[paxys]

"We like our city as it is and don't want it to grow."

Soon followed by

"We can't afford to live in our city because rich people are outbidding us for the very limited housing."

Same story as everywhere else. You make your bed, you sleep in it.

And this part is hilarious but telling:

> Homeless is a problem but Santa Cruz tries to handle it a progressive way, for example, by setting up the homeless camp next to the courthouse and providing it with services

Setting up slum cities is now the standard of progressiveness in America.

[michaelwww]

> Setting up slum cities is now the standard of progressiveness in America

The alternative was to continue to let people live in the surrounding forests while shooting up heroin with dirty needles, trashing the woods and causing lengthy service calls for police and ambulance. This way they are all in one spot and are serviced by clean needle program, etc...

What's your solution?

[rcpt]

Example of Santa Cruz progressive homeless solution

https://www.reddit.com/r/santacruz/comments/blxiye/drone_foo...

[seahorserocker]

... build housing.

[fosk]

Okay great, let’s build housing for addicts. What do you think happens next?

We are talking about people that get kicked out of shelters because they are dangerous and can’t act coherently.

Why is the solution everything else but the obvious: arrest drug dealers, outlaw drug use in open air drug scenes, offer real recovery and/or jail time for those that refuse.

These people are here for drugs: outlaw drugs (for real) and they will leave, and just like that, no more housing crisis.

Does this look like a housing problem to you? https://twitter.com/ericajsandberg/status/157377720286841651...

[michaelwww]

They are... several huge apartment blocks downtown that are ugly as sin but necessary. The homeless problem in Santa Cruz is mostly about drugs and mental illness. People who couldn't keep an apartment if you provided them with one.

[joe_the_user]

Maybe the progressives of Santa Cruz could have figured out a progressive way to build housing before the ways with the most money won. Or maybe they could have imposed at least the requirement that large apartment buildings be attractive or maybe to NIMBYs all apartment buildings are ugly sin.