Homeless, How do towns deal with it?

[wapitibob]

You're all next!

And when your parents and uncles and aunts become too old and a burden on society, we should do this to them too? Hope they saved for retirement or it's off to the gulags! But I know you're so morally straight and true, that if it was your kid (hopefully you have none) that ended up addicted to drugs, you'd sign their rights away and send them into slavery too, right? For the good of society.

Relax Karen, it was a joke, mostly.

We now have a fairly large "houseless" (new left wing version of homeless) issue in this town, one I've lived in for 69 years. I've talked to the 1st responders who give them a free ride to the ER when it gets cold; mandatory ER visit and overnight stay when the words "chest pain" cross their lips, and I've had a discussion with a County Commissioner on what can be done to help with the "issue".
Reality is, whether you like it or not, is that most of these people in my area were bussed here or hitchhiked here because their homeless "services" app directed them to this town. They don't want help getting off the side of the 2nd street, or moving out of "dirt world", they want to camp, with their brand new camp gear, cell phone, free meals, and loaded up Uber card. They don't want jobs, and they don't want "help". They would do just fine on that cruise ship.
We have places and services for the mom and 2 kids who are living out of the car, and the drug addicted, should they choose to use those services, and we're adding to them all the time. In this area, it's going to take private property, and a lot of money to pay for housing, services, and security, and there's only so much money to go around.

 

[WCB]

It's a matter of priority. We just increased our military budget from 1 trillion to 1.5 trillion with a tweet. We could spend 100k per year housing and feeding every homeless person and it would reduce our available defense budget to ONLY a measly 1.4 trillion.

But, we need to make sure our "allies" get free F-15s and batteries of missiles. And people get mad at the homeless for asking for "handouts". Unbelievable.

And this isn't even getting at the real meat, the hundreds of billions of evaded tax revenue, the manufactured-for-profit opioid epidemic, uncontrolled speculation in the housing market pricing most people under 60 out.

This is the reason for the tents on your street. We no longer live in a functioning country.

Trump saying it and it happening are two different things but I tell you what has happen here in MN the liberal POS government let $9 Billion + get taken from the tax payer and we have gone from an $18 billion surplus in 2023 to I believe a $3 Billion deficit next year. Were any of those new spending projects that ate away at the surplus feeding or helping the homeless directly. Absolutely not. I'd worry more on the local and state level than the national level.

 

[solarshooter]

Trump saying it and it happening are two different things but I tell you what has happen here in MN the liberal POS government let $9 Billion + get taken from the tax payer and we have gone from an $18 billion surplus in 2023 to I believe a $3 Billion deficit next year. Were any of those new spending projects that ate away at the surplus feeding or helping the homeless directly. Absolutely not. I'd worry more on the local and state level than the national level.

These numbers are absolute peanuts. But yes I agree fraud should not be allowed.

Relax Karen, it was a joke, mostly.

No such thing these days.

 

[307]

Throwing money at the problem doesn't seem to make things better in the long run.

You can't help people who don't want it or aren't willing to try to help themselves.

 

[CRJR45]

Throwing money at the problem doesn't seem to make things better in the long run.

You can't help people who don't want it or aren't willing to try to help themselves.

THIS^^^ In all things , this !

 

[jmez]

Um, throwing money at it fixes everything. Corrupt politicians and their friends increase their wealth exopentially. They, along with other caring folks get to virtue signal with with pictures of big fake checks.
And finally they can sleep better at night feeding their moral superiority complex because they are "doing something."

 

[Habitat#1]

We do what ever we can to avoid them in our small town. The next towns over that are midsized are crawling with them and now that they have burnt down about every vacant building in last couple years hopefully they will move on.There has to be a way to make them earn their shelter and food.It will take a state law protecting entities from liability for having them rake leaves or whatever.But I know some that have an apt. with full utilities but want to go to the gas station and take a spit bath in the bathroom instead.I understand alot of it's mental but that being said I don't think they want to go back like old days drugged and in a asylum.

 

[Naiche]

Well bleeding hearts, guess you have never lived in a hellhole created by drug addicted thieves. Why don’t you give the poor misunderstood abused bums a key to your place?

 

[solarshooter]

Well bleeding hearts, guess you have never lived in a hellhole created by drug addicted thieves. Why don’t you give the poor misunderstood abused bums a key to your place?

Been around them all my life in a big city that the media would have you believe is literally on fire and completely lawless. Helped a few, yelled at a few, mostly avoid them, never ever had problems or an altercation.

I have had friends more impacted, mostly small thefts and breaking into cars. Never heard of any bodily harm or even threat of harm to anyone I know or even people they know. The only time I've ever had a car break in here was in an affluent part of town where I left my car unlocked overnight accidentally.

Lived in a small <10k red town in the desert for 3 years, no homeless but crime was MUCH worse there. Had multiple car break ins there. Stray dogs everywhere. Active meth labs in the desert I'd roll up on out dirtbiking. Trash everywhere outside of town.

Which one sounds worse to you?

 

[PNW bow hunter]

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.

Can you help an idiot out?


The metro area I’m in spent 750,000,000 million dollars to “help” the estimated 12,000 homeless people in this metro area last fiscal year.

From 2023-2025 the number of homeless people has GONE UP approximately 61 percent!

Repeating for emphasis:

They spent 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS from 2023-2025, and the problem increased by 61 percent!


Guess what happened right before this massive increase in homeless people?

I’ll give you a clue:
There was a new tax to “support homeless people”, and massive increase in spending starting in early 2022.

This idiot is having a really hard time understanding who this current system is “helping out” besides the non-profits or NGO’s getting all this tax money?

 

[Hunterrancher15]

The town I live in has a big river near by and if they even remotely step into town the police immediately take them back down to the river. It’s quite nice except having to look at camps and also trash going into the river.

 

[2531usmc]

There are a couple of different costs to consider and the cost to provide benefits is certainly a consideration.

But the really big cost is the cost of affluent and moderately affluent people and businesses leaving the large city downtown areas.

Class A and B office space is losing 40 to 50% of their value which is decreasing real estate taxes proportionately. People reluctant/afraid to go downtown due to crime and squalor. Businesses leaving the downtown areas because top tier employees won’t work downtown.

This is all decreasing tax revenue which compounds all of the festering problems.

In turn, Politicians keep raising taxes which drive more people and businesses out.

Ultimately, it’s a death spiral for the cities.

 

[PNW bow hunter]

Been around them all my life in a big city that the media would have you believe is literally on fire and completely lawless. Helped a few, yelled at a few, mostly avoid them, never ever had problems or an altercation.

I have had friends more impacted, mostly small thefts and breaking into cars. Never heard of any bodily harm or even threat of harm to anyone I know or even people they know. The only time I've ever had a car break in here was in an affluent part of town where I left my car unlocked overnight accidentally.

Lived in a small <10k red town in the desert for 3 years, no homeless but crime was MUCH worse there. Had multiple car break ins there. Stray dogs everywhere. Active meth labs in the desert I'd roll up on out dirtbiking. Trash everywhere outside of town.

Which one sounds worse to you?

If you are able to “mostly avoid them”, you aren’t actually “living around them” in my opinion.

If you live around them, you can’t avoid all problems created by these camps. The problems come to you.

If your home or work is right where the tents and camps are, your quality of life absolutely sucks.

At my work the amount of theft/vandalism typically follows the amount of people in the camp across the street. When the camp is gone it gets down to zero usually. With Multiple people living in the cars/tents over there it usually gets up to $2000-$3000 in theft vandalism that month. This particular camp is about 150 feet from an elementary school. Once it gets this size the area is so out of control with theft/open drug use/prostitutes/open drug dealing/fights/people passed out in the sidewalk, the city/police finally clear it out.

This is a very small business with a 4-5 people, so a $2000-$3000 loss per month several times per year is VERY significant.

If your paycheck had $2000-$3000 just randomly taken out several times a year how would that affect you?

The trend in this area is more and more businesses closed, and not being reopened by a new business like you would typically see.

This is just a different point of view on the situation.

Name calling isn’t necessary in a discussion.

Living/woking 10-15 minutes from camps or blocks away from them is like being in 2 different worlds from my own personal experience.

I live in a great area, work in a s*#t hole. I always joke that I fell like a took a spaceship to a different planet when I get home, it’s a 20 minute drive.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I live in a place that’s cold as shit 3-4 months a year. Kind of solves itself.

That doesn’t seem to have any effect on them in Anchorage. I was just reading about a few of them who were killed when the snow pile they had dug a cave in was pushed around by a city bulldozer for snow removal.

 

[solarshooter]

Can you help an idiot out?


The metro area I’m in spent 750,000,000 million dollars to “help” the estimated 12,000 homeless people in this metro area last fiscal year.

From 2023-2025 the number of homeless people has GONE UP approximately 61 percent!

Repeating for emphasis:

They spent 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS from 2023-2025, and the problem increased by 61 percent!


Guess what happened right before this massive increase in homeless people?

I’ll give you a clue:
There was a new tax to “support homeless people”, and massive increase in spending starting in early 2022.

This idiot is having a really hard time understanding who this current system is “helping out” besides the non-profits or NGO’s getting all this tax money?

I don't know where you live or the details of your city's budget, but whoever wasted 750mil and helped no one should hang. Seattle has over 16k homeless and we spent less than 200mil on them last year. Yes the number increased since 2022 but that's a symptom of the national housing crisis getting worse since 2022, not the spending. I agree it sucks that people and businesses near these camps bear the brunt of the theft. This is effectively the state forcing individuals to bear the costs of survival of these homeless people. We need to attack the root causes of the housing crisis and the broader affordability crisis in this country to make any of these problems really get better over time.

 

[oldskool67]

Make Narcan illegal

 

[2531usmc]

I don't know where you live or the details of your city's budget, but whoever wasted 750mil and helped no one should hang. Seattle has over 16k homeless and we spent less than 200mil on them last year. Yes the number increased since 2022 but that's a symptom of the national housing crisis getting worse since 2022, not the spending. I agree it sucks that people and businesses near these camps bear the brunt of the theft. This is effectively the state forcing individuals to bear the costs of survival of these homeless people. We need to attack the root causes of the housing crisis and the broader affordability crisis in this country to make any of these problems really get better over time.

Im fairly confident that Seattle’s new mayor is fully prepared and capable of attacking the root causes of the housing crisis