KALIFORNIA ..... OFICIALMENTE DONE!!!!

[Sharky]

There's no denying that the problem has gotten far worse with time. Whatever we are doing is not only NOT working, it is making the problem worse over time.

Maybe bring back Bumfights?

Dana White could run it.

Kidding. J/K. I kid.

I have tried to help some people on an individual basis. I failed. It is true that there are some people that prefer to live on the streets. Believe it or not. I arraigned free housing for a couple of people. I hired a couple of people for odd jobs for cash. The catch was no drugs, no prostitution, no alcohol. Housing set aside for the purpose of helping the homeless goes unoccupied because no one can/will get sober.

I really think hard drugs and mental illness are major contributors. That and an inferior educational system.

 

[laidback]

Seems simple to me. Do a census on how many people live on the street. Build or buy facilities to accommodate this population and add 10-20%.

this is what LA is doing
"The price tag for some of Los Angeles' housing for the homeless is expected to hit a whopping $746,000 per unit, far more than the cost of building some luxury high rise condos in downtown."

 

[Kento]

this is what LA is doing
"The price tag for some of Los Angeles' housing for the homeless is expected to hit a whopping $746,000 per unit, far more than the cost of building some luxury high rise condos in downtown."

I'm guessing there's a bit of skim going on here.

 

[Mr Doof]

There is a segment of humans that just doesn't want to do anything but get high/low (not necessarily the same group as the mentally ill/incompetent).

They'll do just about whatever to get high/low (and carrying on as if our society is their toilet) except manage their intake so they can put in their 20-40 hrs a week to legitimately pay for their life of addiction/choice.

What do we do about them....beside execute them? I mean, they certainly can't all be good looking enough to farm out as haute couture fashion models.

 

[Joshua2415]

What do we do about them....beside execute them? I mean, they certainly can't all be good looking enough to farm out as haute couture fashion models.

I give you, Derelicte! The future of fashion.

 

[PJ]

In Bono's Book "Surrender" he's fairly candid about how early on he thought the worlds problems could be solved by putting enough money on the job, that it was just lack of funding and as he got involved with a lot of aid type things he found out differently through experience. So did Sean Penn in Haiti.

Bono's book is definitely worth reading - an interesting guy who's done a lot of interesting things.

 

[ElOgro]

There is a segment of humans that just doesn't want to do anything but get high/low (not necessarily the same group as the mentally ill/incompetent).

They'll do just about whatever to get high/low (and carrying on as if our society is their toilet) except manage their intake so they can put in their 20-40 hrs a week to legitimately pay for their life of addiction/choice.

What do we do about them....beside execute them? I mean, they certainly can't all be good looking enough to farm out as haute couture fashion models.

View attachment 163931

There’s always been the hobo lifestyle. The difference is the shear number of homeless. Not the same as people hopping trains. Add into that refugees from wherever. I didn’t see how that’s being handled in the EU, but it shouldn’t be excluded.

Generally speaking, Mexico’s homeless problem is light. The refugee problem is off the hook.

I guess it’s all funny money wherever you look.

 

[PJ]

I'm guessing there's a bit of skim going on here.

Not necessarily. I have done public and private control / wiring / construction work. In private work - generally someone who knows picks contractors based on price / quality (not necessarily low bid), gets it done and will take responsibility if it goes south - but knows how not to let it go south. Private has a vested interest in bringing the work to a speedy conclusion as do the contractors involved - there's mortgage interest to pay - have to get that building generating cash which is its job.

In public work - my god the specifications and reports and ass-covering drive the costs up. And you have to put in money for the risk of it practically never ending and here in NYC they've taken to never paying the "Retainage" - the last 10% - on school jobs so you now have to take the already inflated price and give it the old "x 1.1". And you'll earn that money. No skim - just wasted time and effort. For instance a company gave me a list of control work to do at a large Postal facility. We service the place, I know the system so I priced it at $360,000, doing it the most efficient way I know how - which is how I always want to do things. Then they gave me a 250 page spec that, for instance, called for a daily written report of work done. OK that takes 30 mins time from writing to submitting to passing it on, etc. But we would only have one guy on the job so now he's only working 7.5 hours so that adds 6.2% to the on-site labor. My after spec price for the same work was $582,000. The spec had us doing some unnecessary things and also carried a lot of risk in it for us in a lot of ways and estimators add dollars to compensate for risk.

 

[waxhead]

Really? I'm unaware of where these successful communities of formally homeless drug addicts are located.

I am aware of the many hotels the City of SF has under contract to provide rooms to various low income folks. I'm familiar with a few dozen of them because my company has worked in them and I've personally visited all of them. I'm not sure I'd call them a success since to me they are nasty freakin pits of despair. The kind of place where you feel like you need a shower when you walk out the door. I've had to beg some of my guys to return to work to complete jobs on more than one occasion because they were being hassled by drunken drugged out marginally insane bums, while the staff, former residents themselves, did nothing.

I'm also aware of the hotel rooms the city rented to house people during covid, and how those folks trashed those places, leaving the city's tax payers to pay millions in addition to the rent to repair them.

Lots of money spent, not much accomplished from my point of view, as the area that most are located in are zombie infested war zones, worse than many poor areas in Guatemala.

One of my clients regularly asks for material to be delivered to them in the tenderloin. Last time was the last time. Literally had to step over human feces to enter the hotel. Had to humor an obviously insane young women while not taking eyes off the delivery truck. This was a new low for me, as I've been working for these folks for about 20 years. Things are worse now, no matter what anyone says. More people on the streets and tents and addicts on streets they never were before.

And, not to vilify the city government entirely as I've worked in federally funded housing projects, also hardly places you'd let your wife or kid visit.

I'm aware this isn't an SF problem, it's in a lot of places. Billions being spent and the problem is getting worse. I don't know if there is a solution. I do know that giving a drug addict a house isn't it. They would rip out the copper to get a fix.

That's a lot of generalizing and stereotyping.

Nobody ever really tried to house these people in the US. Putting them in shelters is not housing.

Where they did, accompanied with medical care, it was successful.

 

[keenfish]

There’s always been the hobo lifestyle. The difference is the shear number of homeless. Not the same as people hopping trains. Add into that refugees from wherever. I didn’t see how that’s being handled in the EU, but it shouldn’t be excluded.

Generally speaking, Mexico’s homeless problem is light. The refugee problem is off the hook.

I guess it’s all funny money wherever you look.

 

[hammies]

I'm like, you voted for this and I don't vote. You only have yourself to blame.

I used to tell my students, "Vote. If you don't vote, you can't complain."

 

[Kento]

Not necessarily. I have done public and private control / wiring / construction work. In private work - generally someone who knows picks contractors based on price / quality (not necessarily low bid), gets it done and will take responsibility if it goes south - but knows how not to let it go south. Private has a vested interest in bringing the work to a speedy conclusion as do the contractors involved - there's mortgage interest to pay - have to get that building generating cash which is its job.

In public work - my god the specifications and reports and ass-covering drive the costs up. And you have to put in money for the risk of it practically never ending and here in NYC they've taken to never paying the "Retainage" - the last 10% - on school jobs so you now have to take the already inflated price and give it the old "x 1.1". And you'll earn that money. No skim - just wasted time and effort. For instance a company gave me a list of control work to do at a large Postal facility. We service the place, I know the system so I priced it at $360,000, doing it the most efficient way I know how - which is how I always want to do things. Then they gave me a 250 page spec that, for instance, called for a daily written report of work done. OK that takes 30 mins time from writing to submitting to passing it on, etc. But we would only have one guy on the job so now he's only working 7.5 hours so that adds 6.2% to the on-site labor. My after spec price for the same work was $582,000. The spec had us doing some unnecessary things and also carried a lot of risk in it for us in a lot of ways and estimators add dollars to compensate for risk.

Makes sense. A lot of extra cost from all the additional paperwork. DoD work was a lot like that. Stupid amounts of paperwork that made everything cost a lot more and take a lot longer. Tax dollars at work. Guess it's good for the company's bottom line though.

 

[hugh shackman]

Well the zero bail stuff makes my catalytic converter feel like a ticking time bomb out there

 

[casa_mugrienta]

Really? I'm unaware of where these successful communities of formally homeless drug addicts are located.

That's because they don't exist.

As it pertains to the homeless thing, addiction goes hand in hand with theft, sexual assault + exploitation, and violence.

It's incompatible with community and civilized society.

Anyone making the "homeless drug addicts need housing" argument is likely naive due to lack of exposure to this community.

Even sober dual diagnosis recovery homes with chaperones are insanely hard to manage.

Also, remember a huge number of homeless do it as a lifestyle choice. The literally want to be out on the street because they don't want any form of responsibility nor cooperation with other humans.

That pretty much negates the "housing" aspect for a huge percentage of them. Not to mention the liability aspect on behlaf of the city/state.

 

[plasticbertrand]

Really? I'm unaware of where these successful communities of formally homeless drug addicts are located.

I am aware of the many hotels the City of SF has under contract to provide rooms to various low income folks. I'm familiar with a few dozen of them because my company has worked in them and I've personally visited all of them. I'm not sure I'd call them a success since to me they are nasty freakin pits of despair. The kind of place where you feel like you need a shower when you walk out the door. I've had to beg some of my guys to return to work to complete jobs on more than one occasion because they were being hassled by drunken drugged out marginally insane bums, while the staff, former residents themselves, did nothing.

I'm also aware of the hotel rooms the city rented to house people during covid, and how those folks trashed those places, leaving the city's tax payers to pay millions in addition to the rent to repair them.

Lots of money spent, not much accomplished from my point of view, as the area that most are located in are zombie infested war zones, worse than many poor areas in Guatemala.

One of my clients regularly asks for material to be delivered to them in the tenderloin. Last time was the last time. Literally had to step over human feces to enter the hotel. Had to humor an obviously insane young women while not taking eyes off the delivery truck. This was a new low for me, as I've been working for these folks for about 20 years. Things are worse now, no matter what anyone says. More people on the streets and tents and addicts on streets they never were before.

And, not to vilify the city government entirely as I've worked in federally funded housing projects, also hardly places you'd let your wife or kid visit.

I'm aware this isn't an SF problem, it's in a lot of places. Billions being spent and the problem is getting worse. I don't know if there is a solution. I do know that giving a drug addict a house isn't it. They would rip out the copper to get a fix.

Billions are spent the wrong way.

Giving them rooms or putting them in hotels without any structure or support, is not what I meant.

Housing First is More than a Buzzword | Pathways to Housing PA

In systems of care for people who experiencing homelessness, Housing First has achieved buzzword status. More and more housing organizations are adopting the term to describe their work towards ending homelessness. And most of these organizations don’t understand that Housing First is the name...

pathwaystohousingpa.org

• Housing First employs a scattered site model, which means that participants are in homes of their choosing across the region or city they’re in, rather than all together in one building. Those that experience chronic homelessness are often without autonomy and choice for years or even decades; restoring that self-determination is a key principle of Housing First. Choice does not end with the decision of where to live; it continues into every aspect of the participant’s life. Case managers offer support and encouragement, but Housing First participants have complete autonomy over how they want to live their lives.
• Housing First is does not require treatment or abstinence. The third Housing First principle is a recovery orientation, which refers to the employment of harm reduction principles as a means of promoting individualized wellness in the program design.
  
  Essentially, harm reduction is the pragmatic acceptance that substance use and mental illness are a part of some people’s lives. Rather than ignoring or condemning, case managers work with a participant to reduce the harm they could potentially do to themselves and others. Recovery does not always translate to abstinence or medication, and is different for everyone. Housing First promotes recovery in all of its various forms, without requirements.

 

[plasticbertrand]

That's because they don't exist.

As it pertains to the homeless thing, addiction goes hand in hand with theft, sexual assault + exploitation, and violence.

It's incompatible with community and civilized society.

Anyone making the "homeless drug addicts need housing" argument is likely naive due to lack of exposure to this community.

Even sober dual diagnosis recovery homes with chaperones are insanely hard to manage.

Also, remember a huge number of homeless do it as a lifestyle choice. The literally want to be out on the street because they don't want any form of responsibility nor cooperation with other humans.

That pretty much negates the "housing" aspect for a huge percentage of them. Not to mention the liability aspect on behlaf of the city/state.

Generalizing, stereotyping, hyperbole......

Let's look at the evidence.

The housing first model (HFM) fidelity index: designing and testing a tool for measuring integrity of housing programs that serve active substance users

The Housing First Model (HFM) is an approach to serving formerly homeless individuals with dually diagnosed mental health and substance use disorders regardless of their choice to use substances or engage in other risky behaviors. The model has been widely ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Substance abuse is often offered as an explanation for the difficulty homeless individuals have accessing and maintaining housing. While substance abuse likely contributes to housing instability in some way (e.g., potential difficulty managing money and paying rent or increased potential for interpersonal disputes), it is also important to recognize that structural-level barriers to stable permanent housing also exist.

Chief among these barriers are the stated and unstated policies determining who is eligible to access housing and the behaviors they must engage in to retain it [1]. Many policies guiding homeless services follow an abstinence-based approach requiring consumers to obtain sobriety (typically for 30–90 days) before they become eligible for housing. Likewise, individuals often must remain sober to keep their placement and/or advance to more independent levels of housing. This abstinence-based approach has been connected to problems such as higher consumer dissatisfaction and disengagement from services [2,3].

Developed in response to problems such as these, the Housing First Model (HFM) places lower demands on consumers. It has become the driving force of policies aimed at ending chronic homelessness due to its success engaging “hard-to-serve” individuals [4-6]. Despite this, wide diffusion coupled with a lack of clear implementation guidelines has led to confusion as to the elements of the model necessary for replication [7-9]. We created the HFM Fidelity Index in an effort to address the gap between HFM policy and community practice. In this paper we present results related to the development and testing of the index.

 

[JSC]

Mao cleaned up the opium problem in a short period of time by shooting the dealers. this is also why Singapore doesn't have this problem.

Just to be clear, Singapore doesn't shoot dope dealers - they hang them from the end of a rope at dawn, British style.

There is an official Hangman, an old Indian guy, who has had the job for 25 years. He's good at it, no decapitations.

The length of the rope (the Drop, as it is known) has to correlate with the weight of the person being hung. Too much rope for a fat guy and you will tear his head off. Not enough rope for a skinny person and the strangulation will be slow.

The idea is - just enough rope and the neck breaks cleanly, resulting in instant death. Just so you know.

The government has executed quite a few convicted dope dealers so far this year, regardless of what Richard Branson or anyone else says.

Having lived in Hawaii for some 30 odd years previously, where powerful illegal drugs are widely distributed and consumed without the authorities doing much at all to control drug use, we like the Singapore attitude.

And while Singapore is by no means drug-free, with methamphetamine the most common street drug and heroin second but regarded as an "old man's drug" as most teenage heroin addicts from the days before independence in 1965 when heroin was widely available and Singapore still had opium dens who are still alive after a lifetime of gangster lifestyle and drug addiction are now old men - scrabbling after a fix on the streets of Chinatown, but a small and getting smaller number of addicts.

Would Singapore-style policies work in California or America in general? Probably not, as they would be ruled unconstitutional immediately.

The US Constitution grants citizens and enormous amount of individual freedom. Unfortunately, many people use that freedom of choice to make bad choices that ultimately destroy their own lives and the collateral criminality from their implosion causes a lot of damage to the communities and people around them.

More and stronger drugs make that easier than ever before.

Downtown areas of major American cities have always had alcoholics - heroin, cocaine, meth and now fentanyl are a whole different level of social destruction.

 

[casa_mugrienta]

Generalizing, stereotyping, hyperbole......

Let's look at the evidence.

The housing first model (HFM) fidelity index: designing and testing a tool for measuring integrity of housing programs that serve active substance users

The Housing First Model (HFM) is an approach to serving formerly homeless individuals with dually diagnosed mental health and substance use disorders regardless of their choice to use substances or engage in other risky behaviors. The model has been widely ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Substance abuse is often offered as an explanation for the difficulty homeless individuals have accessing and maintaining housing. While substance abuse likely contributes to housing instability in some way (e.g., potential difficulty managing money and paying rent or increased potential for interpersonal disputes), it is also important to recognize that structural-level barriers to stable permanent housing also exist.

Chief among these barriers are the stated and unstated policies determining who is eligible to access housing and the behaviors they must engage in to retain it [1]. Many policies guiding homeless services follow an abstinence-based approach requiring consumers to obtain sobriety (typically for 30–90 days) before they become eligible for housing. Likewise, individuals often must remain sober to keep their placement and/or advance to more independent levels of housing. This abstinence-based approach has been connected to problems such as higher consumer dissatisfaction and disengagement from services [2,3].

Developed in response to problems such as these, the Housing First Model (HFM) places lower demands on consumers. It has become the driving force of policies aimed at ending chronic homelessness due to its success engaging “hard-to-serve” individuals [4-6]. Despite this, wide diffusion coupled with a lack of clear implementation guidelines has led to confusion as to the elements of the model necessary for replication [7-9]. We created the HFM Fidelity Index in an effort to address the gap between HFM policy and community practice. In this paper we present results related to the development and testing of the index.

And of course there's plenty of research out there showing Housing First doesn't work either.

And further it's extremely difficult to get the homeless to even participate.

Housing First is the policy in CA. lol.

It's been a disaster. One of the issues - residents are more likely to OD

And then you have rsidents trying to get sober living ariund a bunch of people who are using

Something like 9/10 homeless refuse to even participate.

 

[Mr Doof]

Billions being spent and the problem is getting worse. I don't know if there is a solution. I do know that giving a drug addict a house isn't it. They would rip out the copper to get a fix.

The Set-up:
1. No house, a shipping container sized units or studio apt/dorm rooms with doors.
2. Everything on the inside is sprayed with some epoxy sealant and center drain(so it can be cleaned easily).
3. Sparse fixtures/furniture/toilet/cooking area/entertainment...like in 5th Element
4. Free meals and drugs, both as much as you want, just can't leave your while high/low (maybe have community area?).
5. Provide options for those who want a better life instead of existence.

Possible benefits:
A. Keeps 'em off the street (out of sight, out of mind).
B. Easier to find the dead bodies when they overdose (everyone gets a DNR card upon admittance).
C. Cheaper because we don't need to call 911 when someone passes out on the sidewalk.
D. Those that want to get clean/live a better life are close to help (which is onsite and not across town).
E. Feel good about ourselves that we're helping our fellow human more than just ignoring them.


Just spit-balling...and yes, of course I recognize this would be very much an authoritarian way of handling those intent on living the druggy street lifestyle. I don't know how it couldn't be that. And yes, I have some doubts if this would be best way because giving out free drugs to addicts would just speed a fair number of them into the hole, but at the same time, well, yeah, slower or faster is just a function of time, nothing more.

The length of the rope (the Drop, as it is known) has to correlate with the weight of the person being hung. Too much rope for a fat guy and you will tear his head off. Not enough rope for a skinny person and the strangulation will be slow.

The idea is - just enough rope and the neck breaks cleanly, resulting in instant death. Just so you know.

When I was on the Ghost and Goblin night walking tour on High Street in Edinburgh, Scotland, listening to the telling of Crime and Punishment, besides the punishment for gossip (nailing the tongue to a door or post or an ear if you were the listener), there was the story of the mom who got caught stealing bread. The punishment was hanging. But because she was too light, she didn't break her neck on the drop. So the person in charge made her two kids pull on her legs to speed things along. I am unsure if the kids pulled on the legs to break the neck or just tugged hard enough to strangle her.

 

[PRCD]

The Set-up:
1. No house, a shipping container sized units or studio apt/dorm rooms with doors.
2. Everything on the inside is sprayed with some epoxy sealant and center drain(so it can be cleaned easily).
3. Sparse fixtures/furniture/toilet/cooking area/entertainment...like in 5th Element
4. Free meals and drugs, both as much as you want, just can't leave your while high/low (maybe have community area?).
5. Provide options for those who want a better life instead of existence.

Possible benefits:
A. Keeps 'em off the street (out of sight, out of mind).
B. Easier to find the dead bodies when they overdose (everyone gets a DNR card upon admittance).
C. Cheaper because we don't need to call 911 when someone passes out on the sidewalk.
D. Those that want to get clean/live a better life are close to help (which is onsite and not across town).
E. Feel good about ourselves that we're helping our fellow human more than just ignoring them.


Just spit-balling...and yes, of course I recognize this would be very much an authoritarian way of handling those intent on living the druggy street lifestyle. I don't know how it couldn't be that. And yes, I have some doubts if this would be best way because giving out free drugs to addicts would just speed a fair number of them into the hole, but at the same time, well, yeah, slower or faster is just a function of time, nothing more.

The only way to get them into housing is press gangs. Most like being on the streets. When they are in housing, they often destroy it and turn the local neighborhood into a warzone and/or red light district.

A mandatory treatment program might work. I also like what @JSC described - a quick judicial process for dealers followed by hangings. We can copy the weight/drop chart from Singapore's hangman.