Homeless, How do towns deal with it?

[BRTreedogs]

I mean, mostly just because I like to stir the pot.
But the whole construct of homes & homeless has been around significantly less time then then is was to migrate around living off the land in temporary shelters.

Maybe this is how non hunters view hunter’s , just as archaic and disgusting.

They may be just living there best life in a style gone by.


And I got to tell you, I’m single with no kids and paying 50% in taxes.
I’m not so sure a job and paying for all this for essentially no reason is in the cards much longer for me.

Why should I go to work every day just to have half stolen, and the majority of the rest go to a house I don’t really need?

 

[WoolOverAll]

Most working class Americans are closer to being homeless than being wealthy. You’re only one bad decision away.

It doesn't even need to be a bad decision. Last year I had major abdominal surgery and the docs kept pushing oxy on me. I had to refuse and go with lower tier pain killers multiple times. If I had just followed docs orders, who knows if I would have been hooked on it. I healed just fine without needing a highly addictive opioid.

I would hope after paying into the system my whole life that I wouldn't be left to rot if I fell on hard times.

 

[IdahoBeav]

Used to have to work in western OR, and just visited some relatives during the holidays. Although maybe not as many encampments as I’ve seen in years past, it’s still disgusting. As we were heading to the airport Monday, we seen a huge plume of smoke up ahead near the freeway. Yep, coming from homeless encampment, on the freeway right of way. And get this, the residents of the 3 or 4 largest liberal metropolitan cities (on the west side) have to pay a 1% HOMELESS Tax.

Since the Grants Pass v. Johnson SCOTUS ruling, there have been a number of cities in Oregon that shut down and cleaned up camps. It mostly depends on the political leaning of local government. In the Bend area, there are homeless camps in the woods on FS land.

 

[CRJR45]

Yeah, that’s exactly what you do. The vast majority of them have or are committing a crime. I would wager to bet that they are on drugs or have drugs on their person, that they are more than likely in possession of stolen property, or are violating a MC or law by setting up camps in unauthorized places, by littering, or by loitering.

The homeless in the City I work continually leave trash everywhere, destroy public property, and make people feel uncomfortable in the City Parks that are public property paid for and maintained by public tax funds.

So you take people off the street , where they don’t cost me nothing and put them in jail , how is that solving a problem?
Instead of paying for the programs that help them now we are paying to incarcerate them ?
You just shifted the problem, that’s not a cure .

 

[Pokerface]

Work camps maybe. Tents and cots , fenced in . Let them farm for food . Those who fail , die, or decide from there - send to Mexico or Canada maybe.....Joe

 

[Jacob Lake]

There is no homeless problem in the USA. There is a drug addiction/mental health problem. All the feel good little hand outs are disregarded and unappreciated. I’m speaking from 30+ years of fire service experience (Central California). I wish it weren’t true but that is my experience.

All those who will protest anything environmental, didn’t make a peep as the most recent flooding here washed literally metric tons of human waste and garbage into mostly pristine ocean waters.

I feel sorry for the very minor percentage of people who are truly down on their luck and truly do need and appreciate some assistance.

When I’m approached, my rule is, I won’t give you money, but if you’re hungry I will get you something to eat. Very very few have taken me up on my offer.


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[mt terry d]

A few forty degrees below zero days discourages them in our area.

 

[iamthenick]

They dont wanna be self-sufficient, they wanna live on the scraps of others... throw their trash everywhere... and shit and piss all over the place.

If people would stop feeding them and giving them money they would figure out a way to work. But these people would much rather beg all day and get piss drunk and high and lay on the pavement and there's a large group of people who seem perfectly fine with financing this life style.

 

[Nine Banger]

Have you offered to take him in? If so what was the result?

He comes thru for a few weeks every now and then.

He always has something over the next ridge to move onto tho.

It's a saga.

 

[Harvey_NW]

Yakima just lets them live down by the river and start wildfires every summer...

And poop in the on ramp median (drove by a guy full on dropping a deuce mid day), and build wood stoves under the bridges without a permit..

 

[solarshooter]

We used to go up to Seattle 2 or 3 times a year and stay overnight, have a nice dinner, maybe see a show or art museum, etc. I will not set foot in that $hithole anymore, haven't for 10 years or so.

Lol, you're probably too broke to afford it here, even for a weekend!

A lot of you are showing your true colors on this thread. Not surprised, but you'd think a community that claims to prize logic and data would have a better understanding of this issue. This is like a 9th or 10th grade level discussion. If you think homelessness or addiction are choices people make for fun and rewards, and that people committing crimes in these circumstances are criminals clear and simple, then you are an idiot.

Many of you are calling for the extermination (either directly or indirectly) of hundreds of thousands of people. If you can't look at these people and see real humans who deserve something more than death from the wealthiest and most advanced nation on Earth, you do not have a soul.

If you think the cost of housing, feeding, and rehabilitating the ~1M homeless people in the US even comes close to the amount of money we spend lining the pockets of defense companies, oil companies, crooked politicians, or just straight up bundling up and sending off to other countries, you are an idiot. You'd rather see Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin stock prices surge than take care of literal basic human needs of the most destitute in our society?? You're worse than an idiot, you're bootlicking cattle.

 

[Clark33]

And poop in the on ramp median (drove by a guy full on dropping a deuce mid day), and build wood stoves under the bridges without a permit..
View attachment 1000045

I saw a guy the other day off Yak Ave (by the catholic church) frank and beans out mid day taking a leak.... stay classy Yakima!

 

[Hnthrdr]

He comes thru for a few weeks every now and then.

He always has something over the next ridge to move onto tho.

It's a saga.

Seems like that’s the case with a lot of the vagabond types I’m sure, it’s nice of you to stand by him, but you can take a horse to water, can’t make them drink though

 

[CorbLand]

I feel like one thing gets lost in conversations like this. There is a massive difference between two types of being homeless. There’s the ones that are doing drugs, shitting on the streets, etc and the ones that prefer a transient life style.

There was a homeless dude where I grew up. He just wandered the country. He had friends in that town so during the summer he always made his way there for a bit. He would do odd jobs to make money and in a couple weeks pack up and hitch his way someplace else. He didn’t hurt anything or anybody. I remember tons of people looking down on him, even calling him a drag on society. Never understood how simply choosing a different way of life makes people the “other than.”

Massive difference between the two types.

 

[ozyclint]

My neighbor feeds alley cats....he doesn't have any mice

Bet he has a shit ton of alley cats

 

[Jimmy]

They're saying the fraud in California is going to make the MN fraud look like amateur hour.


How much money has been poured into programs to help?

Hundreds of millions

 

[dr.mooseknuckles]

There was a movie back in the 90's based off of Richard Connell's short story (The Most Dangerous Game) with Ice-T in it called Surviving the Game.

 

[taskswap]

The fraud going on in The homeless community is probably 100x what’s being uncovered in Minnesota. It’s terrible and some people have severe mental and drug problems that need fixed, but there is an abundant amount of people that are profiting off of it and will never want “homelessness” going away.

This is a common GOP talking point and like any good lie it's based a little bit on truth. The lie they insert is where the words "some" and "abundant" go in the sentence. The vast majority of homeless folks have genuine issues that are really hard to solve and absolutely not "I see McDonald's is hiring, why don't you get a job?" territory. It's a very small minority that "fakes it" and even those folks have reasons.

To argue against it, you'd have to make a convincing case that somebody, somewhere, would genuinely prefer to stand on a street corner begging in the middle of winter while it's snowing, with nowhere to go that night, instead of standing in a warm building flipping burgers, one of the easiest jobs in the world and now qualifying for some housing benefits. It's just the most insane position in the world. If they could, they would. Something is preventing it, and it isn't a personal preference driving the decision.

Being homeless is not the easy way out of anything. It's one of the hardest ways to survive. Most folks who have never been homeless don't realize just how hard of an existence it is. There aren't enough shelters, and the ones that do are often not safe places. But what's worse is you can't even just say "well, it's not supposed to be easy, at least there IS a shelter" but even that isn't true for folks who have been homeless more than a few months, because nearly all shelters have stay limits. You're only allowed to stay for a few days, or in a few (rare) cases, 30-45 at most. Once you've moved around a few, you run out of places to go and you're back on the street with no options left. Since shelters don't provide mental or physical healthcare, if you have an underlying problem, all you do is delay the disaster a month or two.

Look, I'm not calling you (wnelson14) out specifically, so please don't take this personally. This was just the comment my reply fit best against. But all we're doing here today is repeating the same hand-wringing combined with inefficiency combined with heartlessness that has surrounded this issue since it's ever been discussed. It's not going to get fixed and not going to make anybody here happy so why rehash it in a hunting forum?

Honestly, the saddest part about it is that if you poke through this thread, the absolute worst comments are usually from the people whose signatures quote Bible verses. If Jesus was real, those are the folks he'd be most ashamed of.

 

[JJ1179]

So you take people off the street , where they don’t cost me nothing and put them in jail , how is that solving a problem?
Instead of paying for the programs that help them now we are paying to incarcerate them ?
You just shifted the problem, that’s not a cure .

You really think they don’t cost you anything? That’s foolish. Just as a few examples….Every time there’s a police call for service - that costs you and every other tax payer something. Every time there’s a medical call - that costs you and every other tax payer something. Every time one of them destroys or damages public property - that costs you and every other tax payer something. Virtually nothing is free. Every program or “aid” costs someone something.

Now, if they are just living their life off grid and not causing issues or damaging property, yeah, maybe they don’t cost you anything, however that’s highly unlikely.

 

[Yoder]

Usually towns or states get a ton of money to help the homeless then just steal it. If you actually help the homeless, you stop getting money to "help" them.