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K
I agree. I've tried earnestly to find exact figures but instead I just find estimates of the cost to house them (I assume the overall cost) versus the cost not to. If I could find the break down it would give more credibility to their claim. Though, other states and even countries that use this model have reported similar results and I've yet to find anything contrary to their claim.
M
Again forgive us if we don't believe the lies of liberals trying to creates socialist states...as far as understanding the issues with the homeless and needy I assure you this has been the core if my ministry for many years and many homeless folks have found refuge in my own home.. The idea that government represents Christian charity is a complete lack of understanding of what real Christian charity is supposed to be.
D
You have such little understanding of how America works. Want to know who they aren't helping? The people who are so out of their minds they won't come in out of the cold. And why? Because even people incapable of making their own decisions have the right to make their own decisions, so let's let them not decide to kill themselves and wait for them to die.
That just about defined why there are homeless in the US, even after giving shelter to those who lost their homes. (I live in Philly. We got our sane homeless people off the streets into housing a decade ago. The insane homeless don't get that access because they're insane so say they don't want to come out of the cold.)
I do find it humorous when a non American spends so much time telling Americans what to do or believe, when they don't even know what we do or believe.
That just about defined why there are homeless in the US, even after giving shelter to those who lost their homes. (I live in Philly. We got our sane homeless people off the streets into housing a decade ago. The insane homeless don't get that access because they're insane so say they don't want to come out of the cold.)
I do find it humorous when a non American spends so much time telling Americans what to do or believe, when they don't even know what we do or believe.
The numbers don't tell the whole story. They never do. Some people read what they want to read into numbers. The truth usually is somewhere buried in those numbers. HUD has made estimates of the cost of every homeless person. Those costs includes emergency room visits and the cost of arrest. In my experience, police rarely arrest homeless. They try hard not to arrest homeless. They simply tell them to move on from where they are sleeping or defecating or doing drugs or loitering. The police do not want some hepatitis laden homeless person in their cruiser. Cost to the public, nothing. Emergency room visits are quite costly. When a homeless person passes out on a park bench, and someone calls 911 to report it, first responders arrive and treat the person, often taking them to the ER. I watched a drunk woman fall down in front of a grocery store and in a minute, 5-6 people were assisting her as the store manager called 911. They wanted to believe her when she said she was diabetic. As I left the store, I spoke with the first responders, who laughed and said she was just really drunk, and she refused to be taken to the ER or let them do a simple test to find out how drunk she was.
Here's my argument against adopting the Utah approach. You can't create housing for homeless without upsetting the people living nearby. Drug use will increase in that area, as well as vagrancy and vandalism. It will be a magnet regionally. Word gets out and homeless will travel far to get the low cost housing, overwhelming the facilities. A drug addict will not cease wanting and using drugs simply because he or she has a mattress to sleep on. The medical costs of that uninsured person will not disappear simply because they have a place to sleep inside. They will still overdose and first responders will still arrive to treat them. They will still commit crimes like shoplifting and petty theft. They will still stand at intersections with signs asking for money under false pretenses of being a veteran out of gas or being homeless. They will always need money for their drug habits. NPR has spun a story telling half truths. I watched PBS do a similar story about drug addicts living on the streets in Seattle, where the City Council has decided to reduce the police force to being social workers who no longer arrest drug addicts even when they witness them shooting up heroin. Seattle will become a magnet (even more so) for west coast drug addicts. These are acts of desperation. They have filled their jails and don't know what else to try. They are willing to try anything, even if it creates more drug addicts. Utah is going to create housing units that police are going to spend all their time responding to and neighbors are going to be spending a lot of time reporting crimes relating to the homeless violating the laws in that area.
Here's my argument against adopting the Utah approach. You can't create housing for homeless without upsetting the people living nearby. Drug use will increase in that area, as well as vagrancy and vandalism. It will be a magnet regionally. Word gets out and homeless will travel far to get the low cost housing, overwhelming the facilities. A drug addict will not cease wanting and using drugs simply because he or she has a mattress to sleep on. The medical costs of that uninsured person will not disappear simply because they have a place to sleep inside. They will still overdose and first responders will still arrive to treat them. They will still commit crimes like shoplifting and petty theft. They will still stand at intersections with signs asking for money under false pretenses of being a veteran out of gas or being homeless. They will always need money for their drug habits. NPR has spun a story telling half truths. I watched PBS do a similar story about drug addicts living on the streets in Seattle, where the City Council has decided to reduce the police force to being social workers who no longer arrest drug addicts even when they witness them shooting up heroin. Seattle will become a magnet (even more so) for west coast drug addicts. These are acts of desperation. They have filled their jails and don't know what else to try. They are willing to try anything, even if it creates more drug addicts. Utah is going to create housing units that police are going to spend all their time responding to and neighbors are going to be spending a lot of time reporting crimes relating to the homeless violating the laws in that area.
I'm a retired correctional officer. I can speak to many issues relating to the prison industry. If I were king for a day, I'd empty most of our prisons. What I'd do is ask Mexico to build prisons near the U.S. border, so we could transport our prison population across the border for them to house at 10% of the cost. The prison I worked in had a recreation room with arcade games. It had a swimming pool. It had a gym with basketball courts and a weight room. They showed "R" rated movies with violent content to violent offenders. They even offered to pay for the stamps on inmates out going mail. You paid taxes to cover the costs. We had a recidivism rate of maybe 90%. The State would tell you otherwise, claiming a much lower recidivism rate. They would be lying. They consider the felons they release who are them murdered to be successes. When inmates are released and go commit a murder in another state and are sent to prison, they are also counted as non recidivists for the state they were first imprisoned by. They have all sorts of clever ways to hide the fact they are merely expensive warehouses for repeat offenders.
Still, if you spent even one day in a prison, you'd understand how important it is that we keep those people locked up. They are pure evil. They are sociopaths who will tell you if it hadn't been for their parents telling them to turn their music down, they would not have had to murder them and burn the bodies in a fire pit. So it was their parents fault they ended up in prison. True story. They are alpha predators. If you stand between them and something they want, you will be their victim. I don't know what you meant in your comment, but I'm guessing you know nothing about the prison industry, and you are probably better off keeping it that way.
Still, if you spent even one day in a prison, you'd understand how important it is that we keep those people locked up. They are pure evil. They are sociopaths who will tell you if it hadn't been for their parents telling them to turn their music down, they would not have had to murder them and burn the bodies in a fire pit. So it was their parents fault they ended up in prison. True story. They are alpha predators. If you stand between them and something they want, you will be their victim. I don't know what you meant in your comment, but I'm guessing you know nothing about the prison industry, and you are probably better off keeping it that way.
Well, thank you for doing a job not most people would want to do, myself included, I think it iseven harder then being a police officer.
Good points you made.
The big issue here is what Angela53510 pointed out about 10 posts ago.
What to do with the people who have emotional issues? What to do with the drug addict from a compassion standpoint? I ma not talking about violent people who are dangerous to society. I am talking about the people who are homeless and just are in a cycle, for whatever reason. Finances, down and out, emotional, addictions, etc?
BTW, did you notice when you prayed for the prisoners if it ever helped?
Good points you made.
The big issue here is what Angela53510 pointed out about 10 posts ago.
What to do with the people who have emotional issues? What to do with the drug addict from a compassion standpoint? I ma not talking about violent people who are dangerous to society. I am talking about the people who are homeless and just are in a cycle, for whatever reason. Finances, down and out, emotional, addictions, etc?
BTW, did you notice when you prayed for the prisoners if it ever helped?
There are prison ministries that allow people to start Bible studies and offer Bibles to inmates. Chuck Colson was saved during the Watergate era and started a prison ministry while serving time. Yes, it has changed lives. Drug addicts that are mentally ill are difficult to reach. Demons seem to have taken over their lives.
Someone posted evidence that some cities are finding it cheaper to put their problem people on buses to other cities. They can't seem to find a better solution. When you suggest there are mentally ill people, who may also be drug addicts, who are non-violent, what I would say is they have not been violent yet. Their first act of violence may be to commit murder. They may hear a voice telling them to kill. Yesterdays headlines stated there was a number of drug overdoses that ended in death. People see this as a tragedy, and it probably is. But they chose their path. Many others will follow that same path. Deaths from drugs will increase. It is not our failure, it is their failure. Triage is required to determine who can be saved, who cannot be saved, and who will prevail on their own without intervention. Use resources where they have potential to help. Do not waste them. The mentally ill wander the streets. They go in and out of emergency services. They mostly live near where they are provided free meals. I often ride my bike past such a place. I witness people gyrating and mumbling incoherently. Today they might be harmless. Tomorrow they may crush a puppy or a kitten for no particular reason, or attack a defenseless elderly person. The demons seem to command them. Medication can make them less of a threat, if they take the medications. I see them as God's reminder of how badly we have fallen. I do not have a solution. In my life, I choose to avoid contact with them.
Someone posted evidence that some cities are finding it cheaper to put their problem people on buses to other cities. They can't seem to find a better solution. When you suggest there are mentally ill people, who may also be drug addicts, who are non-violent, what I would say is they have not been violent yet. Their first act of violence may be to commit murder. They may hear a voice telling them to kill. Yesterdays headlines stated there was a number of drug overdoses that ended in death. People see this as a tragedy, and it probably is. But they chose their path. Many others will follow that same path. Deaths from drugs will increase. It is not our failure, it is their failure. Triage is required to determine who can be saved, who cannot be saved, and who will prevail on their own without intervention. Use resources where they have potential to help. Do not waste them. The mentally ill wander the streets. They go in and out of emergency services. They mostly live near where they are provided free meals. I often ride my bike past such a place. I witness people gyrating and mumbling incoherently. Today they might be harmless. Tomorrow they may crush a puppy or a kitten for no particular reason, or attack a defenseless elderly person. The demons seem to command them. Medication can make them less of a threat, if they take the medications. I see them as God's reminder of how badly we have fallen. I do not have a solution. In my life, I choose to avoid contact with them.
State run prisons have failed the taxpayers in many ways, opening the door for privately run prisons. Neither solves the problems of drug addicted inmates and mentally ill inmates. State prisons might be more liberal in providing drugs to medicate the mentally ill, in hopes of making them easier to manage. It seems doubtful the inmates are being cured. Sort of like how we medicate our youth to make them sit still in school, telling the parents their child suffers from Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. When I was a child, I was called fidgety. No drugs, just told to stay after school and show more respect for the class and the teachers.
There is a new class of homeless. They are not victims of misfortune. They didn't simply "lose" there jobs or have a catastrophic health issue that bankrupt them. These people are the walking dead. They are drug addicts. They abuse opioids, then move on to heroin. Some are addicted to methamphetamine's. In many cities, as much as 97% of property crimes are being committed by these people, in order to fund their addictions. Every day they have one objective, to get high. They are willing to rob and steal and victimize anyone in order to achieve their goal. Giving them hand-outs, especially cash, is fueling their addictions and their crimes. It will make the situation worse. It will make us all less safe.
There is a new class of homeless. They are not victims of misfortune. They didn't simply "lose" there jobs or have a catastrophic health issue that bankrupt them. These people are the walking dead. They are drug addicts. They abuse opioids, then move on to heroin. Some are addicted to methamphetamine's. In many cities, as much as 97% of property crimes are being committed by these people, in order to fund their addictions. Every day they have one objective, to get high. They are willing to rob and steal and victimize anyone in order to achieve their goal. Giving them hand-outs, especially cash, is fueling their addictions and their crimes. It will make the situation worse. It will make us all less safe.
K
We can disagree on issues without making assumptions of the other person. If you disagree, show something contrary to the claim that it is cheaper to house them than it is to not. If you disagree on moral principle, I can understand that.
Furthermore, I'm an American citizen. Sorry to kill the humor.
Furthermore, I'm an American citizen. Sorry to kill the humor.
No argument. Even when I wrote that, I said to myself, most are, or will be, violent in some from. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Your post just put in black and white what I already realize. Again, I was hoping for a fair solution for all of us. But I know it is a spiritual issue, and that as you said, there really is no solving it in mass quantities. Many of these are just lost forever. This is a fallen world.
But how does a society reconcile this? How to balance our values with the realities? How to help without putting ourselves in danger? Or should we put ourselves in some type of danger occasionally? Trusting God if we hear Him about that?
You did it for whatever amount of years you did it for. You had a element of danger in your job. You got paid yes, but so do we, in another way.
But how does a society reconcile this? How to balance our values with the realities? How to help without putting ourselves in danger? Or should we put ourselves in some type of danger occasionally? Trusting God if we hear Him about that?
You did it for whatever amount of years you did it for. You had a element of danger in your job. You got paid yes, but so do we, in another way.