Democrats can't solve the issue of Homelessness

Post Reply New Topic

Yep. I should add that California, in particular, has another problem: water shortages. The entire southwest of the U.S.A. has this problem too.

Yet so many people in the southwest live in suburbs, or in "cities" like LA that are mostly one big suburb, where most residential properties have lawns, which consume A LOT more water than people in an apartment building would need.

It is a huge waste of water for big single-home residential properties, with lawns, to exist at all in an irrigated desert, much less be anywhere near as common as they now are.

Where do I fit in this suburbs versus city thing?
Where do other people like me fit in this suburbs versus city thing?


Do "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" and I get disposed of
Do "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" and others like me get disposed of


Because of becoming stressed out and then burned out by living in the city, I now live 30 miles away from a city, and 100 miles away from Kansas City, in a little county seat farm burg - Because I Can't live in the city any more.

That stress burnout is a large component of what caused the health collapses which resulted in me becoming homeless.

To quote my GP physician, Dr. Marcia Foster, in 1995, "The part of you which processes anything more than the most minimal amount of stress is burned out, gone, and probably not coming back. Get out of your job, get out of here, and do only low stress jobs from here on out."

I think Fnord meant the mentally ill and addicted homeless population mostly, not simply people without homes. It’s a tough nut to crack getting supportive housing projects funded and built anywhere at all and then getting enough NIMBY’s to stop whining - especially here in Vancouver where the price of admission to live in some neighbourhoods starts at several Million dollars. Rich people don’t want to live in close proximity to drug abuse and mental illness etc etc.

Covenant House is the largest youth homeless shelter in Vancouver, too. They very recently just opened a 10 or 11 storey building somewhere to replace the few storey building(s) they had for decades. Not sure if it’s at the same location or a few blocks away but they have prime downtown real estate here, too, and serve homeless youth from all over the country that head West to Vancouver to survive. I would not rate the 16-25 year old homeless age group as the most dangerous, though. I think middle aged folks with a lot more years of various types of damage are more dangerous.

Looking up murder stats by age of perpetrator here in the U.S.A. (apparently based on these FBI stats):

The highest bar on the bar graph is for the 20 to 24 year old age group. The second highest bar is for 25 to 29 year olds, and the third highest bar is for 17 to 19 year olds.

But the relative shortness of the bar for 17 to 19 is actually a bit misleading, because 17 to 19 (a 3-year range) is a smaller interval than 20 to 24 (a 5-year range) or 25 to 29 (another 5-year range). So, doing a little math here:

- 1836 murderers / 3 years (age 17 to 19) = 612
- 3025 murderers / 5 years (age 20 to 24) = 605

So, in terms of murder rates at least, THE statistically most dangerous group is 17 to 19 year olds, followed by 20 to 24 year olds.

I would Guess that murder rates in Canada Might also be disproportionately younger people.. but that’s because there aren’t very many old gangsters. Maybe that’s why they’re higher in the USA, too.

I’m sure there are some violent homeless youth. But mostly I’ve seen docile kids, smoking weed, hanging out. Maybe doing other drugs. But no epidemic of young violent attackers or murderers as far as I’ve observed or read about.

Usually the ones with whacked out erratic behaviour are older and look like they’ve been through a couple decades long meet grinder of traumas, drug abuse, hospital visits & psych meds etc - the kind of people that should be institutionalized if we had institutions to put them in.

But a couple decades ago, in their infinite wisdom, the government in power at the time mostly shut down the largest mental hospital here and shuffled people out onto the streets. That was a massive trigger event for the explosion of the mentally ill homeless population.

There SHOULD be SOME suburban and rural-based housing for homeless people, for those people who specifically need to live in rural areas.

The problem is, these days, in a lot of places, people are being FORCED out to suburbs and rural areas.

For many people, there is a desperate, unfulfilled need for more walkable cities and more walkable mixed-use neighborhoods within cities, but the NIMBYs are stopping them from being built.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 20 May 2023, 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The vast majority of homeless people in general are not dangerous either.


Most of these older folks with "whacked out erratic behaviour" are not physically strong enough or agile enough to be physically dangerous.


Yes, obviously a bad idea. Big mental hospitals suck, but putting people out in the streets was obviously far worse.

No, raising taxes doesn't chase away all the big earners, just some of them -- at least if the city has enough attractive amenities to be a place worth living in, in the first place.


No, fewer homeless people, because housing would be more affordable and fewer people would be evicted by landlords tearing down the place to build something fancier.

In a gentrifying city, I favor raising taxes on the rich (at least somewhat) for the specific purpose of slowing down gentrification. Even if the result is a dip in revenue, it would be compensated for by a dip in need for city services.

I think you're being a bit generous with the secondary problems these people have (being homeless the primary)

I honestly wouldn't have much faith in the majority of homeless people getting back on track by simply giving them a home.

I noticed that more often than not (but certainly not exclusively) the reason for them being homeless is abundantly clear within the first 10 seconds of meeting most of them.

Of all the altercations I've had with people during my entire adult life, every single one of them has been with homeless people. Multiple threats and a mugging that I clobbered back into the concrete in the middle of Cardiff. Turns out a 6 stone heroin addict is not very good in a fight.

There are some substance abusing homeless people who are OK and watching news articles on them, even they hate homeless shelters because they keep getting all their belongings nicked by other homeless people for drug money.

The homeless problem is nothing to do with homes themelves but rather how to separate those with zero hope who should never be given a home, even if it means freezing to death from those who stand a good chance but had some bad luck that made them homeless.

Homes should go to people with genuine poor fortune and never to heroin addicts, irrespective of how desperate the junkies needs are.

Perhaps this is a difference between Wales and North America?

Back in the 1960's and early 1970's here in New York City, most homeless people were "Bowery bums," as we used to call them, drug addicts and "winos." But this ceased to be the case by the 1980's.

(I also suspect that, even in Wales, you might perhaps be confusing the most visibly homeless people with homeless people in general. Hint: homeless people living in shelters are able to take showers and wash their clothes.)


Therefore, homeless shelters should have small private rooms with doors that lock. For whatever nonsensical reason, homeless shelters here in NYC often have four to six beds per room. People should not be expected to sleep in the same room with other people unless they are a couple. Even a tiny private room, just big enough to hold a small cot-sized bed plus a suitcase or two, would be better than forcing people to sleep with strangers.


No, for most homeless people, it has everything to do with homes themselves. For example, to apply for most jobs and most government benefits, it is necessary to have a home address.


In other words, those with "zero hope" should have no choice but to mug you? (And then go to prison, which costs MORE than a homeless shelter or even a "housing first" program?)

BTW, there is at least some evidence that "housing first" works well even for many of the folks you might deem to be "hopeless." See this academic paper and the footnotes of this Wikipedia article.

Shelters might be good for the no hopers, but homes absolutely not, they'll just get trashed. If someone has a long rap sheet of drug related crimes then a home will do zero to help and even then, the worst will still mug people for drug money.

When it comes to the lost causes, it's always drugs that are the primary problem. I remembered a friend who lives in a woman's refuge once and she invited a couple of homeless people in once she finally had a flat and holy god, it ended badly. They took all her money, never paid bills and refused to leave.

Homeless people can still get the relevant ID for at least work here too. Benefits on the other hand are different and are often dependant on people living in the address.

1. I think you have no idea what you're talking about. Rents were already expensive and have doubled over the last few years. Vacancy rates are near zero. A regular 16 year old house in the suburbs an hour from downtown, like the one I live in, costs $1.8M. BC has the highest eviction rates in all of Canada as landlords kick people out to re-develop the property, or renovate extensively in order to double the rent. Vancouver is within the top 3 Least Affordable real estate markets IN THE WORLD along with Sydney Australia & number one being Hong Kong. Many working people live in cars, RV's, vans, or sleep in a park or forest - in a tent or under the stars. I have several personal friends who live in vehicles or aboard boats or in a forest or at the beach etc etc who are not substance abusers - and there are thousands more people like them. There are some sick of paying almost ALL of their money for rent and not having enough for food or transportation, others who live in vehicles 6 months then travel internationally the rest of the year as they're retired, families with kids who are in the news camping in tents desperately trying to find a place to live, numerous posts of people on Facebook groups who were evicted for one of the typical greedy reasons and have been unable to find a place so are sleeping in their truck between work shifts while continuing their hunt for an address.. people wait on lists for government subsidized housing sometimes for 5-8+ YEARS before an affordable unit becomes available. People on social assistance (welfare) or even disability (which pays the most for a government cheque income) are increasingly finding themselves homeless because they cannot even afford to rent a single bedroom in many areas anymore.. not if they like to do things like eat food, or pay for prescriptions. Some just grow tired of being evicted 1-3x/year so someone can make more money so they say F it and just live in a car vs. go through all that stress and worries of finding a place and being subject to the cycles of renovictions OR finding out the reason the place was available and somewhat affordable is all the black mold the landlord painted over that's now affecting theirs or their childrens' respiratory health.

Clearly you have no concept of how difficult it is to find a place here even if you have cash in hand and can afford the rent.. then there's everyone who's seeking a replacement home for the one they lost and finding that monthly rates of skyrocketed $1000+ more than they used to just barely be able to afford. Etc. Not everyone who's homeless is a hardcore drug addict - not by a long shot anymore.

2. Ok. Dislike drug addicts all you want, but numerous studies have shown that housing stability helps people with all other aspects of their lives, drug/alcohol addictions, general physical and mental health etc. It's magnitudes more difficult for people to improve upon these things with the survival mode daily struggles caused by living outdoors. IMO, even addicts should be housed so they have a fighting chance of not being addicts anymore.

Have people also attempted to understand why homelessness is high and homes are so expensive for everyone in general in the first place?

And agreed with OP that a single federal one-size-fits-all solution isn't the best.

Well, ya know how it is, the right, the conservatives, in western English-speaking society (going by my observations of friends and relatives and media) fully know that are addicts because the addicts were born being both genetically and mentally incapable of applying the personal will to live by the high and righteous standards of the conservatives and the right, after all, the right is the right because the right are the righteous and the righteous are always right.

Anyway ...

two articles come to mind ...
and they are not entirely on the same path ...

Why the GOP Candidates Are Hooked on Addiction Stories
Like the voters they hope to represent, the drug epidemic has touched them too.
By JEFF GREENFIELD
November 12, 2015
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... on-213352/



Editorial: Why do Republican lawmakers want drug users to die in the street?
By The Times Editorial Board
Aug. 10, 2022 5 AM PT
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2 ... ernor-veto

Another quote from the 2015 Politico article,
posted by itself so as to easily be dealt with as its own thing,

Some have, others have pretended to.

It's not rocket surgery to realize there are multiple contributing factors to insane housing costs, it's just that various levels of government don't want to take the blame for their mistakes or inaction, or they simply don't want to solve the problems because too many people are making too much money and the already wealthy don't want to upset the status quo that continues to accelerate their wealth.

It's everything.
Record low interest rates for too long had people borrowing insane amounts of money.
FOMO. People think they Have To get into the real estate market before they can't so buy at the peak of what they could possibly qualify for in anticipation that prices will continue to rise.. (forever? how?)
Foreign investors and empty homes with no one living in them all over the place - so no matter how many you build places aren't all available for people to live in.
Record immigration despite not having housing to house people in.
REITs buying up rental housing.
Governments stopping building subsidized rental housing in the 1990's.
Cities taking a year or longer to approve building permits.
Zoning for single family homes instead of condos/apartments/townhomes/rowhomes/flats whatever multi-family homes are needed for the population and a bunch of NIMBY's who don't want poor working class people living within eyesight of their luxury home/mansion.
City government collecting IMMENSE amounts of development fees for every unit of housing built that the taxes & fees on a new condo built today exceed the entire price of a condo 30 years ago.
Billions of dollars/year coming from China alone entering the real estate market - a lot of it during the years the Provincial government in power literally went on Vancouver Real Estate promotional tours in China and spread the word about how money could be transferred through government owned and operated casino deposits to avoid capital outflow controls China has in place limiting things to $50k/year.
The world's biggest game of Monopoly with properties bought and sold online sight unseen - especially during Covid when people with money had a lot of time on their hands to go online shopping.. most people bought a few extra things on Amazon or had beer/wine delivered. Wealthy people bought properties all over the world.
Crypto enabled people to move large amounts of money undetected.
Billions/year in drug profits invested mostly into Vancouver/BC real estate. Chinese companies send fentanyl precursors, some contract gang or another is cooking up drugs, profits funnelled to the top then laundered through some money exchange business and pumped into VanRE.
The Feng Shui of this place truly is magnificent. We're actually a highly desirable location for many Billionaires and Multi-Millionaires from China's growing middle/upper class to move to.
Political instability in China has a lot of people exiting.
Canada often tops the world list of most desirable countries to move to, and this city is about the most desirable in the entire country.. because there is nowhere else on Earth that has all of the features of This Place despite the overgrown town of a city itself perhaps sucking balls in many ways compared to other so-called world class cities.
Vancouver BC is one of the top few money laundering capitols on the face of the Earth.
Even with legalization of Cannabis, I bet BC is still the third largest narco state in the Americas after Columbia and Mexico IIRC. There are organized crime groups here who must be making a pretty penny on drugs and a bunch of that cash has to have been flooding into real estate prices for decades. BC has amongst the lowest wages in Canada as it's a desirable place to live so for the last 40 years incomes have barely risen.. yet costs of everything have gone through the roof. Gotta be a lot of people who pay bills with undeclared cash for how low reported incomes are vs. the monthly cost of living.
Developers that insist they need more projects approved faster so they can build more units and reduce costs.. who then cancel projects when prices begin to come down because no one who builds housing is going to do it for less money than they were making.. or will build it at a loss.
Developers funding political campaigns for all levels of government to ensure that policies remain favourable to their industry.
Airbnb and other short term rental platforms removing Thousands upon Thousands of units of housing from the rental pool as short term rentals are far more profitable than having long term tenants and cities have given licencing permits for it. Hotel rooms in the city are obscenely expensive now with American tourists coming to board cruise ships sh*****g bricks when they find out the only hotel room they can find for rent downtown starts at $800/night because everything is booked.. which means people Airbnb'ing their spare rooms or entire condos/homes are fetching mucho dinero to do it while others are homeless here.
They're something like doubling the number of cruise ships coming into port, too.. so even more pressure on a city that has hardly built a new hotel in the last decade or so.
A lot of immigrants from cultures with multi-generational housing moving here so many family homes are absolutely ginormous but with sometimes as many as 6-10 full time working incomes paying the bills.
Expo '86 and then the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics promoting this place to the entire world to come and visit then pump their money into.
People from across the country selling their house in a worse/colder climate and retiring to BC because we have the nicest year round climate. Still get 4 seasons in most of the Province, but it's gentler than most of the rest of Canada.
Lax laws for money laundering, white collar crime, drug crimes etc - a haven for criminals
Home grown gangsters levelling up to becoming higher level international drug dealers must be increasing the dollars flowing into this place, too, compared to a few decades ago. It's an ever growing industry here that must be more lucrative or it wouldn't be getting so violent.
American corporations opening offices here to import foreign workers to work at because it's easier to get them into Canada than it is to get them into the USA to work.. so they just open up satellite offices here - hiring people making above average salaries for this city, resulting in upward pressure on rent prices.

It's really just one big perfect storm of greed and bad policy come together to completely screw us.