[adt2bt]

So what’s your proposal?

Generally the #1 problem faced by homeless people is a lack of housing. Issues 2-10 will require support and help as well if we care about rehabilitation and reentry into society. Even if flawed, giving these people homes in converted hotels is likely better for them and for us than not doing that. So what else shall you have us do? Less, hoping we can ‘fix’ them with some good old fashioned tough love? (Hard to argue plenty of places haven’t done that to…basically no effect) Or, more, with learning and fixing mistakes along the way?

[m0zg]

Mandatory sheltering, mandatory substance abuse treatment, work requirement. I'm sure state government can provide sufficient jobs - the number of the homeless is not that huge (yet) in absolute terms. I'd also argue that shelter is not #1 problem - if anything this is one of the easier problems to solve. To have shelter you don't need to provide hotel type housing - hostel / dormitory type stuff with shared facilities would be quite sufficient. As far as I can tell, substance abuse is the main problem. There are shelters in Seattle area, but they require that people who stay in them are sober. So they just don't go there and shoot up drugs in their tents instead. Now they'll just be shooting up drugs in government provided (AKA taxpayer funded) $300K-each hotel rooms. I'm sure that'll work well, for the cartels and the various "nonprofit" hangers on. Local populace might think differently though.

There will be a small subset of people who can't support themselves due to disability and such, and I'd be OK with providing such folks permanent housing. I don't want anyone freezing to death on the sidewalk. Everyone else needs "tough love" as you put it.

There was actually an illustrative example in the public hearing: after the county representatives were done telling everyone how expensive it is to put people in jail, a former homeless person came up to the mic and told people how, if it wasn't for jail (where he ended up for stealing a bicycle to sell in order to get his next meth hit) he'd likely be dead now.

Jail is clearly not the answer, but forced rehab MUST be part of the answer. We will lose 100K people (yes, go check the stats for last year) this year to overdoses alone. We shouldn't pretend people can get off the needle on their own somehow, or that hard drugs are somehow socially acceptable.

And able bodied folks should be required to work, and pay what they can. Otherwise they aren't ever getting out their predicament. SF should have taught our local government something, but apparently they're so dumb they can't put 2 and 2 together anymore. It's now down to who signals the most virtue and funnels the most taxpayer money to the right nonprofits.