The #1 problem of the overwhelming majority of those homeless people is drug addiction. If we address drug addiction, we simultaneously address the homeless problem.
I saw a study years back that about one third of the homeless problem is due to drug issues or alcoholism. However, from what I've seen here (and if we include marijuana), just a little over half of it is. Well maybe those issues combined with affordable housing shortages in this area, something that has only recently become a problem in the last decade (due to lots of people moving into the area). I talked to one of them, former construction worker, he said he turned to drugs, lost his job and home and car, living on the streets. Then he quit the drugs, but once he had lost all those things it was hard to get them back, and he's been on the streets sober for over 7 months now. Probably more challenging to get a job if they don't have a recent good reference from a past employer.
Like Providence, Rhode Island, does. They incarcerate those people for the petty (and not so petty) crimes they commit. But they incarcerate them in a designated facility that is for homeless drug addicts. While incarcerated, they receive drug addiction rehabilitation under the care of professionals - medicines, treatment and counseling. And after release, it continues - the medicine and treatment. It is working well for them. Excellent video - Seattle is Dying - explains it all. http://politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/seattle-is-dying.554819/ It's an hour long, but excellent. If this topic interests you, well worth the time spent.
Some studies have that drug addiction level of people living on the streets at close to 90%. Excellent video here - Seattle is Dying http://politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/seattle-is-dying.554819/
Do you believe it's reasonable to allocate such huge sums and massive resources to people who CHOOSE their own downfall? People who have the safety and freedom to choose to live really good lives? Considering that there are children starving to death, and victims of wars living in tents?
Now I've heard every thing with your comment relating to, it takes heart to kick this tent village out.
As do the most violent, most dangerous individuals throughout history. Being human does not mean anything.
If you don’t want to do such a thing because those addicts don’t deserve it (they made bad choices), then let’s do it out of self interest. Our self interest is to reclaim our city streets, to make the streets safe, to make them sanitary, and to restore the rule of law which is being subverted and ignored. I know it’s a long video. I know we don’t like being referred to long videos to make a point. But this one is very well done. It shows and explains better than I can.
There are MUCH cheaper and less problematic ways of dealing with it, that's the point. Also, 'treatment' doesn't work long term. It has an enormous failure rate, far far higher than can ever justify the expense. I would happily watch the video, unless it's done from an unproductive First World perspective ("poor souls ... we must give them things!").
Two questions. 1) How would you get the homeless to the bases? 2) How would you keep the homeless on the bases? Dealing with the homeless is like herding cats. If you think you could just round up the homeless and bus them off to homeless sleepaway camps, and the homeless would willingly and quietly comply with the plan, then you do not understand how the homeless operate. And do we even need to discuss what "the optics" of LEOs rounding up "undesirables" and transporting them to camps would look like in the eyes of the bleeding heart lefties?
The only reliable method of limiting homelessness (we can never eliminate it entirely, human nature being what it is) is the method employed outside of the First World. Stop catching them when they fall. The reason you don't see self-inflicted homelessness in the Third World is because there is no one to catch your fall. Families take responsibility for their own because there is nothing else.
It is actually very supportive of law enforcement and punishment, but punishment with help. A lot of it is not soft and sorry for the homeless, but, instead, focuses on the drag they are to the livability of the cities and the cost to business and taxpayers. It decries the revolving door of the justice system that does NOTHING to reduce this problem. It really isn’t a nanby pamby approach. It is actually a “no tolerance” approach, but with rehabilitation while in custody. It’s tough love. I still say it’s worth a look, even though it’s an hour long. Btw, it is not political.
Easiest questions in the world. Just as homeless people gravitate towards relief centers (Catholic Charities in downtown St Paul or Salvation Army in Minneapolis), they will gravitate just as readily to those relief camps. One could easily be made of the abandoned military field in Arden Hills only one mile from my old apartment in St Paul. Only ONE mile - an even shorter trip than it is to downtown Minneapolis. The 2300+ acres can be easily transformed into a relief town since its old barracks and administrative buildings still stand. If the government wants, it can sell the land for one dollar to Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, or any other religious group. They in turn can convert it to such a camp. Just about every state in the Union has a similar plot of abandoned land. Those people do not need to be rounded up as you say. Just create such a center and they will gravitate there. There just is no excuse for homelessness in the country. None whatsoever.
De-criminalize drugs and treat addiction as an illness rather than crime. The crime rate will drop fast. Faster than a polygraph needle when a Republican pol takes a lie detector test.
Anything beyond "sort yourself out if you want to stay alive" is excessive. Govt assistance should be preserved exclusively for those who are involuntarily compromised (victims of accident/war/disaster/non-self-inflicted disease/employer collapse or default, etc). It's outrageous that we fete people depending on how irresponsible they are. Nowhere on earth or in nature does this happen, but here in the perverse and inhumane First World.
Largely because of the capitalists including the US working for decades covertly, secretly, to undermine and destroy it.
As soon as a country embraces socialism, it becomes less profitable to capitalists (investment bankers, oil and mining companies). If they can't exploit you, then you are of no use to them, they will withhold investment funding and utilise the US government to put sanctions in place to ensure your country fail. Venezuela perfect example, South Africa after Apartheid and the exodus of mining investment when wages for miners went up another. Socialism is bad for profit, doesn't mean they can't still make a profit, just not the exorbitant profit they are after... since workers are then paid fairer wages. Capitalists are greedy predators and they don't share.
Venezuela failed because the socialist leaders kicked out the capitalists who ran the oil industry while the country reaped the benefits and thrived. After the capitalists were gone, the socialist leaders ran the oil industry into the ground, and the country went down with it. There is plenty of thriving capitalism in South Africa(I've been there, I've seen it). South Africa is a mess after Apartheid because of unchecked illegal immigration, and the profound corruption and incompetence of the African National Congress. No amount of capitalism can save a country that's plagued by corrupt leadership, and overwhelmed by tens of millions of moochers. And any amount of socialism thrown into the mix is sure to only make the situation worse, because it always does.
South Africa used to be the only First World country on the African continent. The only country in Africa that had a higher GDP was Egypt, but that was only because Egypt had 6 times the population at that time. Today this is no longer the case. In the 80s, South Africa was in the news all the time. Today the media won't touch it.
