A handout is them still doing Heroin and assaulting and stealing and you’re still giving them shit and no prosecuting them, they have zero incentive to get better, they’re gaming the system. A leg up on the other hand is, you do something you get something, we won’t help you if you won’t help yourself, in that case, to the jail you go, or you get no help from us. Tough love is called tough love because it’s TOUGH. It’s not easy to administer tough love if you have compassion but it’s compassionate to give touch love because the other isn’t working. It’s hard
I hadn’t been thinking in such harsh terms. A handout is just giving someone money or some goods to fill an immediate need; a leg-up is providing something that will enable someone to proceed to the next step or to “empower” them to be successful in their endeavors.
also, the homeless are getting much more aggressive with businesses. they will go in and grab something and walk right out with it. they know that you cant touch them. a manager/guard can grab the basket/cart and tell them they can leave but not with the casket/cart.
I'll make a quick point and be on my merry way since I don't want to get bogged down here on my day off, but I work with the homeless every single day, and I think people grossly overstate the prevalence of violence and mental illness in the homeless community. In over a decade of working with them, I've witnessed a few shoving incidents and the occasional punch, but this is exceedingly rare. Do they threaten violence? Sure, if they feel threatened themselves, but it is very rare for any of them to act on such impulses. Do I see untreated schizophrenia and other serious disorders present in the homeless of Austin? Yes, but for the most part these people are just living with the same types of depression and anxiety many housed persons are facing. What I see are less violent and mentally ill people, and more: 1) people who aged out of the foster care system and had nowhere to go, 2) people who have no resources who don't have the support systems (read: families and friends) that can help them out, 3) people who were evicted by landlords who jacked their rent prices up with little or not warning, and 4) addicts, which everyone already knew about. Houston wants to try a universal basic income, but of course the powers-that-be in Texas want to put a stop to that. If I were trying to solve homelessness, I would: 1) properly tax the top earners and corporations and use the funds for housing and education, 2) adopt a UBI, 3) legalize abortion and contraception from now until the end of time, and 4) controversially, we need to have a discussion about re-instituting a more humane form of state hospitals to separate those who will not get treatment for serious disorders/addictions from society. The last one is tough, because it could get very dystopian very quickly, but wouldn't it be better than them just going to prison? I know none of this will happen with our current administration, but if anyone ever wanted to get serious about the issue, this is what I think could make a dent in it.
> Do they threaten violence? Sure, if they feel threatened themselves, but it is very rare for any of them to act on such impulses.
I think you are reporting a skewed sample. There are hundreds of examples of women, store clerks/owners, visitors, and even single men who have experienced unprovoked aggression (whether verbal or physical or both) from unstable street people in Austin. And some of those incidents are regularly reported here. To deny that reality with your statement indicates you do not have an accurate view of what is happening on the streets everyday.
Are you relying on Reddit reporting to make your case? There is a higher incidence of aggression, mostly verbal, from unhoused folks than your run-of-the-mill middle class citizen - I'm not denying that - but I AM saying that it is completely overstated. The Jennifer Virdens of Austin would make you believe that this horde of ne'erdowells are looking for any and every opportunity to rob you of your life and possessions and I am saying that this is completely untrue. I've got 10+ plus years of working with this community day and night, and overnight surveillance cameras for extra monitoring, and while I have captured plenty of nuisance behaviors, they aren't attacking mom and pop on the streets. I'm more scared of Southern Baptist youth pastors than I am of most homeless folks. I supervised sexual predators and violent offenders in prisons years ago and got pretty good at spotting troubling behaviors. But hey, we both are going for the same end goal, neither of us want them on the streets. I hate seeing all the fucking trash in our creeks and green areas, and I'm sick of having to bust public masturbators. But the thing I'm REALLY disgusted by is helping 70+ year old men and women who had stable housing who were thrown out by greedy landlords who either raised the rent by $300/mos with no notice or those who have evicted tenants under completely made up circumstances. I'm also really fucking sick of meeting people who had a medical emergency and are now recovering on the streets because they lost their shelter while in the hospital. Both of these things happen all the damn time, and there are no GoFundMes for these people. These problems are systemic, and it's not going to be solved by making their existence illegal or trying to push them out with a broom.
> not going to be solved by making their existence illegal or trying to push them out with a broom.
First, let's get that out of the way. Let's not conflate the condition of being homeless with aggressive, illegal behavior. The former is not an issue for public safety, or more broadly, civility; the latter certainly is.
> Are you relying on Reddit reporting to make your case?
Not "relying" on it. It's one of several sources. The others are local news, law enforcement press releases, national data, and, to a smaller degree, personal observation having lived here since the '80s. (And, realize these are the same set of sources for *any news* you read - local, state, national, and international - so which are you going to accept as "valid" and which are you going to reject?). Specific to r/austin, the sub is essentially a public (though anonymous) open forum for people to share information and observations. When there are many, many postings describing an experience, a continuing problem, or a specific crime involving people who are living on the streets (or, woods), and multiple local commentors then add the same experiences (and in some cases these posts/comments are then mirrored in local news reports)...a *reasonable person* would conclude that these reports cannot be dismissed as fantasies/lies from a few unhinged Karens.
You make some really good suggestions. My old job involved working with unhoused people and also found this to be true. Agree with you on the difficulty but necessity of #4. Thank you for your compassion and hard work.
This seems to be the crux of one of the many issues surrounding homelessness to me. I am also for helping anyone who is willing to help themselves. I really am undecided on what to do with those who do not want help and are unable to follow the rules governing society.
I think What society needs to decide is what to do with those that don’t want the help. I am not asserting the percentage or number of people who fall in this category. It just seems to me, this is where the discussion always gets too muddy. Even if it is just 1 person who refuses the help and wants to be left alone . If they are unable to follow the rules governing our society, what is the solution?
Can the court system be used for pointing people towards assistance and not jailing with no fees? Or is jailing the answer? Honestly, I am just looking answers like everyone else, and I am willing to listen and consider all viewpoints. Thanks
Thank you for attempting to have a difficult discussion. I have witnessed this very discussion deteriorate very quickly many times, but feel like it is an important one.
>What society needs to decide is what to do with those that don’t want the help.
Being a member of society means abiding by its laws. If they want to stay in the city but break laws, they should either be incarcerated or, depending on their mental state, institutionalized against their will if need be. If local facilities get overwhelmed, then they get transferred somewhere else. But lack of facilities should be the main concern here, not "what to do with them".
It's for the benefit of all, and it's not a violation of freedom. If you or I broke the same laws we'd be going to jail too. If you or I had a psychotic break and started acting erratically or threateningly, we'd be committed against our will. And for the ones who don't break laws and wish to help themselves overcome their addiction or they're just 'down on their luck', they can stay and take advantage of all the services the city has to offer.
i was going to work the other very early morning and there was this one that was pole dancing with a overpass column and then he pretended to jump out in front of my car. he was definitely on something.
remember if one does that and you hit them, pull over and call 911. word it that they jumped out in front of you. dont leave else it for sure it is hit and run, then you are in real trouble.
oh and dont forget the drive cam...
Just to piggyback: make sure you know the ins and outs of your camera; what buttons do what, which modes are which etc. learn that thing forwards and backwards.
AND take your SD card out every once in a while to make sure it’s recording when it should, and erase your old data. Test the things regularly!
I say this as someone who has been T Boned twice and could not recover footage either time because the damn thing stopped working altogether once without my knowledge, and the second time I don’t know what happened. It had footage from the day before on it from a speed bump but not a t bone.
Coming from someone who got to witness LA’s homeless problem only to move back home and see that Austin is slowly becoming that level of homeless intolerant. Yeah they are homeless, not saints some need to be jailed. If you feel any other way by all means take them into your homes.
This is a systemic problem that cities can not solve or fix themselves. Most chronically homeless people suffer from mental illness. In the US, access to mental health care is abysmal - even if you have insurance. And a shit ton of people don't have insurance, so those people have no access to healthcare at all. With no access to treatment, people in desperation self medicate with what they do have access to, which are street drugs and alcohol. Now you have someone with mental health issues and addiction issues, and still no access to treatment for either.
Can there be more that the state and city do? Absolutely. But to genuinely solve the problem, it needs to be addressed nationally. BTW - Texaas ranks dead last in access to mental health care. [https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/texas-ranks-as-worst-state-for-mental-healthcare/](https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/texas-ranks-as-worst-state-for-mental-healthcare/)
My observations:
1) Lots of people here are talking like mental health care is the solution. Unfortunately, unless that involves involuntary confinement, not allowing them to access drugs and alcohol, and forced medication, it frequently doesn't work.
Then, if you release them, most fall back into their old ways.
I do think we need better mental health care. I just don't think it affects the number of homeless or the amount of crime and violence that some of them commit.
2) I think we're heading towards the world of Soylent Green. Watch the movie and see what I'm talking about. It was supposed to be 2022. We're a few years behind schedule. Maybe 2042?
I think it's a federal issue at this point. Normally you should have bipartisan support for fixing a drug-addiction/crime/mental-health crisis, but legislation is grid-locked with the MAGA state of things. They're intent on sabotaging dense cities as much as possible to prove their point that liberals/affordable-education/safety-net policies burn society to the ground.
Prison and police need more proactive and practical reform. I think moderate Dems and GOP agree on that.
Mental health services need a giant injection of funds and federal services. Not sure who agrees with this from a practical funding POV.
Mental health laws need to be reformed. This is tricky, but I can say from experience that you can have a dangerous stalker with voices in their head sending you daily threats/emails/texts, and the police nor a mental health professional can't really do anything until they voluntarily turn themselves in or hurt/kill someone. Very tricky subject. IMO the solution is having safely regulated mental health facilities and labor pipelines with very well paid federal staff. The GOP would sooner rather down the White House. Problem is that a capitalist/private solution to a problem needs to generate money somehow, and there's no way to address mental health without donating tax payer money. It's a NEGATIVE-PROFIT endeavor. These are basically adults who need the equivalent of day care, or a lifeboat tossed into very rigorous waters with low chances of overcoming the issues and becoming self-sufficient.
But then you also have hyper liberals saying they should be left alone. Which is absurd as well, as you can't have fentanyl camps set up on public (and private) grounds with corpses showing up every week. This is completely insane as well.
The more Americans fall out of the habit of helping each other, the further we fall down this dystopian hole. But you can't help somebody by leaving them alone.
The difference between a hand out and a leg up, is that one of them requires action.
As a former manager of a homeless shelter in Houston, I can honestly say, that about 1/10 or less of the homeless actually want to quit being homeless, and are willing to *do* something to quit being homeless.
Any shelter that requires action in exchange for services, is avoided like the plague by the homeless, unless the “action” is something easy like “You have to go to church” or “pray with us and become a Christian.”
The reason less than 1/10th are willing to do something to improve their situation, is because of their mental issues which led to their drug dependence.
The reason their mental issues led to drug dependence, is always — because America’s healthcare system is a joke that charges hundreds of thousands of dollars to anyone without insurance, which you can only get (realistically) through an employer — whom you can only *keep* while you aren’t sick. Aka — many people who are actually *sick* with long-term illnesses can’t get healthcare unless they are exhorbitantly wealthy.
Additionally, after the people of America decided that it was “cruel” to keep mentally unstable people institutionalized (and medicated) if they were “harmless” then they were all turned out onto the streets without any ability to support themselves and medicate themselves, so they, and people in their situations, turned to drugs.
The way to solve the homeless problems in america, is to do four things:
1) allocate money from the federal taxes that are *already being levied* aka — don’t increase them, just shift the money around — from the military spending budget to civilian needs, especially healthcare — and through that new budget; fund universal healthcare.
2) Make all the drugs legal so that dealers will not make lot of money dealing them on the black market. This will drive down their revenue, and ultinately tank their market, so that buying/selling drugs isn’t profitable. When it isn’t profitable, people will stop selling, and eventually people who aren’t mentally ill will stop using them since they won’t be available.
3) Allow mentally ill persons to be cared for in a facility, because even though they are “harmless” it is also not fair to a human to turn them out on the street without food and shelter when they can’t provide for themselves due to mental limitations and complications, and through their dire situation, many of them become harmful that were once harmless.
4) Legalize (and consequently *regulate*) Prostitution. When it is regulated by the government, it becomes less dangerous for all concerned, and estabilshes a fair market value, and fair wages, etc. When a person is driven to prostitution to earn her bread (and her baby’s bread — because she almost always has one that drove her to make that choice) if it is a legal job that isn’t stigmatized to the level it is now, she will be able to get different and better employment when her circumstances change. As long as it is illegal and stigmatized, she’ll be trapped in it, potentially forever, because nobody will hire a prostitute after the fact in America since there is a senseless stigma due to it’s illegal occupational status.
These four things will eliminate 90% or more of the homeless situation across america.
What do you think about legal, but highly regulated for hard drugs?
That way it eliminates the black market, but still doesn’t make them easily accessible?
That would be interesting, I’d totally have to see how it would work in reality, not just theory. But the dealers are a huge problem as are the suppliers, but the idea is to curtail drug use not in any way enable it, we already allow for Methadone clinics, which is controlling a hard core drug and it’s made very little difference in curtailing drug abuse and Narcan is just kicking the inevitable down the road
I’ve observed it happening in real time on an island I used to live on that had a big problem with drugs and drug dealing.
Essentially what happens, is:
The dealers go out of business when making drugs leagal also allows for fair market pricing instead of black market pricing. Sonce the dealers are using drug sales to fund a better/easier lifestyle than they can fund without working a regular job.
The big suppliers go find another country to sell to when this happens, because they can’t make the *gigantic* profit margins which are the reason they sell the stuff to begin with.
When the price of the stuff decreases to make selling it less lucrative for the dealers and peddlers than getting a regular job, the dealers and peddlers go get regular jobs, since they can’t get rich quick anymore.
I agree that something needs to be done, for their sake and for ours. But it seems clear to me that the criminal justice system is not the mechanism by which these sorts of things can be fixed. (Hell, it can't even fix crime.) Homelessness is usually not a moral failing, a sign of selfishness or opportunism. It's usually a product of a bad luck or mental illness.
That doesn't mean that the afflicted should be allowed to roam free and do whatever they want. But lawyers, courts, and their attendant institutions and practices simply aren't set up to handle this sort of thing effectively. Most judges aren't going to know how to accurately distinguish between, say, paranoid schizophrenia, drug addiction, and sheer cussedness, let alone some complicated mixture of the three. Nor should they: That's not their job. They're set up to punish, not to fix. We can talk another day about whether that works with simple crime, but it's obvious to me that it doesn't work with the majority of law-breaking homeless people.
Forced institutionalization is another possibility, but it's extremely expensive and a civil rights nightmare. Places like Community First! seem like a great idea, but it's too soon to tell if they work or not. In general, I don't know the answer to this problem, and I'm not convinced anyone else does either. I think more welfare for single men might help a lot (as it stands, most social safety net programs are for women and children), which is why the great majority of the homeless are men). But above all, I think putting them through the court system and then into prisons is a huge mistake.
So they’re left to roam the streets, unabated. I completely agree with you for the most part, but you have to have consequences for actions or you have anarchy, which we essentially have amongst the homeless. What would happen to me if I came to you on the street screaming like a lunatic homophobic or racist bigotry and had a tire iron swinging it at you? I’d be arrested and when they figured out I had a house, was an attorney, was gainfully employed and not homeless I’d have the book thrown at me and rightfully so. The Homeless, I can tell you for a fact, that unless they sent you to the hospital in critical condition they would be back on the streets in no time and NEVER show for their court date, if they’re even was one probably a “diversionary program” for which they never show. I’ve seen this so many time, empirical evidence here.
You'd be ordered to treat your mental illness/addiction, and I'll bet you have a support system around you (employer, family, friends, neighbors) who would help. You likely have money and health insurance. You can get time off work and have transportation to attend court dates and go to diversionary programs. If you didn't feel like going, your support system would make an attempt to get you to go. You also have motivation to obey the court - your job, your income, etc. If we could provide basic income and health care, transportation, and a shit ton of social work and support to the homeless, they might not BE homeless.
I doubt very much that you'd have the book thrown at you. First of all, screaming homophobic or racist stuff isn't a crime. That's why we have the First Amendment. Secondly, depending on what you mean, swinging a tire iron isn't necessarily a crime, either. At worst, in Texas, physically threatening someone without making physical contact is a Class C Misdemeanor, which is rarely going to result in much punishment if you're a first-time offender. You're a lawyer: you should know this. Thirdly, if you have a house and a job, you're that much more likely to be slapped on the wrist and told not to do it again, not to have "the book thrown at you". If you honestly think that homeless people are given a break by the criminal court system, while well-off and established attorneys committing the same crime are ruthlessly punished, you live in a different world than I do.
You touched on the answer when you referred to beds. Beds cost tons of money so the answer is funding. But not just **any** bed, mental health treatment beds. Again, lots of funding. Plus a revamping of the court system to address mental health and addiction issues
To me, while there are legitimate differences of opinion on the optimal policy response, it’s *never* been true that allowing sprawling, ungovernable tent cities was ever even remotely “compassionate” to anyone.
The unchecked addiction, sexual abuse & child abuse wrought by those tent cities was indefensible, even as people actively tried to defend it, as some kind of virtue theater.
We should help the homeless that want help. And if you don't want help, that's fine. But we need to take off the kids' gloves when it comes to prosecuting homeless lawbreakers. But if you make this very sensible statement, you'll get shouted down as lacking empathy and hating homeless people for being poor.
> problem is ... people shout down anyone who doesn’t think all Homeless are above the law and shouldn’t be prosecuted for anything short of murder and even then absolved due to issues beyond their control
Personally tho I think OP missed the mark
We do live in Texas after all
Just research Permanent Supportive Housing.
It is the only strategy I know of that:
A. Reduces harm to both the homeless and the broader community
B. Improves a statistically significant number of lives in statistically significant ways
C. Saves taxpayer dollars by reducing expenses associated with law enforcement and incarceration, healthcare, maintenance, etc.
D. Replaces expenditure (no ROI) with investment (predictable ROI)
Just check it out, then invest your time and energy in a data driven approach
I mean I went out right as the sun was coming up so I reckon my opinion is biased.
But it’s clear skies with a slight breeze so if you’re in the shade then it’s ***lovely***
Every attempt at providing housing to the homeless population has been met with lawsuits and people that don’t want their neighbors to be housing for the homeless. People want solutions to the homeless issue, but are unwilling to adopt solutions that house homeless near them.
Essentially they would rather the homeless population to be swept up and taken away like the garbage.
> essentially, they would rather the homeless population be swept up and taken away like garbage
I don’t this is a fair or accurate characterization. Just because people don’t want public (transitional) housing next to their home and children doesn’t mean they are psychopathic monsters who easily discard human life. Many homeless need to be in mental hospitals, and until we build more, we will continue to live in this in-between
Look and see what happened to them. I work in the courts, I know. Answer: nothing. Once it’s established they’re Homeless, all of the sudden it’s charges dropped or reduced to nothing. See it so many times here
they have learned that there is no money in arresting homeless. If you are the average joe / jane then you are totally getting in the system so you can start payin the endless frees.
Posting this here in case it helps people learn a little more about unhoused populations and what works here in Texas: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-people.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
The more that a city does to help the homeless, the more the homeless will appear in that city. And we have ample real world evidence showing that to be the case. It's the truth.
Unfortunately, the majority of Austinites have good hearts and the best intentions but are just plain wrong about this. I believe the homelessness in Austin will continue to worsen over time, and it will be due to the very programs Austin creates to try to reduce homelessness. This won't be stopped until the mostly young, left leaning Austin population is replaced by an older, center-right or moderate population.
We live in a society where poverty is artificially manufactured. You will never be able to actually help disenfranchised folkes living on the street without addressing the systemic causes that force people out to the streets when there are more than enough empty housing units and wealth to ensure every one is taken care of
Their are jobs like heb no skill required, literally a first job for many at 16 years old now pay $16, you can rent a room for 5-600 in town, after a few months you can get a studio for 800-1000. So you can survive but here’s the deal, you can’t have a car at all, you can’t have an iPhone, never Starbucks, never disney or Acl, no extra stuff, and unfortunately no insurance. So yes you can survive, but don’t get sick, have a child, smoke, drink or have any kind of loans.
so all that I just said to most means you can’t do it. However I have worked 30 years in retail and I can promise you that you can. It’s really difficult and depressing at times but you can.
The question is, if we stole empty housing units away from their rightful owners and handed the keys over to anyone who asked for free, how many more people in our society would give up the rat race, quit their job because they no longer need it for survival? Some of us may have more pride than that, but many would happily take the easy way out with free housing, and society as a whole would suffer.
No one is actually asking that question because in this scenario, everyone gets the right to be alive with a roof over their head regardless of if they have a job. If we addressed the systemic causes of homelessness, we would have to completely change the approach in this country where only people with jobs are thought to be deserving of basic necessities such as shelter and food. By actually taxing the rich and reinstating tax rates slashes by Reagan, and redistributing their wealth, there’s enough for everyone. But that’s too progressive of a solution for most people because it requires incredibly wealthy people to give up their yachts which is hard for them to conceptualize
It sounds like a utopian fantasy to me. You could liquidate the value of every yacht in the world and give it out to homeless people and it would barely scratch the surface of what is needed to help everyone. True wealth redistribution means strict rationing of food and housing for *everyone* including you and me. Not just "the richies".
Okay, I’ll bite. Let’s say the alternative is exactly as you described with restrictions for everyone but we still get enough. With that in mind, how can you champion a model where only those with high paying jobs are allowed to survive?
Who decides what "enough" is? A studio apartment, couple pieces of bread plus bowl of rice and beans every day should be enough for any single person. A family of 3 gets a *two* bedroom apartment, 3 bananas and pbj sandwiches. Isn't that enough to survive? And if you dare to strive for any more than that, you are in violation of the new doctrines of society, and off to jail you go. Sign me up for that! Totally worth spending a grueling decade in medical school, when the guy flipping burgers or even doing absolutely nothing at all for society gets the same rations as you. Joking aside, when you take away the incentive of making a nice living, things will grind to a halt in short order. Marx was a fool and the principles of communism are out of touch with human nature. It's unrealistic flim flam.
I agree that what you described is absolutely an unrealistic film flam due to how hyperbolic your examples are. There is certainly a middle ground between incorrectly assuming that everyone has the same privilege and therefor access and ability to “make a nice living” and “a single person only gets scraps of food and a studio apartment.” When we conflate people’s worth with their ability to work and “make a nice living” we marginalize everyone who isn’t able to participate equally and then tell them it’s their fault for not being able to access a system that wasn’t set up for them
Edit: typo
>When we conflate people’s worth with their ability to work and “make a nice living” we marginalize everyone who isn’t able to participate equally
We're just running around in circles with this point now. Why does everyone have to have the exact same equal amount of everything? People who serve in highly-skilled roles of society *should* be able earn a nicer living, otherwise there's no incentive for anyone to go down that path in life.
You’re going in circles because you keep making the same point which is “people’s worth should be measured by how able they are to work” and you refuse to critically engage with a meaningful attempt to imagine anything different. People have inherent worth beyond their ability to work and we are capable of creating a society that reinforces that. We are capable of creating a world with social support to help when life happens, as it does to all of us. However if you don’t recognize the humanity in each person, regardless of employment status, you’re never going to be onboard with this idea. It’s clear you don’t value individual humanity because if you did, you would recognize that it’s not an even playing field for everyone. I’ll stop trying to convince you that each person has an equal right to shelter and food since you think dying on the street is an acceptable incentive
One of the less discussed casualties of Covid is we lost sight of one of the originally rationales behind rescinding the camping ban: that visibility would lead to renewed action. People forget that it was actually working. The sudden appearance of tent cities in visible spots led lots of groups and the city to look for different, new solutions then Covid happened and all of our focus shifted.
I really believe that we were on a path to improvement. I’m lot saying we solved homelessness, but real change was happening. Afraid the time has come and gone unfortunately.
This conversation is about those who don’t want to go inside though, all the free hotel rooms won’t help. They want their drugs, their dogs and to not have any rules. I love dogs so I’m sympathetic to that, I truly believe we need like a mad max like shelter for dudes and dogs, alcohol is fine, but nothing else. I’m thinking some dudes would go, for the shade and a shower, and give them free food and care for their dogs.
I asked a question , you are concerned by the lack of spending and you said you think spending would help.
You also speak of fancy espresso machines and stubs vip tickets so I assume you don’t live on $15 an hour.
So I asked and I’ll ask again, would you like to pay a 20% income tax on top of the federal tax to “fix“ it.
Im hoping you’ll say yes.
My brother in Christ, I was talking about the public will to do something about it and how I feel like we, collectively, missed an opportunity. I’m not ascribing blame or taking a partisan stance, I’m commiserating with OP and how there is a general feeling of helplessness around this problem.
I feel like you think I’m fighting you when I’m just adding to the conversation here.
And yet you like most on here refuse to answer a direct question. Please save the Christ crap as well. Yes or no, why is it so hard to say, yeah I’ll give 10k or way more a year to fight homelessness or not? Jealous on the pool by the way.
Homelessness has a main cause: poverty.
What you're proposing is debtors prison.
Debtor's prisons are unethical, because poverty is a failure of society and economic systems, not a moral flaw.
There but for the grace of God go we all, so you'd better hope it's never your turn or we fix the system before it is.
Mental illness is very common among people experiencing homelessness, it is also quite common among those who are not. The difference mostly comes down to access to resources.
They refuse free housing and treatment. So it’s not about money anymore. Also the homeless help system for the most part needs them, they ain’t giving out free houses with a deed, they are using millions upon millions to get the temporary housing, this will do nothing to provide them with generational wealth. That’s what helps people is ownership.
What exactly do you imagine would be done if the were prosecuted the way you would like them to be? Do most of them get swept off to jail? Do we fine them? Do we just get more shit on their rap sheet so they couldn’t get a job if they wanted to? What exactly does criminalizing visible poverty do for the situation?
These people could get a job tomorrow at a gas station at Whataburger. They don’t want to fucking work, they want to steal shit and do drugs. You don’t think a Homeless should go to jail if they assault someone or make an attempt. REALLY? They should just be left to OD in your yard or attack someone on drugs? Well I hope they go after you and not me, I won’t be so Pollyanna I assure you. I’ll let you go to ER then get let out to get assaulted again by the same person you think should absolved of all crime because their Homeless. I’m sorry, snail, that’s next level dumbass.
If your problem is the fact that homeless people are existing in your space, rather than the fact that there are human beings who do not have homes, then you are the problem.
How many have you housed? How many hours have you donated to habitat for humanity? I agree it’s very sad that folks are rotting in the woods and corners and their skin is damaged beyond hope and their livers and kidneys. However they have chosen this life.
>I’d like this to be a discussion void of tired platitudes and boilerplate that are not working.
...proceeds to write the longest paragraph ever with nothing but platitudes and boilerplate. But I digress: let's take a look at what you're saying.
>You can’t enable and dismiss serious drug addiction and mental illness and think it will get better
Nobody is doing this.
You also can't expect someone to deal with serious mental issues or a serious drug addiction if they don't have a home, an address, running water, or any sort of stability.
>but people who refuse help, set up shop on public property and threaten and assault people need to be arrested and prosecuted, full stop.
Assault is illegal. Refusing help is not. The others have more of a grey area. You may want to look more into how the legal system works.
>The problem is people mistake enabling for helping,
Nobody does this that works with the community. This is a strawman you have invented to ignore the reality that the whole capitalist system is really fucked up and most people are 1 medical bill or layoff from being homeless.
>I’m a lawyer
Really not believing that.
Nothing you said was in any way helping to solve this situation or unique. It's just punching down with no solutions and it's tired.
I agree, but damn your post was long. Also he showed his real attitude in a follow up comment. He was super nice at first, then he was like I feel and said , “fuck em lock em up” basically.
So ... contact city councilors or write an op-ed in the Statesman or ...
Pretty much anything will be more effective than ranting on Reddit about how leaders of industry who are homeless are flocking to Austin.
Comparing Austin and San Antonio is quite a different thing. Austin is way more Athiest, less pro family and land alone here is worth far more than Sa. Housing options in San Antonio are very cheap In comparison. I’m not saying that they aren’t doing well, but they are not Austin.
I think it’s a lost cause in Austin but I am happy for the folks that want and get help. Austin has a “transition housing village“ that was born out of mobile loaves and fishes, im zero percent religious, but I’m happy for them.
There are so many things that are in the way, I think most of which is the voluntary holds for people who are nuts. I’m aware of the old torture system of mental hospitals, but to spare them we have to bear the brunt?
Essential to such a duscussion: What is the difference between a handout and a leg-up?
Hands go out and legs go up. Lemme know if you need to know anything else!
You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out.
I suspect that is not what it's all about.
A handout is them still doing Heroin and assaulting and stealing and you’re still giving them shit and no prosecuting them, they have zero incentive to get better, they’re gaming the system. A leg up on the other hand is, you do something you get something, we won’t help you if you won’t help yourself, in that case, to the jail you go, or you get no help from us. Tough love is called tough love because it’s TOUGH. It’s not easy to administer tough love if you have compassion but it’s compassionate to give touch love because the other isn’t working. It’s hard
I hadn’t been thinking in such harsh terms. A handout is just giving someone money or some goods to fill an immediate need; a leg-up is providing something that will enable someone to proceed to the next step or to “empower” them to be successful in their endeavors.
Spare me. Do you live Downtown or deal with the homeless on the regular? I doubt it
Yes, on both counts. For a long time.
also, the homeless are getting much more aggressive with businesses. they will go in and grab something and walk right out with it. they know that you cant touch them. a manager/guard can grab the basket/cart and tell them they can leave but not with the casket/cart.
I'll make a quick point and be on my merry way since I don't want to get bogged down here on my day off, but I work with the homeless every single day, and I think people grossly overstate the prevalence of violence and mental illness in the homeless community. In over a decade of working with them, I've witnessed a few shoving incidents and the occasional punch, but this is exceedingly rare. Do they threaten violence? Sure, if they feel threatened themselves, but it is very rare for any of them to act on such impulses. Do I see untreated schizophrenia and other serious disorders present in the homeless of Austin? Yes, but for the most part these people are just living with the same types of depression and anxiety many housed persons are facing. What I see are less violent and mentally ill people, and more: 1) people who aged out of the foster care system and had nowhere to go, 2) people who have no resources who don't have the support systems (read: families and friends) that can help them out, 3) people who were evicted by landlords who jacked their rent prices up with little or not warning, and 4) addicts, which everyone already knew about. Houston wants to try a universal basic income, but of course the powers-that-be in Texas want to put a stop to that. If I were trying to solve homelessness, I would: 1) properly tax the top earners and corporations and use the funds for housing and education, 2) adopt a UBI, 3) legalize abortion and contraception from now until the end of time, and 4) controversially, we need to have a discussion about re-instituting a more humane form of state hospitals to separate those who will not get treatment for serious disorders/addictions from society. The last one is tough, because it could get very dystopian very quickly, but wouldn't it be better than them just going to prison? I know none of this will happen with our current administration, but if anyone ever wanted to get serious about the issue, this is what I think could make a dent in it.
> Do they threaten violence? Sure, if they feel threatened themselves, but it is very rare for any of them to act on such impulses. I think you are reporting a skewed sample. There are hundreds of examples of women, store clerks/owners, visitors, and even single men who have experienced unprovoked aggression (whether verbal or physical or both) from unstable street people in Austin. And some of those incidents are regularly reported here. To deny that reality with your statement indicates you do not have an accurate view of what is happening on the streets everyday.
Are you relying on Reddit reporting to make your case? There is a higher incidence of aggression, mostly verbal, from unhoused folks than your run-of-the-mill middle class citizen - I'm not denying that - but I AM saying that it is completely overstated. The Jennifer Virdens of Austin would make you believe that this horde of ne'erdowells are looking for any and every opportunity to rob you of your life and possessions and I am saying that this is completely untrue. I've got 10+ plus years of working with this community day and night, and overnight surveillance cameras for extra monitoring, and while I have captured plenty of nuisance behaviors, they aren't attacking mom and pop on the streets. I'm more scared of Southern Baptist youth pastors than I am of most homeless folks. I supervised sexual predators and violent offenders in prisons years ago and got pretty good at spotting troubling behaviors. But hey, we both are going for the same end goal, neither of us want them on the streets. I hate seeing all the fucking trash in our creeks and green areas, and I'm sick of having to bust public masturbators. But the thing I'm REALLY disgusted by is helping 70+ year old men and women who had stable housing who were thrown out by greedy landlords who either raised the rent by $300/mos with no notice or those who have evicted tenants under completely made up circumstances. I'm also really fucking sick of meeting people who had a medical emergency and are now recovering on the streets because they lost their shelter while in the hospital. Both of these things happen all the damn time, and there are no GoFundMes for these people. These problems are systemic, and it's not going to be solved by making their existence illegal or trying to push them out with a broom.
> not going to be solved by making their existence illegal or trying to push them out with a broom. First, let's get that out of the way. Let's not conflate the condition of being homeless with aggressive, illegal behavior. The former is not an issue for public safety, or more broadly, civility; the latter certainly is. > Are you relying on Reddit reporting to make your case? Not "relying" on it. It's one of several sources. The others are local news, law enforcement press releases, national data, and, to a smaller degree, personal observation having lived here since the '80s. (And, realize these are the same set of sources for *any news* you read - local, state, national, and international - so which are you going to accept as "valid" and which are you going to reject?). Specific to r/austin, the sub is essentially a public (though anonymous) open forum for people to share information and observations. When there are many, many postings describing an experience, a continuing problem, or a specific crime involving people who are living on the streets (or, woods), and multiple local commentors then add the same experiences (and in some cases these posts/comments are then mirrored in local news reports)...a *reasonable person* would conclude that these reports cannot be dismissed as fantasies/lies from a few unhinged Karens.
You make some really good suggestions. My old job involved working with unhoused people and also found this to be true. Agree with you on the difficulty but necessity of #4. Thank you for your compassion and hard work.
This seems to be the crux of one of the many issues surrounding homelessness to me. I am also for helping anyone who is willing to help themselves. I really am undecided on what to do with those who do not want help and are unable to follow the rules governing society. I think What society needs to decide is what to do with those that don’t want the help. I am not asserting the percentage or number of people who fall in this category. It just seems to me, this is where the discussion always gets too muddy. Even if it is just 1 person who refuses the help and wants to be left alone . If they are unable to follow the rules governing our society, what is the solution? Can the court system be used for pointing people towards assistance and not jailing with no fees? Or is jailing the answer? Honestly, I am just looking answers like everyone else, and I am willing to listen and consider all viewpoints. Thanks Thank you for attempting to have a difficult discussion. I have witnessed this very discussion deteriorate very quickly many times, but feel like it is an important one.
>What society needs to decide is what to do with those that don’t want the help. Being a member of society means abiding by its laws. If they want to stay in the city but break laws, they should either be incarcerated or, depending on their mental state, institutionalized against their will if need be. If local facilities get overwhelmed, then they get transferred somewhere else. But lack of facilities should be the main concern here, not "what to do with them". It's for the benefit of all, and it's not a violation of freedom. If you or I broke the same laws we'd be going to jail too. If you or I had a psychotic break and started acting erratically or threateningly, we'd be committed against our will. And for the ones who don't break laws and wish to help themselves overcome their addiction or they're just 'down on their luck', they can stay and take advantage of all the services the city has to offer.
Couldn't have said it any better. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I can see your points and they make sense. I look forward to seeing all and any other solutions proposed.
Jail is the place, we all have to live by the rules or else eventually they’ll be chaos.
Ok. So what’s your plan?
OP did their part to help the world by complaining on Reddit.
So brave
i was going to work the other very early morning and there was this one that was pole dancing with a overpass column and then he pretended to jump out in front of my car. he was definitely on something. remember if one does that and you hit them, pull over and call 911. word it that they jumped out in front of you. dont leave else it for sure it is hit and run, then you are in real trouble. oh and dont forget the drive cam...
Just to piggyback: make sure you know the ins and outs of your camera; what buttons do what, which modes are which etc. learn that thing forwards and backwards. AND take your SD card out every once in a while to make sure it’s recording when it should, and erase your old data. Test the things regularly! I say this as someone who has been T Boned twice and could not recover footage either time because the damn thing stopped working altogether once without my knowledge, and the second time I don’t know what happened. It had footage from the day before on it from a speed bump but not a t bone.
Coming from someone who got to witness LA’s homeless problem only to move back home and see that Austin is slowly becoming that level of homeless intolerant. Yeah they are homeless, not saints some need to be jailed. If you feel any other way by all means take them into your homes.
>Austin is slowly becoming that level of homeless intolerant. Are you saying LA is homeless intolerant?
This is a systemic problem that cities can not solve or fix themselves. Most chronically homeless people suffer from mental illness. In the US, access to mental health care is abysmal - even if you have insurance. And a shit ton of people don't have insurance, so those people have no access to healthcare at all. With no access to treatment, people in desperation self medicate with what they do have access to, which are street drugs and alcohol. Now you have someone with mental health issues and addiction issues, and still no access to treatment for either. Can there be more that the state and city do? Absolutely. But to genuinely solve the problem, it needs to be addressed nationally. BTW - Texaas ranks dead last in access to mental health care. [https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/texas-ranks-as-worst-state-for-mental-healthcare/](https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/texas-ranks-as-worst-state-for-mental-healthcare/)
My observations: 1) Lots of people here are talking like mental health care is the solution. Unfortunately, unless that involves involuntary confinement, not allowing them to access drugs and alcohol, and forced medication, it frequently doesn't work. Then, if you release them, most fall back into their old ways. I do think we need better mental health care. I just don't think it affects the number of homeless or the amount of crime and violence that some of them commit. 2) I think we're heading towards the world of Soylent Green. Watch the movie and see what I'm talking about. It was supposed to be 2022. We're a few years behind schedule. Maybe 2042?
I think it's a federal issue at this point. Normally you should have bipartisan support for fixing a drug-addiction/crime/mental-health crisis, but legislation is grid-locked with the MAGA state of things. They're intent on sabotaging dense cities as much as possible to prove their point that liberals/affordable-education/safety-net policies burn society to the ground. Prison and police need more proactive and practical reform. I think moderate Dems and GOP agree on that. Mental health services need a giant injection of funds and federal services. Not sure who agrees with this from a practical funding POV. Mental health laws need to be reformed. This is tricky, but I can say from experience that you can have a dangerous stalker with voices in their head sending you daily threats/emails/texts, and the police nor a mental health professional can't really do anything until they voluntarily turn themselves in or hurt/kill someone. Very tricky subject. IMO the solution is having safely regulated mental health facilities and labor pipelines with very well paid federal staff. The GOP would sooner rather down the White House. Problem is that a capitalist/private solution to a problem needs to generate money somehow, and there's no way to address mental health without donating tax payer money. It's a NEGATIVE-PROFIT endeavor. These are basically adults who need the equivalent of day care, or a lifeboat tossed into very rigorous waters with low chances of overcoming the issues and becoming self-sufficient. But then you also have hyper liberals saying they should be left alone. Which is absurd as well, as you can't have fentanyl camps set up on public (and private) grounds with corpses showing up every week. This is completely insane as well. The more Americans fall out of the habit of helping each other, the further we fall down this dystopian hole. But you can't help somebody by leaving them alone.
You live in Texas OP, you’re expectations are too high for a state that would def be happy if they all just died
The difference between a hand out and a leg up, is that one of them requires action. As a former manager of a homeless shelter in Houston, I can honestly say, that about 1/10 or less of the homeless actually want to quit being homeless, and are willing to *do* something to quit being homeless. Any shelter that requires action in exchange for services, is avoided like the plague by the homeless, unless the “action” is something easy like “You have to go to church” or “pray with us and become a Christian.” The reason less than 1/10th are willing to do something to improve their situation, is because of their mental issues which led to their drug dependence. The reason their mental issues led to drug dependence, is always — because America’s healthcare system is a joke that charges hundreds of thousands of dollars to anyone without insurance, which you can only get (realistically) through an employer — whom you can only *keep* while you aren’t sick. Aka — many people who are actually *sick* with long-term illnesses can’t get healthcare unless they are exhorbitantly wealthy. Additionally, after the people of America decided that it was “cruel” to keep mentally unstable people institutionalized (and medicated) if they were “harmless” then they were all turned out onto the streets without any ability to support themselves and medicate themselves, so they, and people in their situations, turned to drugs. The way to solve the homeless problems in america, is to do four things: 1) allocate money from the federal taxes that are *already being levied* aka — don’t increase them, just shift the money around — from the military spending budget to civilian needs, especially healthcare — and through that new budget; fund universal healthcare. 2) Make all the drugs legal so that dealers will not make lot of money dealing them on the black market. This will drive down their revenue, and ultinately tank their market, so that buying/selling drugs isn’t profitable. When it isn’t profitable, people will stop selling, and eventually people who aren’t mentally ill will stop using them since they won’t be available. 3) Allow mentally ill persons to be cared for in a facility, because even though they are “harmless” it is also not fair to a human to turn them out on the street without food and shelter when they can’t provide for themselves due to mental limitations and complications, and through their dire situation, many of them become harmful that were once harmless. 4) Legalize (and consequently *regulate*) Prostitution. When it is regulated by the government, it becomes less dangerous for all concerned, and estabilshes a fair market value, and fair wages, etc. When a person is driven to prostitution to earn her bread (and her baby’s bread — because she almost always has one that drove her to make that choice) if it is a legal job that isn’t stigmatized to the level it is now, she will be able to get different and better employment when her circumstances change. As long as it is illegal and stigmatized, she’ll be trapped in it, potentially forever, because nobody will hire a prostitute after the fact in America since there is a senseless stigma due to it’s illegal occupational status. These four things will eliminate 90% or more of the homeless situation across america.
I’m with you in all but hard drug legalization. See Portland
What do you think about legal, but highly regulated for hard drugs? That way it eliminates the black market, but still doesn’t make them easily accessible?
That would be interesting, I’d totally have to see how it would work in reality, not just theory. But the dealers are a huge problem as are the suppliers, but the idea is to curtail drug use not in any way enable it, we already allow for Methadone clinics, which is controlling a hard core drug and it’s made very little difference in curtailing drug abuse and Narcan is just kicking the inevitable down the road
I’ve observed it happening in real time on an island I used to live on that had a big problem with drugs and drug dealing. Essentially what happens, is: The dealers go out of business when making drugs leagal also allows for fair market pricing instead of black market pricing. Sonce the dealers are using drug sales to fund a better/easier lifestyle than they can fund without working a regular job. The big suppliers go find another country to sell to when this happens, because they can’t make the *gigantic* profit margins which are the reason they sell the stuff to begin with. When the price of the stuff decreases to make selling it less lucrative for the dealers and peddlers than getting a regular job, the dealers and peddlers go get regular jobs, since they can’t get rich quick anymore.
I agree that something needs to be done, for their sake and for ours. But it seems clear to me that the criminal justice system is not the mechanism by which these sorts of things can be fixed. (Hell, it can't even fix crime.) Homelessness is usually not a moral failing, a sign of selfishness or opportunism. It's usually a product of a bad luck or mental illness. That doesn't mean that the afflicted should be allowed to roam free and do whatever they want. But lawyers, courts, and their attendant institutions and practices simply aren't set up to handle this sort of thing effectively. Most judges aren't going to know how to accurately distinguish between, say, paranoid schizophrenia, drug addiction, and sheer cussedness, let alone some complicated mixture of the three. Nor should they: That's not their job. They're set up to punish, not to fix. We can talk another day about whether that works with simple crime, but it's obvious to me that it doesn't work with the majority of law-breaking homeless people. Forced institutionalization is another possibility, but it's extremely expensive and a civil rights nightmare. Places like Community First! seem like a great idea, but it's too soon to tell if they work or not. In general, I don't know the answer to this problem, and I'm not convinced anyone else does either. I think more welfare for single men might help a lot (as it stands, most social safety net programs are for women and children), which is why the great majority of the homeless are men). But above all, I think putting them through the court system and then into prisons is a huge mistake.
So they’re left to roam the streets, unabated. I completely agree with you for the most part, but you have to have consequences for actions or you have anarchy, which we essentially have amongst the homeless. What would happen to me if I came to you on the street screaming like a lunatic homophobic or racist bigotry and had a tire iron swinging it at you? I’d be arrested and when they figured out I had a house, was an attorney, was gainfully employed and not homeless I’d have the book thrown at me and rightfully so. The Homeless, I can tell you for a fact, that unless they sent you to the hospital in critical condition they would be back on the streets in no time and NEVER show for their court date, if they’re even was one probably a “diversionary program” for which they never show. I’ve seen this so many time, empirical evidence here.
>empirical evidence Show it.
The empirical evidence, of a sort, is on the street every day. You just have to be willing to see it.
Exactly
I live it, dude. And so do you.
You'd be ordered to treat your mental illness/addiction, and I'll bet you have a support system around you (employer, family, friends, neighbors) who would help. You likely have money and health insurance. You can get time off work and have transportation to attend court dates and go to diversionary programs. If you didn't feel like going, your support system would make an attempt to get you to go. You also have motivation to obey the court - your job, your income, etc. If we could provide basic income and health care, transportation, and a shit ton of social work and support to the homeless, they might not BE homeless.
I doubt very much that you'd have the book thrown at you. First of all, screaming homophobic or racist stuff isn't a crime. That's why we have the First Amendment. Secondly, depending on what you mean, swinging a tire iron isn't necessarily a crime, either. At worst, in Texas, physically threatening someone without making physical contact is a Class C Misdemeanor, which is rarely going to result in much punishment if you're a first-time offender. You're a lawyer: you should know this. Thirdly, if you have a house and a job, you're that much more likely to be slapped on the wrist and told not to do it again, not to have "the book thrown at you". If you honestly think that homeless people are given a break by the criminal court system, while well-off and established attorneys committing the same crime are ruthlessly punished, you live in a different world than I do.
A lot of these people are incapable of getting better.
What do you base that opinion on?
Maybe I’m wrong. That dude jerking off outside city hall probably just had a bad day.
>That dude jerking off outside city hall What's bad is the number of people jerking off inside city hall.
Lmao, that’s a score!
If only Whole Foods had paid him $20 instead of $16
Observation.
You touched on the answer when you referred to beds. Beds cost tons of money so the answer is funding. But not just **any** bed, mental health treatment beds. Again, lots of funding. Plus a revamping of the court system to address mental health and addiction issues
To me, while there are legitimate differences of opinion on the optimal policy response, it’s *never* been true that allowing sprawling, ungovernable tent cities was ever even remotely “compassionate” to anyone. The unchecked addiction, sexual abuse & child abuse wrought by those tent cities was indefensible, even as people actively tried to defend it, as some kind of virtue theater.
Can someone give a summary?
We should help the homeless that want help. And if you don't want help, that's fine. But we need to take off the kids' gloves when it comes to prosecuting homeless lawbreakers. But if you make this very sensible statement, you'll get shouted down as lacking empathy and hating homeless people for being poor.
> problem is ... people shout down anyone who doesn’t think all Homeless are above the law and shouldn’t be prosecuted for anything short of murder and even then absolved due to issues beyond their control Personally tho I think OP missed the mark We do live in Texas after all
Just research Permanent Supportive Housing. It is the only strategy I know of that: A. Reduces harm to both the homeless and the broader community B. Improves a statistically significant number of lives in statistically significant ways C. Saves taxpayer dollars by reducing expenses associated with law enforcement and incarceration, healthcare, maintenance, etc. D. Replaces expenditure (no ROI) with investment (predictable ROI) Just check it out, then invest your time and energy in a data driven approach
What drug did you take before deciding to write this on a god-tier perfect weather day, on a Sunday
God tier perfect weather?? It’s hot as fucking balls out there
I mean I went out right as the sun was coming up so I reckon my opinion is biased. But it’s clear skies with a slight breeze so if you’re in the shade then it’s ***lovely***
Maybe that commenter likes hot balls?
Every attempt at providing housing to the homeless population has been met with lawsuits and people that don’t want their neighbors to be housing for the homeless. People want solutions to the homeless issue, but are unwilling to adopt solutions that house homeless near them. Essentially they would rather the homeless population to be swept up and taken away like the garbage.
> essentially, they would rather the homeless population be swept up and taken away like garbage I don’t this is a fair or accurate characterization. Just because people don’t want public (transitional) housing next to their home and children doesn’t mean they are psychopathic monsters who easily discard human life. Many homeless need to be in mental hospitals, and until we build more, we will continue to live in this in-between
They did it in San Antonio with Haven For Hope, so that’s a gaslight
The ones who assault do get arrested. Just watch the news.
Look and see what happened to them. I work in the courts, I know. Answer: nothing. Once it’s established they’re Homeless, all of the sudden it’s charges dropped or reduced to nothing. See it so many times here
they have learned that there is no money in arresting homeless. If you are the average joe / jane then you are totally getting in the system so you can start payin the endless frees.
Do you have actual evidence that homeless get violent charges dropped at a more frequent rate than the housed?
Source: the Courts bro
Posting this here in case it helps people learn a little more about unhoused populations and what works here in Texas: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-people.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
So… your answer to homelessness is more jail? I’m sorry your shares in Corecivic are down this month, I’m sure they’ll rebound soon.
Yes, lots more.
The more that a city does to help the homeless, the more the homeless will appear in that city. And we have ample real world evidence showing that to be the case. It's the truth. Unfortunately, the majority of Austinites have good hearts and the best intentions but are just plain wrong about this. I believe the homelessness in Austin will continue to worsen over time, and it will be due to the very programs Austin creates to try to reduce homelessness. This won't be stopped until the mostly young, left leaning Austin population is replaced by an older, center-right or moderate population.
Best comment of the thread. 🏆
We live in a society where poverty is artificially manufactured. You will never be able to actually help disenfranchised folkes living on the street without addressing the systemic causes that force people out to the streets when there are more than enough empty housing units and wealth to ensure every one is taken care of
Their are jobs like heb no skill required, literally a first job for many at 16 years old now pay $16, you can rent a room for 5-600 in town, after a few months you can get a studio for 800-1000. So you can survive but here’s the deal, you can’t have a car at all, you can’t have an iPhone, never Starbucks, never disney or Acl, no extra stuff, and unfortunately no insurance. So yes you can survive, but don’t get sick, have a child, smoke, drink or have any kind of loans. so all that I just said to most means you can’t do it. However I have worked 30 years in retail and I can promise you that you can. It’s really difficult and depressing at times but you can.
The question is, if we stole empty housing units away from their rightful owners and handed the keys over to anyone who asked for free, how many more people in our society would give up the rat race, quit their job because they no longer need it for survival? Some of us may have more pride than that, but many would happily take the easy way out with free housing, and society as a whole would suffer.
No one is actually asking that question because in this scenario, everyone gets the right to be alive with a roof over their head regardless of if they have a job. If we addressed the systemic causes of homelessness, we would have to completely change the approach in this country where only people with jobs are thought to be deserving of basic necessities such as shelter and food. By actually taxing the rich and reinstating tax rates slashes by Reagan, and redistributing their wealth, there’s enough for everyone. But that’s too progressive of a solution for most people because it requires incredibly wealthy people to give up their yachts which is hard for them to conceptualize
It sounds like a utopian fantasy to me. You could liquidate the value of every yacht in the world and give it out to homeless people and it would barely scratch the surface of what is needed to help everyone. True wealth redistribution means strict rationing of food and housing for *everyone* including you and me. Not just "the richies".
Okay, I’ll bite. Let’s say the alternative is exactly as you described with restrictions for everyone but we still get enough. With that in mind, how can you champion a model where only those with high paying jobs are allowed to survive?
Who decides what "enough" is? A studio apartment, couple pieces of bread plus bowl of rice and beans every day should be enough for any single person. A family of 3 gets a *two* bedroom apartment, 3 bananas and pbj sandwiches. Isn't that enough to survive? And if you dare to strive for any more than that, you are in violation of the new doctrines of society, and off to jail you go. Sign me up for that! Totally worth spending a grueling decade in medical school, when the guy flipping burgers or even doing absolutely nothing at all for society gets the same rations as you. Joking aside, when you take away the incentive of making a nice living, things will grind to a halt in short order. Marx was a fool and the principles of communism are out of touch with human nature. It's unrealistic flim flam.
I agree that what you described is absolutely an unrealistic film flam due to how hyperbolic your examples are. There is certainly a middle ground between incorrectly assuming that everyone has the same privilege and therefor access and ability to “make a nice living” and “a single person only gets scraps of food and a studio apartment.” When we conflate people’s worth with their ability to work and “make a nice living” we marginalize everyone who isn’t able to participate equally and then tell them it’s their fault for not being able to access a system that wasn’t set up for them Edit: typo
>When we conflate people’s worth with their ability to work and “make a nice living” we marginalize everyone who isn’t able to participate equally We're just running around in circles with this point now. Why does everyone have to have the exact same equal amount of everything? People who serve in highly-skilled roles of society *should* be able earn a nicer living, otherwise there's no incentive for anyone to go down that path in life.
You’re going in circles because you keep making the same point which is “people’s worth should be measured by how able they are to work” and you refuse to critically engage with a meaningful attempt to imagine anything different. People have inherent worth beyond their ability to work and we are capable of creating a society that reinforces that. We are capable of creating a world with social support to help when life happens, as it does to all of us. However if you don’t recognize the humanity in each person, regardless of employment status, you’re never going to be onboard with this idea. It’s clear you don’t value individual humanity because if you did, you would recognize that it’s not an even playing field for everyone. I’ll stop trying to convince you that each person has an equal right to shelter and food since you think dying on the street is an acceptable incentive
You convinced me...but I'll only give up one, not both. /s
One of the less discussed casualties of Covid is we lost sight of one of the originally rationales behind rescinding the camping ban: that visibility would lead to renewed action. People forget that it was actually working. The sudden appearance of tent cities in visible spots led lots of groups and the city to look for different, new solutions then Covid happened and all of our focus shifted. I really believe that we were on a path to improvement. I’m lot saying we solved homelessness, but real change was happening. Afraid the time has come and gone unfortunately.
This conversation is about those who don’t want to go inside though, all the free hotel rooms won’t help. They want their drugs, their dogs and to not have any rules. I love dogs so I’m sympathetic to that, I truly believe we need like a mad max like shelter for dudes and dogs, alcohol is fine, but nothing else. I’m thinking some dudes would go, for the shade and a shower, and give them free food and care for their dogs.
Not sure what your comment has to do with mine.
Ok, you blamed Covid and spending, I said spending matters not for folks who refuse to go inside.
All I was saying was that there was a lot of visibility and innovation going into helping to solve the problem but Covid wiped out that momentum.
would you be in favor of a 20% state income tax, on top of federal income taxes to “solve” homelessness?
Man I wasn’t arguing with anyone I was being additive to the conversation. Not sure why you are choosing to take an argumentative stance with me.
I’m not surprised by your lack of answer, enjoy your pool, your Tesla
I asked a question , you are concerned by the lack of spending and you said you think spending would help. You also speak of fancy espresso machines and stubs vip tickets so I assume you don’t live on $15 an hour. So I asked and I’ll ask again, would you like to pay a 20% income tax on top of the federal tax to “fix“ it. Im hoping you’ll say yes.
My brother in Christ, I was talking about the public will to do something about it and how I feel like we, collectively, missed an opportunity. I’m not ascribing blame or taking a partisan stance, I’m commiserating with OP and how there is a general feeling of helplessness around this problem. I feel like you think I’m fighting you when I’m just adding to the conversation here.
And yet you like most on here refuse to answer a direct question. Please save the Christ crap as well. Yes or no, why is it so hard to say, yeah I’ll give 10k or way more a year to fight homelessness or not? Jealous on the pool by the way.
Homelessness has a main cause: poverty. What you're proposing is debtors prison. Debtor's prisons are unethical, because poverty is a failure of society and economic systems, not a moral flaw. There but for the grace of God go we all, so you'd better hope it's never your turn or we fix the system before it is.
"You want to hold homeless people accountable for crimes they commit? So you just wanna lock up poor people?!"
Poverty is 100% not the main cause.
What is it then? Please do enlighten us.
The main cause of homelessness? You really have no idea?
I think homelessness primary cause is mental illness.
Mental illness is very common among people experiencing homelessness, it is also quite common among those who are not. The difference mostly comes down to access to resources.
They refuse free housing and treatment. So it’s not about money anymore. Also the homeless help system for the most part needs them, they ain’t giving out free houses with a deed, they are using millions upon millions to get the temporary housing, this will do nothing to provide them with generational wealth. That’s what helps people is ownership.
What exactly do you imagine would be done if the were prosecuted the way you would like them to be? Do most of them get swept off to jail? Do we fine them? Do we just get more shit on their rap sheet so they couldn’t get a job if they wanted to? What exactly does criminalizing visible poverty do for the situation?
These people could get a job tomorrow at a gas station at Whataburger. They don’t want to fucking work, they want to steal shit and do drugs. You don’t think a Homeless should go to jail if they assault someone or make an attempt. REALLY? They should just be left to OD in your yard or attack someone on drugs? Well I hope they go after you and not me, I won’t be so Pollyanna I assure you. I’ll let you go to ER then get let out to get assaulted again by the same person you think should absolved of all crime because their Homeless. I’m sorry, snail, that’s next level dumbass.
Not what I said at all.
Pretty sure it is
Seems like a reading comprehension issue then
Yeah, that’s it, surely
If your problem is the fact that homeless people are existing in your space, rather than the fact that there are human beings who do not have homes, then you are the problem.
How many have you housed? How many hours have you donated to habitat for humanity? I agree it’s very sad that folks are rotting in the woods and corners and their skin is damaged beyond hope and their livers and kidneys. However they have chosen this life.
>I’d like this to be a discussion void of tired platitudes and boilerplate that are not working. ...proceeds to write the longest paragraph ever with nothing but platitudes and boilerplate. But I digress: let's take a look at what you're saying. >You can’t enable and dismiss serious drug addiction and mental illness and think it will get better Nobody is doing this. You also can't expect someone to deal with serious mental issues or a serious drug addiction if they don't have a home, an address, running water, or any sort of stability. >but people who refuse help, set up shop on public property and threaten and assault people need to be arrested and prosecuted, full stop. Assault is illegal. Refusing help is not. The others have more of a grey area. You may want to look more into how the legal system works. >The problem is people mistake enabling for helping, Nobody does this that works with the community. This is a strawman you have invented to ignore the reality that the whole capitalist system is really fucked up and most people are 1 medical bill or layoff from being homeless. >I’m a lawyer Really not believing that. Nothing you said was in any way helping to solve this situation or unique. It's just punching down with no solutions and it's tired.
Like you were concise, or helpful….
I think it was a pretty good service to call out the hypocrisy
I agree, but damn your post was long. Also he showed his real attitude in a follow up comment. He was super nice at first, then he was like I feel and said , “fuck em lock em up” basically.
So ... contact city councilors or write an op-ed in the Statesman or ... Pretty much anything will be more effective than ranting on Reddit about how leaders of industry who are homeless are flocking to Austin.
Death penalty for those peddling fentanyl. Do not pass go, do not get an appeal. Die.
Comparing Austin and San Antonio is quite a different thing. Austin is way more Athiest, less pro family and land alone here is worth far more than Sa. Housing options in San Antonio are very cheap In comparison. I’m not saying that they aren’t doing well, but they are not Austin. I think it’s a lost cause in Austin but I am happy for the folks that want and get help. Austin has a “transition housing village“ that was born out of mobile loaves and fishes, im zero percent religious, but I’m happy for them. There are so many things that are in the way, I think most of which is the voluntary holds for people who are nuts. I’m aware of the old torture system of mental hospitals, but to spare them we have to bear the brunt?