I had this discussion with a coworker of mine, and it definitely changed my thinking on the subject. His brother works for Kent PD, and he also has spent a lot of time volunteering with the homeless. He said it's a more intractable situation than it seems. The city was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a private contractor to break up homeless encampments and shoo them away. It's actually dangerous, technical work dealing with the needles, hazardous waste, etc., and often involves heavy equipment and dump trucks and whatnot. This contractor retired or moved on or something, so they were in a bind. The strategy, though, was kind of sad, and whoever created the policy's hands were in a bind. Of course a new camp would appear shortly after somewhere nearby, they'd ignore it as long as they could, then eventually it would become enough of a public nuisance that they'd be forced to play Sisyphus and push the boulder up the hill some more. They had a choice between wasting a fuckton of money merely shuffling the homeless around between camping spots or appearing to do nothing about it and getting the public all pissed off.
The part that blew my mind, though, when I was going off on my bleeding heart argument about spending a ton of money to house them all being cheaper perhaps than the damage they're causing, he responded with: "You're not getting it. You ever visited one of these camps? You ever talked to these people? Tried helping them? Ever helped clean one of these camps up?"
I mean, of course I haven't. I only tell people how they should solve problems from the comfort of my basement, not actually go outside and do the work, COME ON!
He said, "You realize it's even more fucked than you thought when you find out that a significant percentage of them want to live that way. You could hand them the keys to a free brand new, clean, furnished apartment, and they'd be living in another camp a week later. For many it's drugs or mental illness, but plenty of them just don't want your help. Being homeless is the lifestyle they choose."
I've thought about that a lot since, and I really just don't know what to make of it. I want to be compassionate, and I'd spend good money to help rehabilitate these people as opposed to just dumping them in Vantage to die out of sight. But if a significant number don't want to be helped, I don't see what options remain but Street-Shitting Theater° or some form of banishment (institutionalizing, geographical, etc.).
I had this discussion with a coworker of mine, and it definitely changed my thinking on the subject. His brother works for Kent PD, and he also has spent a lot of time volunteering with the homeless. He said it's a more intractable situation than it seems. The city was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a private contractor to break up homeless encampments and shoo them away. It's actually dangerous, technical work dealing with the needles, hazardous waste, etc., and often involves heavy equipment and dump trucks and whatnot. This contractor retired or moved on or something, so they were in a bind. The strategy, though, was kind of sad, and whoever created the policy's hands were in a bind. Of course a new camp would appear shortly after somewhere nearby, they'd ignore it as long as they could, then eventually it would become enough of a public nuisance that they'd be forced to play Sisyphus and push the boulder up the hill some more. They had a choice between wasting a fuckton of money merely shuffling the homeless around between camping spots or appearing to do nothing about it and getting the public all pissed off.
The part that blew my mind, though, when I was going off on my bleeding heart argument about spending a ton of money to house them all being cheaper perhaps than the damage they're causing, he responded with: "You're not getting it. You ever visited one of these camps? You ever talked to these people? Tried helping them? Ever helped clean one of these camps up?"
I mean, of course I haven't. I only tell people how they should solve problems from the comfort of my basement, not actually go outside and do the work, COME ON!
He said, "You realize it's even more fucked than you thought when you find out that a significant percentage of them want to live that way. You could hand them the keys to a free brand new, clean, furnished apartment, and they'd be living in another camp a week later. For many it's drugs or mental illness, but plenty of them just don't want your help. Being homeless is the lifestyle they choose."
I've thought about that a lot since, and I really just don't know what to make of it. I want to be compassionate, and I'd spend good money to help rehabilitate these people as opposed to just dumping them in Vantage to die out of sight. But if a significant number don't want to be helped, I don't see what options remain but Street-Shitting Theater° or some form of banishment (institutionalizing, geographical, etc.).
I expect there is some percentage of the homeless who will claim they choose to live on the street. Even assuming you could conclude that this claim was not the product of mental illness or addiction, we’re still left with questions: (1) what do we do with all the others (the majority)? and (2) how do we deter this “significant percentage”?
I expect there is some percentage of the homeless who will claim they choose to live on the street. Even assuming you could conclude that this claim was not the product of mental illness or addiction, we’re still left with questions: (1) what do we do with all the others (the majority)? and (2) how do we deter this “significant percentage”?
I don't know. That's my point. It was an obstacle I hadn't considered.
Hard problem here. My "a little hard work never hurt anyone" and "you can be anything you want in America if you work for it" arguments break down a bit in the face of mental illness and people who just WANT to live and shit on a street. I think there is an element (some percentage, not sure how much) of the homeless that are just lazy fucks. But then you have the drug addicts, and the mentally ill, and now the "I just want to live in a tent" people. So, four classes of folks by our count, with probably a good deal of bleed over between groups, and they probably all need to be treated differently.
Drug addicts need dry out and counseling. Mentally ill need medicine, counseling, or institutionalization in some cases. Lazy people need need a swift kick in the ass. People who CHOOSE shitting on a street need....well, I have no fucking idea what they need. And how do you take the tim to figure out which of all the issues facing dozens of people in a typical encampment apply to whom?
It's a fucking shitshow. I am a sort of insensitive "bootstrap your ass up boy" kind of person, but I am not completely cruel. I don't like to see people suffer (except the lazy ones fuck them). I would like some mildly compassionate way to deal with this problem. But how? I feel like once the problem gets to a certain size it becomes unwieldy. Certain areas of the country have put policies into place that encourage, in some ways, tolerance for homelessness. The obvious outcome is that more homeless went there. Now we have all four segments of folks mentioned above in a densely populated shit on the street situation. Sorting it out at that point seems almost a lost cause. Vantage it is? I don't know.
It's funny, my Dad was a hard working dude, and I know he sent me to the res to summer with my Grandmother for a few reasons, but chief among them was to instill a desire to not be like what you found on a reservation in the 1980s pre-casino money. Let me tell you from first hand experience that the res, 35 years ago, was basically a huge Seattle homeless camp without the rain. Oh yeah, substitute shitty concrete block tiny houses for tents. Otherwise, it was the same four groups we have mentioned (lazy fucks, mentally ill, addicts BIGLY, and people who just chose to suck or had given up). Sad. Even as a kid I knew I didn't ever want to end up like any of them.
This was along post to basically say I have no idea what to do about it, but I've seen it on a mega scale firsthand, and it isn't pretty. It's also funny that the government (well intentioned) threw money at the Injun problem for decades, but the reservations didn't start getting cleaned up until the casinos came. Earned money poured in to many tribes and they reinvested it, not as hand outs, into the community. Drug and alcohol centers, social services, etc. It's working. But how do you replicate that? Do we give all the homeless in Pioneer Square their own casino?
Otherwise, it was the same four groups we have mentioned (lazy fucks, mentally ill, addicts BIGLY, and people who just chose to suck or had given up). Sad. Even as a kid I knew I didn't ever want to end up like any of them.
Therein is my biggest beef with this whole thing - instead of actually trying to separate and then address the four groups (or five or ten or whatever), the powers that be have determined it is more profitable for their grift to just let them fester in their own shit and treat them all the same. And the grift isn't necessarily monetary. Some grifters get off on the moral superiority they get for being 'compassionate'. Some get off on the power.
That's why the Vantage approach (and I'm half fucking around and half serious) makes sense. Get them the fuck out of the environment of FILTH, evaluate which path they need to get out of their FILTH and treat it accordingly.
The whole Seattle is Dying thing had one overriding message - enabling and allowing the homeless to live in squalor isn't compassionate whatsoever. The Throbber is a violent opponent of the definition of insanity. Try and do something, anything different than handing out needles and picking up poop.
You guys realize if we don’t solve this then we have to go with @PurpleThrobber and Vantage.
Bullshit, I ride there sometimes!
The Throbber is not wed to Vantage.
Mattawa and Bridgeport are equally as godforsaken.
Mattawa and Vantage are the same riding area. Bridgeport it is!
This right here from our beautiful savage:
Drug addicts need dry out and counseling. Mentally ill need medicine, counseling, or institutionalization in some cases. Lazy people need need a swift kick in the ass.
Sort and separate as @PurpleThrobber suggests. As to the % we've ID'd as "I just like doing this," I also think those guys had something befall them in life. If you go back and have access to their histories, I'd bet 99/100 you'd find some trauma/tragedy/massive error/etc. and they just lacked the constitution to work through it.
Imagine, for example, getting canned for something, and losing your savings and having a hard time replacing it. Add in some humiliation, guilt for failing your family, etc. etc. etc. Some people might just fucking snap. I can stretch my imagination enough to think, yeah, that kind of thing happens to you, you spend a few weeks outside, you start self-medicating, etc. and now all of sudden you think, "You know what? This isn't bad. I'm never hungry, I found a place to stay dry and reasonably warm, and, this is the key part, I'm fucking free! Free of responsibility, nobody calls, nobody needs me, I'm not on the hook for shit. I'll never disappoint anyone or fail like that again because I'm a fucking nomad now."
Seriously. Maybe not in a few weeks, but a few months? Shit yeah. The human brain is a crazy bitch. She can convince you of any-fucking-thing she wants to. Including, "Yeah, I really want to live like this."
You guys realize if we don’t solve this then we have to go with @PurpleThrobber and Vantage.
Bullshit, I ride there sometimes!
The Throbber is not wed to Vantage.
Mattawa and Bridgeport are equally as godforsaken.
Mattawa and Vantage are the same riding area. Bridgeport it is!
This right here from our beautiful savage:
Drug addicts need dry out and counseling. Mentally ill need medicine, counseling, or institutionalization in some cases. Lazy people need need a swift kick in the ass.
Sort and separate as @PurpleThrobber suggests. As to the % we've ID'd as "I just like doing this," I also think those guys had something befall them in life. If you go back and have access to their histories, I'd bet 99/100 you'd find some trauma/tragedy/massive error/etc. and they just lacked the constitution to work through it.
Imagine, for example, getting canned for something, and losing your savings and having a hard time replacing it. Add in some humiliation, guilt for failing your family, etc. etc. etc. Some people might just fucking snap. I can stretch my imagination enough to think, yeah, that kind of thing happens to you, you spend a few weeks outside, you start self-medicating, etc. and now all of sudden you think, "You know what? This isn't bad. I'm never hungry, I found a place to stay dry and reasonably warm, and, this is the key part, I'm fucking free! Free of responsibility, nobody calls, nobody needs me, I'm not on the hook for shit. I'll never disappoint anyone or fail like that again because I'm a fucking nomad now."
Seriously. Maybe not in a few weeks, but a few months? Shit yeah. The human brain is a crazy bitch. She can convince you of any-fucking-thing she wants to. Including, "Yeah, I really want to live like this."
Taking care of the mentally ill should be a no brainer. Regardless of your politics these are people who through no fault of their own have been dealt a shit hand. But we have to come to a consensus that even if you're mentally ill, you do not have a right to live and sleep and shit on the streets. We have to be willing to remove these people and institutionalize them. What we are doing now with the mentally ill isn't compassionate and letting people live on the streets because we have an aversion to taking away their "rights" is just another form of insanity.
Also we need to realize that many of these people will never be "cured" and they will be wards of the state their entire life.
Obviously the Dazzler and I don't agree on much politically but sweet Geezus we should be able to come to some consensus on what to do with the mentally ill.
You guys realize if we don’t solve this then we have to go with @PurpleThrobber and Vantage.
Bullshit, I ride there sometimes!
The Throbber is not wed to Vantage.
Mattawa and Bridgeport are equally as godforsaken.
Mattawa and Vantage are the same riding area. Bridgeport it is!
This right here from our beautiful savage:
Drug addicts need dry out and counseling. Mentally ill need medicine, counseling, or institutionalization in some cases. Lazy people need need a swift kick in the ass.
Sort and separate as @PurpleThrobber suggests. As to the % we've ID'd as "I just like doing this," I also think those guys had something befall them in life. If you go back and have access to their histories, I'd bet 99/100 you'd find some trauma/tragedy/massive error/etc. and they just lacked the constitution to work through it.
Imagine, for example, getting canned for something, and losing your savings and having a hard time replacing it. Add in some humiliation, guilt for failing your family, etc. etc. etc. Some people might just fucking snap. I can stretch my imagination enough to think, yeah, that kind of thing happens to you, you spend a few weeks outside, you start self-medicating, etc. and now all of sudden you think, "You know what? This isn't bad. I'm never hungry, I found a place to stay dry and reasonably warm, and, this is the key part, I'm fucking free! Free of responsibility, nobody calls, nobody needs me, I'm not on the hook for shit. I'll never disappoint anyone or fail like that again because I'm a fucking nomad now."
Seriously. Maybe not in a few weeks, but a few months? Shit yeah. The human brain is a crazy bitch. She can convince you of any-fucking-thing she wants to. Including, "Yeah, I really want to live like this."
Taking care of the mentally ill should be a no brainer. Regardless of your politics these are people who through no fault of their own have been dealt a shit hand. But we have to come to a consensus that even if you're mentally ill, you do not have a right to live and sleep and shit on the streets. We have to be willing to remove these people and institutionalize them. What we are doing now with the mentally ill isn't compassionate and letting people live on the streets because we have an aversion to taking away their "rights" is just another form of insanity.
Also we need to realize that many of these people will never be "cured" and they will be wards of the state their entire life.
100%. I'm guessing, only guessing, that it's a weird mix of left-wing statists who all of a sudden care about civil liberties when it comes to these people, and just plain old bleeding hearts that want to deal with them with kid gloves.
I used to love downtown Seattle and Portland. I'm a guy who likes the urban scene. I haven't been to Portland in a year and half and though I have an office in DT Seattle, I only go once every two or three months ... tops. It's a ghost town and the longer they leave it alone, like cancer the more it will spread. Used to be a mostly south part of DT problem ... King County courthouse, Pioneer Square/Occidental Park issue. Then, even before COVID, it was all over Belltown on the north end, creeping up to lower Queen Anne south, and that whole area around the Key. And of course all over Capital Hill and especially all along the freeway. It takes less time to type out which areas in downtown are not overrun with it. No place is completely clear of it. If you haven't been to Seattle in a while, I'll tell you: it's hardly recognizable. Recent articles put the city's annual spend on homelessness at over $1 billion.
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Stay here and stay gold Ponyboy.
Drug addicts need dry out and counseling. Mentally ill need medicine, counseling, or institutionalization in some cases. Lazy people need need a swift kick in the ass. People who CHOOSE shitting on a street need....well, I have no fucking idea what they need. And how do you take the tim to figure out which of all the issues facing dozens of people in a typical encampment apply to whom?
It's a fucking shitshow. I am a sort of insensitive "bootstrap your ass up boy" kind of person, but I am not completely cruel. I don't like to see people suffer (except the lazy ones fuck them). I would like some mildly compassionate way to deal with this problem. But how? I feel like once the problem gets to a certain size it becomes unwieldy. Certain areas of the country have put policies into place that encourage, in some ways, tolerance for homelessness. The obvious outcome is that more homeless went there. Now we have all four segments of folks mentioned above in a densely populated shit on the street situation. Sorting it out at that point seems almost a lost cause. Vantage it is? I don't know.
It's funny, my Dad was a hard working dude, and I know he sent me to the res to summer with my Grandmother for a few reasons, but chief among them was to instill a desire to not be like what you found on a reservation in the 1980s pre-casino money. Let me tell you from first hand experience that the res, 35 years ago, was basically a huge Seattle homeless camp without the rain. Oh yeah, substitute shitty concrete block tiny houses for tents. Otherwise, it was the same four groups we have mentioned (lazy fucks, mentally ill, addicts BIGLY, and people who just chose to suck or had given up). Sad. Even as a kid I knew I didn't ever want to end up like any of them.
This was along post to basically say I have no idea what to do about it, but I've seen it on a mega scale firsthand, and it isn't pretty. It's also funny that the government (well intentioned) threw money at the Injun problem for decades, but the reservations didn't start getting cleaned up until the casinos came. Earned money poured in to many tribes and they reinvested it, not as hand outs, into the community. Drug and alcohol centers, social services, etc. It's working. But how do you replicate that? Do we give all the homeless in Pioneer Square their own casino?
That's why the Vantage approach (and I'm half fucking around and half serious) makes sense. Get them the fuck out of the environment of FILTH, evaluate which path they need to get out of their FILTH and treat it accordingly.
The whole Seattle is Dying thing had one overriding message - enabling and allowing the homeless to live in squalor isn't compassionate whatsoever. The Throbber is a violent opponent of the definition of insanity. Try and do something, anything different than handing out needles and picking up poop.
Mattawa and Bridgeport are equally as godforsaken.
Drug addicts need dry out and counseling. Mentally ill need medicine, counseling, or institutionalization in some cases. Lazy people need need a swift kick in the ass.
Sort and separate as @PurpleThrobber suggests. As to the % we've ID'd as "I just like doing this," I also think those guys had something befall them in life. If you go back and have access to their histories, I'd bet 99/100 you'd find some trauma/tragedy/massive error/etc. and they just lacked the constitution to work through it.
Imagine, for example, getting canned for something, and losing your savings and having a hard time replacing it. Add in some humiliation, guilt for failing your family, etc. etc. etc. Some people might just fucking snap. I can stretch my imagination enough to think, yeah, that kind of thing happens to you, you spend a few weeks outside, you start self-medicating, etc. and now all of sudden you think, "You know what? This isn't bad. I'm never hungry, I found a place to stay dry and reasonably warm, and, this is the key part, I'm fucking free! Free of responsibility, nobody calls, nobody needs me, I'm not on the hook for shit. I'll never disappoint anyone or fail like that again because I'm a fucking nomad now."
Seriously. Maybe not in a few weeks, but a few months? Shit yeah. The human brain is a crazy bitch. She can convince you of any-fucking-thing she wants to. Including, "Yeah, I really want to live like this."
Also we need to realize that many of these people will never be "cured" and they will be wards of the state their entire life.
Thanks, creep.
And that's why I'm calling for a Final Solution to deal with the mentally ill homeless problem once and for all!!!
All this consensus was weirding me out.
I used to love downtown Seattle and Portland. I'm a guy who likes the urban scene. I haven't been to Portland in a year and half and though I have an office in DT Seattle, I only go once every two or three months ... tops. It's a ghost town and the longer they leave it alone, like cancer the more it will spread. Used to be a mostly south part of DT problem ... King County courthouse, Pioneer Square/Occidental Park issue. Then, even before COVID, it was all over Belltown on the north end, creeping up to lower Queen Anne south, and that whole area around the Key. And of course all over Capital Hill and especially all along the freeway. It takes less time to type out which areas in downtown are not overrun with it. No place is completely clear of it. If you haven't been to Seattle in a while, I'll tell you: it's hardly recognizable. Recent articles put the city's annual spend on homelessness at over $1 billion.