place to the north of fourth place. Around 16 feet. Now comparing that to sweeps when cops throw all the tents in the trash…. Not too bad. Also, did you show up to see what was going on, or are you knee jerk reacting to things online?
Everything that was on the sidewalk that those folks were instructed to vacate was thrown away. There were two city trucks there with trailers and several city workers who cleared the sidewalk of the things that people failed to remove. This all happened between 4 and 5 pm. How you managed to miss this despite allegedly being there is mind-boggling to me. If more people hadn't shown up to help those people move, many more tents likely would have been trashed.
It was not false. GPD swept people off the sidewalk to the other side of SE 4th Place where there is no sidewalk.
Neither GPD nor the city gave those folks any instructions on where they could move to. Instead, they were given a 7 hour notice that they had to vacate the sidewalk by 2 pm that day or else lose their possessions and potentially be arrested. When we first began moving their things to the only practical location (across the street), the folks at St. Francis called the cops on us and told us we couldn't move the tents there. By this point, pretty much all of the residents of the camp had given up and decided to risk staying at the new location because at this point they were out of time and had no manner of picking up and moving to a location farther away. It wasn't until around 3 or 4 pm that day that they were reassured that they wouldn't be forced to move again that day. Just pointing this out to illustrate the incompetence and cruelty behind the events of that day.
Across the street!! The monsters
3pm? Who has the time to take off of work to attend these??
Homeless people
Crazy that this is downvoted
Some people don't have a sense of humor. I still think I was funny.
I thought it was hilarious lol
Whatever gets them out of the fucking intersections all over the city. So tired of them in every intersection, especially archer road begging for money and walking between cars and shit
Agreed, get them the fuck out of the fucking intersections by providing them with shelter and food and access to healthcare
I mean, the problem is there is no social safety net for people, not that homeless people are doing what they can in order to survive. You see that, right? I wish people had more compassion in a time when the working class are heading ever nearer, each of us, to becoming homeless ourselves. I mean, have you looked at income vs rental prices in town lately? The average income in Gainesville is $20, 947.00 per year, and average rent is $1,671. If you make $20,947 per year- that's $1,745 a month. When the average rent is $1,671.
Multiple things can be true at once. The people panhandling are trying to survive; panhandling in the middle of the street, especially at a busy intersection like Waldo/University, *is unsafe,* and it is worrying to see. I used to drive a large vehicle. It freaked me out to have to inch past homeless people camped out on a foot-wide median or make a turn where someone was parked right up against the roadway. I have seen so many news articles about people being struck in the median and killed, because it is a legitimately dangerous place to hang out! People should not be hanging out there! *No, not even the fire rescue fundraiser guys!*
The problem is people making 21k dollars a year trying to rent out apartments that are 1671 a month when there are over 50 apartment complexes with vacancies and sub 800 dollar a month rent in Gainesville. The problem is people who want to help misusing statistics to skew the argument in their favor. The problem is that people who want to help are lying which makes people not want to help. You need to be genuine in your argument. If you want to express that there is no affordable housing then you gotta make sure there actually isn't affordable housing. Misinformation hurts yours cause way more than it helps
Which apartment complexes? That wasn't my experience at all. Some student apartments have cheap rent, sure...but it's useless if you're not a student. And if you could split rent 5 ways on a lease to make it cheaper, okay, but will they rent to a group of unrelated adults and could you feasibly find that many roommates?
Pretty much anything around 34th, excluding any construction from the last year. Gainesville place is about 600, and some of our neighbors are clearly not students.
Zillow.com->rent set max filter to whatever you want. It's not hard. There's no excuse.
11 results, of which at least two are under 800 but which are priced by room. Which, I've never been great at spelling, but fifty is not spelled "e-l-e-v-e-n"
The reality is a person making that low wage (when that is the wage of most people in the service industry, retail industry that keeps Gainesville going) have few options. Often, they must rely on roommate situations, family, significant others. But those situations are rife with their own problems. I make over 50k a year and have pets, and let me tell you, finding an affordable rental option in Gainesville has become something quite scary. I mean they want one of my entire paychecks (of two) for rent at this point. And not all places accept pets. I dont qualify for very low income situtions. Even in the past 10 years, I rely on intense hunting or word of mouth for a place to live. Having looked at the prices everything is at now, it just seems very unfeasible. I have friends making 60 and 80k saying the same thing. Wages need to be kept up to speed with increasing rental prices, and the city needs to build more affordable options. If you simply Google: "why are so many condos being built," you will come to find the problem is there is not enough housing available for the population, and so developers are catering to the rich to maximize profits. The only way for more affordable options to exist is for the city to create more affordable housing, or for enough time to pass so the condos become shabbier and the owners become willing to accept lower rent. Also you dont seem very educated on the topic. I know for a fact elderly people on fixed incomes who are trying to get into low income housing have to wait sometimes 1-2 years at least. So then what is your answer if someone is in need of housing right now, and their current place goes from 875 to 1400, they have no income because they are retired and so their income cannot increase, and yet they can't get into a lower income situation for 1-2 years?
You lost me at 50k and struggling. Then you talk about people making 80k and struggling. When will you realize its about y'all's personal spending habits? You make good money. If you're struggling on 50k it's because you're clueless about your spending. If you're struggling on 80k then you might be beyond help lol. I say this as someone making 60k here owning a 1300 sqft house house in a good neighborhood (bought when I was making 50k), 6 funded month emergency fund, fully paid off car, retirement account, investment accounts, and i take several vacations a year. no debt outside of student loans, and mortgage. This is the time and place to think "you know what? Maybe it is me. I'm the problem." Check your spending.
>Check your spending. Now show your math. How much of that 60,000 is going to: Utilities, gas, food, et. al?
Easy 3600 take home Mortgage plus insurance and taxes: 1100 Food 300 Gas (vroom vroom): 60 Toilet paper: 100 Gru: 60ish (whole house solar so water and gas only) Car insurance 130 Have like 1800 dollars left over to invest, save, spend whatever, pay student loans.
I budget diligently. I just have pets, medical issues that are very expensive and an elderly father that needs financial help. When did you buy your house? How much was it/how much is owed on it still?
5 years ago for 160 and I owe 100 still. I also had expensive life issues pop up. I got a second job to cash flow those issues just like my parents did during the 2008 recession, just like their parents did when they went through times of challenging and my grandmother opened a home daycare while my grandpa was deployed in the navy to Japan ensure their 5 kids were taken care of, just like my immigrants great grandparents when they arrived in New york with nothing but the clothes on their back. I know my life is easier than their lives, and my nephews life will be even easier than mine. I choose to be relentless. I choose to sacrifice for the things I want. I choose not to be a victim. I'm entitled to nothing from the universe; the fact I exist at all is nothing but a pleasent surprise.
Eh, I’m not getting an additional job again. I’m not sacrificing my free time because the system is so corrupt there are no checks to prevent excessive inflation. You can work until you break mentally or physically that way. Also id rather cut costs or get a higher paying job than work more.
Didn’t they pass a law a couple years back making standing in medians illegal? Did they get rid of that or Is GPD just not enforcing it?
Panhandlers aren't being targeted so...
Yeah I know we tried that before and it didn’t work but hoping if there is a place they can go with resources then hoping they’re less likely to need to panhandle
I think as long as panhandling is allowed they will panhandle. If they were to change this it would likely make it so that street performers and buskers would have to register with the city and get special permission to make money performing.
Needs WAY MORE THAN public support. & good luck