[Pigalowda]

What’s with these “data-driven” nonsense posts? You live in a west coast city? Go outside! Use your eyeballs! You think the naked guy who’s floridly psychotic and taking a dump on the sidewalk would be A OK with a cheap dwelling?

The people smoking fentanyl at the train station and on the buses? They just need a little house and they’ll be fine? Such utter neoliberal nonsense.

[Avshalom]

Well if they had houses they'd be naked and shitting in their house, if they had housing they'd be smoking fentanyl in their house. So at least y'all'd stop going on and fucking on about "open air drug markets" and "the city looks like something out of mad max". It might not solve their problems, but it would solve yours.

[Pigalowda]

No - it doesn’t solve anything. Some cheap crappy collection of houses that are “maintained” by whom? The psychotics and fentanyl users? The “solution” creates a ghetto that has to be maintained by city expenditure. And after that dumb expensive mess fails, then what?

Maybe that’s your neolib solution this entire time - ghettos. Typical.

[Avshalom]

neoliberalism is (broadly) an ideology that markets are/will-find the optimal solution for everything. Giving people housing, not being a market-based-solution, is not neoliberalism.

Also yes, maintained by city expenditure, it's been shown time and time again that housing is way fucking cheaper than a combination of policing and emergency medicine.

that's not even to touch the moral/ethical imperative that human life has intrinsic value and we should strive to provide everyone with the resources and dignity that they need.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.

If it fails, then what is the question you need to answer, because my answer is: keep trying.

[Pigalowda]

Yes yes very righteous and unproductive.

My answer: 3 strike rule and semi permanent sequestration by the state.

You get your cheap housing after all.

[Avshalom]

"sequestration"

Incarceration.

Slave labor.

Because you saw a penis three times.

[Pigalowda]

Personally I’d rather the US revisit O’Connor v. Donaldson. Because these people are completely incapable of living safely. There’s constant overdoses, constant deadly auto v peds, and constant severe transmittable disease.

If the US allowed it again then these people should be sequestered in psychiatric units which can be comfortable and have amenities after the psychotic and bipolar have been stabilized. Rehabilitation centers for the addicted and managed convalescence centers. If they keep at their previous behaviors then they get longer and longer stays in sequestration.

If you want prisons and slaves - fine. If that’s your uncreative pitiful solution besides throwing cash away and creating ghettos, so be it. I’m not sure what the penis comment is about.

[wilg]

This is, obviously, intellectually lazy. The article discusses mental health and drugs and why they cannot be the main issue. Anecdotes don't really change that, hence why people use data instead of their emotions to solve problems.

[Pigalowda]

Yea, I’d rather be “intellectually lazy” and grounded in reality.

These people aren’t using “data” to solve problems. What a joke.

Here’s what’s going to happen - voting citizens will eventually get tired of the drugs, property crime, and homeless and they’ll elect a mayor who is “tough on crime”. There will be a crack down and the public spaces will improve however eventually regress back. Then the cycle repeats. And a new academic group says if there were more cheap housing all the problems will be solved.

[wilg]

Why are you outright denying that the data exists? And you're calling it being "grounded in reality"? Seriously? That's lunacy. The data I provided demonstrates you are wrong about your theory of homelessness. I can't do anything else for you.

[Pigalowda]

The data sucks and so did that blog. As if West Virginia and Mississippi are good comparisons! They don’t have as many homeless because their urban centers are minuscule, can’t support large homeless populations with limited social services, and with populations/laws less tolerant of vagrancy.

And yea, I’m grounded in reality - you are not. I don’t care about your silly data which captures multiple cohorts of homeless populations and tries to foist them into and analyze them as 1 population. Before you try doing “anything else” for me why don’t you try going outside and seeing for yourself. Or better yet, go work in the county Emergency room in a big city! Why don’t you try that? Maybe talk to a social worker there or case manager? That might be scary for you. Better put on your big boy pants if you have any.

[wilg]

I'm no longer interested in engaging with you on this (or any) topic.

[Ferret7446]

There's a reason for the saying: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics".

[cwalv]

Intellectually lazy, maybe, but funny and easy to relate to.

Of course, a cheapo home won't help that guy. But without the 'data', we also don't know how much of the overall homeless population is like that. And regardless, that guy will still be there with more housing, so it'd be hard to call the problem solved.

[wilg]

A cheapo home probably would help that guy a lot. This is called a housing-first approach. It's easier to get off drugs when you're not, you know, homeless. But yes, other approaches are needed for serious drug problems. But we know that drug problems aren't the biggest factor in homelessness.