Call me a dreamer, but I believe in actually providing people the support they need to live if they are failing to make a go at it on their own. If that's some basic housing, so be it. If it's job training, great - we can use a more skilled workforce. If it's household management training, cool. If they need someone to make their budget and check in that they're following it, why can't a county office or university extension office help? If they need outpatient medical care - and mental health is health - then they should have access. If they need a support group or a sponsor to remind them to do things, or to take their meds, that's great for them to have. Maybe a lot of this the IT field could help scale, but it would take some number of people and some amount of funds.
By criminalizing homelessness and blaming homelessness on mental illness, we're quite literally criminalizing being ill. We're falling for the Evangelical argument that bad things happen mostly to evil people. We're also spending more money making people full wards of the state who with a little bit of help here and there often can work and pay some taxes instead of sleeping in a heavily secured jail.
People are like anything else that needs maintenance. You can invest up front and then invest a bit along the way, or you can let everything go wrong and spend a lot more to address the deficiencies you've clearly allowed. Some of that damage, just as with an ICE engine out of oil, may be permanent or even unrecoverable in cases where that didn't need to be the case.
>Call me a dreamer, but I believe in actually providing people the support they need to live if they are failing to make a go at it on their own...
I'm not saying anything different than you. I am just critical of people think the only thing that needs to be done is just giving housing and maybe paying some of their bills then declaring victory over homelessness. That may be all the help a small minority of the homelessness, but doesn't really solve the issue of why the majority were homeless. We need rehab for those with addictions and we need mental care for those with mental issues. While these homeless are getting treated and for sometime after they likely need housing and food and whatever else you mentioned.
>By criminalizing homelessness and blaming homelessness on mental illness, we're quite literally criminalizing being ill.
The majority of homeless people have a severe mental issue, substance abuse problem or both. They are literally unable to solve their problems and just giving them housing won't suddenly fix addiction. Most don't take advantage of the existing services and so we are left with two choices. Let them live their lives as homeless stuck with whatever problems they have or force treatment on them. I am in the second camp. We need a comprehensive solution to fix this and we have the opportunity to help them. Letting them live on the street and never be free from their issues is awful.
>We're falling for the Evangelical argument that bad things happen mostly to evil people.
I don't think I have seen anybody suggest that people with illnesses are evil, or that bad things happen to evil people or homelessness is evil or anything of the sort.
I think it is wrong to not provide help to those who need it. Many homeless people need help but are unable to ask themselves due to issues many of them experience. I think it is on us, as a society, to help them regardless.
>We're also spending more money making people full wards of the state who with a little bit of help here and there often can work and pay some taxes instead of sleeping in a heavily secured jail.
You are grossly underestimating the help many homeless need. I think this is crux of the disagreement. Some may just need a little help, great we can provide that. Others need more than that and yet you don't seem to want to provide that help. Do you think there would be no homeless if we just provided "a little bit of help here and there"?
>People are like anything else that needs maintenance...
Sure we should provide preventative services, but that doesn't solve the problem for people who need a lot of work. Some people are well past needing a little maintenance need a full refit. Some people are "lemons" and even some maintenance won't prevent their problems.
The rest of the post was saying we should scale support to need rather than lumping all homeless people into incarceration or residential inpatient treatment. Not only is it more expensive to treat all of these people in the most expensive possible way, but it's also the biggest imposition on their freedom and independence. They don't all need some public official making all their decisions for them, and especially not armed guards and wardens.
I also get the impression you're only talking about completely unsheltered people living on the streets. Homelessness is much bigger than that. There are people who are permanent couch surfers, others who move from one flop motel or boarding house to another as they get a little cash, and people who squat or live in illegal rentals. Lots of those people just need a hand up and would prefer not to get help if it means mandatory drug testing, forced relocation into a carceral living arrangement, losing children into foster care, and treatment they may not need.
Needs are not one size fits all, so help cannot be or it ceases to be real help.
By criminalizing homelessness and blaming homelessness on mental illness, we're quite literally criminalizing being ill. We're falling for the Evangelical argument that bad things happen mostly to evil people. We're also spending more money making people full wards of the state who with a little bit of help here and there often can work and pay some taxes instead of sleeping in a heavily secured jail.
People are like anything else that needs maintenance. You can invest up front and then invest a bit along the way, or you can let everything go wrong and spend a lot more to address the deficiencies you've clearly allowed. Some of that damage, just as with an ICE engine out of oil, may be permanent or even unrecoverable in cases where that didn't need to be the case.