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Tories say 'rough sleeping is a lifestyle choice

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blitzkrieg
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07 Nov 2023, 10:51 pm

Dox47 wrote:
goldfish21 wrote:
How many of them have you spoken with who’ve told you being homeless is an easy life and they choose it over stable housing?

My guess is Zero and also that if anyone said that to you they were being sarcastic or lying. Being homeless is a struggle, not an easy life of convenience nor luxury. Wtf


Strawman, I didn't say it was a life of convenience or luxury, or that anyone chose it over stable housing. What I've said is that many mentally ill and/or addicted homeless people are in effect there by choice because they won't go into shelters that demand certain standards of behavior from them, and can't or won't hold down a job because of the aforementioned mental illness or addiction. It's really, really obvious if you spend any time around concentrated homelessness that these are not people who got behind on their mortgages because property taxes went up, they're much more dysfunctional, but it's politically useful to pretend that they're all just down on their luck cases who just need cheap or free housing, or whatever the homeless industrial complex of non-profits is pushing that week.


I think you overestimate the concept of choice when regarding people with mental illness or drug addiction issues.

People whose mental health is in the gutter have about as much choice over their behaviour and actions as someone who is starving and is presented with a plate of food. Sure you could refuse it - but who would?

Sorting out the mental health of homeless people so that they can play by the rules to the end of becoming permanently housed should be a priority.


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08 Nov 2023, 3:04 am

Dox47 wrote:
goldfish21 wrote:
How many of them have you spoken with who’ve told you being homeless is an easy life and they choose it over stable housing?

My guess is Zero and also that if anyone said that to you they were being sarcastic or lying. Being homeless is a struggle, not an easy life of convenience nor luxury. Wtf


Strawman, I didn't say it was a life of convenience or luxury, or that anyone chose it over stable housing. What I've said is that many mentally ill and/or addicted homeless people are in effect there by choice because they won't go into shelters that demand certain standards of behavior from them, and can't or won't hold down a job because of the aforementioned mental illness or addiction. It's really, really obvious if you spend any time around concentrated homelessness that these are not people who got behind on their mortgages because property taxes went up, they're much more dysfunctional, but it's politically useful to pretend that they're all just down on their luck cases who just need cheap or free housing, or whatever the homeless industrial complex of non-profits is pushing that week.


The homeless man I accidentally housed was extremely dysfunctional. He asked neighbours to sell themselves for a "good price" or something along the lines of that and also put food in and around the house and left the windows open to feed the street rats.

In addition to that he pissed in a bucket on the living room floor and threw his trash up against the downstairs walls instead of leaving it to the bin to be collected and I mean 9 months worth of trash when I mention mere trash.

House needed to be completely renovated, even the light switches were changed due to being encrusted with human excrement.

Like you said, many homeless people don't or can't take any personal responsibility. You could give a house along with a well paying job a great proportion of the homeless and given a few months, they'll lose it all. The dysfunctional homeless seem have no concept of "rules" too, like you said. While being homeless isn't the easiest life, it's easier than having to live in a civilised manner where drink and drugs need to be moderated in some way.

Obviously, these are the people who the government want to target.



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08 Nov 2023, 3:08 am

Lost_dragon wrote:
Then what do we do? What can be done?


Possibly nothing for the most dysfunctional homeless other than an asylum of some sort. For others who did live a stable life then the prospects are considerably better.



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08 Nov 2023, 3:23 am

Nades wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
goldfish21 wrote:
How many of them have you spoken with who’ve told you being homeless is an easy life and they choose it over stable housing?

My guess is Zero and also that if anyone said that to you they were being sarcastic or lying. Being homeless is a struggle, not an easy life of convenience nor luxury. Wtf


Strawman, I didn't say it was a life of convenience or luxury, or that anyone chose it over stable housing. What I've said is that many mentally ill and/or addicted homeless people are in effect there by choice because they won't go into shelters that demand certain standards of behavior from them, and can't or won't hold down a job because of the aforementioned mental illness or addiction. It's really, really obvious if you spend any time around concentrated homelessness that these are not people who got behind on their mortgages because property taxes went up, they're much more dysfunctional, but it's politically useful to pretend that they're all just down on their luck cases who just need cheap or free housing, or whatever the homeless industrial complex of non-profits is pushing that week.


The homeless man I accidentally housed was extremely dysfunctional. He asked neighbours to sell themselves for a "good price" or something along the lines of that and also put food in and around the house and left the windows open to feed the street rats.

In addition to that he pissed in a bucket on the living room floor and threw his trash up against the downstairs walls instead of leaving it to the bin to be collected and I mean 9 months worth of trash when I mention mere trash.

House needed to be completely renovated, even the light switches were changed due to being encrusted with human excrement.

Like you said, many homeless people don't or can't take any personal responsibility. You could give a house along with a well paying job a great proportion of the homeless and given a few months, they'll lose it all. The dysfunctional homeless seem have no concept of "rules" too, like you said. While being homeless isn't the easiest life, it's easier than having to live in a civilised manner where drink and drugs need to be moderated in some way.

Obviously, these are the people who the government want to target.

I've read and heard many horror stories of these types of people living in the SRO's in the DTES of Vancouver. From the pics I've seen, shared washrooms (1 per floor) get so filthy they look like something in an abandoned asylum in a horror movie. There are supposed to be contracted staff to keep things clean, but many buildings are horribly mismanaged and there's little in the way of behavioural intervention supports for completely whacked out mentally ill drug addicted adults, sooo.. if they're not on the streets and luck out and get housed somewhere, they're total nightmares for other tenants.

There's something seriously wrong with these people. But besides the lowest rent s**thole rooms in buildings with staff that do rounds of room checks to make sure no one's overdosed, where else are they supposed to be housed? There's no budget for hospitals or asylums and besides then they'd have to be committed and I'm not sure that's so easy to do if they haven't been sentenced for some violent crime or something.

There's no easy answer. Some figure no one wants to work hard on complex solutions, either, so they're just keeping things in a holding pattern of delays, tossing the football to different levels of government etc while they wait for more and more people to just OD and die, solving the problems those particular people caused at least. Could be a strategy some are employing.


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08 Nov 2023, 3:27 am

I think in Britain, 'rough sleeping' is a euphemism for 'homeless' to make it sound less awful.


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08 Nov 2023, 5:14 am

goldfish21 wrote:
Nades wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
goldfish21 wrote:
How many of them have you spoken with who’ve told you being homeless is an easy life and they choose it over stable housing?

My guess is Zero and also that if anyone said that to you they were being sarcastic or lying. Being homeless is a struggle, not an easy life of convenience nor luxury. Wtf


Strawman, I didn't say it was a life of convenience or luxury, or that anyone chose it over stable housing. What I've said is that many mentally ill and/or addicted homeless people are in effect there by choice because they won't go into shelters that demand certain standards of behavior from them, and can't or won't hold down a job because of the aforementioned mental illness or addiction. It's really, really obvious if you spend any time around concentrated homelessness that these are not people who got behind on their mortgages because property taxes went up, they're much more dysfunctional, but it's politically useful to pretend that they're all just down on their luck cases who just need cheap or free housing, or whatever the homeless industrial complex of non-profits is pushing that week.


The homeless man I accidentally housed was extremely dysfunctional. He asked neighbours to sell themselves for a "good price" or something along the lines of that and also put food in and around the house and left the windows open to feed the street rats.

In addition to that he pissed in a bucket on the living room floor and threw his trash up against the downstairs walls instead of leaving it to the bin to be collected and I mean 9 months worth of trash when I mention mere trash.

House needed to be completely renovated, even the light switches were changed due to being encrusted with human excrement.

Like you said, many homeless people don't or can't take any personal responsibility. You could give a house along with a well paying job a great proportion of the homeless and given a few months, they'll lose it all. The dysfunctional homeless seem have no concept of "rules" too, like you said. While being homeless isn't the easiest life, it's easier than having to live in a civilised manner where drink and drugs need to be moderated in some way.

Obviously, these are the people who the government want to target.

I've read and heard many horror stories of these types of people living in the SRO's in the DTES of Vancouver. From the pics I've seen, shared washrooms (1 per floor) get so filthy they look like something in an abandoned asylum in a horror movie. There are supposed to be contracted staff to keep things clean, but many buildings are horribly mismanaged and there's little in the way of behavioural intervention supports for completely whacked out mentally ill drug addicted adults, sooo.. if they're not on the streets and luck out and get housed somewhere, they're total nightmares for other tenants.

There's something seriously wrong with these people. But besides the lowest rent s**thole rooms in buildings with staff that do rounds of room checks to make sure no one's overdosed, where else are they supposed to be housed? There's no budget for hospitals or asylums and besides then they'd have to be committed and I'm not sure that's so easy to do if they haven't been sentenced for some violent crime or something.

There's no easy answer. Some figure no one wants to work hard on complex solutions, either, so they're just keeping things in a holding pattern of delays, tossing the football to different levels of government etc while they wait for more and more people to just OD and die, solving the problems those particular people caused at least. Could be a strategy some are employing.


Unfortunately, the dysfunctional homeless just cause too much destruction and mystery for viable "in community" solutions. A completely closed off building housing vast numbers the most antisocial homeless in ruthless structured order is the only solution assuming they have something constructive to learn while inside and eventually ready to be let lose again, assuming they actually become safe to release.



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08 Nov 2023, 12:05 pm

in at least one community in utah the city fathers have decided the cheapest most practical solution is to just provide them housing via salt lake city's "housing first" program. without having to fend for themselves on the street, at least some homeless folk found the peace and quiet they needed to get their sheet together.



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08 Nov 2023, 12:32 pm

auntblabby wrote:
in at least one community in utah the city fathers have decided the cheapest most practical solution is to just provide them housing via salt lake city's "housing first" program. without having to fend for themselves on the street, at least some homeless folk found the peace and quiet they needed to get their sheet together.


Not to mention it provides them with a fixed address that can make providing other supports much more straightforward.


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08 Nov 2023, 12:47 pm

And there's this guy. He obviously doesn't need all that money so he uses it to help other people. Food for thought.

Millionaire Builds 99 Tiny Homes to Cut Homelessness in His Community–He Even Provides Jobs On Site for Them

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/million ... -for-them/


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08 Nov 2023, 1:21 pm

League_Girl wrote:
My fear is I will get taxed out of my home. I wish taxes were fixed once you buy your home. That means they cannot raise them on you after you make your purchase.

Raising your taxes wouldn't be necessary if we were to return to 1950's-style taxes on the rich. We really need the latter, IMO, for lots and lots of reasons including not just the money itself, but the undesirability of extreme and growing economic inequality.


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08 Nov 2023, 1:25 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
in at least one community in utah the city fathers have decided the cheapest most practical solution is to just provide them housing via salt lake city's "housing first" program. without having to fend for themselves on the street, at least some homeless folk found the peace and quiet they needed to get their sheet together.


Not to mention it provides them with a fixed address that can make providing other supports much more straightforward.


They do that with SROs and some stacked shipping container homes. I’d guess less than 5% accept much of any help, the rest just do their hardcore drugs in their little shacks of squalor. It’s pretty sad.


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08 Nov 2023, 1:28 pm

Lost_dragon wrote:
Then what do we do? What can be done?


Here's one idea:

New Leaf Project

It'd take a brave government to implement it though, and many people will never believe it works.

Abstract
Homelessness is an economic and social crisis. In a cluster-randomized controlled trial, we address a core cause of homelessness—lack of money—by providing a one-time unconditional cash transfer of CAD$7,500 to each of 50 individuals experiencing homelessness, with another 65 as controls in Vancouver, BC. Exploratory analyses showed that over 1 y, cash recipients spent fewer days homeless, increased savings and spending with no increase in temptation goods spending, and generated societal net savings of $777 per recipient via reduced time in shelters. Additional experiments revealed public mistrust toward the ability of homeless individuals to manage money and demonstrated interventions to increase public support for a cash transfer policy using counter-stereotypical or utilitarian messaging. Together, this research offers a new approach to address homelessness and provides insights into homelessness reduction policies.


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08 Nov 2023, 1:37 pm

Dox47 wrote:
What I've said is that many mentally ill and/or addicted homeless people are in effect there by choice because they won't go into shelters that demand certain standards of behavior from them,

Actually a big problem with many shelters isn't "standards of behavior" but the lack of any protection from having one's belongings stolen.

Dox47 wrote:
and can't or won't hold down a job because of the aforementioned mental illness or addiction. It's really, really obvious if you spend any time around concentrated homelessness that these are not people who got behind on their mortgages because property taxes went up, they're much more dysfunctional, but it's politically useful to pretend that they're all just down on their luck cases who just need cheap or free housing, or whatever the homeless industrial complex of non-profits is pushing that week.

I suspect that you might be confusing the majority of homeless people in general with the majority of the most visibly homeless.


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08 Nov 2023, 1:53 pm

Nades wrote:
The homeless man I accidentally housed was extremely dysfunctional. He asked neighbours to sell themselves for a "good price" or something along the lines of that and also put food in and around the house and left the windows open to feed the street rats.

In addition to that he pissed in a bucket on the living room floor and threw his trash up against the downstairs walls instead of leaving it to the bin to be collected and I mean 9 months worth of trash when I mention mere trash.

House needed to be completely renovated, even the light switches were changed due to being encrusted with human excrement.

I'm sorry to hear you had such an awful experience!

But it should not be assumed that all or most homeless people are like this. Perhaps many of the most visibly homeless, but certainly not homeless people in general, and probably not even most of the more visibly homeless.

Different kinds of homeless people need different kinds of services, and homeless people in any one category should not be used as an excuse to deny needed services to people in other categories.


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Last edited by Mona Pereth on 08 Nov 2023, 3:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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08 Nov 2023, 2:40 pm

Nades wrote:
Unfortunately, the dysfunctional homeless just cause too much destruction and mystery for viable "in community" solutions. A completely closed off building housing vast numbers the most antisocial homeless in ruthless structured order is the only solution assuming they have something constructive to learn while inside and eventually ready to be let lose again, assuming they actually become safe to release.

No, not "vast numbers" in only a few isolated locations. For people as dysfunctional as your former tenant, there do need to be asylums or asylum-like facilities, but there need to be enough of them, in enough different locations, that their relatives (if any) can visit them regularly. Otherwise the inmates are likely to end up being seriously abused by staff, as has all too often happened in institutions in the past.


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09 Nov 2023, 7:07 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:
I suspect that you might be confusing the majority of homeless people in general with the majority of the most visibly homeless.


Perhaps, I am specifically talking about the most destructive and disruptive ones, the people who as I've previously said are clearly not just ordinary folks who were forced out by rising housing costs or such.


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