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All residents of Lancaster CA, whether by force or by choice, live in the desert.

Who writes this shit.

There's a documentary from VICE at the end of the article and i found it quite interesting. Homeless people are being forced out of the city by law enforcement officials. It's not the same thing.

Yeah I had to read the title twice. It's like homeless people in Venice CA being forced to live by the beach.

Are they given shelter and other necessities?

Edit: Curious why the down votes? There is a big difference between dumping them in the desert with and without necessities of life.

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Such a clickbait title… that’s what’s wrong with the news…

“Homeless people in CA forced to live outside!” Jesus…

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So they demand the homeless find jobs, but try to make it harder and more expensive to find and hold down a job there than before.

It kinda seems like this is a problem Lancaster doesn't want to solve, beyond, "Ewww, homeless things!"

I bet whoever wrote the article got the idea to write about it from watching the latest Vice video about it.

In order to avoid what they consider police harassment (no doubt meaning execution of arrest warrants, court judgements, and skipped bail) these people are choosing to live with no fixed address in an unincorporated area outside the jurisdiction of the LA County Sheriff’s Office. That’s the testimony I heard from their own mouths in this story. They’re literally outlaws and desperados.

I’d reckon this geographically means where “Avenue G” in Lancaster ends, it’s there where Federal BLM land management begins. Looking at https://blm-egis.maps.arcgis.com I believe it’s correct. That’s why they’re camped there.

It’s legal (or at least ignorable enough) to camp freely on BLM land. And also legal to just bury your rubbish. Less legally also your dead former sidekicks who stole that last cigarette you were saving.

If one wishes to behave civically like The Manson Family did, then living in the desert just outside the clutches of society’s laws also like the Mansons did goes right along with it.

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The video is actually referenced so yeah i guess you're right

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I didn't read the article either, but it sounds like they are outside of law enforcement reach, by choice. Lancaster is in the desert, so there's no change in environment, and they most likely had their own stuff anyway. Vice did a video, which sounds like the inspiration for this clickbait article.

eta- yep that's pretty much it. Sounds like the biggest issue for the county or whatever, is that the homeless still exist, in spite of the efforts made to make live as miserable as possible for them.

"Homeless people forced to be homeless!"

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> no doubt meaning execution of arrest warrants, court judgements, and skipped bail

There is a LOT to doubt about this statement. Homeless people are routinely harassed by police, particularly in suburbs and smaller cities, to force them to leave the area to avoid further harassment. This harassment comes in the forms of erroneous trespasses from public property, random searches and detainment for little or legitimately no reason, the execution of blatantly unconstitutional local ordinances such as restrictions on speech and sleeping, etc.

There are certainly homeless people who have warrants and other legal issues, and there are certainly homeless people that are bad people. But to paint them all with the same brush because they all lack housing is simplistic, idiotic, and allows abuses to be swept under the rug under the pretense of "homeless? Must have been a druggie criminal".

They mean isolated outside the city. People not from there wouldn't consider any city a desert because it isn't barren anymore.

This is a tricky issue. I live in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles and the homeless have moved in droves (hundreds of trailers and tents) to my neighborhood. There is trash everywhere, crime has spiked out of control, convenience businesses like 7eleven have closed because they were being robbed every week.

I am a bleeding heart that wants help for everyone but I am also a taxpaying citizen who wants to live in a safe neighborhood. My neighborhood was really decent before this and now it's like driving through a war torn trap house.

After two years of living in this, I just want it to stop and if forcing people out is how it has to get done then there is a huge part of me thats all for that.

I think living in the disgusting, unsafe reality of it changes your perspective on the whole matter.

How to turn temporary homelessness into permanent homelessness 101. Make it absolutely impossible for them to find work.

Can't believe your terrible take is getting upvoted full of self absorbed bullshit.

Forced far outside city limits with no access to potable water.

No they are mostly just harassed until they leave the city limits and have to go back to the city for water.

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As they should be. I don’t want to live in that filth

All the hateful comments are very discouraging. I really hope none of you find yourselves in a bind or homeless. You don't know a person's story enough to judge someone for being homeless. Maybe talk to a couple before putting them all in a bubble. A homeless man in my town used to be a contractor . Handsome had a beautiful wife. He ended up buying his boss businesses and one day he fell off of a ladder and suffered from brain damage. Now he sits at McDonald's with his giant pencil and newspaper and rides around town on his bike and sleeps under a bridge. He just isn't all there. No one will hire him. Doesn't mean he is a slob or anything. He just had a rough go and has 0 family to help him.

P.s. the wife died the same week he fell off the ladder. I would have snapped too.

Lol of course I'm being down voted. You people are all sick af. Where is your empathy? Hope you don't ever need it.

How the people who live in it feel about the issue is complicated not the solutions. The solutions you presented are simple and straight forward but they are not being implemented and my neighborhood is still functioning like hell on earth.

I vote and I am voting for any and every candidate who says they will fix this issue but when I see shit like this article about how Los Angeles is spending $1,000,000.00 (per fucking unit!) to build low income housing then my patience in those easy, straight forward solutions starts to dry up.

I'm living in it and if you aren't then you don't understand how your feelings about homelessness can become complicated.

Edited: Last paragraph because it wasn't a fair argument to make.

What are you doing to help?

The NIMBYs are strong in this thread.

I’m sorry but what you described does in fact sound like a pretty complicated issue.

>I am a bleeding heart that wants help for everyone but I am also a taxpaying citizen who wants to live in a safe neighborhood. My neighborhood was really decent before this and now it's like driving through a war torn trap house.

>After two years of living in this, I just want it to stop and if forcing people out is how it has to get done then there is a huge part of me thats all for that.

It's easy to be sympathetic to the homeless until you start needing to worry about stepping on dirty needles. Compared to being infected with something because of that, I give zero shits about them.

I don't even go to public parks where the homeless hang out for fear of needles.

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Housing's just a symptom, a lot of the homeless have underlying addiction and mental issues that need to be addressed otherwise even if you give them an apartment they'll just wreck it. I think we need to bring back mental hospitals until they reach a point where they can transition to actually living on their own.

Source: I have a friend that's a social worker and another that manages our city's low income housing program

Wow, so voting for Team Gilead in the hope that they round up and kill the undesirables.

Bold move, Cotton, have fun explaining yourself to your fluffy lord after death.

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I get it.

For that one honest, sad, deserving of respect man there's 10 who steal, use meth, harass, trash up and ruin our communities. I'm so sick of walking around shit and needles in our parks and dodging insanely scary meth addled beggars downtown.

This city of eugene oregon used to be chill and I was proud to live here. After years of other cities dumping their very aggressive mentally ill drug addicted assholes on our doorstep it's now a proper shit hole. I live in south eugene which is the nice side of town, I haven't been able to keep anything on my porch or yard that isn't nailed down. It's ridiculous and people are sick of this shit the homeless are allowed to get away with. They decriminalized drugs so now there's needles everywhere.

We're leaving soon, after living here for 30 years. I can't wait. I used to be a bleeding heart and did outreach and tried to help. I saved a woman from an attack once and put her in my car all bloody. She cried for awhile and I reassured her it would be ok. I ran into a 711 to buy her some smokes and food and she shot up in my car and left an uncapped needle under the seat of my car.

I'm just done. It's about my own safety and peace of mind at this point and the homeless in eugene have made this town incredibly unsafe. I don't want to live around a bunch of dangerous entitled homeless punks, why would I? I can't go to most parks, downtown, the library, and even hiking trails they WILL smash your windows. Can't keep a bike or any possessions outside your home here. When does everyone else count? Lol seriously?

Oh yeah, forcing people into indefinite confinement would do wonders for their mental health. What about the mental health problems caused by being homeless and abused by those in power? You think those are going to resolve in a bedlam house?

They're definitely not getting better out in the streets, at least in a confined room they don't have to worry about being robbed / killed / raped. It's not the ideal solution, but it's better than them being in danger and bringing down neighborhoods.

I feel you. When I moved to Cottage Grove, 20m south of Eugene about 7 years ago I befriended a homeless couple and gave them all sorts of stuff. It was only after learning from the girl that A. they wanted to be on the streets, and B. all the stuff Id given them was broken or torn and ripped up that I decided to not help the homeless anymore like that. I'll give' em food and whatnot, even some weed but that's where the buck stops.

That honestly sounds like a whole lot of r/thatHappened . Can't go to downtown or the library? The homeless aren't a freaking zombie invasion.

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You are far from alone, if the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sam Diego subreddits are anything to go by.

The mentally ill and addict ones need to be involuntarily institutionalized. Something tells me you're against that.

So you prefer they rot on the street, victimizing those around them?

Yet they smell and act like one

Let's ship them to your neighborhood and see how long it takes for you to join us

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I went to college there and left more than ten years ago. Sad to hear it's fallen so far.

I lived in Orange, SoCal. The river village was just down the road from me. I didn’t start dehumanizing The Poors or thinking about Final Solutions.

Yeah, I double-checked my locks. But I didn’t turn into some kind of monster. Check yourself, human.

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Some asshole asked me how many homeless I’ve taken in.

Two, so far.

Some of us are better people than you are, u/n_u_endo______.

Wait until they steal your belongings and vandalise your property. Are you female? My wife and had to move because the homeless kept trespassing on our apartment complex making her feel unsafe.

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Well it just did fucking happen a few months ago; another homeless drugged out creep made eye contact and followed me out of the library literally making growling guttural sounds like a demented psycho. I tucked to this area by the news stands to let him pass but he just stood behind me growling. When he realized I wasn't turning around he started screaming and took the GIANT LOG/STICK he was carrying and just started smashing it on a tree where it broke into pieces.

Some poor old man was stabbed in the fucking neck at 7 am downtown Starbucks here. Never happened huh? Must be nice to live somewhere where these fucking mutant tweeker homeless aggressive punks don't congregate! Unfortunately in my community this shit is real.

https://www.registerguard.com/story/news/2019/07/08/man-accused-in-starbucks-stabbing/4738268007/

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Exactly. Why should the needs of a few nasty entitled homeless drug abusers trump the entire community? Why can't I enjoy my own parks and hiking trails without fear?

You ever think we shouldn't need to carry fire arms everydat in a civilized country? These people need to be institutionalized.

Agree on most of your points but it's not a million per building. It's a million per (1) unit in that building. So a 30 unit building is 30 million.

30 mil to house 30-120 people is corruption. It's flagrant misuse of tax funding. BUT to your point, if funded and implemented properly then yes these are the solutions long term.

I think what you miss here is that everyone living in these areas knows what the answer is but nothing is being done while LA spends a million per unit to SLOWLY build as little housing and mental health infrastructure as possible. I am tired of living like this while my votes and tax dollars are screaming for solutions. You come live like this for 2+ years and then tell me how much time you're willing to spend in the muck and mire while those vaporous "solutions" are being pitched by people who are not affected by it.

LOL, I live out in the desert over there. Bought 2.5 Acres in 2012 for $2,500 and spent most of the quarantine out there.

This bullshit that somehow I am a "monster" for not wanting homeless meth head punks around me or my property is a gaslight.

The assholes stealing my stuff, shitting right on the ground and throwing needles around where innocent kids play are the monsters.

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I just got my ccp and I'm pissed I live in a city shitty enough to need a gun to feel safe. Calling other people a pussy because they don't feel like you do about their safety is a dick move.

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Carrying a gun to deal with the homeless is the sign of a vibrant and healthy society.

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If I am not mistaken, hasn't housing first basically saved money that would be spent on ambulances, hospital visits, shelters, jail visits, etc. that would be spent on homeless people?

I know in Seattle, for example, housing first ultimately cost taxpayers less money. It also saved money in North Carolina. I can try to look into more studies from the United States on cost reduction as it relates to housing first interventions, but it has certainly saved money in other nations it has been piloted in. I can continue doing research on this if you want exact figures, but it seems that a lot of the data is still being interpreted in many pilots.

> article about how Los Angeles is spending $1,000,000.00 (per fucking unit!)

I am not going to make a case for housing in this particular instance, or weigh in on if $1,000,000 is worth it, because, frankly, I am not equipped to discuss what the reasonable cost for a housing unit should be in LA.

However, what I do find in a lot of these discussions is that the money spent on an intervention is discussed in isolation. Articles will always emphasize how much money is spent in a given intervention, and not how much is spent otherwise, and in turn, saved via the intervention. This is why I am EXTREMELY skeptical when people push back against housing first.

>Housing's just a symptom, a lot of the homeless have underlying addiction and mental issues that need to be addressed otherwise even if you give them an apartment they'll just wreck it.

The problem is that a lot of these articles that talk about things such as homeless people tearing copper out of walls and selling them to get drugs, for example, are purely anecdotal. Do these things happen? Yes. Does everyone involved in housing first become a functioning, working member of society? No.

What focusing on these instances totally misses is the bigger picture... how much money is saved in housing first interventions? How much is homelessness, and pathologies related to homelessness, reduced overall? For these questions, we need hard quantitative data, not qualitative case instances.

So far, the data that I have looked at has implied housing first (a) saves taxpayer money, (b) reduces significantly, with housed individuals less likely to return to the streets, and (c) reduces health pathologies, including addiction, that are related to homelessness. This is the discussion we should be having.... in other words, what does the data say?

This is a false dichotomy. I prefer housing over homelessness or institutionalization, and there is an amassing body of evidence that favors the efficacy of housing first interventions.

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Uhhhh… they’ve always been in the desert… it’s fucking LANCASTER

My county has bought up hotels to house homeless. They own seven or so which can host over 700 people. While great, it is still only a fairly small chunk of our roughly 40k homeless.

People are fairly sick of seeing so much homelessness and think a shelter bed fixes the problem and if a homeless person rejects that bed, they simply want to be homeless. A shelter bed is a very temporary solution. Shelters are often run by religious organizations that can have pretty strict requirements (be in line at a specific time to get a bed and be out at a certain time) and can be hostile to some group's lifestyles (can't be with your partner, hostility to the LGBTQ community, etc). They also are not super secure for your stuff and can be violent. It is not too surprising that only a little over half get a shelter bed after a sweep (although it is never stated whether the beds are rejected or there just is not capacity).

It sucks. Often one city will offer some small amount of services and then homeless sweeps by nearby cities drive the homeless to the city offering services. We also get people sent here from other states via one way bus tickets.

So when they ripe the housing up, or turn it into a drug and prostitution den the what you going do. You live on a Fantasyland.

Housing (or lack of) can absolutely be a cause of drug use too. Sleeping on concrete every night and not getting any sleep because you are worried about being assaulted can leave many looking for anything to ease their pain or stress.

Housing should be the start of getting people back on track. That, at the very least, makes it easier to provide services to them because you know where you can contact them.

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Boring, rainy, unglamorous Oregon is like this in every single “major” city.

If you think we aren’t pretending we are in some kind of depression, you are mistaken. We are being robbed blind by the oligarchs and there is no other explanation needed. I work, my partner works, we have college education. We did everything we were told to do and want the reward society told us we would get, but… well big surprise. We were all lied to.

I voted, that’s the best I can do right now, I hope anyone reading this has also or will also vote.

I definitely ride the middle pretty hard on these issues. I have tons of sympathy for people that can't afford housing, have difficulty getting jobs, have physical and/or mental issues that they can't afford to treat or are untreatable. I also sympathize with hard-working people that don't want to trip over people sleeping on the street, step in human shit; or get harassed, robbed, or worse by meth heads.

I've got no idea what the right answer is. The wealth gap has widened significantly and we don't have the level of social safety nets that most other western countries have. We don't have the same level of familial shared housing/responsibility that people in or from Asian countries have.

There's no city or state in the country that doesn't have people suffering like this, but there are absolutely places that won't tolerate it. Unfortunately that only pushes the problem somewhere else. It doesn't fix anything or anyone.

To be clear: Every part of LA county feels like their part is being subjected to more homeless from other parts.

I know a lot of people from the Antelope Valley, where Lancaster is, and they think they are being target for homeless. But what they are really experiencing is the increase in homeless everywhere. The reality is no part of the county experiences more homeless than the very urban center of it, where Skid Row is. And Skid Row is there because the government designated that place for homeless for nearly a century now.

au contraire, u/Bison256. The quantitative evidence from housing first interventions suggests otherwise. In Seattle, a housing first intervention saved taxpayers over $4 million within a single year of operation. It also led to reduced alcohol consumption amongst rehoused people. In Charlotte, housing first had saved the county $2.4 million. Outside of the US, housing first has led to a decline in homlessness by 35% in Helsinki. 80% of homeless families in Brno, Czech Republic were able to sustain their flats after two years. Housing first has also been successful in reducing homelessness in Canada. The evidence in favor of housing first suggest that (a) once you put a roof over people's heads, pro-social behaviors are selected for, with decreases in crime, addiction, etc. as people are more eager to utilize social services, (b) taxpayer fees on shelters, jails, and hospitals are reduced, and (c) homelessness is reduced overall, with few people returning to the street.

>So when they ripe the housing up, or turn it into a drug and prostitution den the what you going do. You live on a Fantasyland.

Okay, so you are talking in hypotheticals. I am talking in hard data, and quantitative evidence. So, tell me, who is that is living in a fantasyland?

What's scary is that the problem is getting bigger and bigger. I know A LOT of people who had to move back with their parents after the pandemic because they lost their job and their rent went higher. Those without a support system literally end up in the streets one day from another.

Right the title is misleading. People are being forced to camp in the Mojave desert and kicked out from the city limits, where they have to travel back daily for food and water.

You realize Finland institutionalizes the mentally ill, yes?

Many countries do, but Finland is more stringent around the circumstances that one can actually be institutionalized. And, no, it's not the case that the majority of homeless people were institutionalized. Most were re-housed. Your point here is moot.

The people you see everyday on the street are mentally ill. That's who we are talking about here. A normal person doesnt scream randomly or attack people for no reason.

>The people you see everyday on the street are mentally ill. That's who we are talking about here. A normal person doesnt scream randomly or attack people for no reason.

And 30% of Americans suffer from depression alone. There is a range of mental illnesses, some of which fully incapacitate people and some of which don't. Additionally, the impacts of mental illness are exacerbated by homelessness. Not everyone who is mentally ill screams randomly or attacks others. This is a gross exaggeration. Plenty of mentally ill people are productive, non-violent members of society.

I see you haven't seen or read the situation in the West coast cities or NYC.

What about the study I linked from Seattle, a city on the West Coast? You know, the study I linked using statistical data? It doesn't seem like you have read anything about the impacts of housing first interventions outside of op-eds with frivolous anecdotes. Until you bring in hard, quantitative data, you aren't making a compelling point.

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Yeah they're doing a great job

https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-homeless-encampment-cleared-through-governor-inslees-initiative

https://www.kplctv.com/2022/11/01/man-found-guilty-killing-lake-charles-man-seattle-homeless-camp-2021/

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/kent-passes-new-ordinance-tightening-homeless-camping-ban/

https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/homeless/homeless-encampment-ship-canal-bridge/281-d83c6f83-803a-4c03-87c7-0ee65607915a

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/r88k0p/this_city_seriously_has_a_homeless_problem/

Everything you have listed is an op-ed, a news article opinion piece, not an actual study. It's all anecdotal data, nothing that is indicative of larger trends. As I have already discussed, this can all be dismissed on these pretenses, as it wasn't up to par with my terms of evidence that I had already laid out. Additionally, none of the links refer to housing first interventions in any capacity, so I have no idea what you are even trying to prove here.

Okay, so you linked a reddit comment section? Are these experts on housing who had conducted evidence-based, statistical research on the subject, or just residents who think they know everything about homelessness because they live in Seattle? If it is the latter, I am not interested.

Aa I said before you live in fantasy world. You hide behind your cherry picked studies and reject real world conditions

I live in a world of hard data. You live in a world of deflections. In other words, you are so many abstractions away from base reality that you cannot engage real world trends in any meaningful way. You make a lot of noise but no substance. Get lost.

No you don't you live on fantasy your fantasy world were you ignore the actual realty for cherry picked data.

Oh here's another real world news article

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2022/mar/21/homelessness-and-violence-on-the-rise-in-seattle-in-pictures

Another op-ed? Yeah, try harder. Give me an actual study. Not a shitty op-ed that has nothing to do with housing first interventions.

Sorry that the real world disagrees with your Utopia non sense.

If that were true, then you would easily be able to find actual, statistical data supporting your argument, but alas, you cannot.

Damn lots of cold Californians ITT

I'm not writing a 10 page research paper for a diluted fool on Reddit. If real world evidence isn't enough for you you're hopeless.

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>I'm not writing a 10 page research paper for a diluted fool on Reddit.

What a pathetic deflection. I can see right through it.

>If real world evidence isn't enough for your hopeless.

You haven't provided any. Only shitty op-eds. You are only making a fool of yourself here.

Photos and information on the situation on the ground isn't good enough for you. You're hopeless.

If somehow you think incorporating photos in an opinion piece with no statistical data somehow informs how efficacious housing first interventions are, then you are completely deluded. If you were at least university educated, you should know the value of statistical data, but alas, I don't see any on your end, nor any that are related to the success (or lackthereof) of housing first interventions.

I mean, that greatly decreases with proper help for most of them being severely mentally and physically ill. But no one wants to use money for that (less than paying for the cleanup and management), instead they wanna let the problem become a problem... John Oliver did a whole show on it. I'm totally understanding of it being disgusting and dangerous, but we have a cheaper solution than what we're doing right now. And not doing that solution means this problem will be here to stay 😮‍💨

That is less money than building structures to deter the homeless, cleanup, and arrests/ambulances.....

They are also worse abuse situations than living on the streets most, if not all, times.

First. You have to come to the realization that we as a group. Need to find the ones who can never take care of themselves regardless of sobriety and some form of structure and take them off the street. Nobody has a right to be homeless within 100miles of the ocean. Sure some regular people are homeless who have jobs. They have a streak of bad luck. They are just trying to make it one more day but if you can’t make it in LA. There is always Fresno. Too expensive to live in Fresno there is always Sgt. Bluff, Iowa.

We need sanatoriums again but this time without the torture and murder. They don’t need to be in the most expensive zip codes in the state of California. But only for the people in the state of California who are residents. You were shipped here on a bus from Tennessee 3 yrs ago or Nevada or Arizona. Send them back, don’t like that. Well California needs to stop taking care of other states homeless. We already subsidize these places economically in other ways.

Once the craziest and unable and the not from here homeless are taken care of. The state can go about trying to help those that are able to be helped. But 70% of these homeless are just not able to do anything for themselves and we’re paying for it financially and emotionally and we need to get something more permanent done.

The only good answer- no one is saying don't feel unsafe. They're saying don't feel unsafe because you directly deny any solutions that decrease the problem and help humans and then get high and mighty for being forced to see the consequences of actions you supported.

They can always go back to the state they came from if they don't like it.

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That’s what a portion of taxes should go towards housing and solving the homelessness and opioid crises.

That’s why safe injection sites should be more widespread. Safe disposal of needles, less risk of spreading diseases, and potential avenues for people to seek help.

That’s the secret that makes some Asian countries more successful in that area: collective caring for the health of the community. You need to actually put resources into community health and housing in order not to have massive homelessness issues in big cities.

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Or your kids….as soon as a homeless person ruins a park/playground for kids, my tolerance is gone.

Never going to build enough housing at the beach to make it affordable for all the people that want to live there.

True that. We all want a nice neighborhood, we want the lifestyle that we're accustomed to. I don't want trash on my lawn, I don't want homeless living on the street in front of my house. No one seems to have an easy answer to all this - we want the homeless and the crime and the garbage (not to mention the garbage we all generate every day) to just go 'away'. There is no 'away'.

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Janitors at union station in LA say they need protection from being attacked while they try to work. You dont give a damn about helping people who clean up shit, get paid shit and have to go to go work everyday and get harrassed and some assaulted and treated like shit.

As fellow janitor I stand with them.

https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-04-29/assaults-at-union-station-strike-fear-in-janitors-and-retail-workers

Bring back accountability. No one wants to own up to their fuck ups.

We need to start yanking rights. They do not have the right to be a community nuisance, to cause problems, to become a problem.

I was homeless for over a year. Lived out of a Nissan Xterra. Worked odd jobs on Craigslist and WWOOF work stay gigs. Kept my occupied. FYI, WWOOF sucks. It's a self governed job board.

Room and board is left up to the host and most hosts are so apathetic and just see you as free labor. Hated it. But I did do 4 stays, so I might do a few more next year. My xterra has no heating, other than the car heater. And I hate wasteful idling.

So you hold all those in the encampment. Run records. Criminals, straight to civilian conservation corps style work camp. Harsh. But I'm done being nice.

Drugs, to the sobering center. You get clean or die trying. Many would die from withdrawls.

Someone legit who needs help. Give help. They say no. To the CCC equivalent camps.

You get a skill, a place to work off your crimes. Sends a message. Tolerance is over.

And by housing homeless people and giving them shelter and security, you keep them off the streets! In turn, they'd be less likely to commit acts of violence. This is the idea behind housing first... essentially, by housing the homeless, most are going to have happier, healthier lives and, in turn, be more tolerable to be around.

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Yeah, this is a lot of the consequence of not having structured places for people to just live somewhat long term while they get their head right.

Sanatoriums or mental health facilities. Whatever. Can't just keep these populations in jail or on the street, it just makes things worse for them and for us.

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We have those. They go to the trails and parks. Should we just set up sharps boxes on all the trails and in all the parks so drug abusers can just shoot meth anywhere they please? They completely take over and violently trash every river and bike path close to town. Our city does ok but they can't make anyone shit in an outhouse or throw their needles away, and apparently they can't be bothered.

It's gross and disrespectful to the community and it's not about having other options. They trash every space they take here.

I am going be honest I have no idea how my comment ended up in a discussion between the 2 of you.

But how long is housing first going take? And who are the contractors receiving taxpayer's money?

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Homeless man just murdered a father and daughter in the parking lot of Kohls in Palmdale a few days ago.

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In the desert you can't remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain La la la la la la...

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> the homeless have moved in droves (hundreds of trailers and tents) to my neighborhood. There is trash everywhere, crime has spiked out of control, convenience businesses like 7eleven have closed because they were being robbed every week.

You don't have a problem with the homeless, friend. You have a problem with with thieves, litterbugs, and other criminals.

These things hardly happened until the homeless came to the neighborhood. It was not dirty and there was little crime. Correlation and causation are one in the same here.

It is a problem of homeless thieves, litterbugs and criminals that moved into my area 2+ years ago. If a problem didn't exist before they were here then their presence is causing the problem.

> These things hardly happened until the homeless came to the neighborhood.

No, these things never happened until the criminals came to the neighborhood.

Or are you seriously arguing that 100% of unhoused people are criminals?

Nope.

But clearly you are seriously trying to troll or trying valiantly to miss the point. I don't know who the criminals are within the groups that moved in but I do know that these circumstances did not exist before those groups moved in.

I don't know how you like to live, but I don't want to live in a slum. California taxes (which I pay) are too damn high for me to have to live in filth and crime that neither myself, my neighbors nor the business owners in my area caused.

You can blame (or not blame) whoever you like but it doesn't change the fact that homelessness brings crime and filthy conditions.

Those are facts and that is the end of this silly conversation. Argue with yourself if you like.

Be a city

Spend millions in homeless assistance

Be Republicans state/county/town outlaw homelessness arrest and harass them until they leave

Be homeless, move to city

Be typical republican: democrat cities have a huge homeless problem!

> You can blame (or not blame) whoever you like but it doesn't change the fact that homelessness brings crime and filthy conditions.

I genuinely hope that you yourself are never lumped in to a group of people you're not a part of, and blamed for their actions.

Stay safe, friend.

You are saying that every person and situation should be treated individually and with dignity and you are 100% right about this.

I'm saying that my neighborhood has changed drastically for the worse because of a huge migration of people to my area. I didn't say everyone in that group is a criminal but crime has risen drastically and I didn't say everyone in this group litters but it looks like a landfill right around the corner from my house right now.

Your perspective (how an individual unhoused person is judged) and mine (how I'm affected by a drastic change in crime and trash in my area) are from different conversations and really shouldn't be addressed together.

Our goal is the same though. Help every single person in the way they uniquely need to be helped so that all of our issues can be addressed simultaneously.

You stay safe too and I hope you have a good night or day wherever you may be.

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