"High taxes be damned, the rich keep moving to California"

Jesus is a story.

 

California's PC liberal/progressive policies and experiments caused California's homeless problem.

Thirty years of having the welcome mat out at the border resulted in over population and 40 million people.

Insane building regulations and restrictions where building affordable housing is not profitable.

The ACLU and liberals releasing the 51-50's onto California's streets.

Propositions 47 and 57.

500,000 non citizens including illegal aliens occupying Section-8 housing in L.A. County.

 

I disagree, for the drug addicts who are homeless as a lifestile, facilitating their behavior is all they need. Continue to subsidize the problem and the problem will continue to grow.

 

There aren't many empty beds in shelters. Seems like every Jewish/ Christian denomination operates shelters and are overwhelmed. If someone wants to sleep on sidewalks it is allowed. There are "free spirits" who prefer living solo or in small groups. Marijuana smoking in public is just a common on wealthy Sunset Blvd as Skid Row

 

I want to dialogue with you and every one else on PF but needed to confront your unsubstantiated remarks. Your opinion on this subject doesn't jive with the facts.

 

We passed measures to increase sales tax and property taxes to help the homeless. What are they doing with the money?

 

Good question but my hunch is that the tax monies are not enough. San Francisco provides considerable help to their homeless population but people still live on the streets.

 

Do I look like a search engine, or are you just too lazy to do your own homework. Most liberals are.

 

So throwing money at the government is not the solution. Our politicians claim to care about the homeless when its time to collect tax money, but I don't see any improvement. We are either willing to enforce vagrancy laws or we should stop forcing tax payers to throw money away.

 

Lets imagine we enforce all the vagrancy laws. Where exactly do you propose we send homeless people, jail? That is the definition of just throwing money at the government. Not only that but its throwing money without a real solution. They go to jail, get out, go to jail. It spends taxpayer money in an endless cycle with no solution.

So you have decried a problem and suggested the exact same thing in the same paragraph.

 

Actually the rich employ CPA's and tax accountants by the bucket load. They keep the taxes the rich pay lower than any middle class family pays that can't afford to employ all those folks.

What I don't understand is the joy of see the top tax bracket raised and raised without paying any attention to the effective tax rate. The rate the individual actually pays after all the deductions and loopholes that comes into play.

 

What if instead of subsudizing the problem and facilitating the behavior we built rehab clinics where work or community service was a requirement. Would you be in favor of that?

 

Search engine? On the contrary, you look like someone who has never used one. You look like someone who makes claims and then fails to back them up with facts. I've been told many liberals are that way. Don't be lazy. Cough up the data.

I went ahead and did the research. The conclusion is that your claim was complete BS.

 

One extreme does not justify another. We already incarcerate too many citizens as it is. If you are asking for my solution, I would start with tax intensives for entrepreneurs to have a crack at the problem. Many will try, few will have some success and a model can be built off of those that worked.

 

I don't see why an entrepreneur would want to throw money at the problem either. Also that doesnt particularly strike me as a solution. Its kind of like saying 'lets let these other people figure out the problem'

Well, what do you think their solution would be?

There have already been attempts at getting homeless people into the market economy. But go down to a homeless camp. Would you hire anybody there? No. There isn't a market solution to homelessness because the homeless are mostly not employable people because they are drug addicts, drunks, mentally ill etc.

Some people in life just need help and I dont think therr is anything wrong with deciding to give it to them.

 

It is much more complicated than just providing housing. Mental health/ addiction issues, employment/ education opportunities play a role. Re-entry programs for felons leaving prison deal with the difficulties for employment. I am encouraged that some prisons are developing work/ career programs that can place a prisoner in a job at release time. People want to live in California regardless their income or lack of. Several European countries provide housing/ income for all [ie. Finland].

 

Then I guess you strayed off topic when you said California population just passed 40 million. One could easily assume by your post that those new people are all rich when not many of them are.

 

Finland canclled their experiment with income for everyone after less than a year.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...inion/universal-basic-income-finland.amp.html

And its not 'some European countries' that provide housing for homeless people. Its only Finland. Also to say they provide housing 'for all' is a big misnomer. They really just house their homeless population. Which you could say is a neccesity considering the climate.

 

So you don't believe that business owners are taking advantage of government programs? You say there is nothing wrong with giving people help, right? What do you suggest?

 

Well I think its a complicates problem. So you have to look at the cause of homelessness. Number one is drug abuse. These are people who spend and have sold everything theyve owned on drugs and lack a family support system to get into rehab. So you need more rehab facilities. You could set up a system where people pay back later or work is incorporated into it. Although the reality is that it will cost money, and probably be done through the government.

Giving a tax break to wealthy people and having them do it will, in my opinion result in the obvious: showcase homeless shelters that mostly provide high paying jobs for friends and do little to help the people in need.

Second major cause of homelessness is mental health problems. Its attrocious that we as a society let people with mental health problems end up on the street or in jail and treated like **** by everyone. You can argue that drug abuse is the result of bad behavior but the same argument doesnt fly for for people with mental health problems. The solution is just to have better mental health care for people who can't afford it, public hospitals that people can check into.

Thw third group on the street is what I call low functioning people. Normally people who are just not employable (or at least not for 15 dollars an hour) because they have low iqs or behavioral problems. There are a number of solutions. If we eased off housing regulations and lowered the minimum wage that would go a long way to help them.

We actually could end it far easier than all of that if we just developed a collective awareness of the suffering going on around us and individuals opened up their homes and hearts to people, said to homeless people "what can I do to help you?" "Come stay with me for a while and I'll help you get sober" If people had that mentality homelessness would be eradicated tomorrow.

As humans we seem a long way off from that unfortunately. They mostly wont even spare a pair of socks or underwear (something homeless people often cite as a number one need if you talk to them yourself)

Like I said, its a complicated problem so to distill it into a forum post is difficult.

Some of those solutions would cost money of course and people are reluctant to spend the sacred taxpayer money, but we are already spending that money on jails and needless law enforcement anyway. Not to mention the societal cost of petty crime, shelters etc.

At the end of the day we just need to ask ourselves what sort of society we want to be.

 

No, someone claimed their population is shrinking, so I corrected it.

 

They didn't cancel it. The experiment was designed to run for one year. It was a study. They wanted to know the cost in case they could eliminate various welfare departments and replace them with universal income, but it seems like the cost would be the same, plus it did not have other benefits they had hoped for.

 

And just how would that work, specifically?

 

Feeding people and providing them beds. It's still not enough.

 

Ah interesting. I didn't even know it had been tried until your post. It's good that someone has tried it, in my opinion. I've heard a lot of theories about it. I just dont really see the need. I know some people are worried technology and automation will take all the jobs. This is an old belief going back to the industrial Revolution and luddites, but thus far it seems technology only creates more jobs. If that trend somehow reverses I could see the need.

Universal basic income isn't going to solve homelesssness caused by drug abuse though. The problem is that those drug abusers value the drug more than having a house. So they are just going to spend their UBI on drugs and still be homeless.

There is a vice documentary where a panhandler in canada claims he panhandled 100,000 dollars in a year, but still lived in a tent and owned a single pair of pants. Opiod abuse is an all consuming thing.

I wonder about the Finnish solution of buying everyone a house. I'd be curious if it had any effect on drug abuse or mental illness or if you just have drug abusers or the mentally I'll in houses now.