The reasons often offered include a moderate climate, the availability of generous welfare benefits, mental health and drug abuse. However, a lengthy and meticulously sourced article in the current issue of Atlantic magazine demolishes all of those supposed causes.
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Horseshit. I did advocacy work for the homeless about 20 years ago and the reasons for California's homeless problems are exactly for the reasons in the second paragraph.
The simple fact of the matter is, they can build all the housing they want but unless it's provided at no cost to the homeless, California is still going to have a homelessness problem.
I put every spare moment I had trying to get people off the streets. I helped Vets deal with the VA system, I got people into rehab, I hunted down jobs and housing. For all of mine and my ex-wife's efforts, we got exactly 2 people off the streets, and I don't even know if that was long term.
Fuck, we had a hard enough time just getting people to go into transitional housing, you know, group homes and shit like that. They were so used to being homeless and doing whatever they wanted that they fought going into a structured environment.
I remember one young healthy guy who was bitching and moaning about being homeless, so I went to the manager of the local Popeye's who had helped in the past by hiring ex-cons and people fresh out of rehab, and he agreed to hire him.
It was a minimum wage job, but it was still a job. It was a starting step to get back into the work force - work there for 6 months to reestablish a work history, then move on up to something better that paid more.
I went back to Art and told him he had the job, all he had to do was fill out an application and show up for an interview, strictly a formality. Art looked me in the eye and said that he wasn't working a fast food job because it was 'beneath his dignity'.
I looked him back in the eye and told him to get the fuck out of my office. He never got a bit of help from us after that.
You are correct, Ken. Occam's razor principle.
ReplyDeleteI've known several homeless people and that's the way they like it. If they want help it's there for them but 99% don't want it. The fact that California allows it is a slap in the face to every working man and woman.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago when I worked in Denver I offered to buy a homeless guy hotdogs like I was eating. He was trashdiving, early 20's I would guess, and he said he didn't eat hotdogs. That evening as I was walking to take the bus home he tried to panhandle me. I said no dice, you turned down what I offered you early.
ReplyDeleteThe main reason is generous welfare, but the ability to build homes in CA is extremely hard and faces a number of hurdles. The biggest is every home has to have a dedicated water supply for each home, new housing has to "pay their way" meaning upfront collection of fees to support new fire depts, additional police and other municipal things like libraries and schools. Then there is the requirement that a percent of homes/apts need to be for ultra low income, low income, moderate income and above moderate income. It took over 20 years for the state to approve a new town (Mountain House) that was planned for the ground up before they could start building.
ReplyDeleteI worked for 25 years at the Safeway Warehouse right on the other side of 580 from Mountain House. When I first started there, the exit was Patterson Pass Road. Now it's Mountain House Parkway.
DeleteThat whole project was a mess from the start. As I recall, they got about half that town built and then just stopped for a few years due to the bullshit you stated. The only residents there were the city cops and firefighters which must've been really kickback jobs seeing as there were no other residents except them - no residents equals no crime or fires.
In the neighborhood, people who run homeless places and Section 8 housing have as their goal increasing the number of "clients." More clients equals job security.
ReplyDeleteIt also equals more grant money which is why most of them are in the business. You can get some serious grant money if you have a decent clientele base and a professional grant writer.
DeleteI'm proud to say that I never took one red cent from the government when I was doing it. I financed it all from my paycheck.
I had no idea you had done that Kenny. Makes me respect you even more.
DeleteThanks, but it was my ex-wife's thing. She ran the show, I just followed orders. She was responsible for getting a hundred bed (at the time) year round shelter started, and she partnered with the Salvation Army to run it.
DeleteThe only thing I did on my own was put out a monthly 10 page newsletter for the homeless and service providers. Just printing it cost me several hundred bucks a month.
There was a case several years ago, where a child went missing near a forest. The search parties found a guy living alone in the forest, and he ended up being chased around the forest by people who wanted to 'help' him. He just wanted to be left alone.
ReplyDeleteMy brother-in-law has told his children that working fast food or something like that is beneath them, that they shouldn't settle for such a low-slung job.
ReplyDeleteHe then bitches that they don't have jobs and don't want to work. Honestly, if cognitive dissonance was a bus he'd be a smear on the pavement.....
Mike in Canada
If you think McDonald's is beneath you, you need a lot of attitude correction before you are ready for any job. The first thing an employer needs to know is that you will show up to work on time, pay attention, actually do the work, and stay long enough to make the time he has to spend on training you and doing the hiring paperwork worthwhile. (1)
DeleteThe way you prove that is to take any job and do it well, so for your first job you have to find an employer willing to take a risk. Those hiring for good jobs don't need to take a risk. It's the minimum wage employers with the lowest skill jobs that have to take a risk by hiring kids without any work history. If your recent history was "drunken bum", the risk is much higher, but even when there's a labor surplus, there are jobs so bad that they'll take you - but you have to be obviously ready to work that terrible job. (For me, this was during the Carter administration, and McDonald's would have been a dream job compared to the place that finally hired me. But I plunged into the work and a year later the Air Force recruiter was ready to put me into one of their longest training programs. I also met my wife at that job; we're still married 44 years later.
(1) there is no college degree that avoids that training requirement - even if school training was fully realistic, and I've never seen that, there's always a "This is how we do it here" component. The only person that is fully ready to do the job when he walks in the door is the highly experienced professional that they _should_ hire to create the company procedures for a startup, and he won't be productive until he's established that framework.
I worked with a homeless prevention program for several years. The homeless got free housing provided to them. I offered several apartments. They would come looking in late October and disappear by mid May. Sooner if the weather was good. Usually had two or three empty units even in December and January.
ReplyDeleteYou can't make a horse drink. These people like their lifestyle.
I knew a kid on heroin (okay he as 21) who was getting a government check because he couldn't pay attention (ADD). I asked him if he couldn't wash dishes and he said 'I refuse to wash dishes'.
ReplyDelete"He never got a bit of help from us after that.".
ReplyDeleteI am sure he got plenty of your tax $$$$$$$$ though.
Give them a taxpayer funded home, and they’ll rip the copper out of the walls. And sell it for drugs.
ReplyDeletePoliticians want taxpayer provided housing, because they buy up land, sell it for a markup, then have friends and family members get the contracts to build it. Who then give them kickbacks.
You'd think that with Soft White Underbelly coming to us like Noah's Flood straight from Skid Row every day, they'd be ashamed to publish that kind of horse shit. Go to that YouBube channel and listen to at least half of them explaining in detail where they came from and why they're in California.
ReplyDeleteI was homeless once. I stayed that way for three months and bootstrapped my way up. There was a wife involved. And it was part of the process of creating an ex wife... It was also a life lesson. The lessons you learn the hard way stick with you longer.
ReplyDeleteI volunteer at a shelter and a food bank now that I'm retired and deal with these folks a couple days a week. Many have addiction problems and won't let work get in the way of getting their fix. Most are mentally or emotionally unstable, totally unsuited to work with any sane human. Quite a few live this life by choice and this really surprised me. Building houses and apartments sounds great but I doubt it will help these people.
ReplyDeleteLocal State Capitol City is funding the third "tiny house" campus for the housing-disadvantaged. One of the recipients in the first campus moved out immediately before his domicile burned to the ground. It was directly across the street from a fire station...
ReplyDeleteIf I ever become "unhoused", I'm living in my car; comfortable seating, my choice in music, and mobility to keep me away from the yahoos residing in the progressive housing solution.