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watermelonsugar888 t1_itvd8r5 wrote

Have you ever spent a significant amount of time in a city with a big homeless population? It’s a problem, not because people are down on their luck, but because they’re drugged out of their minds. They harass passers by, sh*t in the streets, yell at things that aren’t there, and argue with themselves. They’re dirty and unpredictable. It’s truly scary being near them because you don’t know what they’ll do next.

I live in a city with this problem and it seems like there’s no end in sight. Everyone I’ve talked to understands that sh*t happens and you can temporarily go homeless. The thing that causes people to turn to walking zombies is something else.

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BasedErebus t1_itvh0tp wrote

This is a byproduct of a shit mental health system. They used to have asylums, now they're literally on the streets

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brickmaster32000 t1_itvs2eq wrote

You say that as if asylums weren't horrific places that abused that population

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BasedErebus t1_itwlo83 wrote

That's a whole separate conversation, but currently there is nowhere people can go for mental health help if they're not capable of functioning in society

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brickmaster32000 t1_itwo1zh wrote

I think it is exactly this conversation. If you want to pack up and ship the homeless out of your neighborhood you have a responsibility to do it in a humane way. You can't just send them all to asylums and pretend like what happens there isn't your responsibility when you were the one that wanted to put them there.

Why not just skip the middle man and propose dumping them in the desert? Sure they might all starve and die but thats a different conversation right, so not worth thinking about when proposing these actions.

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BasedErebus t1_iu0nkw6 wrote

Thats why an ACTUAL system is needed. They should ideally be rehabilitative and treatment oriented. Something better than screaming at people on the subway or burdening the ER system (I worked as security in a busy city ER for a while)

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