Ending Chronic Homelessness

[danbrotherston]

For added fun (slightly unrelated), check out how the complete tolerance to anti-social behaviour is driving people away from public transit and into cars.

This could have its own thread. It really could. There are reason that some of us folks won't take transit. My kid was sexually assaulted on public transit, no way in hell she's ever getting on a bus or other public transit again, and sadly, this is very common.

As for the rest, as you said, there is no real answer. The big issue with homelessness is that some people simply don't want to be helped, or simply can't be helped. Public safety though always has to be a priority. People like Dan, or I can even include myself, know how to deal with sketchy situations. However, not everyone can -- and others need to realize that. Many (not all) in the homeless community don't want to live by any set of rules, and rules that as a whole population, we have to live by. Add in this addiction to drugs/alcohol, mental illness, etc., and you have a perfect storm that is really unfixable.

This is completely false.

Nobody wants to sleep in a tent on the side of Charles St., they do so because they have no alternative. Just because we pretend we have given alternatives that they turn down in preference to a tent at the side of Charles St. doesn't mean we can say they "don't want to be helped". You try living in a shelter for a week, you'll find real quick why some choose to sleep on Charles St.. We have a real answer, which is to provide unconditional and adequate housing to everyone, we simply choose not to do it and a large part of why we choose not to is either excuses (we pretend it's too expensive, which is absurd given the police budget) or pure sociopathy...people who believe we shouldn't give people housing because they don't deserve it.