7 ms·

It's not just the free fare - it's the abysmal lack of shelter options and the attempts by cities to criminalize encampments and force people to find somewhere

by farss 7y ago

It's not just the free fare - it's the abysmal lack of shelter options and the attempts by cities to criminalize encampments and force people to find somewhere indoors to avoid arrest.

dominotw 7y ago
> because it's warm, allowing encampments won't probably solve that unless they somehow provide heat?
- hgskncrimcss 7y ago
  In SJ under the 280/87 interchange along the bike path the homeless build wood fires and garbage fires.
werber 7y ago
100% this, I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me. And now I’m years out of being in that situation and I am part of the same problem, I almost never take public transportation and use Lyft or my car to get around.
- awb 7y ago
  > I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me. Curious how someone could have most helped you at that time in your life if you don't mind sharing.
  - nojvek 7y ago
    I’m guilty. I’d like to help but I’m not so sure how.
  - mcv 7y ago
    I think the city should just provide enough shelters for the homeless. That seems cheaper than running public transport that's not getting used the way it's intended. It's hard to fix every cause of homelessness, but providing shelters is pretty easy.
    - xzcat 7y ago
      The rationale for why "just add more shelters" is hard has been explained to me as: * nobody wants a shelter built near them * even if it does get built, it's often women/children only and the second bullet point isn't (afaik...) just sexism or anything, it's just picking risk categories. Consider all the following like you were an insurance company trying to appraise how costly it is to do business with a group of people: Apparently homeless men are, collectively, more expensive to shelter than women/children because they're plagued by more expensive issues - more violence, more drug issues, etc. So homeless shelters frequently can't afford to operate if they try to shelter men. So it becomes an issue of "women/children only" or "it's literally too expensive to safely run the (both-genders) shelter to be feasible".
      - mcv 7y ago
        But leaving those men on the street in also expensive for society. I understand this is how it works for any individual shelter, but for the city as a whole, they're going to be paying for this one way or another, whether they provide shelters, let them sleep on the bus (a great place for people with violence/drug issues) or just abandon them to the streets to let them figure it out on their own. I think providing shelters, and maybe guidance with their problems, is still going to be the best option for the city. As long as they can look at the entire context, and not just a single shelter.
  - werber 7y ago
    A friendly hello and a few bucks
    - cambaceres 7y ago
      No one ever gave you cash? Did you ask for it?
      - werber 7y ago
        It didn't end well, but, the majority of people who are homeless are invisible, they don't appear to be any different than the average city person. The people who are being complained about are by in large people who are in need of public health services that have been slashed since the 1980s in the United States or never existed. I don't have a solution
    - ridethewave 7y ago
      You feel that people in proximity to you owe you attention and money?
  - fatnoah 7y ago
    I live in Boston and arrived at my usual subway stop with a half-eaten breakfast sandwich and an iced coffee in hand. There was a "kid" (probably late teens, early twenties) sleeping on the bench and he looked like someone who was newly arrived in a tough place. I thought of my own pre-teen son and thought of what I'd want someone to do if they encountered him in this state. When I approached He asked for change, which I didn't have, so I asked if he wanted the remaining half of my sandwich and iced coffee instead. The sheer joy of his reaction as he took the sandwich and coffee is something I'll always remember.
    - yahwrong 7y ago
      So you gave a kid leftovers? That's kind of like giving with the most least amount of inconvenience.
      - fatnoah 7y ago
        It was the breakfast I was planning on eating. It wasn't a grand gesture by any stretch, but it was a lot more than anyone else had done for him that day.
        yahwrong 7y ago
        Just 'cause no one less was helping doesn't make you a saint for giving your leftovers. Maybe you can take this as a lesson for next time you're in opportunity to give.
  - ridethewave 7y ago
    > I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me. The way in which you wrote this could be misinterpreted, so any clarification would be welcome: did you then or do you now feel as though someone is obligated to help you? If so, who and in what ways?
- farss 7y ago
  > "(and safe)" Want to make sure this part of the comment is also highlighted because big homeless shelters can be really difficult, scary, and even dangerous places, even when there are beds available, and so unhoused people have to wrestle with whether it's safer/more desirable to sleep outside rather than deal with all that. And that's not to mention all the cumbersome rules and religious proselytizing they might have to deal with in shelters. Warehousing people is not a good option.
hanniabu 7y ago
Yup, just earlier this post showed up in my thread with people trying to criminalize sleeping in public areas so homeless can be arrested. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788435163/supreme-court-wont-hear-case-to-ticket-homeless-for-sleeping-in-public-spaces https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788435163/supreme-court-wont-...
- markdown 7y ago
  Well they should, shouldn't they. Nobody should be able to monopolize and ruin the commons, whether or not they have a home. The problem isn't the criminalizing of sleeping in public spaces, it's the lack of publicly funded shelters and publicly funded (incl. mental) healthcare for the homeless. We should pay to give them a place to sleep, and punish them just like anyone else if they choose to set up camps in public spaces.
  - jachee 7y ago
    > We should pay to give them a place to sleep, and punish them just like anyone else if they choose to set up camps in public spaces. Good luck with the former. The NIMBYs will fight it tooth and nail, every millimeter of the way.
    - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
      Then elect better legislators to reign them in or will at least pass laws that will disallow that sort of thing.
  - mason55 7y ago
    Which I believe is what the SCOTUS essentially ruled today. If the city doesn’t have adequate shelter you can’t just arrest people for existing.
    - yowlingcat 7y ago
      Well, semantics...SCOTUS refused to hear. But by refusing, it was an implicit support -- but I wouldn't call it a ruling. A ruling would be more along the lines of indelible -- this was more a filibuster.
epicureanideal 7y ago
What is it that's preventing us from forcing our politicians to offer better options? I would vote for a solution to this, and even donate money to it, if enough other people were doing the same. Don't most people feel the same about this issue? What systemic problem is preventing a huge mass of people who agree on this from making a meaningful change happen?
- nostromo 7y ago
  It's just a much harder problem to solve than you realize it is. The truth is a lot of the homeless people that aren't in shelters choose not to go to shelters. Why? The biggest reason is because shelters don't allow drugs or alcohol, and if you're an addict that's an immediate pass. There are other reasons too. Sometimes couples want shelter together, but most are separated by gender (and for good reason: to prevent sexual assaults). Sometimes a person has a pet, and pets are generally not accepted at shelters. So, what do you do? Allow people to shoot up in a shelter? Or deny heroin addicts shelter? As I said, it's not obvious how to fix this. It's definitely not just a "build more beds" situation in most cities.
  - AaronFriel 7y ago
    I think my "obvious" solution is that you let people use, and provide methods for them to use safely (needle exchanges, etc.), and offer them support to quit using. By stopping people at the first step, you make it a lot harder to provide the second (safe use) and third (use reduction). Nitpick: I don't like to use the term "homeless people", because it puts homeless first and the emphasis on them as a fixed group of people. They're just people who at this time have housing insecurity, and I think this framing means we can solve it by providing people with safety and security and resources.
    - gnaritas 7y ago
      > They're just people who at this time have housing insecurity They're homeless, trying to hide that reality with a non-sense PC euphemism doesn't change that. This attitude isn't helping, it's obfuscating and bad. They're not housing insecure, short people aren't height-challenged, disabled people aren't differently-abled.

by farss 7y ago

It's not just the free fare - it's the abysmal lack of shelter options and the attempts by cities to criminalize encampments and force people to find somewhere indoors to avoid arrest.

dominotw 7y ago

> because it's warm, allowing encampments won't probably solve that unless they somehow provide heat?

hgskncrimcss 7y ago
In SJ under the 280/87 interchange along the bike path the homeless build wood fires and garbage fires.

werber 7y ago

100% this, I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me. And now I’m years out of being in that situation and I am part of the same problem, I almost never take public transportation and use Lyft or my car to get around.

awb 7y ago
> I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me. Curious how someone could have most helped you at that time in your life if you don't mind sharing.
- nojvek 7y ago
  I’m guilty. I’d like to help but I’m not so sure how.
- mcv 7y ago
  I think the city should just provide enough shelters for the homeless. That seems cheaper than running public transport that's not getting used the way it's intended. It's hard to fix every cause of homelessness, but providing shelters is pretty easy.
  - xzcat 7y ago
    The rationale for why "just add more shelters" is hard has been explained to me as: * nobody wants a shelter built near them * even if it does get built, it's often women/children only and the second bullet point isn't (afaik...) just sexism or anything, it's just picking risk categories. Consider all the following like you were an insurance company trying to appraise how costly it is to do business with a group of people: Apparently homeless men are, collectively, more expensive to shelter than women/children because they're plagued by more expensive issues - more violence, more drug issues, etc. So homeless shelters frequently can't afford to operate if they try to shelter men. So it becomes an issue of "women/children only" or "it's literally too expensive to safely run the (both-genders) shelter to be feasible".
    - mcv 7y ago
      But leaving those men on the street in also expensive for society. I understand this is how it works for any individual shelter, but for the city as a whole, they're going to be paying for this one way or another, whether they provide shelters, let them sleep on the bus (a great place for people with violence/drug issues) or just abandon them to the streets to let them figure it out on their own. I think providing shelters, and maybe guidance with their problems, is still going to be the best option for the city. As long as they can look at the entire context, and not just a single shelter.
- werber 7y ago
  A friendly hello and a few bucks
  - cambaceres 7y ago
    No one ever gave you cash? Did you ask for it?
    - werber 7y ago
      It didn't end well, but, the majority of people who are homeless are invisible, they don't appear to be any different than the average city person. The people who are being complained about are by in large people who are in need of public health services that have been slashed since the 1980s in the United States or never existed. I don't have a solution
  - ridethewave 7y ago
    You feel that people in proximity to you owe you attention and money?
- fatnoah 7y ago
  I live in Boston and arrived at my usual subway stop with a half-eaten breakfast sandwich and an iced coffee in hand. There was a "kid" (probably late teens, early twenties) sleeping on the bench and he looked like someone who was newly arrived in a tough place. I thought of my own pre-teen son and thought of what I'd want someone to do if they encountered him in this state. When I approached He asked for change, which I didn't have, so I asked if he wanted the remaining half of my sandwich and iced coffee instead. The sheer joy of his reaction as he took the sandwich and coffee is something I'll always remember.
  - yahwrong 7y ago
    So you gave a kid leftovers? That's kind of like giving with the most least amount of inconvenience.
    - fatnoah 7y ago
      It was the breakfast I was planning on eating. It wasn't a grand gesture by any stretch, but it was a lot more than anyone else had done for him that day.
      - yahwrong 7y ago
        Just 'cause no one less was helping doesn't make you a saint for giving your leftovers. Maybe you can take this as a lesson for next time you're in opportunity to give.
- ridethewave 7y ago
  > I’ve been homeless and slept on the bus or subway to stay warm (and safe) and not once did someone try to help me. The way in which you wrote this could be misinterpreted, so any clarification would be welcome: did you then or do you now feel as though someone is obligated to help you? If so, who and in what ways?
farss 7y ago
> "(and safe)" Want to make sure this part of the comment is also highlighted because big homeless shelters can be really difficult, scary, and even dangerous places, even when there are beds available, and so unhoused people have to wrestle with whether it's safer/more desirable to sleep outside rather than deal with all that. And that's not to mention all the cumbersome rules and religious proselytizing they might have to deal with in shelters. Warehousing people is not a good option.

hanniabu 7y ago

Yup, just earlier this post showed up in my thread with people trying to criminalize sleeping in public areas so homeless can be arrested. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788435163/supreme-court-wont-hear-case-to-ticket-homeless-for-sleeping-in-public-spaces https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788435163/supreme-court-wont-...

markdown 7y ago
Well they should, shouldn't they. Nobody should be able to monopolize and ruin the commons, whether or not they have a home. The problem isn't the criminalizing of sleeping in public spaces, it's the lack of publicly funded shelters and publicly funded (incl. mental) healthcare for the homeless. We should pay to give them a place to sleep, and punish them just like anyone else if they choose to set up camps in public spaces.
- jachee 7y ago
  > We should pay to give them a place to sleep, and punish them just like anyone else if they choose to set up camps in public spaces. Good luck with the former. The NIMBYs will fight it tooth and nail, every millimeter of the way.
  - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    Then elect better legislators to reign them in or will at least pass laws that will disallow that sort of thing.
- mason55 7y ago
  Which I believe is what the SCOTUS essentially ruled today. If the city doesn’t have adequate shelter you can’t just arrest people for existing.
  - yowlingcat 7y ago
    Well, semantics...SCOTUS refused to hear. But by refusing, it was an implicit support -- but I wouldn't call it a ruling. A ruling would be more along the lines of indelible -- this was more a filibuster.

epicureanideal 7y ago

What is it that's preventing us from forcing our politicians to offer better options? I would vote for a solution to this, and even donate money to it, if enough other people were doing the same. Don't most people feel the same about this issue? What systemic problem is preventing a huge mass of people who agree on this from making a meaningful change happen?

nostromo 7y ago
It's just a much harder problem to solve than you realize it is. The truth is a lot of the homeless people that aren't in shelters choose not to go to shelters. Why? The biggest reason is because shelters don't allow drugs or alcohol, and if you're an addict that's an immediate pass. There are other reasons too. Sometimes couples want shelter together, but most are separated by gender (and for good reason: to prevent sexual assaults). Sometimes a person has a pet, and pets are generally not accepted at shelters. So, what do you do? Allow people to shoot up in a shelter? Or deny heroin addicts shelter? As I said, it's not obvious how to fix this. It's definitely not just a "build more beds" situation in most cities.
- AaronFriel 7y ago
  I think my "obvious" solution is that you let people use, and provide methods for them to use safely (needle exchanges, etc.), and offer them support to quit using. By stopping people at the first step, you make it a lot harder to provide the second (safe use) and third (use reduction). Nitpick: I don't like to use the term "homeless people", because it puts homeless first and the emphasis on them as a fixed group of people. They're just people who at this time have housing insecurity, and I think this framing means we can solve it by providing people with safety and security and resources.
  - gnaritas 7y ago
    > They're just people who at this time have housing insecurity They're homeless, trying to hide that reality with a non-sense PC euphemism doesn't change that. This attitude isn't helping, it's obfuscating and bad. They're not housing insecure, short people aren't height-challenged, disabled people aren't differently-abled.