Homelessness is misnamed because it is not a result of lack of homes...
Drug use and mental illness are the problems.
The biggest lie of all is you are not compassionate if you call this out. The opposite is true. Not calling it out (and asking for true solutions) shows a lack of compassion to let the drug addled and mentally ill (and both often go together) live on the streets. It also shows a lack of compassion to businesses and people forced to live in those neighborhoods. Note that the rich and powerful can avoid it.
I am all for more affordable housing. You do that by making it easier for landlords to build housing and also evict problem tenants. There is no incentive to build housing if you make it impossible to evict tenants when they stop paying rent or start abusing other tenants or causing waste to the unit. While that helps working poor people, that is really not why we have a homeless problem.
It is not just the west coast. There is no public space that isn't overrun with mentally ill lunatics and drug addicts in New York City (as an east cost example). Most Democrat run cities are the same--or alternatively have out of control drug related violence.
H/T: The Virginian
Seattle is Dying is from a year or 18 months ago. The latest version/sequel is The Fight for the Soul of Seattle. There are others, but I can definitely recommend those 2.
ReplyDeleteIt was a problem in Dallas starting a couple of decades ago . Restaurants had problems with crazies rooting around in the dumpsters. The Restaurants where liable if any thing happened to the divers. I remember one getting into a serious argument with a post office box. It all started after they passed laws for the right of crazies to remain on the streets and you couldn't committ them to those "horrible" insane asylums. So they let them out onto the streets to die. I remember the cops started having to carry gloves and rescue airway devices. The joke was which cop was going to have to get close enough and run the risk of lice .
ReplyDelete