co_matic t1_j6spvti wrote
Reply to comment by NetQuarterLatte in New Yorkers witnessed more homelessness, encampments during Mayor Adams’ first year by Nscience
Many homeless people avoid shelters because they have tight, cramped conditions and force people into close proximity with others who may be unstable or have drug or alcohol problems. Theft can be rampant and shelter rules and curfews don't work for everybody (especially if they're working while homeless).
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/ujdrhq/why_do_homeless_people_consider_shelters_unsafe/
throws_rocks_at_cars t1_j6ssh9p wrote
Many other homeless people avoid shelters because they are not able to freely use drugs and alcohol while residing there. Both are true.
AwesomeSaucer9 t1_j702urk wrote
This would imply that, to actually solve homelessness, we should prioritize getting people off the streets into safe housing, without first putting on drug quitting/rehab requirements. Something like putting housing...first?
Fresh720 t1_j75ktin wrote
Yea the housing first approach is vastly superior to treatment first.
People's mental state deteriorates once they're on the streets, and they use drugs to cope. Telling them to stop with the substance abuse while not giving them a safe environment is beyond cruel
mangolipgloss t1_j7d714i wrote
Seattle and Portland (and now Vancouver) have been trying to do "housing first" for some time and it's been failing miraculously.....like really, absolutely, terribly failing and more people are dying on the streets than ever before despite there being millions and millions of dollars flung at this effort. Unfortunately, people that are committed to killing themselves and everyone around them cannot be bribed into normalcy.
"Safe housing" is a meaningless phrase because the only thing that makes any housing safe or unsafe is who's in and around the housing. If you fill up a "safe housing" apartment block with people that are mentally unstable, on seriously neurotoxic drugs, that have a history of violence and theft, and that have no desire or intention to reintegrate into society, with zero supervision or expectation for the people to utilize rehab services, well....that "safe housing" is gonna turn into a meth lab waiting to explode very quickly. If not that, then the building gets absolutely wrecked with fentanyl contamination, mold, piss, fecal matter, fires being started indoors, people setting each other's stuff on fire, and the structure literally being taken apart and harvested for sellable resources like copper. Nothing to say for the theft, looting, violence, and terror inflicted on the surrounding neighborhood where these housing "solutions" get thrown up. Entire swaths of the region have turned into ghost towns that turn into skid rows, and the cycle of enablement continues. Which is exactly what's happening all over the PNW.
Source: lived for 24 years in NYC and now live in PNW
AwesomeSaucer9 t1_j7du3kq wrote
Just living in a place isn't really a good source.
Although you do make a decent point about safe housing. That's the reason why a lot of homeless people would actually prefer sleeping on the streets as opposed to shelters, which are often overcrowded, unsafe, dingy, and burdened with a lot of strict rules. The idea behind the Housing First model is to provide people with a single occupancy room, rather than cramping them together. This makes a bigger difference than you'd think.
[deleted] t1_j6vw8sa wrote
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NetQuarterLatte t1_j6sw659 wrote
5k can afford a private 1br in a luxury condo with doormans, gym and concierge. And that includes the hefty profits taken by the "greedy landlord".
It's definitively not a funding issue. There should be enough funding for the shelter to be plenty safe and comfortable.
Longjumping_Vast_797 t1_j6wom48 wrote
That would requiring some compliance with drug policies. Weak backed politicians and people exhibiting much empathy are preventing real solutions from being implemented.
Turtle_Shaft t1_j6sz0ym wrote
Shelters arent the only place people are getting put into. Many homeless are put in SROs which give a person a private studio room with a shared bathroom/kitchen facilities.
co_matic t1_j6szqdf wrote
Hopefully this becomes the norm sooner rather than later.
socialcommentary2000 t1_j6u1b3n wrote
Nobody wants to take SRO's because it is literally impossible to change the situation once the person is in there. The Rockaways have a problem with this and the solution from landlords is to literally let the entire structure fall apart due to the inability to evict tenants.
I'm not saying it's right but you'd have a higher chance getting brand new housing projects built than getting any landlords on board with willingly allowing SROs in any of their properties.
NetQuarterLatte t1_j6t6vjy wrote
The city should replace most or all of the congregate bed contracts with SROs. Even SROs shouldn't cost 5k/month.
If there's a minimum of oversight, the city would even save money.
FatherOop t1_j6x27by wrote
Yep, they are trying to do this. Building SROs and not congregate housing. It's a pain in the ass to build new shelters in this city, though.
NetQuarterLatte t1_j6y37kg wrote
The city is still planning to build new congregate housing... at prices that could arguably build a 1BR units for each congregate bed.
DelTeaz t1_j6tajkh wrote
Lol homeless people don’t like being next to homeless people? How special
co_matic t1_j6tduiz wrote
Treating all homeless like dirty animals will guarantee that the homelessness crisis will never be solved.
DelTeaz t1_j6teq65 wrote
The homeless problem will never be solved ever. Any time a city offers homeless services it just brings on more homeless people. It’s a continuous cycle. This is literally playing out with the migrant crisis too. We’re paying 500 a night for each of them to stay in hotels.
Maybe some day this city will stop throwing money at people that aren’t even from New York like much of the homeless and especially non citizens at the expense of taxpayers. You guys are lunatics.
How about we limit these programs to the community and residents they’re meant to support in the first place.
co_matic t1_j6tfq0q wrote
It's this kind of thinking that will result in either Dickensian workhouses, concentration camps, or mass euthanasia for the homeless.
DelTeaz t1_j6tgjh1 wrote
Imagine thinking that limiting homeless services to New Yorkers, which is the point I’m making, is a bad thing. You’re delusional. Might as well invade Switzerland at this point given your thinking.
Longjumping_Vast_797 t1_j6worim wrote
Right? People can't see the nuance between some rules that create order and a nazi death camp. Pathetic.
WickhamAkimbo t1_j6tln4x wrote
There are any number of counties around the world that generally speaking don't have a problem with this kind of homelessness. The difference is that they force people into treatment that need it and don't tolerate extremely antisocial behavior.
Ok_Yogurtcloset8915 t1_j6uavb7 wrote
I think the actual difference, in a big picture sense, is that those countries attack these problems on a national level, which is really difficult for anything in the US by design. that other person is sort of right in that nyc offering more services/private rooms etc will not improve its situation, because this will absolutely attract more homeless people to go to nyc. the west coast and hawaii are both experiencing this effect right now.
the situation can never be resolved when every major metropolitan area is essentially in a standoff with all the others over who can be the least appealing to homeless populations. only federal intervention can fix it at this point. I don't know what the path to that is, but cities or states acting unilaterally only leads to an endlessly increasing bill for homeless services.
DelTeaz t1_j6tstbh wrote
And they also don’t have unfettered immigration. No migrant crisis. Their resources are used for their own community.
azeet94 t1_j6tztmk wrote
I would like to better understand how the migrant crisis directly relates to the homelessness crisis? Assuming you're referring to illegal migrants, the vast majority of homeless people I see (anecdotal) are white/black, not Hispanic/Asian (majority of immigrants)
DelTeaz t1_j6u8qgz wrote
Because it’s the same principle. People are coming to the city to seek the services that are being offered at the expense of people in the community. Many of the homeless you see in the streets aren’t from New York.
RecommendationOld525 t1_j6tda8l wrote
It should come as no surprise that not all unhoused people are the same. There are many different ways to be unhoused, many different reasons to be unhoused, and many different circumstances in which those folks are living (e.g. with their family, battling a drug addiction, working one or more jobs, multiple things). There are vastly different things that different unhoused people need, and I think what this article may be getting at is that the city isn’t offering enough of those different resources. (And maybe they can’t.)
For example, there’s a nonprofit that specifically helps women in shelters with financial literacy who have escaped abusive homes where they never learned how to manage money. That is a very specific problem that could make a huge difference for some people. We think a lot about the part where unhoused people may be dealing with drug additions and/or mental illness (I can’t imagine being unhoused for a prolonged amount of time and not having some kind of mental illness considering how stressful that must be), but there is also no one solution to how to handle that.
Yes, there are inevitably some unhoused people who do bad, destructive things, who are incredibly difficult to provide care for because they don’t want it. But I think it’s a bad faith argument to abandon anyone and especially to use those folks as an example as to why other unhoused people don’t deserve to be supported. And I think it’s because of that perspective that some unhoused folks don’t want to be lumped in with others.
NetQuarterLatte t1_j6tvtdt wrote
>It should come as no surprise that not all unhoused people are the same.
That's why they shouldn't be treated all the same.
The city is failing to separate a typical unhoused person from the ones who are violent, suffering from substance abuse, suffering mental illness.
And because the city is failing to separate them, that's creating and reinforcing a stigma, while making things worse for all of them.
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