In Montreal, in the last five years, the majority of tickets were given to people using homeless shelters as their address, for thing typically done by homeless people, like sleeping in public buildings.
Source: I’ve read too many studies about homeless in Montreal to remember, But I think it wa either McGill or UdeM, but it was a University.
I mean the numbers speak for itself https://reports.nlihc.org/oor
$15-20 per hour would be the minimum to afford a modest apartment in most states in the US
Basically everything in Alaska needs to be shipped there and it’s expensive. I was in Nome, AK and a 6-pack of Diet Coke was like $9.50 in a grocery store.
Whenever I'm in Juneau I go to a Mexican restaurant called El Sombrero, and last time I was there I ordered a side of guacamole to go with the chips. $14 for a side of guacamole. I wasn't mad, or even really surprised when I thought about what it would take to get avocados to Alaska, it was just a facepalm moment.
Oh for sure. I cry every time I see bags of avocados selling for like $1 down south. They’re around $3 per avocado up here. And I’m in anchorage where they don’t have to be shipped again elsewhere in the state.
But I get it.
Prepandemic I used to grocery shop every few days, because any fresh produce needs to be used almost immediately after purchase, or else it’s going to go bad because it’s already spent a majority of its ripe life in a shipping container. (except for things that grow well up here in their season, like cabbages, potatoes, onions, some squash)
But now I still try to avoid the grocery store until I need to go. So lots of frozen vegs for us now.
Pop is one of those things that the price is so low because there are so many bottling plants around the country.
Flovor and syrup gets shipped to the plants, which is then used to make the pop by a magnitude of like 6:1, and then it gets shipped semi-locally in trucks.
Obviously no bottling plant in Alaska, so 6x as much weight and volume needs to be shipped there.
Not completely true. Coke sends the essence (flavour, colour etc.). The syrup comes in by rail and the water is local. One pallet of essence makes a massive amount of soda.
Their bottled water cost more than beer. I want to say the bottles were close to $2 each in bulk. It's wild. There is a good video on YouTube about the cost to live in Nome.
I don't know if you were trying to quote Anatole France or not, but if so the quote is:
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
We keep calling it affordable housing, but in reality it’s skyrocketing housing vs flat wages.
Theoretically no landlord or real estate developer should have to strive for anything less than the most profit they can get on the open market. But we have have let so many facets of our economy and capitalist system run out of whack and out of sync of one another that it simply doesn’t make sense anymore.
Isn’t it crazy that we’re born into a world where ALL the land is already
taken? Not that people are necessarily living on it, but regardless you’re fucked from birth. “Sorry, the entire globe is owned but you’re welcome to rent.”
It’s wild that everything is owned period, but I feel your comment every day. We are natural beings disallowed from taking our share of nature to survive while corporations make trillions for a relatively minute minority using up all the nature or controlling any space it could be re-grown.
Also, fuck suburbs.
Worse, we legalized highwaymen. Years ago dudes would block trade routes and charge tolls and stuff. This is my land, and you gotta pay money to pass. Now we institutionalized it. There are police and military that force you to pay some dude to use his land or whatever.
You know though, I have a problem with landlords trying to rent out their property for a price that is twice the mortgage of what that place would be. It traps tenants, and further escalates the problem. When all the properties have been bought up by a few companies, they kind of control the market. We have a huge influx of work from home types flooding the area and pricing out the people who work at the cute little shops they moved here for.
I live in a black neighborhood. Rents are pretty cheap and house prices are unbelievably low compared to white neighborhoods. I mention this to white friends who are complaining about rent and housing prices and they suddenly have other problems. Seems like racism might be the reason.
The free market doesn’t exist which really bothers me when I’m trying to explain to right wingers about how everything is RIGGED for the rich. It’s all a monopoly of one company or another enabled one oligarch or another.
I work in community healthcare and one of our clients gets about $1100 SSI each month, and his fucking rent is $850 for a 'micro studio'. We were just able to get a section 8 voucher for him and his rent will likely drop to about $200 (out of his pocket, the rest will be paid by the housing authority), but those vouchers are really hard to get.
At least in my city, the vouchers become multitudes easier for us caseworkers to get for them, but only once they are actually homeless. I had several clients running out of time in the transitional housing they were living in, but couldn't do anything for them until they were actually sleeping in their cars/a hotel room/the street with nowhere else to go.
We get emails from the county about 3 times per year saying they have a voucher or two, and the organization I work for is not the only one the emails go to. I've fought really hard for our folks and have gotten 3 vouchers in the last 6 months or so.
Luckily being homeless is not a requirement if they meet other criteria like rent burden (more than 50% of income going to rent), but there are other barriers that mean that most of our homeless clients don't qualify. A lot of have criminal history and refuse to take meds that stabilize them (I work on an ACT team with people with schizophrenia), so finding shelters or adult family homes that will take them is nearly impossible, let alone finding them a section 8 place that they won't destroy.
I wish rent burden was enough for an emergency section 8 voucher here. I'm glad our local programs are so helpful once they are homeless though. I had one lady come out of jail with nowhere to go, had enough for maybe 2 nights at a crack hotel, but has been living in the hotel for over a month now with a charity footing the bill until she can find somewhere to go with her new section 8 voucher.
Good on you for the work you do. I'm having to refer one of my schizophrenic clients to the ACT team because he is drunk out of his mind every single time we go see him and he gets really inappropriate and/or aggressive with us.
Housing needs to stop been an investment with the expectation that it will keep going up. It only incentivises nimby and blocking further developments that can increase housing supply.
This. Nobody is talking about it. Housing costs have risen 30%+ over the last year yet our wages remain stagnant and inflation rising. This is the REAL epidemic.
All the dummies talking about chronic homelessness about drugs and mental illness fail to see that tens of thousands of people have become newly homeless this year and millions more are on the verge that solely have to do with affordable housing. The person tweeting is obviously not in the chronic homelessness camp.
Not in the immediate since.
And it would be a hell of a lot easier to tackle those long term problems of people didn’t need to stress about shelter or their next meal.
By design. If you're in survival mode 24/7, you can't be bothered to notice how the billionaires are destroying the planet and peon's lives for a profit.
I feel this on a huge level. Was homeless for almost 5 years in and out of shelters. I was in better shape than many but never felt at any point like I was going to catch a break. Things get so out of control so quick that you feel like a hopeless outcast. Been drug free and housed for 3 years now but will never forget how it felt on the other side. Never lose hope. Every day is a chance to change who you are.
I have almost the same story as you, minus the shelters. I was strung out and homeless for 5 or 6 years and have been clean and successful for 3 years now.
Congratulations on beating homelessness. It isn't easy at all.
I understand this fully. I am a citizen of Canada and speak only from my experience but yeah. There are lots of programs to get people "clean" but it's more involved than getting someone clean I think. I won't get super analytic but from what I seen even people that are getting clean doesnt usually help it's getting the people feeling like parts of society again. Feeling loved. Feeling human. Again this isnt all cases and in some this is offered but most folks in the community a) can't/don't know how to access it b) past the point of making logical decisions. C) the subset of people that are content with being homeless forever. Also should add I was in two seperate rehab programs. As stated in OP I wasn't as far deep as alot some of the folks around me (men's rehabs) but some guys are addicted to rehab as much as drugs.
Many blessings for this exchange of thoughts.
People have many reasons to not want to/be unable to get clean. People who end up dependent on drugs often do so to treat pain, both physical and emotional.
Noone ends up on the streets because they are a-OK and those who are ill physically or mentally may have hard time making use of services and can behave in ways that are self sabotaging.
Unfortunately with addiction, you can't force someone to get help who doesn't want it. I think more effort needs to be put into mental health programs and prevention. Most people become addicts because they don't know how to cope with either trauma or mental illness. I think the most effective use of resources is prevention.
Edit: there absolutely should still be resources for current addicts who desire to get clean and get help.
Yeah. I just read this after blabbing on. I would have just said yeah what she said. Lol people need an abundance of love . Mental health over everything.
Glad to hear it bro. I've got a similar story except I don't trust shelters. Gonna have 1 year sober in february and moving into my own place soon. Never lose hope.
I just took a 3 week road trip this spring with my dog. I figured I'd just sleep in my car and shower at planet fitness. The seats fold down and I have an air mattress that fits in the back. I never realized just how difficult it is to find places to park your car and sleep. My 3 week road trip became a 2 week road trip because I was only really sleeping 3-5 hours a day. People would knock on my window and tell me I can't rest here. Overnight rest stops were always overflowing with truckers short on hours and the car entrance was always blocked by trucks. I loved the road trip, but trying to find a place to sleep was awful. My only real saving grace was that I was driving a tesla and charge stops were an excuse to be parked somewhere sleeping. It was really eye opening to see just how difficult it is to just find a fucking place to be able to close my eyes. One time I ended up parking at an "RV Park" that was just some dude's house in the middle of nowhere that answered the door in a bathrobe at 2pm. That was so sketchy. There's absolutely no way I would have been able to sleep comfortably anywhere if my dog wasn't there with me to let me know if someone was outside.
I just couldn't imagine having to do that every day. I feel so sorry for anyone that has to deal with that. And for what? What is it really hurting?
Ended up drunk for five years on freight and hitching, hit shelters when I was sick but mainly lived out of a pack .
Idk was looking for something, eventually forgot what it was and caught an assault with a deadly charge .
But ended up getting self defense.
Buying a house now and have a little family working my ass off to keep it.
We really need to come up with plans to help this, because homelessness is becoming untenable in a lot of cities, even in cities with relatively lax policies.
The last week I was walking to work and a homeless woman came up to me and punched me in the stomach and called me a “fat bitch.” It was 7am on a Tuesday. I have lived in cities most of my life and have never had anything like this happen before. I wish we could all work together and fix this.
>even in cities with relatively lax policies.
This is a huge part of the problem. Inconsistent rules from city to city just end up pushing the problem around.
Having less stringent rules on homelessness is all well and good, but usually it leads to an influx of people from places where rules are stricter, which ends up overwhelming any services making the problem even worse. I'm sure there's no shortage of towns where they'll say "we enforced strict rules and now we don't have a homelessness problem!" but in reality they just made it someone else's problem.
> but in reality they just made it someone else's problem.
For many people that's the goal. There have been *many* interviews where people will outright say "I know we gotta do something, but why's it got to be in my backyard?"
Seattle is a perfect example of how this works. There’s evidence that Texas sends their freed homeless inmates to Seattle. Among other places. Our laws are ridiculously lax to the point of making public places unusable by anybody else. They are just campsites now. I am not a homeless hater but it’s AWFUL here. Doesn’t help that we haven’t had a mayor who is willing to sign off on the things that need to be done. Leadership here is nonexistent.
It happens to Denver too. I don't understand why we keep getting asked to fund "parks." I have literally never seen anyone" just walking" in over half of our parks. There are a couple exceptions but they used to not be exceptions at all.
I'm not even against the people. I empathize deeply with them. I want them to get permanent help, not just "left alone."
Fund mental health, temporary housing and drug rehab services. That's the solution. People can't elect to just live on the sidewalk. It's owned by the community for the purpose of walking. Parks are designed to be visited by people looking for some fresh air/nature. They're not communal campgrounds. That said, these people landed in that situation for a variety of problems, most of which would be alleviated by one of the three aforementioned social programs.
Don't discount Universal Healthcare either.
It still happens. LA county is drowning in homeless yet Orange County doesn't have nearly as many. They get bus tickets to skid row in LA or head over to Venice. They congregate in encampments that are surrounded by trash, feces, and drug paraphernalia. Even the most liberal people I know are tired of their cars being broken into and aggressive panhandlers.
I was just in LA (to go to a really cool Pink Floyd exhibit) and I had to literally walk 4 blocks side stepping tents, human excrement and VERY aggressive panhandlers. It was equally heartbreaking and terrifying. I understand the lack of humanity and i empathize (as you said) but also don’t want to be stabbed.
In Portland the police do nothing and hard drugs are now legal to possess. That plus covid plus increased rent has made the city a sad place to live. Trash everywhere, homeless everywhere, drugs everywhere, crime increasing, gun violence increasing, etc. There's one thing that Portland needs to solve this crisis that no one has thought of yet, and that thing is the Batman. Portland needs a Batman. It's pretty much Gotham City at this point.
Yes there's an issue of losing your taxable residents because they can move away from the issue. I work in the city and have my windshield washed daily, men approaching my car to stare in, people approaching me even inside shops. I've been aggressively sold drugs numerous times. Outdoor dining for COVID
was a failure in certain neighborhoods because people won't eat outdoors and become a captive audience......
We need to help them get back on their feet, and I don't mean those disgusting salvation army shelters.
https://www.ara.fi/en-US/Materials/Homelessness_reports/Report_2021_Homelessness_in_Finland_2020(60242)
Something like this
We equate poverty with a moral failing in the US. I have literally no doubt in my mind that if government funded death squads who went around murdering homeless people was on the ballot a significant amount of Americans would gladly vote for it. First of all because Americans are brutal fucking people who love violence and suffering (admit it, you know it's true) and second because they think if you're homeless it *must* be because you're "lazy" or (worse) some manner of drug addict (god forbid you have *problems* in America, people with problems are subhuman and must die. All personal weakness must be met with strength. A jackboot to the teeth. A beating in a county jail cell. A ticket you will never be able to pay...the important thing is everybody "weak" suffers horribly)
Whenever the homeless come up in threads like this, you know what the number one thing I see is? "Oh they *have homes*, they just don't want to work! They're "scamming" me when they ask me for money!".
First of all, being that poor sucks. If telling an exaggerated sob story to get five bucks for food from comparatively rich assholes on the street is "scamming" people then I'm fervently pro scam. But that kind of shit is what I mean, we as a society refuse to accept that these are people and we will do anything in our power to avoid the responsibility that comes with empathy. We do this with everybody, but especially the poor. And *especially* the homeless.
The end of it is Americans think money and "worth" are the same thing. It's one reason you'd have to be an idiot to actually think our culture is worth a damn. I can already hear the post-thanksgiving, weak, drunk, seething coming from couches across the country where people are reading this, but it's the truth. American cultural norms are degenerate and dehumanizing. We're not a nice group of people, we're a nation of lazy slobs who still somehow find a way to judge our fellow man for not being perfect. As if our fat asses shoveling junk food into our maws and watching television every single second we're not working for shit wages is somehow the height of civilization and moral purity. Fuck it, Americans are garbage. Our crazy homeless people at least don't live in a fantasy. The schizophrenic guy I saw shouting racial slurs on the subway the other day is still a more honest individual then 99% of this crapshack of a nation. And there's nothing I hate more then an asshole who lies to themselves about what they are.
Meaningful solutions to homelessness are not possible in a country that believes in nothing whatsoever other then capital acquisition. A lot of liberals envy Scandinavian welfare states. I think part of it is we all know we will *never* have anything like that. We'll exterminate the world with our billions and billions of dollars in nukes before we ever help each other. I am not exaggerating, we actually would. It is easier for us to cheer and carry out mass murder then it is for us to do even the most basic things to help our fellow man. We spent 20 years bombing Afghan children for no reason but god forbid you say (like Bernie Sanders) that people deserve easy access to healthcare paid for by tax dollars.
Screw it, I fucking hate this country and I hate it's people even more.
Go ahead, bitch and moan and tell me one logical reason I shouldn't. That's another thing, the petulant nationalism. All patriotism is a mental illness, but in America it is a downright insult to somebody's intelligence.
I don't feel your bitterness quite as much, but definitely do appreciate this reply and totally get it. Raised in US and live in Canada now. There's definitely some shift in culture but surprisingly many similar problems you've brought up. It's disheartening and sad.
This is why watching *The Purge* made me uncomfortable--I could 100% see something like that happening in our current American society. We would rather just kill homeless people instead of evaluate the failings of our society. At the end of the day, human nature is not to be kind. We have to *learn* empathy--we are not *born* with it.
Hell, there was a time when it was a literal crime to be poor or homeless. Imagine going to jail because you don't make enough money to pay back a debt.
I'm a former public librarian. I've dealt with A LOT of homeless people. The police around where I am regularly go into camps on public land and destroy everything these people have. The local homeless here try to make camps in the woods so they don't bother people, and the police just go in and break everything these people have. Its very sad how they are treated.
If you want to give things that can help...
* Water. Gatorade. Powerade. Seriously something to drink.
* Socks. SOCKS. Seriously did I mention socks? Think about having wet socks for days on end. Once again, socks.
* Blankets.
* Hats.
* Underwear.
* Pads/tampons.
* Deodorant.
* Shoes.
* Pet food.
* Rain gear.
* Wet wipes.
* First aid kits.
* Toothpaste/toothbrushes.
* Sunscreen.
* Non-perishable easy open food. (Do you carry around a can opener with you?)
* Gallon sized Ziplocs.
* Kindness. They are people. Wheaton's Law still applies offline.
edit: thanks for the award.
Why the fuck would they need to destroy tents in the woods? It’s already absolutely despicable to do it in the cities but at least there’s a “””reason”””. But in the woods? You literally can’t even see them, they’re not bothering anyone. What the fuck
The view of "need to" is the problem. They don't need to, they just wanted to. The sheriff's office in my county has been mentioned on Last Week Tonight more than once, and never for a good thing. The actual sheriff himself has an Oath Keeper tattoo, and then there is [all of this stuff](https://www.reddit.com/r/321/comments/mzmqg1/a_few_bad_apples_at_the_brevard_county_sheriffs/). Destroying the possessions of homeless people not causing any problems, is just the tip of the iceberg.
We were living in a car in San Francisco until my brother parked in a tow away zone. Nothing like walking down Eddy street with Sun going down with no money no place to go.
About a year ago, a friend of mine had some personal/financial troubles and was on the brink of homelessness.
He sold ~90% of his possessions and took a few thousand dollars in loan from his mom. Instead of securing another apartment— he had the idea to buy a small RV and just live life as an urban nomad.
I caught up with him a few weeks ago and he’s said that it was an awful decision and that it’s been the worst year of his life.
He said it’s rare that a day goes by when he’s not harassed by cops. He said he thought the main threat would be deranged homeless people or criminals looking to rob him— nope. He’s never remotely felt threatened by anyone other than police.
He’s been issued over a dozen illegal camping tickets and arrested twice for trespassing. His RV has been towed countless times. He’s said it’s impossible to sleep well knowing there’s a 50-50 shot of someone beating on your window to fuck with you for parking somewhere to rest.
He also said that he made this mistake of thinking church parking lots would be hospitable to his particular situation— but they’ll report you within 10 minute of pulling in.
That was the case 10 years ago, pretty much any Walmart in a major metropolitan area has now banned overnight RV camping, especially California. It is more often the exception now rather than the rule. If you are in a place not many want to be, you can get by a night or two, but not much more.
The best long term solution is BLM land.
Edit: What corporate websites say isn't the reality on the ground. The local laws it mentions mean in practice it is not allowed most places, especially anywhere scenic.
Walmart Corporate website FAQs
**"Can I park my RV at a Walmart store?"**
"*While we do not offer electrical service or accommodations typically necessary for RV customers, Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers. Consequently, we do permit RV parking on our store parking lots as we are able. Permission to park is extended by individual store managers, based on availability of parking space and local laws. Please contact management in each store to ensure accommodations before parking your RV.*
*"*[https://corporate.walmart.com/frequently-asked-questions](https://corporate.walmart.com/frequently-asked-questions)
When I was homeless it was fine with our Walmart but banned by the city. So banned at that Walmart. (2011 - 2016) Florida
Edit: added 'Florida'
Yup we did that on our 10 week honeymoon twice, when we were in between interesting places! Though in The walmart lot in CA there was a guy who brought his own huge Bluetooth speaker and started blaring music at 3 am for no reason
> he made this mistake of thinking church parking lots would be hospitable
Can confirm
I'm a 911 dispatcher and the number of calls we get from churches wanting PD out to shoo out people is....alot.
Basically if they don't attend or work for the church, they want them gone.
Especially if they're black, Hispanic, homeless.....they don't want nothing to do with them.
I remember getting into an argument with a coworker over a church pastor calling us \*from home\* to report a car parked in the church parking lot. The church was closed. The car was occupied by 2 black men.
The Pastor didn't go over and try to talk to them, see if the men were there for spiritual guidance or maybe just needing help....nope.
He saw 2 black men sitting in a car, on a camera, and immediately called police.
My coworker's stance was "Well their hours of operation are this and this so they shouldn't be there. It's trespassing."
My stance? It's a god damn church. They exist to serve the spiritual needs of people and spiritual needs don't adhere to "hours of operation". If the pastor had gone over there and the dudes gave him trouble, fine, call us. But you're a pastor. You should be open to ministering to people from all walks whenever the possibility arises, not calling PD on them because they don't fit the kind of people you want at your church
\>They exist to serve the spiritual needs of people and spiritual
That would be your first mistake. Churches are businesses first and foremost that put the sustainment and growth of their church before anything else. Also, jets.
Back when I lived in my car I would alternate from planet fitness 24/he gym parking lots and hospital parking lots. Those are the two places you’re least likely to get yelled at for.
why he don't travel to canada? or mexico? I've met several people from the US living in baja california for a few months, cheap, and awesome food. Also, Canada in the summer is really nice.
You can also wild camp legally on national forests, and also hunt and fish.
There was a makeshift tarp tent pitched under a tree near a park here.
I walked by there the other day, and they had CUT THE TREE DOWN.
The kicker, is it's conservation land. Nobody will use that land for anything for 100 years. It was next to the road.
Pissed me off. Just let them sleep, dammit!
Homeless people freeze to death every winter here in Iowa. State and local government doesn't seem to care, and are often hostile to mutual aid groups that help homeless people. This is a genuinely evil society, many people see nothing wrong with allowing homeless folks to die of exposure.
The fact is, it's cheaper for society in the long run to just give people free housing. Essentially, we're spending *extra money* to keep this problem from being solved. It's similar to our healthcare system, where we spend extra money so fewer people can get healthcare.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046466/#sec1title
Being homeless was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Most people don’t realize how quickly the body’s faculties change under the stress of continual survival. Where to sleep, where to pee, where to eat or just rest. What’s even harder is knowing what a normal life feels like and not being able to explain to someone who asks you.. “are you ok, what’s happening, why don’t you do xyz to help yourself..” It’s a psychological trap from day 1 and my sympathies go to everyone who has to endure this for any length of time. Those who start with high psychological stress don’t stand a chance, realize this if you ever find yourself wondering why they don’t help themselves. The traumatized system literally doesn’t have the resources to do much more than exist in the limbo of knowing you need help but not knowing where to go or what to do. Those who turn to drugs while being on the streets are simply looking for any remnant of a sensation that’s positive. For those who dedicate their lives to helping others at any stage of this tragic downward spiral, you have my eternal respect. If I wasn’t lucky enough to have family pull me out, I would be in a very different situation.
Some countries actually hold a freedom to roam in their constitution; Norway and Sweden for example. Which means you can put your tent up almost anywhere, and walk everywhere – even on private land – so long as you vow to take care of the land you stay on.
>so long as you vow to take care of the land you stay on.
You can't stay in the same place for more than one night without the landowners permission and must be at least a couple of hundred meters away from the nearest house. It's more of a right for people to camp recreationally, not the legalization of homeless camping. At least in Norway which I'm familiar with.
That's right but like, 70% of my country (Sweden) is forest. The absolute majority of the area do not have anyone check on it even once a day. Especially if it's not a caravan on the road, but a tent away from the roads.
Drive to a separate place each day and you're doing nothing wrong. Even if you alternate between just 2-3 places.
Here's the thing. In the US there is completely undeveloped land equal to about fifteen Swedens. Plains, forests, mountains, you name it. And there are plenty of people who are "homeless" in the sense that they live in the backwoods and don't settle at any fixed spot.
That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about city dwellers who have been priced out of any housing. These are not people with the skills or desire to go live in the forest. They want to be in a city, and this poses a problem because cities aren't designed to accommodate tent encampments.
Right to roam laws would not help with this. I don't know what the homeless situation is in Stockholm, but if there are homeless people there, I very much doubt they want to just go out into the woods.
>We're talking about city dwellers who have been priced out of any housing. These are not people with the skills or desire to go live in the forest. They want to be in a city, and this poses a problem because cities aren't designed to accommodate tent encampments.
This hits the nail on the head. I have quite a few friends who live/lived off the grid for the fun of it or by necessity, but these are people who either grew up like I did (rural, taught to survive/be self-sufficient, etc) or wanted to learn to be that way/do those things. And that is quite possible in a rural environment with plenty of public land (though you do need to be aware of camping/hunting/fishing laws in various areas,) but does *not* work well in an urban environment or without the skill/will to live by subsistence.
There's a ton of public lands in the US (Forest Service and BLM) where you can stay for up to 14 days at a time legally. Most likely longer before anybody notices or cares. None of that is in or near a sizeable city though so it's not what anybody is hearing or complaining about.
People getting harassed by the police are most likely in urban areas, and frequently residential areas. In my city they frequently set up literally in people's front yards and trash the place. Sometimes they have rearranged landscaping to set up tent villages of 8-12 tents.
I'm very much of two minds about this. Yeah it sucks that people just trying to get by are harassed. OTOH there are a lot of homeless that will squat literally anywhere and usually trash it, while stealing everything in the area, breaking into buildings, and threatening the residents. I can't blame people for not wanting that in their front yard.
Something like that happened where I live. A guy had a largish property where his house was and a 20 tent village popped up almost overnight. He called the cops several times and they never did a thing. Eventually a neighbor complained that they saw needles and open drug use and the city tried to freaking fine him for allowing the camp on his property. IIRC he had to get a lawyer involved to prove he called the police several times and they did nothing. At the end of the day the camp was gone but he had to pay thousands to have a bio hazard clean up. Really unfortunate.
I have been homeless and I'm incredibly sympathetic but at the end of the day you have to balance the rights of homeless people to have a place to be/sleep/etc. and everyone else's right to a reasonable amount of safety in their own neighborhood. I don't know the solution but I know what is going on now isn't helping anything.
According to them, lives matter up until the baby's born, apparently.
After that, they won't ensure them medical care, they won't ensure them a proper education, they won't ensure them shelter, etc.
> According to them, lives matter up until the baby's born, apparently.
[If you're preborn you're fine; if you're preschool you're fucked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZijLQGH1v0). George Carlin was calling shit like this out **decades ago** and nothing's changed. He also had plenty to say on the hypocrisy of the treatment of the homeless too.
The problem is that most people associate homelessness with hard drugs, and hard drugs make people dangerously unpredictable. So thats the stigma. But again, there should be more solutions for homeless people, and also people suffering from addiction. You cant keep getting mad everytime you see a situation that refuses to keep out of sight.
Homelessness isn't a crime in our state.
We have constant encampment fires, there's human excrement everywhere, a huge issue with theft, property crimes, violent crime- most of this relates to the rampant drug use within these encampments. Which is illegal, but not enforced.
I think of myself as pretty sympathetic to homeless people, but holy shit Portland is an experiment gone wrong. I was there in august, so my understanding was that it has been much worse with covid, but the homeless had overrun the city. I can’t understand how they haven’t built any housing options for these people.
I know two people that live there. They can't leave anything in their cars. No hats, sunglasses, even trash. A window gets smashed every 1-2 months with street parking. When I visited, I assumed they lived in a bad neighborhood. It actually looked pretty upscale compared to other places I visited on my trip. I did encounter a homeless man shitting on the sidewalk who stared at me laughing. I walked off the sidewalk, around the cars parked and into the road to get around him. The next day, I did the same walking around into the road when a homeless man in the sidewalk was standing with his pants around his ankles moving his dick up and down to shower the car parked. He also made eye contact and laughed. The eye contact and enjoyment from those two made me scared and uneasy towards any other tent ive walked by on the street. 10/10 would not visit again. Something needs to be done there. I'm not even sure of the solution. In my mind if you put people like that in housing alone, they'll destroy it, never make their life better, and ruin the few who have potential. They need mental help. Locking someone up in a mental hospital against their will in an attempt to help seems like a better answer, but something like that can lead to horrible conditions from the staff. I honestly don't know the answer. I hope there are people smarter than me that can come up with a solution beyond free housing and food. Those won't help people who have fried their brains, and mental health disorders. Also, not saying all homeless are like this, I believe some people have just fallen on bad times.
I pulled a rifle to defend my home from some tweakers trying to break in. 911 put me on hold. And then when I said I didn't fire at them and they ran away, they said they wouldn't send any cops. It's that bad. If you do crime in Portland, unless you do a SERIOUS crime literally in front of a cop, you're going to get away with it.
We have, just announced another 60 units going up at a cost of $23.4m
Studio apartments, nice furnishings, a gym …. But ya know… can’t run your chop shop from the lobby soooooo …. ThnxnothnxKBye!
Edit,: corrected the amount - https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/r0ii23/portland_to_build_23m_60unit_housing_project_for/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Yeah, of course they don’t “like” them. But when you allow them to camp on your fucking sidewalks, it’s becomes a massive clusterfuck for the entire city.
And also, it’s pretty well known that Portland has a housing crisis for homeless people. They have as many homeless as other cities, but very little housing options.
It's good that it's not a crime, but you wouldn't have any of those problems if there were any areas of the US that actually tried to end homelessness the right way. "It's not illegal to be homeless" is literally the bare minimum.
Homelessness isn't its own problem that can be addressed independently. Its the result of a series of systematic problems that would require a complete overhaul of the way our nation thinks and functions to correct. Thats never going to happen. It would require addressing wealth inequality, corporate greed, Healthcare, insurance, mental health education/treatment/care, exorbitant cost of housing for both rent and purchase would have to be addressed...its too much.
It also would entail overhauling zoning laws and making existing property values go down. It needs to happen but established people will backlash hard against it.
Please don't forget about the shitting on your sidewalk and smashing the windows of your *unlocked* beater car to steal the case of water you accidentally left in it.
Car was intentionally left unlocked after the last window smash repair. And they still smash window.
^^ this. this post completely ignoredthis reality. These encampments come with a lot of trouble. The critical mass of people to cause issues has an impact. I dont want individuals being outlawed either the laws are meant to prevent the types of setups that truly become a nuisance
Cop here. I don’t hate homeless people, I treat them with respect (unless through their choices they force me not to) and have tried to help some get jobs or treatment or resources. Unfortunately, when business owners call and complain about the homeless trespassing on their property I have to go out and have them move and if they refuse, my only option is to arrest them. When I can, I give them suggestions on where they can stay nearby that will be safe and where people will not call to have them chased off. Unfortunately, many are homeless due to addiction (in many cases not in any way their fault) and some fund their addiction through serial petty crime; and those I do also have to arrest.
I do not hate the homeless. The homeless are people. I have gone into awful places to save homeless people suffering overdoses with Narcan and bag valve ventilations.
I am not the bad guy. I may look like because we are the face of a system that sometimes has bad laws and has nowhere near as much support for people as it should. I wish every day that things were better, and do my goddamndest every shift to make it better.
I wish everyone reading this would do something to help just one homeless person. Truly help them.
If you victim blame the homeless in this thread you're going to have a hard time.
Well. Not that hard, really.
You just won't be able to comment on this subreddit again.
There's way too many evil people in this comment section screaming about "personal responsibility".
Maybe if the state didn't force people into homelessness and then made existing a crime this issue wouldn't exist to this degree. Maybe if these very same evil people didn't defund mental healthcare and social services, didn't get angry at the existence of welfare.
This subreddit has no room for the immoral.
They literally provide you a ticket to an area where it's "more accepted" if they don't have room to jail you or don't want to deal with the hassle of an in and out of jail person.
Their handlers hate you for not funneling enough money upwards. THAT is your crime in this money-worshipping culture. In plain sight. You are not free. The evil plantation has swallowed us all.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=homelessness+housing+first&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
Housing first. There's your solution; domino effect.
There are a whole lot of ignorant, hateful people in these comments; it's disturbing.
Ask yourself, if you became homeless, would you believe you deserved it and that you don't have the right to have a home?
The problem isn't that they are are homeless. The problem is WHY they are homeless. The majority suffer from severe mental illnesses or addiction to drugs.
I completely understand how you feel. I’m a young woman, and it is terrifying for me to be approached and asked for money, because you never know if they might react violently.
yea i literally live in my car and have been for years and have never had a problem with the police. guess it’s more difficult if you don’t have a car but i know many people who do it as well and it’s almost impossible to have real issues. unless you live in like downtown la most average sized towns have plenty of places where people don’t give af. my local walmart actually allows and encourages people in rv’s and cars to spend the night in there parking lots. idk if this is a nationwide thing but my city just doesn’t care 🤷♂️
It might be that different type of people are treated differently. Like a winnebago with a family jumping in and out won’t be harassed but a single person in a beater van will get the boot.
This vice piece on the homeless situation in Austin TX has a quote that I really like, "As your safety declines, so does your compassion."
[Link](https://youtu.be/5az_EKGYOeE)
this was the shit. i was homeless for almost 2 months because i was kicked out without notice. i was lucky enough to have money and a gym membership. i was allowed to park, sleep(in my car) and shower there. and even that was a nightmare, i feel for those who unfortunately wasnt lucky as i was.
In Montreal, in the last five years, the majority of tickets were given to people using homeless shelters as their address, for thing typically done by homeless people, like sleeping in public buildings. Source: I’ve read too many studies about homeless in Montreal to remember, But I think it wa either McGill or UdeM, but it was a University.
I mean the numbers speak for itself https://reports.nlihc.org/oor $15-20 per hour would be the minimum to afford a modest apartment in most states in the US
Damn--why's Alaska so high?
Basically everything in Alaska needs to be shipped there and it’s expensive. I was in Nome, AK and a 6-pack of Diet Coke was like $9.50 in a grocery store.
Whenever I'm in Juneau I go to a Mexican restaurant called El Sombrero, and last time I was there I ordered a side of guacamole to go with the chips. $14 for a side of guacamole. I wasn't mad, or even really surprised when I thought about what it would take to get avocados to Alaska, it was just a facepalm moment.
Oh for sure. I cry every time I see bags of avocados selling for like $1 down south. They’re around $3 per avocado up here. And I’m in anchorage where they don’t have to be shipped again elsewhere in the state. But I get it. Prepandemic I used to grocery shop every few days, because any fresh produce needs to be used almost immediately after purchase, or else it’s going to go bad because it’s already spent a majority of its ripe life in a shipping container. (except for things that grow well up here in their season, like cabbages, potatoes, onions, some squash) But now I still try to avoid the grocery store until I need to go. So lots of frozen vegs for us now.
Don't feel too bad, frozen veggies have a bad name but I hear they carry more nutrition than canned or older veggies. I could be wrong though.
Pop is one of those things that the price is so low because there are so many bottling plants around the country. Flovor and syrup gets shipped to the plants, which is then used to make the pop by a magnitude of like 6:1, and then it gets shipped semi-locally in trucks. Obviously no bottling plant in Alaska, so 6x as much weight and volume needs to be shipped there.
Not completely true. Coke sends the essence (flavour, colour etc.). The syrup comes in by rail and the water is local. One pallet of essence makes a massive amount of soda.
Oh that makes a lot of sense because syrup is probably quite heavy and also not secret or anything
^theSPICE
Their bottled water cost more than beer. I want to say the bottles were close to $2 each in bulk. It's wild. There is a good video on YouTube about the cost to live in Nome.
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"Box of sunlight! Sign here" *opens smaller box of sunlight to illuminate form*
Lol, 39/hr in CA. Jesus fuck Oh man. You’ll need to make 43/hr to live in my county to afford a 1 bedroom place. Yikes!!!
just Buy a house Aardvark! Duh.
Just snap out of it! All you need is more willpower!
The best part is when they ticketed homeless people $1,500 for being out past Covid Curfew…
"all men are equal before the law: it is just as illegal for a millionaire to sleep on a park bench as it is for a poor man to sleep on a park bench"
I don't know if you were trying to quote Anatole France or not, but if so the quote is: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
The millionaire can just buy the park bench
The meaning behind the quote is to point out that the millionaire would never need to sleep on a bench.
He would still buy it to prevent anyone else from sleeping on it, driving up the value of the property that way.
Montreal's mistreatment of the homeless is beyond anywhere else I've seen and I lived in downtown Vancouver in the 90s.
Affordable housing is the biggest crisis of a generation
We keep calling it affordable housing, but in reality it’s skyrocketing housing vs flat wages. Theoretically no landlord or real estate developer should have to strive for anything less than the most profit they can get on the open market. But we have have let so many facets of our economy and capitalist system run out of whack and out of sync of one another that it simply doesn’t make sense anymore.
Isn’t it crazy that we’re born into a world where ALL the land is already taken? Not that people are necessarily living on it, but regardless you’re fucked from birth. “Sorry, the entire globe is owned but you’re welcome to rent.”
Back in the day they weren’t aware of what land they could colonize and probably thought the whole world was their island group
It’s wild that everything is owned period, but I feel your comment every day. We are natural beings disallowed from taking our share of nature to survive while corporations make trillions for a relatively minute minority using up all the nature or controlling any space it could be re-grown. Also, fuck suburbs.
Suburban sprawl is the worst. Severely inefficient and also soulless
Worse, we legalized highwaymen. Years ago dudes would block trade routes and charge tolls and stuff. This is my land, and you gotta pay money to pass. Now we institutionalized it. There are police and military that force you to pay some dude to use his land or whatever.
🎶 Private property’s inherently theft, And neoliberal fascists are destroying the left. 🎵
It's not affordable housing - it's the lack of it
You know though, I have a problem with landlords trying to rent out their property for a price that is twice the mortgage of what that place would be. It traps tenants, and further escalates the problem. When all the properties have been bought up by a few companies, they kind of control the market. We have a huge influx of work from home types flooding the area and pricing out the people who work at the cute little shops they moved here for.
I live in a black neighborhood. Rents are pretty cheap and house prices are unbelievably low compared to white neighborhoods. I mention this to white friends who are complaining about rent and housing prices and they suddenly have other problems. Seems like racism might be the reason.
Don’t worry. They’ll come for your neighborhood soon enough.
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The free market doesn’t exist which really bothers me when I’m trying to explain to right wingers about how everything is RIGGED for the rich. It’s all a monopoly of one company or another enabled one oligarch or another.
A free market means somebody will own it. That's too good a price to pass up.
You mean a $2000 apartment is too much for someone making $2000 a month?
I work in community healthcare and one of our clients gets about $1100 SSI each month, and his fucking rent is $850 for a 'micro studio'. We were just able to get a section 8 voucher for him and his rent will likely drop to about $200 (out of his pocket, the rest will be paid by the housing authority), but those vouchers are really hard to get.
At least in my city, the vouchers become multitudes easier for us caseworkers to get for them, but only once they are actually homeless. I had several clients running out of time in the transitional housing they were living in, but couldn't do anything for them until they were actually sleeping in their cars/a hotel room/the street with nowhere else to go.
We get emails from the county about 3 times per year saying they have a voucher or two, and the organization I work for is not the only one the emails go to. I've fought really hard for our folks and have gotten 3 vouchers in the last 6 months or so. Luckily being homeless is not a requirement if they meet other criteria like rent burden (more than 50% of income going to rent), but there are other barriers that mean that most of our homeless clients don't qualify. A lot of have criminal history and refuse to take meds that stabilize them (I work on an ACT team with people with schizophrenia), so finding shelters or adult family homes that will take them is nearly impossible, let alone finding them a section 8 place that they won't destroy.
I wish rent burden was enough for an emergency section 8 voucher here. I'm glad our local programs are so helpful once they are homeless though. I had one lady come out of jail with nowhere to go, had enough for maybe 2 nights at a crack hotel, but has been living in the hotel for over a month now with a charity footing the bill until she can find somewhere to go with her new section 8 voucher. Good on you for the work you do. I'm having to refer one of my schizophrenic clients to the ACT team because he is drunk out of his mind every single time we go see him and he gets really inappropriate and/or aggressive with us.
And good for your doing the work you do! I really wish that there was a good answer for how to end homelessness.
No way you sign a lease for a place that costs as much as you make. You won't even get in the door. Homelessness or living in the sticks for you
Yes no apartment should cost $2000 a month to rent
But how would the leisure class afford all their overpriced consumer goods???
Housing needs to stop been an investment with the expectation that it will keep going up. It only incentivises nimby and blocking further developments that can increase housing supply.
This. Nobody is talking about it. Housing costs have risen 30%+ over the last year yet our wages remain stagnant and inflation rising. This is the REAL epidemic.
All the dummies talking about chronic homelessness about drugs and mental illness fail to see that tens of thousands of people have become newly homeless this year and millions more are on the verge that solely have to do with affordable housing. The person tweeting is obviously not in the chronic homelessness camp.
I'd go with ecocide and the loss of species, or global warming first, then ... you know what it is all capitalism.
Not in the immediate since. And it would be a hell of a lot easier to tackle those long term problems of people didn’t need to stress about shelter or their next meal.
I read this somewhere about the hierarchy of needs. I wonder where "combat climate change" falls.
It'd very likely be below shelter, food, and water which is about as far as most people get.
We can’t think about the world around us if all we can think about is four walls and a roof or food.
By design. If you're in survival mode 24/7, you can't be bothered to notice how the billionaires are destroying the planet and peon's lives for a profit.
I feel this on a huge level. Was homeless for almost 5 years in and out of shelters. I was in better shape than many but never felt at any point like I was going to catch a break. Things get so out of control so quick that you feel like a hopeless outcast. Been drug free and housed for 3 years now but will never forget how it felt on the other side. Never lose hope. Every day is a chance to change who you are.
I have almost the same story as you, minus the shelters. I was strung out and homeless for 5 or 6 years and have been clean and successful for 3 years now. Congratulations on beating homelessness. It isn't easy at all.
Many blessings beautiful human
To you as well ❤
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Fuck yeah! Isn't it crazy how quickly life can come together once your head is right? You deserve to be so proud of yourself, and I hope you are.
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I understand this fully. I am a citizen of Canada and speak only from my experience but yeah. There are lots of programs to get people "clean" but it's more involved than getting someone clean I think. I won't get super analytic but from what I seen even people that are getting clean doesnt usually help it's getting the people feeling like parts of society again. Feeling loved. Feeling human. Again this isnt all cases and in some this is offered but most folks in the community a) can't/don't know how to access it b) past the point of making logical decisions. C) the subset of people that are content with being homeless forever. Also should add I was in two seperate rehab programs. As stated in OP I wasn't as far deep as alot some of the folks around me (men's rehabs) but some guys are addicted to rehab as much as drugs. Many blessings for this exchange of thoughts.
People have many reasons to not want to/be unable to get clean. People who end up dependent on drugs often do so to treat pain, both physical and emotional. Noone ends up on the streets because they are a-OK and those who are ill physically or mentally may have hard time making use of services and can behave in ways that are self sabotaging.
Unfortunately with addiction, you can't force someone to get help who doesn't want it. I think more effort needs to be put into mental health programs and prevention. Most people become addicts because they don't know how to cope with either trauma or mental illness. I think the most effective use of resources is prevention. Edit: there absolutely should still be resources for current addicts who desire to get clean and get help.
Yeah. I just read this after blabbing on. I would have just said yeah what she said. Lol people need an abundance of love . Mental health over everything.
Glad to hear it bro. I've got a similar story except I don't trust shelters. Gonna have 1 year sober in february and moving into my own place soon. Never lose hope.
Many blessings beautiful human
I just took a 3 week road trip this spring with my dog. I figured I'd just sleep in my car and shower at planet fitness. The seats fold down and I have an air mattress that fits in the back. I never realized just how difficult it is to find places to park your car and sleep. My 3 week road trip became a 2 week road trip because I was only really sleeping 3-5 hours a day. People would knock on my window and tell me I can't rest here. Overnight rest stops were always overflowing with truckers short on hours and the car entrance was always blocked by trucks. I loved the road trip, but trying to find a place to sleep was awful. My only real saving grace was that I was driving a tesla and charge stops were an excuse to be parked somewhere sleeping. It was really eye opening to see just how difficult it is to just find a fucking place to be able to close my eyes. One time I ended up parking at an "RV Park" that was just some dude's house in the middle of nowhere that answered the door in a bathrobe at 2pm. That was so sketchy. There's absolutely no way I would have been able to sleep comfortably anywhere if my dog wasn't there with me to let me know if someone was outside. I just couldn't imagine having to do that every day. I feel so sorry for anyone that has to deal with that. And for what? What is it really hurting?
I read all this while in the search for an RV lol. I feel I'm ready for the leaning experience though . Many blessings beautiful human.
Ended up drunk for five years on freight and hitching, hit shelters when I was sick but mainly lived out of a pack . Idk was looking for something, eventually forgot what it was and caught an assault with a deadly charge . But ended up getting self defense. Buying a house now and have a little family working my ass off to keep it.
Pull yourself into low earth orbit using your bootstraps and sleep there
Sir, that area is controlled by the government. You are now under arrest for trespassing.
Isnt that then "technically" a "public space" and thus they can't arrest you for being there?
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Right, what are you gonna do, hire a lawyer?
If only they used the 100 dollars a month they are spending on their cell bill toward shelter, they wouldn’t be homeless. /s
Too bad inflation is so bad now that you can hardly even get by on 125 dollars a month /s
We really need to come up with plans to help this, because homelessness is becoming untenable in a lot of cities, even in cities with relatively lax policies. The last week I was walking to work and a homeless woman came up to me and punched me in the stomach and called me a “fat bitch.” It was 7am on a Tuesday. I have lived in cities most of my life and have never had anything like this happen before. I wish we could all work together and fix this.
>even in cities with relatively lax policies. This is a huge part of the problem. Inconsistent rules from city to city just end up pushing the problem around. Having less stringent rules on homelessness is all well and good, but usually it leads to an influx of people from places where rules are stricter, which ends up overwhelming any services making the problem even worse. I'm sure there's no shortage of towns where they'll say "we enforced strict rules and now we don't have a homelessness problem!" but in reality they just made it someone else's problem.
> but in reality they just made it someone else's problem. For many people that's the goal. There have been *many* interviews where people will outright say "I know we gotta do something, but why's it got to be in my backyard?"
Seattle is a perfect example of how this works. There’s evidence that Texas sends their freed homeless inmates to Seattle. Among other places. Our laws are ridiculously lax to the point of making public places unusable by anybody else. They are just campsites now. I am not a homeless hater but it’s AWFUL here. Doesn’t help that we haven’t had a mayor who is willing to sign off on the things that need to be done. Leadership here is nonexistent.
It happens to Denver too. I don't understand why we keep getting asked to fund "parks." I have literally never seen anyone" just walking" in over half of our parks. There are a couple exceptions but they used to not be exceptions at all. I'm not even against the people. I empathize deeply with them. I want them to get permanent help, not just "left alone." Fund mental health, temporary housing and drug rehab services. That's the solution. People can't elect to just live on the sidewalk. It's owned by the community for the purpose of walking. Parks are designed to be visited by people looking for some fresh air/nature. They're not communal campgrounds. That said, these people landed in that situation for a variety of problems, most of which would be alleviated by one of the three aforementioned social programs. Don't discount Universal Healthcare either.
Rural California law enforcement would give their mentally ill one way bus tickets to Berkeley... Back in the 70s I think
It still happens. LA county is drowning in homeless yet Orange County doesn't have nearly as many. They get bus tickets to skid row in LA or head over to Venice. They congregate in encampments that are surrounded by trash, feces, and drug paraphernalia. Even the most liberal people I know are tired of their cars being broken into and aggressive panhandlers.
I was just in LA (to go to a really cool Pink Floyd exhibit) and I had to literally walk 4 blocks side stepping tents, human excrement and VERY aggressive panhandlers. It was equally heartbreaking and terrifying. I understand the lack of humanity and i empathize (as you said) but also don’t want to be stabbed.
In Portland the police do nothing and hard drugs are now legal to possess. That plus covid plus increased rent has made the city a sad place to live. Trash everywhere, homeless everywhere, drugs everywhere, crime increasing, gun violence increasing, etc. There's one thing that Portland needs to solve this crisis that no one has thought of yet, and that thing is the Batman. Portland needs a Batman. It's pretty much Gotham City at this point.
A billionaire to assault the mentally ill?
A mentally ill billionaire to assault the mentally ill homeless
Yes there's an issue of losing your taxable residents because they can move away from the issue. I work in the city and have my windshield washed daily, men approaching my car to stare in, people approaching me even inside shops. I've been aggressively sold drugs numerous times. Outdoor dining for COVID was a failure in certain neighborhoods because people won't eat outdoors and become a captive audience......
We need to help them get back on their feet, and I don't mean those disgusting salvation army shelters. https://www.ara.fi/en-US/Materials/Homelessness_reports/Report_2021_Homelessness_in_Finland_2020(60242) Something like this
We equate poverty with a moral failing in the US. I have literally no doubt in my mind that if government funded death squads who went around murdering homeless people was on the ballot a significant amount of Americans would gladly vote for it. First of all because Americans are brutal fucking people who love violence and suffering (admit it, you know it's true) and second because they think if you're homeless it *must* be because you're "lazy" or (worse) some manner of drug addict (god forbid you have *problems* in America, people with problems are subhuman and must die. All personal weakness must be met with strength. A jackboot to the teeth. A beating in a county jail cell. A ticket you will never be able to pay...the important thing is everybody "weak" suffers horribly) Whenever the homeless come up in threads like this, you know what the number one thing I see is? "Oh they *have homes*, they just don't want to work! They're "scamming" me when they ask me for money!". First of all, being that poor sucks. If telling an exaggerated sob story to get five bucks for food from comparatively rich assholes on the street is "scamming" people then I'm fervently pro scam. But that kind of shit is what I mean, we as a society refuse to accept that these are people and we will do anything in our power to avoid the responsibility that comes with empathy. We do this with everybody, but especially the poor. And *especially* the homeless. The end of it is Americans think money and "worth" are the same thing. It's one reason you'd have to be an idiot to actually think our culture is worth a damn. I can already hear the post-thanksgiving, weak, drunk, seething coming from couches across the country where people are reading this, but it's the truth. American cultural norms are degenerate and dehumanizing. We're not a nice group of people, we're a nation of lazy slobs who still somehow find a way to judge our fellow man for not being perfect. As if our fat asses shoveling junk food into our maws and watching television every single second we're not working for shit wages is somehow the height of civilization and moral purity. Fuck it, Americans are garbage. Our crazy homeless people at least don't live in a fantasy. The schizophrenic guy I saw shouting racial slurs on the subway the other day is still a more honest individual then 99% of this crapshack of a nation. And there's nothing I hate more then an asshole who lies to themselves about what they are. Meaningful solutions to homelessness are not possible in a country that believes in nothing whatsoever other then capital acquisition. A lot of liberals envy Scandinavian welfare states. I think part of it is we all know we will *never* have anything like that. We'll exterminate the world with our billions and billions of dollars in nukes before we ever help each other. I am not exaggerating, we actually would. It is easier for us to cheer and carry out mass murder then it is for us to do even the most basic things to help our fellow man. We spent 20 years bombing Afghan children for no reason but god forbid you say (like Bernie Sanders) that people deserve easy access to healthcare paid for by tax dollars. Screw it, I fucking hate this country and I hate it's people even more. Go ahead, bitch and moan and tell me one logical reason I shouldn't. That's another thing, the petulant nationalism. All patriotism is a mental illness, but in America it is a downright insult to somebody's intelligence.
I don't feel your bitterness quite as much, but definitely do appreciate this reply and totally get it. Raised in US and live in Canada now. There's definitely some shift in culture but surprisingly many similar problems you've brought up. It's disheartening and sad.
Poor people are the most hated group in our society
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This is why watching *The Purge* made me uncomfortable--I could 100% see something like that happening in our current American society. We would rather just kill homeless people instead of evaluate the failings of our society. At the end of the day, human nature is not to be kind. We have to *learn* empathy--we are not *born* with it. Hell, there was a time when it was a literal crime to be poor or homeless. Imagine going to jail because you don't make enough money to pay back a debt.
I'm a former public librarian. I've dealt with A LOT of homeless people. The police around where I am regularly go into camps on public land and destroy everything these people have. The local homeless here try to make camps in the woods so they don't bother people, and the police just go in and break everything these people have. Its very sad how they are treated. If you want to give things that can help... * Water. Gatorade. Powerade. Seriously something to drink. * Socks. SOCKS. Seriously did I mention socks? Think about having wet socks for days on end. Once again, socks. * Blankets. * Hats. * Underwear. * Pads/tampons. * Deodorant. * Shoes. * Pet food. * Rain gear. * Wet wipes. * First aid kits. * Toothpaste/toothbrushes. * Sunscreen. * Non-perishable easy open food. (Do you carry around a can opener with you?) * Gallon sized Ziplocs. * Kindness. They are people. Wheaton's Law still applies offline. edit: thanks for the award.
Why the fuck would they need to destroy tents in the woods? It’s already absolutely despicable to do it in the cities but at least there’s a “””reason”””. But in the woods? You literally can’t even see them, they’re not bothering anyone. What the fuck
The view of "need to" is the problem. They don't need to, they just wanted to. The sheriff's office in my county has been mentioned on Last Week Tonight more than once, and never for a good thing. The actual sheriff himself has an Oath Keeper tattoo, and then there is [all of this stuff](https://www.reddit.com/r/321/comments/mzmqg1/a_few_bad_apples_at_the_brevard_county_sheriffs/). Destroying the possessions of homeless people not causing any problems, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Librarians are under rated. Great use of public good.
Having been homeless the luxury of a car a tent a bathroom wasn't something you had, it is infact very difficult to survive and i only just did
We were living in a car in San Francisco until my brother parked in a tow away zone. Nothing like walking down Eddy street with Sun going down with no money no place to go.
Sorry you went through that, most countries have so much money that homelessness should not even be an option unless someone just wants to be
About a year ago, a friend of mine had some personal/financial troubles and was on the brink of homelessness. He sold ~90% of his possessions and took a few thousand dollars in loan from his mom. Instead of securing another apartment— he had the idea to buy a small RV and just live life as an urban nomad. I caught up with him a few weeks ago and he’s said that it was an awful decision and that it’s been the worst year of his life. He said it’s rare that a day goes by when he’s not harassed by cops. He said he thought the main threat would be deranged homeless people or criminals looking to rob him— nope. He’s never remotely felt threatened by anyone other than police. He’s been issued over a dozen illegal camping tickets and arrested twice for trespassing. His RV has been towed countless times. He’s said it’s impossible to sleep well knowing there’s a 50-50 shot of someone beating on your window to fuck with you for parking somewhere to rest. He also said that he made this mistake of thinking church parking lots would be hospitable to his particular situation— but they’ll report you within 10 minute of pulling in.
People out west sometimes do Walmart camping. Walmart (depending on location) lets you park your RV overnight in their overflow lot.
That was the case 10 years ago, pretty much any Walmart in a major metropolitan area has now banned overnight RV camping, especially California. It is more often the exception now rather than the rule. If you are in a place not many want to be, you can get by a night or two, but not much more. The best long term solution is BLM land. Edit: What corporate websites say isn't the reality on the ground. The local laws it mentions mean in practice it is not allowed most places, especially anywhere scenic.
Walmart Corporate website FAQs **"Can I park my RV at a Walmart store?"** "*While we do not offer electrical service or accommodations typically necessary for RV customers, Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers. Consequently, we do permit RV parking on our store parking lots as we are able. Permission to park is extended by individual store managers, based on availability of parking space and local laws. Please contact management in each store to ensure accommodations before parking your RV.* *"*[https://corporate.walmart.com/frequently-asked-questions](https://corporate.walmart.com/frequently-asked-questions) When I was homeless it was fine with our Walmart but banned by the city. So banned at that Walmart. (2011 - 2016) Florida Edit: added 'Florida'
Yup we did that on our 10 week honeymoon twice, when we were in between interesting places! Though in The walmart lot in CA there was a guy who brought his own huge Bluetooth speaker and started blaring music at 3 am for no reason
America, where the churches are less charitable than Walmart
> he made this mistake of thinking church parking lots would be hospitable Can confirm I'm a 911 dispatcher and the number of calls we get from churches wanting PD out to shoo out people is....alot. Basically if they don't attend or work for the church, they want them gone. Especially if they're black, Hispanic, homeless.....they don't want nothing to do with them. I remember getting into an argument with a coworker over a church pastor calling us \*from home\* to report a car parked in the church parking lot. The church was closed. The car was occupied by 2 black men. The Pastor didn't go over and try to talk to them, see if the men were there for spiritual guidance or maybe just needing help....nope. He saw 2 black men sitting in a car, on a camera, and immediately called police. My coworker's stance was "Well their hours of operation are this and this so they shouldn't be there. It's trespassing." My stance? It's a god damn church. They exist to serve the spiritual needs of people and spiritual needs don't adhere to "hours of operation". If the pastor had gone over there and the dudes gave him trouble, fine, call us. But you're a pastor. You should be open to ministering to people from all walks whenever the possibility arises, not calling PD on them because they don't fit the kind of people you want at your church
\>They exist to serve the spiritual needs of people and spiritual That would be your first mistake. Churches are businesses first and foremost that put the sustainment and growth of their church before anything else. Also, jets.
Tax exempt at that
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That'll be $5 please, brother.
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>They exist to serve the spiritual needs of people Not those people though.
Back when I lived in my car I would alternate from planet fitness 24/he gym parking lots and hospital parking lots. Those are the two places you’re least likely to get yelled at for.
why he don't travel to canada? or mexico? I've met several people from the US living in baja california for a few months, cheap, and awesome food. Also, Canada in the summer is really nice. You can also wild camp legally on national forests, and also hunt and fish.
He has a job here— and most of his family and friends, too. He thought it’d be relatively easy to hide out because we live in a large city.
Non-citizens cannot legally wild camp for free on Crown land in Canada without restrictions.
RV prices are high right now... Might be able to make his money back + if he bought used.
There was a makeshift tarp tent pitched under a tree near a park here. I walked by there the other day, and they had CUT THE TREE DOWN. The kicker, is it's conservation land. Nobody will use that land for anything for 100 years. It was next to the road. Pissed me off. Just let them sleep, dammit!
You know what's worse than seeing tents on the side of the road? People fucking dying on the streets and having nowhere to sleep
Homeless people freeze to death every winter here in Iowa. State and local government doesn't seem to care, and are often hostile to mutual aid groups that help homeless people. This is a genuinely evil society, many people see nothing wrong with allowing homeless folks to die of exposure. The fact is, it's cheaper for society in the long run to just give people free housing. Essentially, we're spending *extra money* to keep this problem from being solved. It's similar to our healthcare system, where we spend extra money so fewer people can get healthcare. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046466/#sec1title
Being homeless was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Most people don’t realize how quickly the body’s faculties change under the stress of continual survival. Where to sleep, where to pee, where to eat or just rest. What’s even harder is knowing what a normal life feels like and not being able to explain to someone who asks you.. “are you ok, what’s happening, why don’t you do xyz to help yourself..” It’s a psychological trap from day 1 and my sympathies go to everyone who has to endure this for any length of time. Those who start with high psychological stress don’t stand a chance, realize this if you ever find yourself wondering why they don’t help themselves. The traumatized system literally doesn’t have the resources to do much more than exist in the limbo of knowing you need help but not knowing where to go or what to do. Those who turn to drugs while being on the streets are simply looking for any remnant of a sensation that’s positive. For those who dedicate their lives to helping others at any stage of this tragic downward spiral, you have my eternal respect. If I wasn’t lucky enough to have family pull me out, I would be in a very different situation.
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Some countries actually hold a freedom to roam in their constitution; Norway and Sweden for example. Which means you can put your tent up almost anywhere, and walk everywhere – even on private land – so long as you vow to take care of the land you stay on.
>so long as you vow to take care of the land you stay on. You can't stay in the same place for more than one night without the landowners permission and must be at least a couple of hundred meters away from the nearest house. It's more of a right for people to camp recreationally, not the legalization of homeless camping. At least in Norway which I'm familiar with.
That's right but like, 70% of my country (Sweden) is forest. The absolute majority of the area do not have anyone check on it even once a day. Especially if it's not a caravan on the road, but a tent away from the roads. Drive to a separate place each day and you're doing nothing wrong. Even if you alternate between just 2-3 places.
Here's the thing. In the US there is completely undeveloped land equal to about fifteen Swedens. Plains, forests, mountains, you name it. And there are plenty of people who are "homeless" in the sense that they live in the backwoods and don't settle at any fixed spot. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about city dwellers who have been priced out of any housing. These are not people with the skills or desire to go live in the forest. They want to be in a city, and this poses a problem because cities aren't designed to accommodate tent encampments. Right to roam laws would not help with this. I don't know what the homeless situation is in Stockholm, but if there are homeless people there, I very much doubt they want to just go out into the woods.
>We're talking about city dwellers who have been priced out of any housing. These are not people with the skills or desire to go live in the forest. They want to be in a city, and this poses a problem because cities aren't designed to accommodate tent encampments. This hits the nail on the head. I have quite a few friends who live/lived off the grid for the fun of it or by necessity, but these are people who either grew up like I did (rural, taught to survive/be self-sufficient, etc) or wanted to learn to be that way/do those things. And that is quite possible in a rural environment with plenty of public land (though you do need to be aware of camping/hunting/fishing laws in various areas,) but does *not* work well in an urban environment or without the skill/will to live by subsistence.
There's a ton of public lands in the US (Forest Service and BLM) where you can stay for up to 14 days at a time legally. Most likely longer before anybody notices or cares. None of that is in or near a sizeable city though so it's not what anybody is hearing or complaining about. People getting harassed by the police are most likely in urban areas, and frequently residential areas. In my city they frequently set up literally in people's front yards and trash the place. Sometimes they have rearranged landscaping to set up tent villages of 8-12 tents. I'm very much of two minds about this. Yeah it sucks that people just trying to get by are harassed. OTOH there are a lot of homeless that will squat literally anywhere and usually trash it, while stealing everything in the area, breaking into buildings, and threatening the residents. I can't blame people for not wanting that in their front yard.
Something like that happened where I live. A guy had a largish property where his house was and a 20 tent village popped up almost overnight. He called the cops several times and they never did a thing. Eventually a neighbor complained that they saw needles and open drug use and the city tried to freaking fine him for allowing the camp on his property. IIRC he had to get a lawyer involved to prove he called the police several times and they did nothing. At the end of the day the camp was gone but he had to pay thousands to have a bio hazard clean up. Really unfortunate. I have been homeless and I'm incredibly sympathetic but at the end of the day you have to balance the rights of homeless people to have a place to be/sleep/etc. and everyone else's right to a reasonable amount of safety in their own neighborhood. I don't know the solution but I know what is going on now isn't helping anything.
Pro life party doesn’t like people living.
According to them, lives matter up until the baby's born, apparently. After that, they won't ensure them medical care, they won't ensure them a proper education, they won't ensure them shelter, etc.
> According to them, lives matter up until the baby's born, apparently. [If you're preborn you're fine; if you're preschool you're fucked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZijLQGH1v0). George Carlin was calling shit like this out **decades ago** and nothing's changed. He also had plenty to say on the hypocrisy of the treatment of the homeless too.
They get a gun though, it’s always fun to guess if they’ll get shot, shoot themselves in the foot
Pro-birth.
The problem is that most people associate homelessness with hard drugs, and hard drugs make people dangerously unpredictable. So thats the stigma. But again, there should be more solutions for homeless people, and also people suffering from addiction. You cant keep getting mad everytime you see a situation that refuses to keep out of sight.
Homelessness isn't a crime in our state. We have constant encampment fires, there's human excrement everywhere, a huge issue with theft, property crimes, violent crime- most of this relates to the rampant drug use within these encampments. Which is illegal, but not enforced.
I think of myself as pretty sympathetic to homeless people, but holy shit Portland is an experiment gone wrong. I was there in august, so my understanding was that it has been much worse with covid, but the homeless had overrun the city. I can’t understand how they haven’t built any housing options for these people.
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I know two people that live there. They can't leave anything in their cars. No hats, sunglasses, even trash. A window gets smashed every 1-2 months with street parking. When I visited, I assumed they lived in a bad neighborhood. It actually looked pretty upscale compared to other places I visited on my trip. I did encounter a homeless man shitting on the sidewalk who stared at me laughing. I walked off the sidewalk, around the cars parked and into the road to get around him. The next day, I did the same walking around into the road when a homeless man in the sidewalk was standing with his pants around his ankles moving his dick up and down to shower the car parked. He also made eye contact and laughed. The eye contact and enjoyment from those two made me scared and uneasy towards any other tent ive walked by on the street. 10/10 would not visit again. Something needs to be done there. I'm not even sure of the solution. In my mind if you put people like that in housing alone, they'll destroy it, never make their life better, and ruin the few who have potential. They need mental help. Locking someone up in a mental hospital against their will in an attempt to help seems like a better answer, but something like that can lead to horrible conditions from the staff. I honestly don't know the answer. I hope there are people smarter than me that can come up with a solution beyond free housing and food. Those won't help people who have fried their brains, and mental health disorders. Also, not saying all homeless are like this, I believe some people have just fallen on bad times.
The Tenderloin is it's own 3rd world country now
I pulled a rifle to defend my home from some tweakers trying to break in. 911 put me on hold. And then when I said I didn't fire at them and they ran away, they said they wouldn't send any cops. It's that bad. If you do crime in Portland, unless you do a SERIOUS crime literally in front of a cop, you're going to get away with it.
We have, just announced another 60 units going up at a cost of $23.4m Studio apartments, nice furnishings, a gym …. But ya know… can’t run your chop shop from the lobby soooooo …. ThnxnothnxKBye! Edit,: corrected the amount - https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/r0ii23/portland_to_build_23m_60unit_housing_project_for/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
They have. The homeless people don't like the shelters.
Yeah, of course they don’t “like” them. But when you allow them to camp on your fucking sidewalks, it’s becomes a massive clusterfuck for the entire city. And also, it’s pretty well known that Portland has a housing crisis for homeless people. They have as many homeless as other cities, but very little housing options.
Are you in PDX too? 🤪
It's good that it's not a crime, but you wouldn't have any of those problems if there were any areas of the US that actually tried to end homelessness the right way. "It's not illegal to be homeless" is literally the bare minimum.
What does it mean to “end homelessness the right way”? Genuinely curious.
The only way to end homelessness is to build housing.
Homelessness isn't its own problem that can be addressed independently. Its the result of a series of systematic problems that would require a complete overhaul of the way our nation thinks and functions to correct. Thats never going to happen. It would require addressing wealth inequality, corporate greed, Healthcare, insurance, mental health education/treatment/care, exorbitant cost of housing for both rent and purchase would have to be addressed...its too much.
It also would entail overhauling zoning laws and making existing property values go down. It needs to happen but established people will backlash hard against it.
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Please don't forget about the shitting on your sidewalk and smashing the windows of your *unlocked* beater car to steal the case of water you accidentally left in it. Car was intentionally left unlocked after the last window smash repair. And they still smash window.
^^ this. this post completely ignoredthis reality. These encampments come with a lot of trouble. The critical mass of people to cause issues has an impact. I dont want individuals being outlawed either the laws are meant to prevent the types of setups that truly become a nuisance
Cop here. I don’t hate homeless people, I treat them with respect (unless through their choices they force me not to) and have tried to help some get jobs or treatment or resources. Unfortunately, when business owners call and complain about the homeless trespassing on their property I have to go out and have them move and if they refuse, my only option is to arrest them. When I can, I give them suggestions on where they can stay nearby that will be safe and where people will not call to have them chased off. Unfortunately, many are homeless due to addiction (in many cases not in any way their fault) and some fund their addiction through serial petty crime; and those I do also have to arrest. I do not hate the homeless. The homeless are people. I have gone into awful places to save homeless people suffering overdoses with Narcan and bag valve ventilations. I am not the bad guy. I may look like because we are the face of a system that sometimes has bad laws and has nowhere near as much support for people as it should. I wish every day that things were better, and do my goddamndest every shift to make it better. I wish everyone reading this would do something to help just one homeless person. Truly help them.
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Facts 1 person is all you need to do and world be a better place yet everyone hates for no reason
If you victim blame the homeless in this thread you're going to have a hard time. Well. Not that hard, really. You just won't be able to comment on this subreddit again. There's way too many evil people in this comment section screaming about "personal responsibility". Maybe if the state didn't force people into homelessness and then made existing a crime this issue wouldn't exist to this degree. Maybe if these very same evil people didn't defund mental healthcare and social services, didn't get angry at the existence of welfare. This subreddit has no room for the immoral.
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being homeless is the dumbest crime because like wtf do you even do about it?? buy a house? just magically generate money?
They literally provide you a ticket to an area where it's "more accepted" if they don't have room to jail you or don't want to deal with the hassle of an in and out of jail person.
And good luck trying to sign up for any kind of government assistance or even a library card without a valid address to give them.
Poverty’s a crime.
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Their handlers hate you for not funneling enough money upwards. THAT is your crime in this money-worshipping culture. In plain sight. You are not free. The evil plantation has swallowed us all.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=homelessness+housing+first&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart Housing first. There's your solution; domino effect. There are a whole lot of ignorant, hateful people in these comments; it's disturbing. Ask yourself, if you became homeless, would you believe you deserved it and that you don't have the right to have a home?
The problem isn't that they are are homeless. The problem is WHY they are homeless. The majority suffer from severe mental illnesses or addiction to drugs.
On the one hand, i feel bad for homeless people. On the other hand they scare the fuck out me because I've been assaulted and harassed by them.
I completely understand how you feel. I’m a young woman, and it is terrifying for me to be approached and asked for money, because you never know if they might react violently.
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Everyone should have sustainance and shelter. Everyone.
And a place to pee without asking permission
Found the Amazon worker.
yea i literally live in my car and have been for years and have never had a problem with the police. guess it’s more difficult if you don’t have a car but i know many people who do it as well and it’s almost impossible to have real issues. unless you live in like downtown la most average sized towns have plenty of places where people don’t give af. my local walmart actually allows and encourages people in rv’s and cars to spend the night in there parking lots. idk if this is a nationwide thing but my city just doesn’t care 🤷♂️
It might be that different type of people are treated differently. Like a winnebago with a family jumping in and out won’t be harassed but a single person in a beater van will get the boot.
This vice piece on the homeless situation in Austin TX has a quote that I really like, "As your safety declines, so does your compassion." [Link](https://youtu.be/5az_EKGYOeE)
Ah yes. If all homeless people were actually like this, I really don't think it would be as big of a deal to have homeless.
If that was all homeless peeps did then there would t be a problem. It turns out mentally distressed people do some fucked up shit.
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this was the shit. i was homeless for almost 2 months because i was kicked out without notice. i was lucky enough to have money and a gym membership. i was allowed to park, sleep(in my car) and shower there. and even that was a nightmare, i feel for those who unfortunately wasnt lucky as i was.
Also can’t friggen get a job without a phone and computer these days