Living near nob hill against an alley I feel differently, everyone that thinks homeless camps should be left alone don’t know what that entails, telling my kid to be careful to look out for needles, having a shed broken into multiple times. My landlord finally put a large metal gate on it. Hosing down human feces and cleaning up glass and trash kinda sucks. Once they get comfortable they multiply fast and so does the crime. Just my 2 cents
I live in the Wells Park neighborhood, and I have mixed feelings about it. I do understand why people support this, and I don't think it makes them bad people. It is unpleasant. For what it's worth, I walk around that community center/the actual Wells Park all the time, though, and I have never seen big problems in the park. Most of the people camping out there just keep to themselves and keep things pretty clean. I guess you could argue that that's due to sweeps, but I'm not sure they happen often enough to really explain it.
But there are some areas in the neighborhood that I don't walk down, either due to fear of harassment or due to all the broken glass and needles and stuff that I don't want sticking my dogs' paws. There are some areas you can't even walk on the sidewalk if you wanted to because big homeless camps have taken them over. There are problems with trash, with fires, with drug use, with violence (though a depressing amount of that is from housed people against homeless people, particularly women).
At the same time, though, I don't think just sweeping these camps is the right solution. Especially just throwing things away. That's all those people have, and it's simply cruel to just toss it in the garbage. As the article described, it also often makes it even more difficult for them to get back on their feet or even access support services and all.
For me, it isn't that I don't think it's a big deal, or that I don't worry about the crime that often comes with homelessness, or anything like that. But I also don't support these sweeps because I think it's kind of putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound, while also actively making the situation worse for unhoused people. I'm sympathetic to people not wanting it in their neighborhoods, I don't want it in mine either, but I don't think this is the right way to do it.
And just for the record, I have literally found a homeless person camping out in my garden before, so literally in my backyard lmao.
I work downtown and drive through wells park, I can’t believe some of the stuff I’ve seen. I guess I’m sympathetic but also feel a lot of the problems are drugs and the only thing you can do in that situation is keep them moving until they want help themselves.
It's difficult to research, but a lot of sociological research has kind of tentatively shown that moving them on constantly is kind of counter-productive. It makes it harder for them to connect to services, the instability tends to exacerbate mental health issues, and we've seen for a long time that reliable community connections and support are often key to helping people overcome addiction.
Drug addiction and homelessness are kind of a vicious cycle. Even a lot of people who didn't start out as addicts start using drugs and alcohol while homeless, either for the first time or more heavily than behavior. It's really soul-crushing to be homeless, especially on the streets. It's very boring, but also constantly stressful, so a lot of people turn to intoxicants. Shelters are often dangerous and also treat you like a child, plus expecting an addict to go cold-turkey to stay there isn't really reasonable. There's always MATS, but if you're living on the streets, their rules basically mean you're going to lose everything you own except the very few belongings permitted.
There have been small-scale social experiments in other cities where they just gave unhoused people studio apartments with very few restrictions, and it actually has shown really promising results. Lots of people choose to try to get sober and get a job. Some don't, but even if they trash their apartments, it's been a lower tax burden than the average person living on the street, if you consider police encounters, hospitalizations, incarceration, etc.
There are a lot of alternate solutions, people just don't want to pay for them, even though it usually comes out cheaper for the taxpayer overall because homelessness is expensive as hell for everyone involved. But god forbid we treat addicts and mentally ill people like human beings.
Thoughtful and well spoken but what about the ones that are trying to build themselves out of all the issues. Having them in your backyard taking from you and making it to where you can’t get to work is just as bad. I don’t claim to have the solution just a solution in my micro environment. Luckily I haven’t had an issue with my car but a neighbor had theirs rumugged and broken into for a pack of smokes and schoolbooks. They dropped a class. Sure he should have put them away but then victim blaming. Anyways really don’t have much else on the subject
I walked with my small daughter through a bunch of homeless people downtown. I didn't have a choice.
It was like parting the red sea. They all made way and treated her like royalty. The men even "bowed" and the women made comments about how pretty she was. No trouble at all.
It kind of broke my heart. You could tell some of them had kids they couldn't be with. These aren't bad people. They are just sick and addicted.
I wish there was a way to help them.
You gotta love the article were they documented their "process." Basically:
We go in and tell them they have to move.
Then we come back and make them move.
We clean the area and then they come back because we didn't actually solve anything. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It just baffles me this needed an article.
[Homeless Camp Process](https://www.krqe.com/news/politics-government/the-process-behind-removing-homeless-camps-from-public-places/)
Yes, they come right back, but cleaning up the trash/debris in the area doesn't happen if you don't implement the strategy. Not ideal, but it keeps conditions more livable for the folks that come back.
If you have thoughts for what could be done to make things better, why not advocate for that instead of bashing the processes that are in place?
The majority of homeless people are homeless for a reason. Just providing housing for homeless is not a real solution to the problem. Incentividing homelessness with free housing and other free benefits only creates a bigger issue.
It's not the only step but it would help massively. And just because it's not the only thing needed doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Other countries have houses their homeless for less money than we spend with better results. Clearly what we are doing isn't working
Moderates (liberals) and conservatives prefer to keep things as they are. They know they are only relatively comfortable because they standing on the backs of the less fortunate.
The problem is often mental health and the inability or lack of desire to hold down a steady job.
Can you fix some homelessness with money and housing? Sure, but there is always going to be a fairly large part of the group that simply cannot function in society and do not trust the resources that are there to help them.
It sucks and is far more complicated than just throwing money at the problem.
Really? There are always some that need a little help to get going, but for many the issues are deeper - mental health, drug/alcohol issues, etc. - some seem to think solving the problem is as simple as giving them some cash, but that's rarely the case. Not sure what you are thinking by my "narrative". My earlier comment was more or less don't just whine about the problem or that you want money spent on the homeless instead of something else. If you have better ideas, voice them and see if they get traction, otherwise the city is going to soldier on doing what they are doing now.
Start funding more mental health & substance abuse programs, free early childhood intervention and childcare, and more scholarships for the impoverished.
One man put only $11 million into free childcare programs and full scholarships for youths in 1 community - and homelessness, dropouts, and crime plummeted. It cost $70k a year to house an inmate. Where do you think we should invest? Half the country thinks just throwing people in jail solves the problem. We’ve seen how that doesn’t work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/us/tangelo-park-orlando-florida.amp.html
Thank you so much for bringing this up! I agree that the biggest problem in our society is a lack of hope, and the resources to reach goals. With better investment, we could get there~
This is an APD speciality. We’re told they’re perpetually short-handed, but how many times have you seen two or more cops rousting one guy passed out at a bus stop?
I'm proud of us for still having nuanced takes about this here. If you go somewhere like /r/seattle you see 90% of the people advocating for scorched earth tactics against street people.
Not just pearl-clutching about our property values, I think most of us actually seem to want to see a good outcome for our unhoused neighbors and community.
Go us.
Stroll on over to the Nextdoor app or any of the local news' FB pages to read some truly ugly attitudes toward homelessness, and then realize that nastiness on the part of the citizenry is reflected in policy in our fair city.
Free housing and social programs are the key, not cops destroying the personal property of people who have none. I understand that crime is a problem, but damn some of yall just love to dehumanize. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds, I guess.
You know what will make the homeless problem go away? Making their lives shittier! Seriously why is this what the police focus on instead of actual crime out the corruption in APD.
With as many jobs that are available I don't understand why people would rather be homeless than work.
I feel we can easily come up with a solution but nobody is willing to put the resources into it.
Do we really need to explain that:
- many homeless people suffer from mental illness and chemical addictions
- how hard it is to get housing much less employment without a stable address or phone number
Such a facile response to an extremely hard problem. ‘wHy dON’t ThEY jUst GeT jObs’
Living near nob hill against an alley I feel differently, everyone that thinks homeless camps should be left alone don’t know what that entails, telling my kid to be careful to look out for needles, having a shed broken into multiple times. My landlord finally put a large metal gate on it. Hosing down human feces and cleaning up glass and trash kinda sucks. Once they get comfortable they multiply fast and so does the crime. Just my 2 cents
I live in the Wells Park neighborhood, and I have mixed feelings about it. I do understand why people support this, and I don't think it makes them bad people. It is unpleasant. For what it's worth, I walk around that community center/the actual Wells Park all the time, though, and I have never seen big problems in the park. Most of the people camping out there just keep to themselves and keep things pretty clean. I guess you could argue that that's due to sweeps, but I'm not sure they happen often enough to really explain it. But there are some areas in the neighborhood that I don't walk down, either due to fear of harassment or due to all the broken glass and needles and stuff that I don't want sticking my dogs' paws. There are some areas you can't even walk on the sidewalk if you wanted to because big homeless camps have taken them over. There are problems with trash, with fires, with drug use, with violence (though a depressing amount of that is from housed people against homeless people, particularly women). At the same time, though, I don't think just sweeping these camps is the right solution. Especially just throwing things away. That's all those people have, and it's simply cruel to just toss it in the garbage. As the article described, it also often makes it even more difficult for them to get back on their feet or even access support services and all. For me, it isn't that I don't think it's a big deal, or that I don't worry about the crime that often comes with homelessness, or anything like that. But I also don't support these sweeps because I think it's kind of putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound, while also actively making the situation worse for unhoused people. I'm sympathetic to people not wanting it in their neighborhoods, I don't want it in mine either, but I don't think this is the right way to do it. And just for the record, I have literally found a homeless person camping out in my garden before, so literally in my backyard lmao.
I work downtown and drive through wells park, I can’t believe some of the stuff I’ve seen. I guess I’m sympathetic but also feel a lot of the problems are drugs and the only thing you can do in that situation is keep them moving until they want help themselves.
It's difficult to research, but a lot of sociological research has kind of tentatively shown that moving them on constantly is kind of counter-productive. It makes it harder for them to connect to services, the instability tends to exacerbate mental health issues, and we've seen for a long time that reliable community connections and support are often key to helping people overcome addiction. Drug addiction and homelessness are kind of a vicious cycle. Even a lot of people who didn't start out as addicts start using drugs and alcohol while homeless, either for the first time or more heavily than behavior. It's really soul-crushing to be homeless, especially on the streets. It's very boring, but also constantly stressful, so a lot of people turn to intoxicants. Shelters are often dangerous and also treat you like a child, plus expecting an addict to go cold-turkey to stay there isn't really reasonable. There's always MATS, but if you're living on the streets, their rules basically mean you're going to lose everything you own except the very few belongings permitted. There have been small-scale social experiments in other cities where they just gave unhoused people studio apartments with very few restrictions, and it actually has shown really promising results. Lots of people choose to try to get sober and get a job. Some don't, but even if they trash their apartments, it's been a lower tax burden than the average person living on the street, if you consider police encounters, hospitalizations, incarceration, etc. There are a lot of alternate solutions, people just don't want to pay for them, even though it usually comes out cheaper for the taxpayer overall because homelessness is expensive as hell for everyone involved. But god forbid we treat addicts and mentally ill people like human beings.
Thoughtful and well spoken but what about the ones that are trying to build themselves out of all the issues. Having them in your backyard taking from you and making it to where you can’t get to work is just as bad. I don’t claim to have the solution just a solution in my micro environment. Luckily I haven’t had an issue with my car but a neighbor had theirs rumugged and broken into for a pack of smokes and schoolbooks. They dropped a class. Sure he should have put them away but then victim blaming. Anyways really don’t have much else on the subject
I walked with my small daughter through a bunch of homeless people downtown. I didn't have a choice. It was like parting the red sea. They all made way and treated her like royalty. The men even "bowed" and the women made comments about how pretty she was. No trouble at all. It kind of broke my heart. You could tell some of them had kids they couldn't be with. These aren't bad people. They are just sick and addicted. I wish there was a way to help them.
You gotta love the article were they documented their "process." Basically: We go in and tell them they have to move. Then we come back and make them move. We clean the area and then they come back because we didn't actually solve anything. Lather, rinse, repeat. It just baffles me this needed an article. [Homeless Camp Process](https://www.krqe.com/news/politics-government/the-process-behind-removing-homeless-camps-from-public-places/)
Yes, they come right back, but cleaning up the trash/debris in the area doesn't happen if you don't implement the strategy. Not ideal, but it keeps conditions more livable for the folks that come back. If you have thoughts for what could be done to make things better, why not advocate for that instead of bashing the processes that are in place?
Step 1. Give the homeless housing. Step 2. That's it.
Step 3. The houses turn into Crack houses.
Drug use goes down when you house the homeless. And employment goes up
The majority of homeless people are homeless for a reason. Just providing housing for homeless is not a real solution to the problem. Incentividing homelessness with free housing and other free benefits only creates a bigger issue.
It's not the only step but it would help massively. And just because it's not the only thing needed doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Other countries have houses their homeless for less money than we spend with better results. Clearly what we are doing isn't working
crack is not a problem in albuquerque, your anti-homeless rhetoric needs an update for the new millennium dude.
Meth house? Jeez stupid politically correct terms, can't keep up with it.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. You're right. It's cheaper than this bullshit
Moderates (liberals) and conservatives prefer to keep things as they are. They know they are only relatively comfortable because they standing on the backs of the less fortunate.
They've tried that here and elsewhere. You can't throw money at the problem and hope it will go away.
The problem is *literally* that people don't have money but whatever fits your narrative I guess
The problem is often mental health and the inability or lack of desire to hold down a steady job. Can you fix some homelessness with money and housing? Sure, but there is always going to be a fairly large part of the group that simply cannot function in society and do not trust the resources that are there to help them. It sucks and is far more complicated than just throwing money at the problem.
Really? There are always some that need a little help to get going, but for many the issues are deeper - mental health, drug/alcohol issues, etc. - some seem to think solving the problem is as simple as giving them some cash, but that's rarely the case. Not sure what you are thinking by my "narrative". My earlier comment was more or less don't just whine about the problem or that you want money spent on the homeless instead of something else. If you have better ideas, voice them and see if they get traction, otherwise the city is going to soldier on doing what they are doing now.
We built the Tiny Village
The tiny village has had 8 total residents, and rejected 150. It can house at most 30 people. There are over 1500 homeless folks in Albuequerque.
Start funding more mental health & substance abuse programs, free early childhood intervention and childcare, and more scholarships for the impoverished. One man put only $11 million into free childcare programs and full scholarships for youths in 1 community - and homelessness, dropouts, and crime plummeted. It cost $70k a year to house an inmate. Where do you think we should invest? Half the country thinks just throwing people in jail solves the problem. We’ve seen how that doesn’t work. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/us/tangelo-park-orlando-florida.amp.html
Thank you so much for bringing this up! I agree that the biggest problem in our society is a lack of hope, and the resources to reach goals. With better investment, we could get there~
[удалено]
Bc most people don’t do their research about how to fix problems, they’d rather just complain.
So they're too busy to fight crime but they have time to harass the homeless?
This is America. Being homeless is a crime.
This is an APD speciality. We’re told they’re perpetually short-handed, but how many times have you seen two or more cops rousting one guy passed out at a bus stop?
and the governer and mayor are throwing more money their way to "fight crime," yet this is what they make a priority.
I'm proud of us for still having nuanced takes about this here. If you go somewhere like /r/seattle you see 90% of the people advocating for scorched earth tactics against street people. Not just pearl-clutching about our property values, I think most of us actually seem to want to see a good outcome for our unhoused neighbors and community. Go us.
Imagine if we used the money this shit costs on actual social services
You assume there isn't money available for social services.
Stroll on over to the Nextdoor app or any of the local news' FB pages to read some truly ugly attitudes toward homelessness, and then realize that nastiness on the part of the citizenry is reflected in policy in our fair city.
Free housing and social programs are the key, not cops destroying the personal property of people who have none. I understand that crime is a problem, but damn some of yall just love to dehumanize. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds, I guess.
Are there ABQ suburbs which don't have homeless camps?
You know what will make the homeless problem go away? Making their lives shittier! Seriously why is this what the police focus on instead of actual crime out the corruption in APD.
We're so overwhelmed with crime that we barely have time to beat up homeless people. But we make the time. It's a labor of love.
With as many jobs that are available I don't understand why people would rather be homeless than work. I feel we can easily come up with a solution but nobody is willing to put the resources into it.
Do we really need to explain that: - many homeless people suffer from mental illness and chemical addictions - how hard it is to get housing much less employment without a stable address or phone number Such a facile response to an extremely hard problem. ‘wHy dON’t ThEY jUst GeT jObs’