update: Bill Walton attacked by homeless people, update: encampments banned!

The bad economic outcomes that routinely happen in states like Texas and Florida that results in things like homelessness and drug addiction eventually becomes a Cali problem also I guess is what you are saying due to them flocking to Cali?

 

Do you want to live in Cali? Serious question fchowd0311

 

There are more services for the homeless in California than Texas or Florida. No doubt that high housing costs play a big part as well. However, a lot of those on Skid Row in Los Angeles and in places like San Francisco were not born in California but ended up in California because they were young and fleeing problems at home and California seemed a good place to run to..... or they were homeless and needed resources and were told by other homeless people and homeless advocates to go to California because they have the best resources... or in some cases they move to California while homeless to avoid weather extremes...... teenage girls also are trafficked in California on Figuerola in LA or Sepulveda in San Francisco because there is a high demand for sex workers in those areas and girls make a lot more money than they would in Houston or Nashville.

The homeless situation in the USA and especially in California is very complicated and has just become a political football. The Republicans have an incredibly poor understanding of those that are homeless and why they are homeless. Likewise, the Democrats also are naive believing that simply providing housing will solve all the problems.

 

I'm a mechanical engineer by trade. There are a lot of aerospace engineering jobs in Cali compared to Florida so if I was going to relocate it would be more likely be Cali than Florida because Cali has far more high skilled job opportunities.

 

Is you are wealthy California is an exceptional place to live.

In general, Southern California is an incredibly in demand place to live, the cost of housing is what limits the number of people living in the area.

It is a lot easier to become poor in California than other places though.... and it is easier to become middle class living in other areas around the country.

 

Let me know if you're running for Gov, so I can dump some spite fueled money into your campaign.

 

If you believe the best estimate of the labor department, there are about 600,000 homeless people in the USA. Those are the people you see in tents and living on the streets. It is becoming more and more evident that most people are getting sick of dealing with the homeless in major cities and I can understand not wanting to walk down wealthy parts of a city and having a heroin addict spitting up on the sidewalk with his ass out.

At this point we should just incarcerate them. We have about 1.6 million Americans in prison so we can add another 600,000. Yeah it will be expensive but it is a quick solution. We can possibly work on rehabilitation and getting them integrated back into society once they are receiving treatment and drug detox when needed.

I am sure a lot of people would be okay with it, and if they are against it, they will feel different when they can walk down the streets of LA, Chicago, NYC, San Fran and Dallas without seeing filthy people ******** on the sidewalks.

 

The question is when that homeless person finally caught up to the 7 foot redhead, what’s he gonna do?

 

And if the underlying economic conditions aren't solved, in ten years repeat the same process. We can even make into law. Every ten years round up the homeless.

Btw I'm not making fun of your proposition here. A short term solution is definitely still needed like you said.

 

This is largely untrue for the majority of homeless people. It's a tired trope that has prevented solutions for decades.

 

If I were rich enough to not care about cost of living I'd be there in a heartbeat.

 

There are a lot of people that actually have jobs and are homeless. They often will rent a hotel once or twice a week to clean their clothes and bathe so that they can remain employed. Some of them have two jobs as well. There are more people like this than you would expect. You will often notice them at bus stops, they have backpacks but look "normal" or like students.

The income inequality in the USA needs to be addressed, it is just a fact that it is the worst it has been in nearly 100 years. I am open on how to solve the problem, but it needs to addressed.

Yes, there are some people that just don't want to work. Some of them are just lazy. Some of them have been homeless for so long that it is in their blood. Some of them have psychiatric issues and some of them are stupid.

In the USSR they had this same problem. There were a certain amount of people that no matter what, refused to work. The USSR actually had to set up "camps" for these people and they were called parasites and shamed. They worked or they would die in prison camps.

I am not saying to put people in camps, and this type of laziness is not most homeless people. My point is that there will always be some that choose to wander and not work.

Camps in front of certain businesses or in prominent areas of town do surprise me to some extent. We have had shanty communities of the homeless in large numbers in the past. We had entire massive areas that were turned into basically favelas. However they were hidden. If they attempted to live on the streets in town, they were removed by force and they didn't have civil rights. They essentially had to hide. In large cities, there has been a call for civil rights protects for the homeless and now in some major cities you cannot get them off the street because enough voters are against it. We see that in Los Angeles and San Francisco and parts of Houston. However, I think people are getting sick of it and we may see Americans willing to ignore police force to get places clean.

As for companies moving, the exodus of companies from places like Southern California and Chicago has been largely over blown. There are businesses that move, but it is has largely been for tax reasons.

Yeah, anyone that thinks solving this issue is easy or thinks that this is all just people down on their luck will be in for a surprise. There are things we can do though that are smart and would help the situation a great deal. Cheaper housing would help, so would changing the treatment by society of addiction and in some cases even incarceration may be needed. The problem is that it takes money in some cases and patients and an infrastructure in other cases and we don't want to do that. Also, we need to target which homeless people we prioritize.

I have been to Skid Row and it is largely disgusting. The key is to not let anyone get too close to you. There are homeless people, drug dealers, drug addicts and street gangs that rule everything. If you are homeless on Skid Row, it is very hard to avoid drugs because you are pressured and in some cases forced to take them. There is a lot of violence, there is a lot of theft as well. It is a really bad area, although I think I would rather walk around Skid Row during the day than be on the border of Beverley Hills because there is a lot of gang violence and an intersection between wealth and poverty. A lot of idiots driving around in half million dollar cars right next to ex felons and gang bangers.

 

Who wouldn't? It literally caters to those that have wealth.

 

I am really involved with the homeless situation. I am most active in Chicago but we also have dealings in Los Angeles.

The classic belief is that single people become drug addicts, don't want to work and end up homeless living off the charity of others.

There are some people like this..... but it is like 10%.

We have a lot of abused teenagers that run-away and are homeless, and then once they are homeless they are pressured into either sex trafficking or theft by street gangs and other people that exploit homeless people. Drug addiction almost always happens AFTER being homeless. It is pressed by drug dealers who will use physical force when needed. These same street gangs will often times steal or take a portion of whatever someone pan handles. Also being homeless is very stressful, so in some cases those that are not pressured into drugs voluntarily start because it makes life more livable. In major cities like Los Angeles, the homeless pay the local gangs a street tax to sleep on the street. Nothing is free.

In our country it is very easy to become homeless because of the breakdown of families..... people move without a job, lose a job.... live in their car... then steal and live outside... then when they need panhandling money they go to the cities... where drugs and gangs are prevalent.

A lot of these homeless people also have children that are living with relatives. Also more homeless people get off the streets than people realize.... but the odds get lower the longer they are homeless.

We need to have more affordable housing. It doesn't need to be nice or very large, but it would help a lot. We also need to have more wage stability. I know we have greatly increased the minimum wage in some of the places, but how it was done is counter productive and the cost has really been passed on to the middle and lower classed and not the super wealthy.