> A tremendous amount of these homeless don't want to quit heroin.
Their addictions would be better managed if they lived anywhere but the street.
> They don't want to live in shelters.
They don't want to live in dry shelters.
> They want to live in a tent and shoot heroin.
No, they want to shoot heroin, and when given the option between tent and heroin, versus a dry shelter, they'll take the former.
That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer having a managed addiction, and not living on the streets. [1]
There are people with therapists, homes, loving families, and good jobs, that are also opiate addicts. They have a hard enough time breaking their addictions. In light of that, condemning someone living in a tent by the on-ramp for failing to just drop their addiction, so they can live in a shelter is lunacy.
[1] Yes, there is a small percentage of the homeless population that can't reasonably be housed, period, regardless of whether their addictions are managed. I'm not talking about them - I'm talking about everyone else.
Ultimately I don't care about blame or condemnation, it's irrelevant. What I care about is the state doing it's job and not letting anyone, for any reason, egregiously pollute and destroy our shared living environments. As far as fundamental solutions, they can and should try many things, as a first order condition, this must be forcibly prohibited.
Storing your addicted+homeless population in a prison is not only inhumane, it's not effective. And just moves the costs elsewhere. (And often increases them, since incarcerating someone is not cheap. Where will this money come from?) The problem has been swept under a rug, not actually solved.
There are two conflicting claims floating around in this thread:
> "And just moves the costs elsewhere" / "the good old 'bus them out of town, let them be someone else's problem' non-solution."
And
> "The King County homeless census[1] found the overwhelming majority of homeless in the area were living in the area before becoming homeless."
It's pretty obvious both aren't true. Either Seattle's homeless are produced primarily by Seattle, or Seattle's homeless supply is from other cities. If the homeless are coming from other cities, that supports the idea that Seattle is making itself attractive to the nation's homeless (and should stop doing that.) If Seattle's homeless are predominately from Seattle, not other cities, then Seattle should seek to emulate cities that produce fewer homeless.
Personally I believe the later theory is false. I don't believe that most of the homeless in Seattle are originally from Seattle. However many in Seattle buy into that narrative. I think Seattle is filled with homeless because other cities kick them out and Seattle welcomes them with open arms.
The problem is homeless are ruining my city and negatively impacting my day to day life. How is getting them away from here somewhere else not effective at literally solving my only problem with them?
Well, in some sense what I want doesn't matter. I'd like us as a join group to have some hypotheticals and test them empirically.
But in a more direct sense, I think this all requires the government to take some sort of ownership over these people. That is to say, you are not free to live on the streets. Depending on your state (e.g. down on luck, or ill, or addicted), the treatment is different. We may have more holding centers for the government to keep people against their will who otherwise would use heroin and live on our streets. We could have some mechanism for them to go up for 'parole' so to speak, every 6-12 months. Otherwise they are treated humanely and given make-work type projects (e.g. farming or wood-working), or the opportunity to learn, should they take it.
Of course if they are truly severely mentally ill, they will just be taken care of by the government.
But none of this starts until we all agree that it is, ultimately, illegal to abuse drugs, sleep, and shit, on the streets of a city. Once we can agree on that, we can explore a entire solution set closed off from us.
Unfortunately, the 9th circuit doesn't... share my views.
I'd prefer you didn't impose uncharitable inferences on what I said, and use it to imply I'm maligned. If you feel I'm unclear, or think what I said may propose something negative, feel free to politely ask for clarification.
The fundamental reason I suggested that is humans, particularly the type who suffer from mental illness or lack the ability to care for themselves, to the extent they end up destitute and addicted living in filth and on the sidewalk, require some sort of structure imposed on them. In the past that was done by the family, in our current world many of these family bonds are, sadly, falling apart.
Putting people in an asylum, only to sit around on a bed all day and take copious amounts of anti-psychotics is a miserable existence. Having the opportunity, if one chooses, to engage in meaningful work, can provide structure and meaning to life.
I'd prefer to think of it more as a therapeutic sort of work program, where those under conservatorship by the state learn how to live with structure, learn what it means to make something, and could even be compensated for their efforts.
In my mind at least, I am contrasting the reward of a hard days work tending to, say, an organic vegetable garden, with the mundane horror of sitting on a bed in between distributions of anti-psychotic medicine.
I hope my clarification gives you more context to realize I'm not suggesting slavery.
> That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer having a managed addiction, and not living on the streets.
Why would it matter what they prefer? The homeless person in the parent post is clearly breaking multiple laws, is a public nuisance and a health hazard. We can optimize society so that people like that are happy or we can optimize society for people who aren't a constant burden on others. There should be intense societal pressure to not do these things. Have you been to Seattle or SF lately? Their homeless problem is out of control compared to places like New York that took a more aggressive and productive stance toward dealing with the homeless.
Their addictions would be better managed if they lived anywhere but the street.
> They don't want to live in shelters.
They don't want to live in dry shelters.
> They want to live in a tent and shoot heroin.
No, they want to shoot heroin, and when given the option between tent and heroin, versus a dry shelter, they'll take the former.
That doesn't mean that they wouldn't prefer having a managed addiction, and not living on the streets. [1]
There are people with therapists, homes, loving families, and good jobs, that are also opiate addicts. They have a hard enough time breaking their addictions. In light of that, condemning someone living in a tent by the on-ramp for failing to just drop their addiction, so they can live in a shelter is lunacy.
[1] Yes, there is a small percentage of the homeless population that can't reasonably be housed, period, regardless of whether their addictions are managed. I'm not talking about them - I'm talking about everyone else.