> They want someone to do something about it, but it's not clear at all what that something really is or who would do it
> it's just absolutely nuts to think that decriminalizing usage has done anything but make this problem worse
From reading these two statements and others in this thread, it's hard for me to see how you're the one arguing against criminalizing people, and yet that's how you're describing yourself. What does "enforcing norms against anti-social behavior" mean in this context, if not putting people in prison or issuing citations (which eventually lead to prison)? I'm genuinely unsure if there's some third option I'm not thinking of.
The thesis seems to be that if you just do that enough, those people will go somewhere else or decide to stop being homeless. The problem is, that's what we used to do and it didn't work. Those people are from here, and they're not homeless by choice. Even if some do move on, they'll just end up homeless somewhere else.
The frustrating thing is that there is a solution to this, which is called housing first. The basic idea is that you give people housing they can live in, and then provide services like addiction counseling and job training to get them into a better place. But you start with the housing, because without stability in your life, it's hard to tackle challenges like this, and not having housing results in all kinds of other social problems. The problem with housing first of course is that it's expensive, which requires taxation.
To me the real problem is that the council has insisted on sticking to ineffective half-measures. We had the beginnings of a tax for affordable housing last year, although it was still too small, but the council backed down when Amazon and other large companies raised hell. What this ended up doing is making it clear that the council has no solution to this that they're willing to pursue, which has lead to this impasse.
I guess I don't really disagree with what you said.
>What does "enforcing norms against anti-social behavior" mean in this context, if not putting people in prison or issuing citations (which eventually lead to prison)?
Not being okay with it, which implies that we'd so something about it. Which does mean things like citations, at a minimum. Right now it's totally normal.
>The frustrating thing is that there is a solution to this, which is called housing first...
Broadly, I agree with this paragraph. I think we should take the billion we spend in this city on homelessness (not sure that stat is actually true since I've never seen the line item in the budget but people say it a lot) and build these places ... and then make them mandatory, or at least semi-mandatory. That might sound extreme, but frankly many of these people clearly don't have agency anymore given their addiction and they've become a danger to themselves and others. So that's my "out there" suggestion. Build the housing, fund the medical and job-training services, and deliberately - not passively - push people into them.
Of course, this presupposes that lack of housing is the first incident problem. Maybe it is, maybe drug use is in some cases. I don't particularly care for drug use, so my personal preference is that we repeal the decriminalization rules and reverse some of the cultural acceptance that's taken hold here of this behavior. We've probably missed the boat on that one, since most here seem to take the libertarian approach that what someone does with their body is "their business", despite the fact that it often becomes someone else's very quickly.
>...backed down when Amazon and other large companies raised hell.
If the city council wanted to just tax Amazon then they could've done that, but instead that cast such a wide net that medium sized low-margin businesses that don't have enormous capital behind them were wrapped up in it too - so I understand why they backed down. There wasn't any real self reflection from them after that happened, so I tend to agree that we're stuck in an infinite loop of "more of this".
> Of course, this presupposes that lack of housing is the first incident problem.
Not at all. Even if a person's drug abuse is what led them to lose their job and housing, the drug abuse can't be the issue you fix first. The lack of housing makes solving any other "first incident problem" massively more difficult.
> I don't particularly care for drug use, so my personal preference is that we repeal the decriminalization rules and reverse some of the cultural acceptance that's taken hold here of this behavior.
The problem is that criminalization of drug use and homelessness has absolutely failed to have a positive impact on either issue and quite arguably has made both problems worse.
> it's just absolutely nuts to think that decriminalizing usage has done anything but make this problem worse
From reading these two statements and others in this thread, it's hard for me to see how you're the one arguing against criminalizing people, and yet that's how you're describing yourself. What does "enforcing norms against anti-social behavior" mean in this context, if not putting people in prison or issuing citations (which eventually lead to prison)? I'm genuinely unsure if there's some third option I'm not thinking of.
The thesis seems to be that if you just do that enough, those people will go somewhere else or decide to stop being homeless. The problem is, that's what we used to do and it didn't work. Those people are from here, and they're not homeless by choice. Even if some do move on, they'll just end up homeless somewhere else.
The frustrating thing is that there is a solution to this, which is called housing first. The basic idea is that you give people housing they can live in, and then provide services like addiction counseling and job training to get them into a better place. But you start with the housing, because without stability in your life, it's hard to tackle challenges like this, and not having housing results in all kinds of other social problems. The problem with housing first of course is that it's expensive, which requires taxation.
To me the real problem is that the council has insisted on sticking to ineffective half-measures. We had the beginnings of a tax for affordable housing last year, although it was still too small, but the council backed down when Amazon and other large companies raised hell. What this ended up doing is making it clear that the council has no solution to this that they're willing to pursue, which has lead to this impasse.