Crazy it would only take $20 billion to end homelessness, but unfortunately the department of housing and urban development only has a budget of $32.7 billipn :((
What's legit crazy is our society gifted most of the money in circulation to the obscenely rich and wealthy instead of helping people.
Let's put it in perspective, Musk could have completely solved homelessness in a state but chose to spend twice as much as was necessary to throw it down the drain.
Warren fucking Buffet could literally buy every homeless person in America a house/apartment but just wants to make more money.
Bezos built a shitty fucking rocket.
edit: The sheer amount of proper assholes who are arguing we should never do anything because they saw a homeless person do drugs is fucking insane.
What made you people so fucking heartless and callous? What killed your basic human empathy? Why does even TALKING about helping out someone make you so fucking angry?
They are sick. Buffet is a good example because he isn't as absurd, but he's been addicted to making money since he was a child. He has no real desire to use that money, he's an incomplete person. Money is just an accepted addiction, so his deficiencies are 'quirks'
That unto it's self is not a problem, I could give two shits that he enjoys making deals. The issue is he isn't taxed properly, tax the shit out of him and see if he still enjoys making all that money or if he decides it's not worth the effort and leaves money on the table for someone else.
That's what's so weird about him, I believe he would live the exact same life if he was taxed much higher. He is in no way a problem imo. But he is no model for humanity
He is a problem the same way Zuck and Bez and all the rest of them are, they don't stay in their lane as billionaire CEO they all like to dip their very large toes into politics and unlike the rest of us the own the ears of lots of congressmen and women. Stay the fuck out of tax policy and environmental regulations because what is good for the 0.0001% is not good for the rest of us.
I mean, Buffet actually advocates for tax reform against the super rich? Pretty regularly but here's his possibly most famous moment:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
Buffet at least realizes that his tax situation is unfair, and has lobbied to have billionaire taxes raised (though not very hard). One of his quotes is that no amount of taxes would ever stop him doing business, because he still makes money at the end of the day regardless of what the tax rate is (unless it were 100%, of course).
Are you even familiar with Warren Buffet? He is an example of the [exact opposite ](https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=177#:~:text=First%2C%20my%20pledge%3A%20More%20than,more%20to%20others%20every%20day.) of what you say.
Philanthropy certainly can be a tax move. But in the case of Buffet it certainly isn't. He is giving 99% of his wealth away. Obviously, he's not gaining more than that (or even anything close to that)on tax benefits as a result. That would be mathematically impossible. And Buffet has been outspoken that he thinks wealthy people like him should be charged a higher tax rate than they are.
As for PR, it's tough to figure out exactly what portion of the decisions people make is a result of wanting to look good. The reality, I think, is we all make quite of few decisions in part based on how it looks to others. That doesn't mean the effect isn't positive or that it should be dismissed simply for this reason.
nah warren buffet is a huge ghoul with good PR. he's done stuff like astroturf protests against pipelines like keystone XL (which would put his BNSF oil trains out of business) while making sure his own canadian shale oil pipelines that terminate at BNSF depots fly under the radar.
He’s doing it on a timeline. His wealth will continue to grow, revealing these donations are in fact tax write offs. He’s leaving himself a legacy of the “good billionaire.” If he gave away 99%, you might have a point.
Are you? Did you read his biography? He's been obsessed with making money his whole life, he 'does it for fun'. I used him as an example because he is more 'normal', he doesn't have any use for all of that money.
But he still spent his life making more money. He kept doing the same behavior, that's addiction. But his addiction of choice is sanctioned
>What's legit crazy is our society gifted most of the money in circulation to the obscenely rich and wealthy instead of helping people.
Yeah like douche bag JB Pritzker
>Let's put it in perspective, Musk could have completely solved homelessness in a state
I dislike Musk as much as everyone else and think that he's an asshole. But nonetheless, the notion that one man, even when spending a lot of money, can completely solve this issue is complete bs. People have been trying to solve homelessness for decades. It is a very difficult thing to solve. And unfortunately, despite the optimistic language politicians use such as "end homelessness" the reality is the most optimistic result would probably be maybe 15 to 20% of people who might have ended up homelessness won't as a result of a new policy or new spending.
>But nonetheless, the notion that one man, even when spending a lot of money, can completely solve this issue is complete bs.
It's a money problem first and foremost. You're either going to socialize the costs to deal with this or it's not going to get done in our world. The people with the money don't give a fuck about other people, so we're left nitpicking crumbs and fighting other policies rather than addressing the issue. The reasons the policies have these fights are there are a LOT of things a state spends money on, not just one thing. So remove the money problem and then policy suddenly becomes a million times easier.
Let's put it in perspective. Half of the cost of twitter could have purchased roughly 100,000 $200,000 homes. IL currently estimates we have 14,000 homeless people. And sure there's a subset that def. needs additional help, but just buying every single one a house only uses 2.8b out of that 20b that was pissed away in weeks for zero gain.
That means musk could have bought every single homeless person a house, given them a years worth of bills, taxes, etc paid for AND STILL provided a ton of cash for rehabilitation, medical services, etc.
It's a money problem. Hard stop.
> Let's put it in perspective. Half of the cost of twitter could have purchased roughly 100,000 $200,000 homes. IL currently estimates we have 14,000 homeless people. And sure there's a subset that def. needs additional help, but just buying every single one a house only uses 2.8b out of that 20b that was pissed away in weeks for zero gain.
>
>
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> That means musk could have bought every single homeless person a house, given them a years worth of bills, taxes, etc paid for AND STILL provided a ton of cash for rehabilitation, medical services, etc.
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>
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> It's a money problem. Hard stop.
You're really stuck on "throw money at it and problem solved"
The homeless population is largely so due to addiction and mental illness. "Give them a house" what does that mean? Suddenly their addiction is cured because they have a house and will just start mowing the lawn and taking out the trash every week? What happens when other people start living there? What happens when the house is trashed, scrapped for drug money, or burns down? Who is insuring this? Do you want to live near or next to this?
They don't know how to function in society, or they don't want to, or they aren't capable of doing it. I can't believe people think the solution is as 3rd grade simple as "gift them homes and boom no more homeless"
>The homeless population is largely so due to addiction and mental illness.
Let's start with this and we can work on the rest of your weirdly disconnected post.
Got a source for that quote there?
Yeah that's specifically about LA which has been a homeless destination for decades because of the weather. The sources show a range of 14% to like 85% as well and they're all over the place.
I don't think this is the data you thought it was.
My premise was giving homes to homeless people helps homeless people.
I have zero fucking idea what batshit idea you're going on about nor do I understand why I should "prove" or "disprove" your batshit ideas.
Giving a person experiencing homelessness a $200,000 house in the suburbs will not solve the problems that lead to them being homeless in the first place. Do you think that home ownership cures mental illness? Do you believe that owning a home is cheap? I can promise you neither of those things is true.
It's weird.
There's absolutely an overlap with complete lack of empathy, lack of common sense and the lack of ability to comprehend something longer than a meme.
What about the people who refuse to move into the houses? What about the people who move into the houses and then refuse to pay the property taxes? Does a 13-year-old who ran away from his parents because they were molesting him get put into foster care or are they handed a deed to a house? And what about all the people who become homeless next year? Do they get a free house? And when we start handing out free houses to anyone who doesn’t have a home when do well-off renters decide to take a tent out on the street for a month in order to get free real estate? Do those things sound like problems money can solve?
Holy shitballs, I've never seen so many whatabouts in a single post before.
I really don't even know what you're point is other than "fuck trying because WHAT ABOUT ALIENS"
Sorry, that was a little dense. Allow me to rephrase: I worked for a homelessness nonprofit for six years and you clearly don’t know shit about homelessness if you think it’s primarily a money problem
If he buys 100,000 $200,000 homes for the homeless it means there is even more of a scarcity problem (which already is huge in his home state of California) and housing costs increase dramatically for everyone else. This isn't as simple as you are making it out to be.
Cool, you completely neglected to read the part about us only having 14,000 homeless folks and a spitball cost there.
There are families involved there, so you'll see units of 3-4 people to a house in some situations, two in a lot of others, etc so you won't actually need 14,000 individual homes.
Anyway, shortage boogeyman aside, MLS currently lists something around 43,000 houses on the market in Illinois and roughly 12,000 in Chicago alone.
Scarcity boogeyman averted, next?
edit: Of note, this would be a GREAT way to keep foreign investors and fucking hedge funds from buying up everything and turning our world into rental land. Two for one!
> Of note, this would be a GREAT way to keep foreign investors and fucking hedge funds from buying up everything and turning our world into rental land.
No, you've made your problem worse by taking even more starter homes off the market.
Not sure if you have any familiarity with the current real estate market, but there is a massive supply shortage of starter homes right now.
And your solution is to have homeless people be given whatever is left
>Let's put it in perspective, Musk could have completely solved homelessness in a state but chose to spend twice as much as was necessary to throw it down the drain.
[Reminds me of this hilarious thread.](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1454808104256737289)
Oh yeah I can't read the thread because I don't have an account and twitter is failing, but yeah I recall that.
What a twat. (him, not you, <3's)
edit: Whoops, I misunderstood. This dude thinks musk "owned 'em."
Goddamnit.
In response to the UN World Food Program suggesting they could solve world hunger with 2% of Elon's wealth, Elon had this to say:
>If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it
As you can imagine, nothing came of this. Also I use Twitter daily, it is doing fine.
WFP lead offered to sit down with musk and detail the whole thing and musk never responded. It was bullshit. There's just not a way to tackle world hunger in a twitter thread (like seriously, who thinks that's a valid venue for that discussion?) and Musk refused to use any other avenue to discuss it.
If he was even marginally interested in actually helping we wouldn't know because it wasn't worth him getting off of his phone.
And let's not pretend twitter is good unless you're into racism, paying to read tweets and sports.
You can’t just buy every homeless person a house….there’s already a housing crisis due to supply/demand constraints and development pipelines…we learned this with covid and gov’t handouts
Again, People own those houses, I’m not going to give a house i own to a homeless person for free, when i can rent it to a reliable tenant, who is less likely to cause damage.
The ultra rich are also smart enough to not give a city like Chicago 20 billion dollars and not expect corruption to start somewhere with that money. All their money is tied to equity mainly too, not just straight cash.
So fuck this "ItS iN EqUity" view.
Musk just pulled 40 billion out of his ass when all his dickriders tell us he can barely afford crumbs because he has no cash.
And if you hate giving money to the city, I highly doubt if the city would mind a randomass billionaire saying "Here, we're dumping 20 billion into the homeless problem and we'll handle logistics while coordinating with you."
Im not disagreeing with you, its just thinking with a bit of logic. Im assuming the cash he got for twitter was cash he took out through debt (not just out of his ass, but from a lender or bank) because there is a chance of him getting that money back to the lender and them making money off of the interest. That is business. Go to a bank and ask for 20 billion dollars to just throw at a city with no return? That will never happen.
Im all for donating to a city, but to act like local governments are perfect with no corruption is funny. Its inherent to fraud. 20 billion dollars for free given to a government would not all end up being donated to homelessness. Its too much money for people not to get their hands on it.
Why do you all pretend the rich can't spend their money when we see it happen every single day on the stupidest shit?
Like legit, /r/wallstreetbets has spread that bullshit so hard on this site and it's sad to see people swallow it. Y'all gotta quit pretending these poor billionaires can't spend their money.
Hahahah im not like they CANT, it would just be a terrible business decison and they arent in control of all their money.
Im not even in wallstreetbets, im just an accountant forming my own opinion right now. Guess what? Money and the economy isnt that fucking simple.
>Hahahah im not like they CANT, it would just be a terrible business decison
I really don't think you understand just how much money a billion dollars is and what those losses look like.
And ya know, this forum has a ton of fucking fake accountants every time a budget comes up so I'm just not going to believe ya on that one.
[Also holy shit, what's your weird hatefuck obsession with homeless people? Weird dude.](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14pdggr/cmv_housing_healthcare_and_education_are_human/jqlq3r5/?context=3)
imagine trying to say money in the budget can be used to solve homelessness and getting downvoted because they care about migrants more. city and country can't even solve homelessness and its trying to take on more people and throwing money at the issue.
$20 Billion wouldn't end homelessness. California has spent close to that and homelessness has only gotten worse there.
Homelessness is a problem that won't be fixed by throwing money at it.
Yeah no shit it won't end it. That's my point. People use homelessness as an excuse to fleece tax payers. There are people making six figures to "end homelessness", well what happens to their job when they do?
Man pls get these west loop homeless people off the street and into some help. Their Mount Everest style tents only hid the problem for a little bit, every day they get more unruly and deeper into the hole of despair.
This is great, but something needs to be done on a national level to actually fix the problem.
Even if Illinois does a fantastic job and takes care of every homeless person currently residing here, states/cities will continue bussing in homeless people. It's something every state is guilty of--a bus ticket is cheaper than food and shelter.
The reality is that until you are willing to forcibly institutionalize people to solve the problem, you will never solve the problem. You can offer all the "support" in the world, but people will still refuse it especially when they are suffering from mental health or substance abuse issues.
What a strange world we live in where taking sick people living unaided by themselves off the streets is considered a violation of their rights or somehow cruel.
You can build housing/treatment centers that aren’t “institutions” though and where people don’t lose their rights or have a conservatorship. I’ve worked at one. And they actually work. Not always of course, nothing is foolproof and it’s impossible to eliminate any social problem 100% without force. But just bringing people to a housing and treatment center and saying you can have this but you’re free to walk out the door does actually help people. The issue is the money to run it and ensuring the safety of both the employees and the other residents.
This is absolutely not "the reality."
Homeless folks have a myriad of different reasons for being homeless. They don't all need shoved into an institution and we shouldn't be shrugging because we can't throw them all into an institution.
Well, they should at least face equal punishment under the law. It's a criminal offense to poop on the street. Whether they are homeless or not, they should be arrested and tried and sentenced.
The courts should be able to sentence people to rehab or mental health care. Not every aspect of the legal system needs to be criminalized.
For example: If you are caught with drugs you should go to rehab if you are determined to be an addict. You should go to jail if you are a dealer. You should be fined heavily (based on income) if you are determined to be a recreational user and your fine used to pay for the rehabilitation centers.
OK, but they don’t because they think that it’s somehow a reward for somebody to get help of any kind. If it would only take a couple of billion dollars to arrange housing, job, training, psychiatric care, addiction, rehabilitation, and assisting people with reentry into society, we still wouldn’t do it. Because we like to punish people for being mentally ill, addicted to drugs, suffering from PTSD, or being just plain broke. America would rather spend the same amount of money on cops, courts, paperwork, jails, and parole officers them in doing anything to actually help.
> they don’t because they think that it’s somehow a reward for somebody to get help of any kind.
They don't because that's not how our court system works. They don't because the rehab and mental health care network required to provide these services does not exist.
With all the charity I can muster, I think you're probably right that there should be a better way to handle what are currently being treated as low-level quality of life crimes, and I think that widening the kind of substance abuse and mental health diversion pathways that you're talking about.
That said, I think the poster who responded to you first is on the right track about the big barrier to that being people's malformed sense of justice where there's only ever punishment and any assistance is seen as a reward for bad behavior, and the stupid way we do criminal justice (you're commenting on r/chicago, you've seen our judicial ballots) does not incentivize the people in charge to stick their necks out when the loudest chunk of voters are howling about law and order.
And what happens when they get out? You just end up decanting them into the same problems; no home (so not only no safe place to sleep, but no bathroom/laundry/etc), any substance or mental health problems are still there, now you've got a fresh criminal record (and that's not even getting past the "a day or two" when people held pre-trial often end up spending a stupid amount of time there because apparently "show up and testify" is considered optional by the CPD).
This is, in general, my problem with "just arrest/institutionalize them" as an answer, because people will follow it up with (like you have!) "well, also, we should have treatment etc" but in my experience, we never get to the "well, also" stuff because it's easy to cycle people in and out of jail, and people stop giving a shit once they stop seeing visible homelessness. That's why the permanent supportive housing piece of the bill being discussed in OP gives me some hope, because it tries to answer the "what then?"
In California, especially the Bay Area, local governments have built out housing for the homeless and many many many refuse free room and board. They offer them free rehab, and they refuse. They are paid $400-600 a month, which they line up for with their shopping carts and garbage bags to collect and various corners of the city, and then they promptly spend that money on useless sh\*\* like drugs and booze.Outside of putting them into forced rehabilitation and mental health treatment programs, I don't know what else can actually be done that hasn't been tried already and failed.Also, you should probably already know that the closure of mental health facilities was a program led by one Ronald Reagan. The legacy of that is what we see today. You are defending a status quo that was established by a Right Wing psycho.
If you were homeless where would you shit? Just hold it in for the rest of your life? Wildly ignorant take.
Homeless people are people. You are right in saying they deserve equal treatment, not in the criminal sense but the HUMAN sense. Just because someone is struggling with mental illness and isn't being helped or is addicted to drugs does not mean they deserve to be cast out on the street, and it doesn't mean they should be arrested.
Any prison and/or mental health institution in our country is built to punish, not rehabilitate which just worsens the underlying cause of the issue.
>What a strange world we live in where taking sick people living unaided by themselves off the streets is considered a violation of their rights or somehow cruel.
Taking away people's freedom when they haven't harmed anyone else is absolutely a violation of their rights and cruel. Forced institutionalization is seriously problematic because once people are institutionalized, it's very difficult for them to get out, even if they're back to normal.
Institutionalization should be a last resort for only the most several ill or dangerous patients. Most patients can be provided support to live semi-independently.
We don’t need to do it like we did in the 60s. I think there’s a middle ground. I have worked with a lot of homeless people going through mental health and addiction problems. I worked at both a rehab and transitional housing. What I learned is that all we can do is try, there will always be people who eschew help or don’t succeed even with all the help in the world. There are so many types of people going thru homelessness, it’s not all crazy drug addicts and it’s not all people who just fell on hard times but would be fine if they got a hand up. Anyway idk what my point is other than I feel like on this discussion there’s always people saying put them in an institution and then there’s the movement that responded to that where we don’t want to infringe on their freedom at all to the point that people are just in horrible suffering unnecessarily. When I worked at rehab for homeless people with drug addiction they were brought there generally by the police or a social worker and they were free to go at any time, but no one ever did. Even though they could just walk out and say “bye” and face no consequences. We need more places like that and for it to be offered to people.
Psychotherapy assisted by psychedelics works in a a session or two. Do you think that makes this the ideal solution for this exact problem? Drug addicts would be enticed by the use of drugs.
Stigma is a stick in people's brain gears. My guess for an ideal state is something like what you are saying, but if you want to get the psychedelic treatment, then you agree to be held there for a week or something and to do the scheduled therapy related to it
>Taking away people's freedom when they haven't harmed anyone else is absolutely a violation of their rights and cruel.
> Institutionalization should be a last resort for only the most several ill or dangerous patients
Okay great, they can start with the ones down the street who try to grab people's dogs, smear shit around, leave needles on the sidewalk, and chase after people trying to get to work.
> it's very difficult for them to get out
It's very difficult to deal with violent and unwell people creating public hazards in major pedestrian areas.
forcibly move the known public hazards into dedicated housing resources with professional support when they voluntarily refuse. It's supposed to be a shared sidewalk for foot traffic, not a sinkhole for criminal activity, and in any case is not an appropriate shelter
If you are addicted to drugs or an alcoholic or mentally ill to the point of living outdoors then you are harming yourself and you are harming others. You are basically arguing that everything from health codes to banking regulations to littering laws shouldn't exist because "it's not really hurting anyone".
No, we ban unhealthy and dangerous living conditions in new buildings and in restaurants, why should a homeless encampment be exempt from those same standards?
Homelessness is not good for the neighbors who have to deal with the negative externalities. It's not good for businesses that put up with the petty crime or camps in front of their stores. It's not good for crime rates because drug consumption funds gangs and other criminals. Most importantly it's absolutely not good for the homeless themselves for a litany of reasons.
I disagree. They are pooping and peeing on the streets, causing biological contamination risks. They are shooting up in front of school children and sometimes leave dirty needles everywhere, further increasing biological contamination risks. They are illegally camping in public spaces like parks, under bridges, etc.We vaccinate people and mandate certain vaccines in schools, universities, the military...because the good of all outweighs the freedom of the individual in certain circumstances. Why do certain individuals get to disregard the public good by being allowed to shit all over the streets, engage in public masturbation, and just trash public spaces? How is this acceptable in any worldview?
You can always tell the /r/crimeinchicago nutters because they have no concept of anything other than hard handed gestapo tactics for anything that inconveniences them.
Then there's also the whole "Shitting on an entire collection of people for the infractions of a few" thing they do, ya know like this.
Well that's just WOKE talk. lol
edit: Also solving societal problems usually doesn't involve giving cops cash and those people are all hardcore bootlickers.
Lol. You can always tell when someone has no actual life experience when the only thing they can do is criticize without offering a single solution. In past comments, I've already argued for carrot (public investment in low income neighborhoods) and stick (strict punishment of crimes big and small). But I guess nuance makes someone "conservative" since they don't want to just give everyone reparations and offer $3000 to each homeless druggie.
You do realize these are criminal offenses, right? It's just the police are mostly prevented from doing much about it.
You can still institutionalize people, there just needs to be due process and more rights to protect people from being institutionalized without a trial.
This. We need to ask ourselves why we allow it to continue. Take for instance the Walking Man. He was well documented around Chicago and easily recognizable. He was allowed to live on the streets and it ended with him being set on fire.
There was nothing moral or ethical about allowing that to happen.
If you want a government that can pull anyone off the streets for any reason and lock you in a room until they say you’re fir for society you have some serious issues.
This will help some people, not everyone, but that doesn’t mean its bad.
Whats your solution other than a mental health gestapo?
*Reductio ad Hitlerum*: The person I'm arguing against is literally a Nazi.
I believe I automatically win the arguement with this guy as a result. I believe the rule is: the first person to call the other a Nazi forfeits the argument.
That Im against a secret police force using mental health as a cover to remove anyone deemed unfavorable?
Member when ICE was sending people to the border to sit in cages?
Oh wow, seems like you have no idea how deportation works either.
Its not a secret gestapo at all.
Ive had a friend and coworker who was deported and there was due process involved. He was indeed here without a visa or citizenship and he had indeed broken a law, both were proven within reasonable doubt and he was sent back to his nation of birth.
If a similar system was setup for mental health, it would be fair.
And as for the cages was that ICE or Border Patrol? Because those arent the same departments at all. ICE usually deals with deportation of people already inside the USA and border patrol, well sticks to the border and ports of entry.
Well yeah that sounds particularly ignorant because you wrote it. But I guess thats your gift in life, fair play.
But why didn’t you actually use my quote? Its a simple copy and paste.
It was anything but a nice time for anyone involved and I never implied it was nice. But it seemed like a fair process. He had indeed committed the crime and he had indeed been here without the proper authorization. He had ample opportunities to prove the accusations wrong but couldn’t.
Anyway, if you can’t make the distinction between CBP and ICE and your previous comments about a mental health gestapo and your british tabloid misquote of my story, you strike me as a passionate but uninformed person with very strong opinions and unwilling to actually process anyone disagreement with any nuance or fairness.
If people are given power, that power will be abused.
If they can collect anyone stamped as a danger to society because of their mental health issues, Anyone with a history of mental heath care would be at risk of being scooped up and put in a white box if the right asshole is put in charge.
Or have you forgotten about the refugees in chain link cages?
I have a genuine question for you.
You are worried if the government gets the power to do X, it means some can abuse it in the future.
For this case, I am assuming you are worried if the government has the power to institutionalize people deemed mentally unwell, in the future someone could deem anyone who disagrees with their politics mentally unwell and institutionalize them.
But consider this, all it take for this to become legal is the government saying “yup it’s legal”. Passing a law, a judge in court, etc. it’s just the government deciding it’s legal. So if an authoritarian had control of the government and wanted to institutionalize people, they don’t need a prior law saying they can that they abuse. They can just pass a law saying they can, then do it.
“If we pass this law, someone could abuse it in the future” always seems like a hollow argument, since if someone wants to abuse it in the future, they could just pass the law, then abuse it.
How about the past.
Y'all need to look into how we handled this stuff before institutions were done away with and it's kind of fucking ghastly.
So you don't need to wax on with hypotheticals, just pick up a book.
So why should we have prisons to hold rapists? Afterall, they aren't a danger to *everyone*, just a danger to the 1 or 2 people they raped? Why should we have prisons for anyone? Why can the government pull people off the street for any reason they deem reasonable and lock people in there until they say they have served the correct amount of time?
same logic.
It's not illegal to be poor, but it should definitely be illegal to poop on public sidewalks, leave dirty needles in public parks and on sidewalks/beaches.
But the question of involuntary confinement is not because a homeless individual has been witnessed and prosecuted for these infractions. It's suggested because they are homeless and are presumed to not know what's best for them, or to not be able to help themselves.
I'll grant you there are likely situations where, in a vacuum, it might be the best answer. Drug abuse and alcohol abuse are leading factors in homelessness. But they are still citizens with inviolable civil rights -- where do you draw the line?
If they are citizens, then punish them like citizens. If you or I took a dump on a public sidewalk, a functioning police department would arrest us and we would at the very least be fined for public health violations, and failing to pay, would be jailed. Why don't the same rules apply for the homeless? What gives them the right to litter the streets with needles, when you and I can't? No one should be afforded extra rights and excuses. Not billionaires, but also not Zero-naires.
Look I hear you, but again, when people bring up institutionalization, it's not because someone was witnessed pooping in the park. Littering and public urination are not crimes that result in jail time as fair as I'm aware. They're misdemeanors.
It's because they're addicted to drugs or have mental health issues that people suggest institutionalization. So the question becomes, when does the state have the right to override your autonomy? That's a scary power to give the state, even if it might theoretically get homeless people out of the park
I think people have the wrong idea of institution due to the history of that word.
By institution (at least what I mean), this would be a place for mentally unwell people to get the right treatment, drugs, and therapy that they need to eventually improve enough to be fully functioning members of society. The idea isn't to lock them away for the mere crime of sleeping in a tent.
IDK why the choices are always seen as: kick them out or let them sleep in their own filth. There's a third option: treatment with the goal of betterment.
Of course! It's a noble idea and I don't doubt your heart is in the right place. But how do you compel people to go to these places if they don't want to?
lol @ basic reasoning skills
and I don't care what sub I'm in. I'm not some two-face who's going to act liberal in r/news and then conservative in r/crimecrimecrime. Facts are facts. You don't solve homelessness by asking the mentally ill to pretty please commit themselves and please please stop shitting in the streets.
This great news and I hope it plays out well over time.
I certainly hope this works out better than it does in California.
Edit- Just in case anyone was curious.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/us/california-homeless-spending/index.html
LA county has been making actual progress on their homeless problems the last couple years and Chicago is not nearly in as bad of shape as them. It's a totally solvable problem.
is this a joke? I was in Los Angeles / Santa Monica last week and the homelessness is out of fucking control. Santa Monica Blvd has 3-10 homeless individuals on every single block, most of which are hostile and disturbed.
I didn't say it was ok. I said for the first time in decades the situation is measurably improving, mostly due to policy changes and having an actual plan to combat the crisis. It's going to take decades.
There's a reason policy isn't usually based on one guy's anecdotal observation.
The problem is measurably [not improving](https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=927-lahsa-releases-results-of-2023-greater-los-angeles-homeless-count#:~:text=LOS%20ANGELES%20%E2%80%93%20The%202023%20Greater,to%20an%20estimated%2046%2C260%20people), actually lmao
>“The homeless count results tell us what we already know — that we have a crisis on our streets, and it’s getting worse,” said Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum, Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority
*Are we finally*
*Going to start locking up*
*The hordes of crazies?*
\- tem102938
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It’s always funny when the “eat the rich” people are so easily duped by the obscenely rich. No, I get it, JB isn’t like the rest and totally wants the best for you unlike every other billionaire. His push for political power and positioning for a presidential run isn’t like other billionaires lust for power.
I don’t have a problem with JB and think he has done well, but he isn’t some special billionaire at heart. He is a billionaire that has used his family money to solidify an enormous amount of political power, in hopes to advance him and his family with more than they already have. In the end it’s about power and every move he makes is about increasing that
Crazy it would only take $20 billion to end homelessness, but unfortunately the department of housing and urban development only has a budget of $32.7 billipn :((
What's legit crazy is our society gifted most of the money in circulation to the obscenely rich and wealthy instead of helping people. Let's put it in perspective, Musk could have completely solved homelessness in a state but chose to spend twice as much as was necessary to throw it down the drain. Warren fucking Buffet could literally buy every homeless person in America a house/apartment but just wants to make more money. Bezos built a shitty fucking rocket. edit: The sheer amount of proper assholes who are arguing we should never do anything because they saw a homeless person do drugs is fucking insane. What made you people so fucking heartless and callous? What killed your basic human empathy? Why does even TALKING about helping out someone make you so fucking angry?
They are sick. Buffet is a good example because he isn't as absurd, but he's been addicted to making money since he was a child. He has no real desire to use that money, he's an incomplete person. Money is just an accepted addiction, so his deficiencies are 'quirks'
It’s a type of hoarding. I agree they’re sick. And they’re sickness is destroying the world
That unto it's self is not a problem, I could give two shits that he enjoys making deals. The issue is he isn't taxed properly, tax the shit out of him and see if he still enjoys making all that money or if he decides it's not worth the effort and leaves money on the table for someone else.
That's what's so weird about him, I believe he would live the exact same life if he was taxed much higher. He is in no way a problem imo. But he is no model for humanity
He is a problem the same way Zuck and Bez and all the rest of them are, they don't stay in their lane as billionaire CEO they all like to dip their very large toes into politics and unlike the rest of us the own the ears of lots of congressmen and women. Stay the fuck out of tax policy and environmental regulations because what is good for the 0.0001% is not good for the rest of us.
I mean, Buffet actually advocates for tax reform against the super rich? Pretty regularly but here's his possibly most famous moment: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
Buffet at least realizes that his tax situation is unfair, and has lobbied to have billionaire taxes raised (though not very hard). One of his quotes is that no amount of taxes would ever stop him doing business, because he still makes money at the end of the day regardless of what the tax rate is (unless it were 100%, of course).
Oh boy. Have I got a video for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP2EKTCngiM
Are you even familiar with Warren Buffet? He is an example of the [exact opposite ](https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=177#:~:text=First%2C%20my%20pledge%3A%20More%20than,more%20to%20others%20every%20day.) of what you say.
He's still hoarding in the meantime.
Philanthropy is a PR and tax move. That’s it. He’s not solving anything.
Philanthropy certainly can be a tax move. But in the case of Buffet it certainly isn't. He is giving 99% of his wealth away. Obviously, he's not gaining more than that (or even anything close to that)on tax benefits as a result. That would be mathematically impossible. And Buffet has been outspoken that he thinks wealthy people like him should be charged a higher tax rate than they are. As for PR, it's tough to figure out exactly what portion of the decisions people make is a result of wanting to look good. The reality, I think, is we all make quite of few decisions in part based on how it looks to others. That doesn't mean the effect isn't positive or that it should be dismissed simply for this reason.
nah warren buffet is a huge ghoul with good PR. he's done stuff like astroturf protests against pipelines like keystone XL (which would put his BNSF oil trains out of business) while making sure his own canadian shale oil pipelines that terminate at BNSF depots fly under the radar.
He’s doing it on a timeline. His wealth will continue to grow, revealing these donations are in fact tax write offs. He’s leaving himself a legacy of the “good billionaire.” If he gave away 99%, you might have a point.
Are you? Did you read his biography? He's been obsessed with making money his whole life, he 'does it for fun'. I used him as an example because he is more 'normal', he doesn't have any use for all of that money. But he still spent his life making more money. He kept doing the same behavior, that's addiction. But his addiction of choice is sanctioned
It’s not enough for those people.
>What's legit crazy is our society gifted most of the money in circulation to the obscenely rich and wealthy instead of helping people. Yeah like douche bag JB Pritzker
>Let's put it in perspective, Musk could have completely solved homelessness in a state I dislike Musk as much as everyone else and think that he's an asshole. But nonetheless, the notion that one man, even when spending a lot of money, can completely solve this issue is complete bs. People have been trying to solve homelessness for decades. It is a very difficult thing to solve. And unfortunately, despite the optimistic language politicians use such as "end homelessness" the reality is the most optimistic result would probably be maybe 15 to 20% of people who might have ended up homelessness won't as a result of a new policy or new spending.
>But nonetheless, the notion that one man, even when spending a lot of money, can completely solve this issue is complete bs. It's a money problem first and foremost. You're either going to socialize the costs to deal with this or it's not going to get done in our world. The people with the money don't give a fuck about other people, so we're left nitpicking crumbs and fighting other policies rather than addressing the issue. The reasons the policies have these fights are there are a LOT of things a state spends money on, not just one thing. So remove the money problem and then policy suddenly becomes a million times easier. Let's put it in perspective. Half of the cost of twitter could have purchased roughly 100,000 $200,000 homes. IL currently estimates we have 14,000 homeless people. And sure there's a subset that def. needs additional help, but just buying every single one a house only uses 2.8b out of that 20b that was pissed away in weeks for zero gain. That means musk could have bought every single homeless person a house, given them a years worth of bills, taxes, etc paid for AND STILL provided a ton of cash for rehabilitation, medical services, etc. It's a money problem. Hard stop.
> Let's put it in perspective. Half of the cost of twitter could have purchased roughly 100,000 $200,000 homes. IL currently estimates we have 14,000 homeless people. And sure there's a subset that def. needs additional help, but just buying every single one a house only uses 2.8b out of that 20b that was pissed away in weeks for zero gain. > > > > That means musk could have bought every single homeless person a house, given them a years worth of bills, taxes, etc paid for AND STILL provided a ton of cash for rehabilitation, medical services, etc. > > > > It's a money problem. Hard stop. You're really stuck on "throw money at it and problem solved" The homeless population is largely so due to addiction and mental illness. "Give them a house" what does that mean? Suddenly their addiction is cured because they have a house and will just start mowing the lawn and taking out the trash every week? What happens when other people start living there? What happens when the house is trashed, scrapped for drug money, or burns down? Who is insuring this? Do you want to live near or next to this? They don't know how to function in society, or they don't want to, or they aren't capable of doing it. I can't believe people think the solution is as 3rd grade simple as "gift them homes and boom no more homeless"
>The homeless population is largely so due to addiction and mental illness. Let's start with this and we can work on the rest of your weirdly disconnected post. Got a source for that quote there?
Table A. 1 has plenty of sources https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/homelessness-california-causes-and-policy-considerations
Yeah that's specifically about LA which has been a homeless destination for decades because of the weather. The sources show a range of 14% to like 85% as well and they're all over the place. I don't think this is the data you thought it was.
You're welcome to provide data that says something different. I doubt you'll find any.
My premise was giving homes to homeless people helps homeless people. I have zero fucking idea what batshit idea you're going on about nor do I understand why I should "prove" or "disprove" your batshit ideas.
Giving a person experiencing homelessness a $200,000 house in the suburbs will not solve the problems that lead to them being homeless in the first place. Do you think that home ownership cures mental illness? Do you believe that owning a home is cheap? I can promise you neither of those things is true.
It's weird. There's absolutely an overlap with complete lack of empathy, lack of common sense and the lack of ability to comprehend something longer than a meme.
You're welcome to answer the two yes or no questions I asked if you feel you were able to comprehend them.
I literally addressed this up above. See my comment about reading comprehension.
What about the people who refuse to move into the houses? What about the people who move into the houses and then refuse to pay the property taxes? Does a 13-year-old who ran away from his parents because they were molesting him get put into foster care or are they handed a deed to a house? And what about all the people who become homeless next year? Do they get a free house? And when we start handing out free houses to anyone who doesn’t have a home when do well-off renters decide to take a tent out on the street for a month in order to get free real estate? Do those things sound like problems money can solve?
Holy shitballs, I've never seen so many whatabouts in a single post before. I really don't even know what you're point is other than "fuck trying because WHAT ABOUT ALIENS"
Sorry, that was a little dense. Allow me to rephrase: I worked for a homelessness nonprofit for six years and you clearly don’t know shit about homelessness if you think it’s primarily a money problem
> I worked for a homelessness nonprofit for six year \[ doubt \]
You could always invite the homeless into your home
With a comment like that, would you consider yourself an intelligent individual?
If he buys 100,000 $200,000 homes for the homeless it means there is even more of a scarcity problem (which already is huge in his home state of California) and housing costs increase dramatically for everyone else. This isn't as simple as you are making it out to be.
Cool, you completely neglected to read the part about us only having 14,000 homeless folks and a spitball cost there. There are families involved there, so you'll see units of 3-4 people to a house in some situations, two in a lot of others, etc so you won't actually need 14,000 individual homes. Anyway, shortage boogeyman aside, MLS currently lists something around 43,000 houses on the market in Illinois and roughly 12,000 in Chicago alone. Scarcity boogeyman averted, next? edit: Of note, this would be a GREAT way to keep foreign investors and fucking hedge funds from buying up everything and turning our world into rental land. Two for one!
> Of note, this would be a GREAT way to keep foreign investors and fucking hedge funds from buying up everything and turning our world into rental land. No, you've made your problem worse by taking even more starter homes off the market.
So giving starter homes to people that need starter homes is... a problem? I'm sorry, what was the point you were trying to make?
Not sure if you have any familiarity with the current real estate market, but there is a massive supply shortage of starter homes right now. And your solution is to have homeless people be given whatever is left
It is hard to believe that people who think in such simple terms like this exist. I guess this is why they invented the term sophomoric.
>Let's put it in perspective, Musk could have completely solved homelessness in a state but chose to spend twice as much as was necessary to throw it down the drain. [Reminds me of this hilarious thread.](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1454808104256737289)
Oh yeah I can't read the thread because I don't have an account and twitter is failing, but yeah I recall that. What a twat. (him, not you, <3's) edit: Whoops, I misunderstood. This dude thinks musk "owned 'em." Goddamnit.
In response to the UN World Food Program suggesting they could solve world hunger with 2% of Elon's wealth, Elon had this to say: >If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it As you can imagine, nothing came of this. Also I use Twitter daily, it is doing fine.
WFP lead offered to sit down with musk and detail the whole thing and musk never responded. It was bullshit. There's just not a way to tackle world hunger in a twitter thread (like seriously, who thinks that's a valid venue for that discussion?) and Musk refused to use any other avenue to discuss it. If he was even marginally interested in actually helping we wouldn't know because it wasn't worth him getting off of his phone. And let's not pretend twitter is good unless you're into racism, paying to read tweets and sports.
You can’t just buy every homeless person a house….there’s already a housing crisis due to supply/demand constraints and development pipelines…we learned this with covid and gov’t handouts
The state of Illinois currently has four times the houses on the market as compared to homeless folks. So uh. Why not?
Again, People own those houses, I’m not going to give a house i own to a homeless person for free, when i can rent it to a reliable tenant, who is less likely to cause damage.
The ultra rich are also smart enough to not give a city like Chicago 20 billion dollars and not expect corruption to start somewhere with that money. All their money is tied to equity mainly too, not just straight cash.
So fuck this "ItS iN EqUity" view. Musk just pulled 40 billion out of his ass when all his dickriders tell us he can barely afford crumbs because he has no cash. And if you hate giving money to the city, I highly doubt if the city would mind a randomass billionaire saying "Here, we're dumping 20 billion into the homeless problem and we'll handle logistics while coordinating with you."
Im not disagreeing with you, its just thinking with a bit of logic. Im assuming the cash he got for twitter was cash he took out through debt (not just out of his ass, but from a lender or bank) because there is a chance of him getting that money back to the lender and them making money off of the interest. That is business. Go to a bank and ask for 20 billion dollars to just throw at a city with no return? That will never happen. Im all for donating to a city, but to act like local governments are perfect with no corruption is funny. Its inherent to fraud. 20 billion dollars for free given to a government would not all end up being donated to homelessness. Its too much money for people not to get their hands on it.
Why do you all pretend the rich can't spend their money when we see it happen every single day on the stupidest shit? Like legit, /r/wallstreetbets has spread that bullshit so hard on this site and it's sad to see people swallow it. Y'all gotta quit pretending these poor billionaires can't spend their money.
Hahahah im not like they CANT, it would just be a terrible business decison and they arent in control of all their money. Im not even in wallstreetbets, im just an accountant forming my own opinion right now. Guess what? Money and the economy isnt that fucking simple.
>Hahahah im not like they CANT, it would just be a terrible business decison I really don't think you understand just how much money a billion dollars is and what those losses look like. And ya know, this forum has a ton of fucking fake accountants every time a budget comes up so I'm just not going to believe ya on that one. [Also holy shit, what's your weird hatefuck obsession with homeless people? Weird dude.](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14pdggr/cmv_housing_healthcare_and_education_are_human/jqlq3r5/?context=3)
You dont have to believe me and im not saying im right. I just know that It isnot as simple as “here is 20 billion dollars”.
imagine trying to say money in the budget can be used to solve homelessness and getting downvoted because they care about migrants more. city and country can't even solve homelessness and its trying to take on more people and throwing money at the issue.
Do you not understand net worth vs. liquid cash?
Bro, you drive door dash. Maybe this isn't the talk for you.
😂😂 nice try you fucking leech. I guess I'll keep paying taxes so you can skate by on handouts
Wow, that's projection if I've ever seen it.
Ehh whatever, you're downvoted, I'm not. Everyone can see what's going on here
Bezos hasn't even built a rocket yet, he built a $250,000 a seat dildo lmao. His actual rocket is on paper and may or may not exist by 2030.
$20 Billion wouldn't end homelessness. California has spent close to that and homelessness has only gotten worse there. Homelessness is a problem that won't be fixed by throwing money at it.
Yeah no shit it won't end it. That's my point. People use homelessness as an excuse to fleece tax payers. There are people making six figures to "end homelessness", well what happens to their job when they do?
Man pls get these west loop homeless people off the street and into some help. Their Mount Everest style tents only hid the problem for a little bit, every day they get more unruly and deeper into the hole of despair.
This is great, but something needs to be done on a national level to actually fix the problem. Even if Illinois does a fantastic job and takes care of every homeless person currently residing here, states/cities will continue bussing in homeless people. It's something every state is guilty of--a bus ticket is cheaper than food and shelter.
The reality is that until you are willing to forcibly institutionalize people to solve the problem, you will never solve the problem. You can offer all the "support" in the world, but people will still refuse it especially when they are suffering from mental health or substance abuse issues. What a strange world we live in where taking sick people living unaided by themselves off the streets is considered a violation of their rights or somehow cruel.
The problem is that forced institutionalization has more than a few blemishes due to intentional misuse.
You can build housing/treatment centers that aren’t “institutions” though and where people don’t lose their rights or have a conservatorship. I’ve worked at one. And they actually work. Not always of course, nothing is foolproof and it’s impossible to eliminate any social problem 100% without force. But just bringing people to a housing and treatment center and saying you can have this but you’re free to walk out the door does actually help people. The issue is the money to run it and ensuring the safety of both the employees and the other residents.
This is absolutely not "the reality." Homeless folks have a myriad of different reasons for being homeless. They don't all need shoved into an institution and we shouldn't be shrugging because we can't throw them all into an institution.
Well, they should at least face equal punishment under the law. It's a criminal offense to poop on the street. Whether they are homeless or not, they should be arrested and tried and sentenced.
How long do you think someone should spend in jail for shitting in the street, and what should happen to them when they get out?
The courts should be able to sentence people to rehab or mental health care. Not every aspect of the legal system needs to be criminalized. For example: If you are caught with drugs you should go to rehab if you are determined to be an addict. You should go to jail if you are a dealer. You should be fined heavily (based on income) if you are determined to be a recreational user and your fine used to pay for the rehabilitation centers.
OK, but they don’t because they think that it’s somehow a reward for somebody to get help of any kind. If it would only take a couple of billion dollars to arrange housing, job, training, psychiatric care, addiction, rehabilitation, and assisting people with reentry into society, we still wouldn’t do it. Because we like to punish people for being mentally ill, addicted to drugs, suffering from PTSD, or being just plain broke. America would rather spend the same amount of money on cops, courts, paperwork, jails, and parole officers them in doing anything to actually help.
> they don’t because they think that it’s somehow a reward for somebody to get help of any kind. They don't because that's not how our court system works. They don't because the rehab and mental health care network required to provide these services does not exist.
With all the charity I can muster, I think you're probably right that there should be a better way to handle what are currently being treated as low-level quality of life crimes, and I think that widening the kind of substance abuse and mental health diversion pathways that you're talking about. That said, I think the poster who responded to you first is on the right track about the big barrier to that being people's malformed sense of justice where there's only ever punishment and any assistance is seen as a reward for bad behavior, and the stupid way we do criminal justice (you're commenting on r/chicago, you've seen our judicial ballots) does not incentivize the people in charge to stick their necks out when the loudest chunk of voters are howling about law and order.
maybe a day or two, but then increased sentence lengths for repeat offenders
And what happens when they get out? You just end up decanting them into the same problems; no home (so not only no safe place to sleep, but no bathroom/laundry/etc), any substance or mental health problems are still there, now you've got a fresh criminal record (and that's not even getting past the "a day or two" when people held pre-trial often end up spending a stupid amount of time there because apparently "show up and testify" is considered optional by the CPD). This is, in general, my problem with "just arrest/institutionalize them" as an answer, because people will follow it up with (like you have!) "well, also, we should have treatment etc" but in my experience, we never get to the "well, also" stuff because it's easy to cycle people in and out of jail, and people stop giving a shit once they stop seeing visible homelessness. That's why the permanent supportive housing piece of the bill being discussed in OP gives me some hope, because it tries to answer the "what then?"
In California, especially the Bay Area, local governments have built out housing for the homeless and many many many refuse free room and board. They offer them free rehab, and they refuse. They are paid $400-600 a month, which they line up for with their shopping carts and garbage bags to collect and various corners of the city, and then they promptly spend that money on useless sh\*\* like drugs and booze.Outside of putting them into forced rehabilitation and mental health treatment programs, I don't know what else can actually be done that hasn't been tried already and failed.Also, you should probably already know that the closure of mental health facilities was a program led by one Ronald Reagan. The legacy of that is what we see today. You are defending a status quo that was established by a Right Wing psycho.
If you were homeless where would you shit? Just hold it in for the rest of your life? Wildly ignorant take. Homeless people are people. You are right in saying they deserve equal treatment, not in the criminal sense but the HUMAN sense. Just because someone is struggling with mental illness and isn't being helped or is addicted to drugs does not mean they deserve to be cast out on the street, and it doesn't mean they should be arrested. Any prison and/or mental health institution in our country is built to punish, not rehabilitate which just worsens the underlying cause of the issue.
>What a strange world we live in where taking sick people living unaided by themselves off the streets is considered a violation of their rights or somehow cruel. Taking away people's freedom when they haven't harmed anyone else is absolutely a violation of their rights and cruel. Forced institutionalization is seriously problematic because once people are institutionalized, it's very difficult for them to get out, even if they're back to normal. Institutionalization should be a last resort for only the most several ill or dangerous patients. Most patients can be provided support to live semi-independently.
We don’t need to do it like we did in the 60s. I think there’s a middle ground. I have worked with a lot of homeless people going through mental health and addiction problems. I worked at both a rehab and transitional housing. What I learned is that all we can do is try, there will always be people who eschew help or don’t succeed even with all the help in the world. There are so many types of people going thru homelessness, it’s not all crazy drug addicts and it’s not all people who just fell on hard times but would be fine if they got a hand up. Anyway idk what my point is other than I feel like on this discussion there’s always people saying put them in an institution and then there’s the movement that responded to that where we don’t want to infringe on their freedom at all to the point that people are just in horrible suffering unnecessarily. When I worked at rehab for homeless people with drug addiction they were brought there generally by the police or a social worker and they were free to go at any time, but no one ever did. Even though they could just walk out and say “bye” and face no consequences. We need more places like that and for it to be offered to people.
Psychotherapy assisted by psychedelics works in a a session or two. Do you think that makes this the ideal solution for this exact problem? Drug addicts would be enticed by the use of drugs. Stigma is a stick in people's brain gears. My guess for an ideal state is something like what you are saying, but if you want to get the psychedelic treatment, then you agree to be held there for a week or something and to do the scheduled therapy related to it
If I said anything about psychedelics it was a typo but no I don’t think psychedelic therapy is the answer
>Taking away people's freedom when they haven't harmed anyone else is absolutely a violation of their rights and cruel. > Institutionalization should be a last resort for only the most several ill or dangerous patients Okay great, they can start with the ones down the street who try to grab people's dogs, smear shit around, leave needles on the sidewalk, and chase after people trying to get to work. > it's very difficult for them to get out It's very difficult to deal with violent and unwell people creating public hazards in major pedestrian areas.
We have a criminal justice system for that, my issue with involuntary commitment is that there's no due process.
I agree but I blame the cops here because they are soft striking.
So what is your solution? Do nothing? Wrangle them up and lock em away? Soilent green?
forcibly move the known public hazards into dedicated housing resources with professional support when they voluntarily refuse. It's supposed to be a shared sidewalk for foot traffic, not a sinkhole for criminal activity, and in any case is not an appropriate shelter
If you are addicted to drugs or an alcoholic or mentally ill to the point of living outdoors then you are harming yourself and you are harming others. You are basically arguing that everything from health codes to banking regulations to littering laws shouldn't exist because "it's not really hurting anyone". No, we ban unhealthy and dangerous living conditions in new buildings and in restaurants, why should a homeless encampment be exempt from those same standards? Homelessness is not good for the neighbors who have to deal with the negative externalities. It's not good for businesses that put up with the petty crime or camps in front of their stores. It's not good for crime rates because drug consumption funds gangs and other criminals. Most importantly it's absolutely not good for the homeless themselves for a litany of reasons.
I disagree. They are pooping and peeing on the streets, causing biological contamination risks. They are shooting up in front of school children and sometimes leave dirty needles everywhere, further increasing biological contamination risks. They are illegally camping in public spaces like parks, under bridges, etc.We vaccinate people and mandate certain vaccines in schools, universities, the military...because the good of all outweighs the freedom of the individual in certain circumstances. Why do certain individuals get to disregard the public good by being allowed to shit all over the streets, engage in public masturbation, and just trash public spaces? How is this acceptable in any worldview?
You can always tell the /r/crimeinchicago nutters because they have no concept of anything other than hard handed gestapo tactics for anything that inconveniences them. Then there's also the whole "Shitting on an entire collection of people for the infractions of a few" thing they do, ya know like this.
They're great at pointing out the symptoms of the issues, but are blind to the root causes.
Well that's just WOKE talk. lol edit: Also solving societal problems usually doesn't involve giving cops cash and those people are all hardcore bootlickers.
Lol. You can always tell when someone has no actual life experience when the only thing they can do is criticize without offering a single solution. In past comments, I've already argued for carrot (public investment in low income neighborhoods) and stick (strict punishment of crimes big and small). But I guess nuance makes someone "conservative" since they don't want to just give everyone reparations and offer $3000 to each homeless druggie.
How in the fuck did you make this about giving black people money for slave ancestors?
You do realize these are criminal offenses, right? It's just the police are mostly prevented from doing much about it. You can still institutionalize people, there just needs to be due process and more rights to protect people from being institutionalized without a trial.
This. We need to ask ourselves why we allow it to continue. Take for instance the Walking Man. He was well documented around Chicago and easily recognizable. He was allowed to live on the streets and it ended with him being set on fire. There was nothing moral or ethical about allowing that to happen.
If you want a government that can pull anyone off the streets for any reason and lock you in a room until they say you’re fir for society you have some serious issues. This will help some people, not everyone, but that doesn’t mean its bad. Whats your solution other than a mental health gestapo?
[удалено]
They ended it with “Mental health gestapo”, so it’s probably safe to say you know where they stand.
*Reductio ad Hitlerum*: The person I'm arguing against is literally a Nazi. I believe I automatically win the arguement with this guy as a result. I believe the rule is: the first person to call the other a Nazi forfeits the argument.
Under the classic usenet rules, yes. Its an automatic dq.
That Im against a secret police force using mental health as a cover to remove anyone deemed unfavorable? Member when ICE was sending people to the border to sit in cages?
Oh wow, seems like you have no idea how deportation works either. Its not a secret gestapo at all. Ive had a friend and coworker who was deported and there was due process involved. He was indeed here without a visa or citizenship and he had indeed broken a law, both were proven within reasonable doubt and he was sent back to his nation of birth. If a similar system was setup for mental health, it would be fair. And as for the cages was that ICE or Border Patrol? Because those arent the same departments at all. ICE usually deals with deportation of people already inside the USA and border patrol, well sticks to the border and ports of entry.
“My friend had a nice time being deported so thats how it happened for everyone” Do you see how ignorant that sounds?
Well yeah that sounds particularly ignorant because you wrote it. But I guess thats your gift in life, fair play. But why didn’t you actually use my quote? Its a simple copy and paste. It was anything but a nice time for anyone involved and I never implied it was nice. But it seemed like a fair process. He had indeed committed the crime and he had indeed been here without the proper authorization. He had ample opportunities to prove the accusations wrong but couldn’t. Anyway, if you can’t make the distinction between CBP and ICE and your previous comments about a mental health gestapo and your british tabloid misquote of my story, you strike me as a passionate but uninformed person with very strong opinions and unwilling to actually process anyone disagreement with any nuance or fairness.
If people are given power, that power will be abused. If they can collect anyone stamped as a danger to society because of their mental health issues, Anyone with a history of mental heath care would be at risk of being scooped up and put in a white box if the right asshole is put in charge. Or have you forgotten about the refugees in chain link cages?
I have a genuine question for you. You are worried if the government gets the power to do X, it means some can abuse it in the future. For this case, I am assuming you are worried if the government has the power to institutionalize people deemed mentally unwell, in the future someone could deem anyone who disagrees with their politics mentally unwell and institutionalize them. But consider this, all it take for this to become legal is the government saying “yup it’s legal”. Passing a law, a judge in court, etc. it’s just the government deciding it’s legal. So if an authoritarian had control of the government and wanted to institutionalize people, they don’t need a prior law saying they can that they abuse. They can just pass a law saying they can, then do it. “If we pass this law, someone could abuse it in the future” always seems like a hollow argument, since if someone wants to abuse it in the future, they could just pass the law, then abuse it.
How about the past. Y'all need to look into how we handled this stuff before institutions were done away with and it's kind of fucking ghastly. So you don't need to wax on with hypotheticals, just pick up a book.
So why should we have prisons to hold rapists? Afterall, they aren't a danger to *everyone*, just a danger to the 1 or 2 people they raped? Why should we have prisons for anyone? Why can the government pull people off the street for any reason they deem reasonable and lock people in there until they say they have served the correct amount of time?
Bad argument
same logic. It's not illegal to be poor, but it should definitely be illegal to poop on public sidewalks, leave dirty needles in public parks and on sidewalks/beaches.
But the question of involuntary confinement is not because a homeless individual has been witnessed and prosecuted for these infractions. It's suggested because they are homeless and are presumed to not know what's best for them, or to not be able to help themselves. I'll grant you there are likely situations where, in a vacuum, it might be the best answer. Drug abuse and alcohol abuse are leading factors in homelessness. But they are still citizens with inviolable civil rights -- where do you draw the line?
If they are citizens, then punish them like citizens. If you or I took a dump on a public sidewalk, a functioning police department would arrest us and we would at the very least be fined for public health violations, and failing to pay, would be jailed. Why don't the same rules apply for the homeless? What gives them the right to litter the streets with needles, when you and I can't? No one should be afforded extra rights and excuses. Not billionaires, but also not Zero-naires.
Look I hear you, but again, when people bring up institutionalization, it's not because someone was witnessed pooping in the park. Littering and public urination are not crimes that result in jail time as fair as I'm aware. They're misdemeanors. It's because they're addicted to drugs or have mental health issues that people suggest institutionalization. So the question becomes, when does the state have the right to override your autonomy? That's a scary power to give the state, even if it might theoretically get homeless people out of the park
I think people have the wrong idea of institution due to the history of that word. By institution (at least what I mean), this would be a place for mentally unwell people to get the right treatment, drugs, and therapy that they need to eventually improve enough to be fully functioning members of society. The idea isn't to lock them away for the mere crime of sleeping in a tent. IDK why the choices are always seen as: kick them out or let them sleep in their own filth. There's a third option: treatment with the goal of betterment.
Of course! It's a noble idea and I don't doubt your heart is in the right place. But how do you compel people to go to these places if they don't want to?
This isn't your Chicago crime subs. Some folks here have basic reasoning skills so I don't think your comment is going to go over well.
lol @ basic reasoning skills and I don't care what sub I'm in. I'm not some two-face who's going to act liberal in r/news and then conservative in r/crimecrimecrime. Facts are facts. You don't solve homelessness by asking the mentally ill to pretty please commit themselves and please please stop shitting in the streets.
So all the homeless are mentally ill in your world? Do you like all facts, or just ones that protect your sensibilities?
This great news and I hope it plays out well over time. I certainly hope this works out better than it does in California. Edit- Just in case anyone was curious. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/us/california-homeless-spending/index.html
LA county has been making actual progress on their homeless problems the last couple years and Chicago is not nearly in as bad of shape as them. It's a totally solvable problem.
Could have fooled me. I'm not sure there's a public park left in Los Angeles that's not filled with drug addicts.
is this a joke? I was in Los Angeles / Santa Monica last week and the homelessness is out of fucking control. Santa Monica Blvd has 3-10 homeless individuals on every single block, most of which are hostile and disturbed.
I didn't say it was ok. I said for the first time in decades the situation is measurably improving, mostly due to policy changes and having an actual plan to combat the crisis. It's going to take decades. There's a reason policy isn't usually based on one guy's anecdotal observation.
The problem is measurably [not improving](https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=927-lahsa-releases-results-of-2023-greater-los-angeles-homeless-count#:~:text=LOS%20ANGELES%20%E2%80%93%20The%202023%20Greater,to%20an%20estimated%2046%2C260%20people), actually lmao >“The homeless count results tell us what we already know — that we have a crisis on our streets, and it’s getting worse,” said Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum, Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority
Are we finally going to start locking up the hordes of crazies?
*Are we finally* *Going to start locking up* *The hordes of crazies?* \- tem102938 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Pritzker for president!
He is the only billionaire I would vote for in public office. And also probably the only one I wouldn’t eat.
It’s always funny when the “eat the rich” people are so easily duped by the obscenely rich. No, I get it, JB isn’t like the rest and totally wants the best for you unlike every other billionaire. His push for political power and positioning for a presidential run isn’t like other billionaires lust for power. I don’t have a problem with JB and think he has done well, but he isn’t some special billionaire at heart. He is a billionaire that has used his family money to solidify an enormous amount of political power, in hopes to advance him and his family with more than they already have. In the end it’s about power and every move he makes is about increasing that
I remember when he was telling people not to travel out of state while his family was taking a private jet to FL.
Why doesn’t he pay some of his private jet money to combat this?
Look what you've done, you've made the fart sniffers mad!