“There are no more excuses,” the California governor said in pushing for municipalities to address one of the most visible byproducts of homelessness.
  • uuldika@lemmy.ml
    121·
    2 days ago

    my unpopular opinion: homeless encampments in the US are a result of housing becoming unaffordable.

    I’m not saying most people ended up in tent cities because they couldn’t afford rent. usually people will sleep in their cars, find a spot in a shelter if one’s available, crash with relatives etc. at least here (Seattle) most of those who live in big tent cities are homeless because of mental illness: drug addiction and/or psychosis.

    but serious addiction isn’t new. where did addicts live in the '80s? crack houses! before real estate turned into gold, there was plenty of mold-infested, aabestos-ridden, lead-painted substandard housing left abandoned or rented cheaply by slumlords. junkies could sleep there.

    now, most of those buildings have been torn down and luxury condos rebuilt in their place, at least in the big cities.

    I’m not pro-crack den. the old buildings were health hazards. but junkies can’t afford the upscale housing that replaced them. they can barely afford tents.

    • turtlesareneat@discuss.onlineEnglish
      15·
      2 days ago

      I’m in Little Rock, Arkansas, which has plenty of vacant properties and plenty of homeless, they don’t cancel each other out anymore but it’s because homeowners are terrified of homeless people so they police neighborhoods and call that shit in. As well they should, we have fires all the time around me because of them.

      • uuldika@lemmy.ml
        11·
        1 day ago

        it sounds like you and your neighborhood have chosen tent cities over crack houses, then.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
    76·
    3 days ago

    Ok sure.

    While you’re at it, allow cities to commandeer vacancies over 3 months to house the unhoused.

    Or is the point to put the squeeze on folks without options or resources to move up economically without providing any solution.

  • Marn@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    214·
    2 days ago

    Title is a bit missleading. He’s also setting out $3billion for homeless facilities. Better than nothing, he’ll probably criminalize homelessness even more than it already is at the same time.

    I doubt the $3 billion will do much to reverse the damage California has done with their prison machine, cost of living crisis, and under funded public services. Unless they address the underlying issues the problems are not going to go away.

    • Tire@lemmy.ml
      6·
      2 days ago

      Funding is easy to lose down the road but laws against the homeless will sure be there for decades to come.

    • Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 day ago

      Yeah that $3 billion won’t do squat. California spent $24 billion over a five year period and didn’t track any of the money, how it was spent, or the outcomes. It’s a safe bet that most of the money went to contractors charging extortionate fees for services while providing almost nothing in return, and probably quite a bit landing in the pockets of local politicians. It was basically a big scam to further enrich a bunch of greedy parasites. A few low-level idiots were charged with fraud and embezzlement of like $400k, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of corruption involved in that whole scheme.

    • Sundiata@lemmy.world
      161·
      2 days ago

      his ex; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhFks_9faQY

      his current wife; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Siebel_Newsom

      Siebel Newsom was registered as a Republican until 2008, before re-registering as No Party Preference. Prior to registering as an independent voter, she accidentally registered with the far-right American Independent Party, before correcting her party to “decline to state”.

      I think yes, yes he is.

    • Lukas Murch@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      I came here to say this sounds like something Trump or DeSantis would do. Disappointing it is Newsome. We need leaders with solutions, not bigger prisons. (I’m not sure what I would do, but I’m also not the Gov of California hoping to be in the Dem shortlist in 2028).

      • SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
        61·
        2 days ago

        I’m trying wrap my head around the possibility of voting for Newsome just to keep whoever the Nazis nominate is really painful.

      • pineapple_pizza@lemmy.dexlit.xyz
        212·
        2 days ago

        I mean, they’ve been trying other solutions and they obviously haven’t been working. Citizens don’t like living near these and this issue is rallying people to the right. I get that banning and sweeping sucks and is just moving people around, but if that ends up moving people from a highly visible area to a less visible area then it can go a long way for local businesses and tourism.

        • SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
          61·
          2 days ago

          So hide the icky poor’s away so people with money don’t get bad feelings when they go on vacation and businesses can make more money. How very humanitarian of you.

    • pineapple_pizza@lemmy.dexlit.xyz
      41·
      2 days ago

      I don’t think the first part is true but unfortunately I agree on the second part. The west Coast in general has been struggling with this for a while and the compassionate approach hasn’t shown the promised results. Maybe it technically is, but visible homelessness is what gets people elected.

      • MehBlah@lemmy.worldEnglish
        73·
        2 days ago

        The solution is so simple. Its two pronged. Get them a place to live. Help them with their problems. Its what happened in this country until a republican took apart the system that was designed to do that. It had its problems but the solution shouldn’t have been the abandonment of the national mental health system. This homeless problem is 100 percent tied directly to the utter failure of all politicians who ever supported cuts to the mental health system.

        The reason they do it is also simple. They are terrified that everyone will know how bad they are on the inside. Not realizing that most of us already know.

        • pineapple_pizza@lemmy.dexlit.xyz
          46·
          2 days ago

          Honestly you lost me at the first sentence. It’s very obviously a complex problem and to suggest it’s simple is just demoralizing to the dedicated civil servants that work so hard to fix it.

          And homelessness has always been a problem, I feel like generally people fall into this rosy recollection to a time where it was far harder to document it

          • MehBlah@lemmy.worldEnglish
            34·
            2 days ago

            Honestly you lost me at the first sentence.

            You seem to think that matters. It isn’t complex. Its simple. The solutions are simple. By trying to over think the solution you lose sight of the goal. You are commenting without really knowing the history of this subject. Homelessness is a epidemic now due in full to the destruction of the public mental health system. I know this and nothing anyone says will change that. I watched for years as every time my states budget came up they cut the funding.

            I watched as those I worked with had to make do with less. I watched people who were getting help to keep them stable lose coverage. The people who would have been institutionalized before the 80’s were let loose onto the streets. Frankly the complete lack of understanding is the problem we have with the current sad state of events. Coupled with the outright fear many of the worst minds in our society have for mental health in general its lead us to this path and denying that just guarantees the problem will not be solved. Those minds gravitate toward power. They hone their masks to cover their true nature and get fools to vote for them. They cast blame and over complicate a rather simple matter as far as solutions are concerned. They fear exposure more than anything and think what they are doing is the best thing for them. Not for those fools who vote for them. Just for them.

            Don’t perpetuate the lie that the homeless situation is complex. Its simple. The people who are victims of it are complex but helping them isn’t.

            • pineapple_pizza@lemmy.dexlit.xyz
              1·
              2 days ago

              Yeah TBH I actually agree with a lot of your points but I still feel like you’re over simplifying this. The pre 1980s mental health institution had a whole other set of problems as well.

    • jam12705@lemmy.world
      3·
      2 days ago

      Efficiency and progress is ours once more Now that we have the neutron bomb It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done Away with excess enemy With no less value to property No sense in war but perfect sense at home…

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      Not going to happen. Not because the conservative Democrats won’t be able to hoodwink enough primary voters to believe the highest priority is accommodating what they think their shittiest neighbor could (but will not) tolerate, but because in doing so they’ll lose the voters they actually need to win and Don Jr. will ascend to the throne.

      • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        2 days ago

        You are overlooking the most valuable thing that Newsom has, that makes him even more qualified to earn enough votes to win: a penis.

        Unfortunately, if you don’t have one, you can’t get elected right now.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    102·
    2 days ago

    If you want to get rid of homeless encampments, how about making sure people have a safe place to stay at night?