> I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable people.
That is because this "romantic view" is a straw man you came up with so that you can rationalize writing a comment attacking the homeless and the mentally ill, instead of doing something constructive. Do you participate in the San Francisco Tenants Union? Are you doing anything to help SB562 (single-payer in California)? When was the last time you gave a homeless person change?
You can whine about homeless people all you want on HN but that says more about your inadequacies as a person than about the homeless. Until the lack of affordable access to housing and mental health services is resolved the homeless population in California will keep growing.
Affordable housing will do absolutely nothing for the type of homeless people OP is talking about (drug addicts and the mentally ill). They are homeless because they have no stability in their life and would not be able to hold a job to pay rent regardless of the cost.
The class of homeless you are referring to is people pushed out of their homes due to rising prices and their limited income. These people (in my experience) are not the ones going around screaming at people an not bathing for months. You would most likely not even know they are homeless.
You are not talking about the same groups of people so you are talking past each other and nothing productive will come of your exchange.
Having affordable housing only creates stability if they actually pay the rent.
From what I've observed, the problematic homeless people primarily need health care or to be put in a mental institution (for the really unstable ones). Affordable housing would certainly be nice, but having that isn't going to do anything for the ones that piss on the floor or jump off the balcony of a public library because they wouldn't be able to pay (or want to pay) any price for housing.
But what's the point of the distinction here? Are we really going to argue that the best thing we can do with mentally unstable people who are unable to hold a job is throw them on the streets?
I don't think anyone is arguing that. "Throwing them on the streets" and "discouraging them from hanging out in the library unless they are actually using it" are two different things entirely.
No,I don't want homeless kids from being discouraged from hanging out in the library just because they stink and make rich people uncomfortable. Just because some folks don't acknowledge the dark side of the USA, where is little/no support for your fellow citizens who fall off the train, doesn't mean you can grind them down even more.
"Not fair, not just? Who said life was fair? Where is there any justice" - Well, if life isn't fair and justice is just a joke, I suppose you would also be fine for those poor, homeless people you snigger and mock at to take violence as a route and murder and rob rich people ? Life is not fair right ? After all you are talking about putting them into labour camps - they can also decide that enough is enough and start a revolution. You might want to realise that you are heavily outnumbered and wouldn't be able to go to work for fear of being murdered.
Who did I mock, now? A revolution would be to actually address homelessness for what it is: a crime! The crime is allowing it to continue, as it is inhumane.
But to address it, you have to take control.
Oh, the outrage. More like oh, the apathy! You're outraged that my call to action makes sense.
Perhaps it "makes sense" but the problem is it's monstrous. Similarly, summarily executing the homeless would probably reduce the number of homeless people on the street, but I do not support it because it is obviously morally bankrupt.
Let's just see how consistent you are, how monstrous you are by your tacit acceptance of the current state.
It's thought experiment time: take all the homeless in the country, but make them all 5 years old. Do we leave them on the street to fend for themselves? No, and what must we do with them? Why? And then keep questioning why to each of your answers to get to the root of your thoughts.
Do the same experiment, but make the age 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19. How do your answers change, and if they do, answer truthfully why? How utterly heartless you are.
Your obvious inconsistencies stem from the fact that your notion of truth and what is just is completely arbitrary, planted in you by someone very manipulative and cruel. What you think is so banal as to disgust me.
If you want to talk about being disgusted, I'm disgusted by your suggestion that we create a concentration camp for the homeless. If that makes me "banal" then so be it.
There's no conviction in your words here. I must have surprised you, and maybe got you to think which is good.
Who, other than you, said anything about concentration camps? Your argument rests on essentially name calling.
You haven't pressed me on details, you haven't torn me to shreds based on argument because, apparently, you don't need to present any argument other than name calling outrage.
I'd say when your position continues to fail to do anything meaningful other than expand the homeless population, you have some serious defending to do.
Again, what I think should be done is simply giving homeless people housing. A forced labor camp is a concentration camp so there is really no misrepresentation of your argument to use the term.
And if the inmates did work but their experience was neither forced nor concentration or gulag, then you'd be all for my idea? I seriously doubt it; there's an agenda at work with you that has little to do with actually helping people.
"Simply giving homeless people housing" does nothing but brush off the real problem. That sounds like "do more of what I know hasn't worked" to me.
Let me guess what your deep fear is. How about this: you believe if we don't placate the downtrodden masses with wealth transfer programs then we'll eventually have an uprising and they'll take all my stuff and kill me and my family or something like that.
You know what causes anger and uprisings? Not simply poverty. If that was the case, you'd have 3rd world countries constantly in revolution. The jealousy and violence and revolts stem from relative wealth inequality. Rich people living and flaunting their wealth in proximity to relatively poor people. Well, we've effectively segregated ourselves in the states by class - we no longer mix classes here. So, have no fear, you're not going to get mugged by your impoverished neighbors unless you're one of those chaos-loving hipsters that is in the process of gentrifying a poor neighborhood (a.k.a. displacing the poor people.)
Now that I have allayed your fear, let me propose that your wealth transfer concepts can't "fix" the poverty problem because it allows people to stay stuck in their mental/cultural situation. If you don't fix the culture first, you're throwing good money after bad. I want measurable improvement in the homeless situation and we're clearly trending the wrong way in big cities right now. Of course there needs to be more public housing, but the culture problem needs to be addressed first.
I'm not sure how great the revival of the Victorian workhouse would be, but yes, the involuntary imprisonment and forced labor aspect of your plan is far and away the most objectionable.
It is not ok to call someone inadequate as a person for wanting usable and pleasant public spaces. We are not morally obligated to enthusiastically embrace the reallocation of every public space for use as a homeless shelter.
Cities need to get homeless services right. They also need to get libraries, parks, and transit right.
It's totally OK to call someone out for talking about people with mental illness like they were rats or cockroaches. I don't care what happens to sewer rats. I just want them out of my sight and mind. But when I see people who are sick or suffering, my first concern is with there well-being. I recognize that my own inconvenience or displeasure pales in significance to the human suffering I am witnessing.
Letting public space rot like that is a deeply regressive policy.
You and I have access to private-sector alternatives. The working-class kid who wants a quiet place to do his homework, the guy on the edge of homeless desperately applying for jobs on the public computer, someone depending on the librarian to help them navigate the welfare bureaucracy... they don't.
You may not realize it, but a great many people on the low end of the socioeconomic ladder depend on libraries as quiet sanctuaries and as a window of access to the modern, networked, intellectual world. Shouted obscenities and excrement vapor in the air ruin it for them too.
You're right, we should be deeply concerned by such dramatic scenes of intense suffering and inhumanity. But if you're even slightly concerned, the last thing you want to do is let the environment deteriorate and fester undisturbed. The guy who might consider defecating on the floor deserves a peaceful and pleasant library, too. He's not going to get it if we let such things become normal there. The characteristics of the spaces we inhabit shape our moods and behaviors, and a library which could be mistaken for a skid row alleyway serves no one.
That is because this "romantic view" is a straw man you came up with so that you can rationalize writing a comment attacking the homeless and the mentally ill, instead of doing something constructive. Do you participate in the San Francisco Tenants Union? Are you doing anything to help SB562 (single-payer in California)? When was the last time you gave a homeless person change?
You can whine about homeless people all you want on HN but that says more about your inadequacies as a person than about the homeless. Until the lack of affordable access to housing and mental health services is resolved the homeless population in California will keep growing.