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"I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's the highest award you can get as a civilian. It's the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version," said Trump as he spoke from the podium in front of multiple American and Israeli flags.
He added, "It's actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they're soldiers. They're either in very bad shape because they've been hit so many times by bullets or they are dead. She gets it and she's a healthy, beautiful woman. And they're rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-medal-of-freedom-medal-of-honor/
This dude's nonsensical rantings are seemingly getting worse. Now he's saying the Presidential Medal of Freedom, that the President can award for basically anything is as good as the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Yea this is definitely the guy that you want to give the title of Commander in Chief to.
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United States44361 Posts
In fairness his person gave him $133m which is the ultimate sacrifice. The regular Medal of Honor is for losers who didn’t even have rich parents able to keep them out of the military.
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It's very "I like a guy who wasn't captured". He routinely denigrates people who've sustained injuries while serving in our military, when if they didn't someone else would've been in their place. Whether you agree with the missions our people get sent on or not, that's absolutely insulting to the people who endure it.
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I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos.
SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments.
This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops.
Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals.
The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares.
The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place.
Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles.
So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never.
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On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never.
What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps?
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United States24803 Posts
With laws being enforced again, the homeless people will realize they won't be able to skirt by through lawlessness, so they are going to clean themselves up and start interviewing for executive-level positions so that they can afford housing in the area.
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Yeah, I've never understood "tough on homelessness" as a coherent policy position, it's always struck me as more of an optical play by politicians who want votes. The way you actually solve homelessness is the same way you solve crime, you enable the poor to actually do something about their circumstances instead of punishing them for it. Nobody wakes up and decides they want to be homeless one day. I don't know what this can accomplish aside from just sweeping homeless people out of sight. Then they surely stop being homeless, right? That'll teach them.
You're kicking people while they're down. Maybe address the insane cost of living so you can afford to live somewhere even if you're *only* making 5 digits.
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United Kingdom10006 Posts
On August 18 2024 23:51 micronesia wrote:
With laws being enforced again, the homeless people will realize they won't be able to skirt by through lawlessness, so they are going to clean themselves up and start interviewing for executive-level positions so that they can afford housing in the area.
In the UK (at least in Manchester) we redistribute the problem by putting the homeless in police vans and redistributing them away from city centres to the suburbs to even things out a bit.
Or cops just bust into their camps and take whatever possessions they do have.
It doesn't work but I'm sure some people feel better because of it.
On August 19 2024 01:39 NewSunshine wrote:
Yeah, I've never understood "tough on homelessness" as a coherent policy position, it's always struck me as more of an optical play by politicians who want votes. The way you actually solve homelessness is the same way you solve crime, you enable the poor to actually do something about their circumstances instead of punishing them for it. Nobody wakes up and decides they want to be homeless one day. I don't know what this can accomplish aside from just sweeping homeless people out of sight. Then they surely stop being homeless, right? That'll teach them.
You're kicking people while they're down. Maybe address the insane cost of living so you can afford to live somewhere even if you're *only* making 5 digits.
Surely being 'tough on homelessness' would involve taking unused, unoccupied houses and making the homeless live in them.
Otherwise you are being tough on homeless people, not tough on homelessness.
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On August 19 2024 02:29 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2024 23:51 micronesia wrote:
With laws being enforced again, the homeless people will realize they won't be able to skirt by through lawlessness, so they are going to clean themselves up and start interviewing for executive-level positions so that they can afford housing in the area. In the UK (at least in Manchester) we redistribute the problem by putting the homeless in police vans and redistributing them away from city centres to the suburbs to even things out a bit. Or cops just bust into their camps and take whatever possessions they do have. It doesn't work but I'm sure some people feel better because of it. Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 01:39 NewSunshine wrote:
Yeah, I've never understood "tough on homelessness" as a coherent policy position, it's always struck me as more of an optical play by politicians who want votes. The way you actually solve homelessness is the same way you solve crime, you enable the poor to actually do something about their circumstances instead of punishing them for it. Nobody wakes up and decides they want to be homeless one day. I don't know what this can accomplish aside from just sweeping homeless people out of sight. Then they surely stop being homeless, right? That'll teach them.
You're kicking people while they're down. Maybe address the insane cost of living so you can afford to live somewhere even if you're *only* making 5 digits. Surely being 'tough on homelessness' would involve taking unused, unoccupied houses and making the homeless live in them. Otherwise you are being tough on homeless people, not tough on homelessness.
That's a fair distinction. It's as you say, actually being tough on homelessness would entail giving them either temporary or permanent shelter, and probably also running them through a jobs program to help them get their lives going again, rather than just pushing them around and making them be homeless someplace else. That's just plain NIMBY-ism.
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JD Vance is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only did he lie about polls and call them fake in a recent interview, but he also said this: "Giving Kamala Harris control over inflation policy, it’s like giving Jeffrey Epstein control over human trafficking policy." https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-harris-jeffrey-epstein-trump-polls-b2598101.html
The fact that he thought it'd be clever to name-drop his runningmate's friend and fellow felon and fellow sexual predator is amazing. Understandably so, he and Trump are being torn up over it, on social media. JD Vance continues to go viral for all the wrong reasons ("wrong" only if you're a Trump supporter).
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On August 18 2024 23:40 PoulsenB wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never. What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps?
My understanding is when they go out and clear encampments they ensure there are enough shelter beds for anyone displaced. Most end up refusing a shelter bed for a myriad of reasons, e.g. you can't bring pets, you can't bring opposite sex partners, you can't bring drugs/alcohol, the shelter is temporary, etc.
According to the mayor only 77 out of 617 people that were offered shelter accepted.
In 2023, 65% of people offered shelter by our workers rejected those offers. This year, that number has risen to 75%. Out of 617 engagements by our teams over the last two weeks, only 77 people accepted shelter. That means 88% of the people we encountered refused to accept a roof over their heads. This is unacceptable.
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On August 19 2024 05:34 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2024 23:40 PoulsenB wrote:On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never. What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps? My understanding is when they go out and clear encampments they ensure there are enough shelter beds for anyone displaced. Most end up refusing a shelter bed for a myriad of reasons, e.g. you can't bring pets, you can't bring opposite sex partners, you can't bring drugs/alcohol, the shelter is temporary, etc. According to the mayor only 77 out of 617 people that were offered shelter accepted. Show nested quote +In 2023, 65% of people offered shelter by our workers rejected those offers. This year, that number has risen to 75%. Out of 617 engagements by our teams over the last two weeks, only 77 people accepted shelter. That means 88% of the people we encountered refused to accept a roof over their heads. This is unacceptable. So doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away or that it becomes someone else's problem.
Sounds like a colossal waste of money, time and effort compared to actually trying to address the reasons why they are homeless.
The unacceptable thing isn't that they refused shelter, its that no attempt was made to actually improve their future prospects.
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Some of the other reasons people refuse to go to shelters, from another Democrat cracking down on homeless/unhoused people.
Cockroaches in the food and mice crawling on beds. Constant assaults and thefts. Sanctuaries that feel like jail cells.
This is what life is like inside three major Big Apple homeless shelters and why many indigent residents say they’d rather take their chances on the street over entering a system they say is broken.
“I used to leave here after bed check and go sleep on the A train going to Far Rockaway. You can’t really sleep here. It ain’t safe,” Sean McAloney, a 50-year-old US Navy veteran, recently told The Post outside of the notorious 30th Street Intake Center where he’s lived for the last six months.
“Last night, this kid who hurt his back was in the shower and this big dude came in and started pressing up on him, naked. He wouldn’t leave. That’s scary! It’s not going anywhere good. That’s why I shower fully clothed,” he continued.
“The trains are the best place to get some sleep, the safest place. At least they were.”
nypost.com
The italics also inadvertently reminds us that the US prison system is considered torture by many developed countries.
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On August 19 2024 05:37 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 05:34 BlackJack wrote:On August 18 2024 23:40 PoulsenB wrote:On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never. What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps? My understanding is when they go out and clear encampments they ensure there are enough shelter beds for anyone displaced. Most end up refusing a shelter bed for a myriad of reasons, e.g. you can't bring pets, you can't bring opposite sex partners, you can't bring drugs/alcohol, the shelter is temporary, etc. According to the mayor only 77 out of 617 people that were offered shelter accepted. In 2023, 65% of people offered shelter by our workers rejected those offers. This year, that number has risen to 75%. Out of 617 engagements by our teams over the last two weeks, only 77 people accepted shelter. That means 88% of the people we encountered refused to accept a roof over their heads. This is unacceptable. So doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away or that it becomes someone else's problem. Sounds like a colossal waste of money, time and effort compared to actually trying to address the reasons why they are homeless. The unacceptable thing isn't that they refused shelter, its that no attempt was made to actually improve their future prospects.
The "doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away" option is the one they have been practicing for years where they allow people to set up camps on public sideways and live in squalid conditions infested with lice, scabies, crime, drugs, human trafficking and fires. I know a lot of people consider this the "humane" option, though. Not allowing people a haven to stick dirty needles into their flesh and get maggot infested wounds probably goes a long way to improve their "future prospects", don't you think?
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On August 19 2024 06:01 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 05:37 Gorsameth wrote:On August 19 2024 05:34 BlackJack wrote:On August 18 2024 23:40 PoulsenB wrote:On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never. What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps? My understanding is when they go out and clear encampments they ensure there are enough shelter beds for anyone displaced. Most end up refusing a shelter bed for a myriad of reasons, e.g. you can't bring pets, you can't bring opposite sex partners, you can't bring drugs/alcohol, the shelter is temporary, etc. According to the mayor only 77 out of 617 people that were offered shelter accepted. In 2023, 65% of people offered shelter by our workers rejected those offers. This year, that number has risen to 75%. Out of 617 engagements by our teams over the last two weeks, only 77 people accepted shelter. That means 88% of the people we encountered refused to accept a roof over their heads. This is unacceptable. So doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away or that it becomes someone else's problem. Sounds like a colossal waste of money, time and effort compared to actually trying to address the reasons why they are homeless. The unacceptable thing isn't that they refused shelter, its that no attempt was made to actually improve their future prospects. The "doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away" option is the one they have been practicing for years where they allow people to set up camps on public sideways and live in squalid conditions infested with lice, scabies, crime, drugs, human trafficking and fires. I know a lot of people consider this the "humane" option, though. Not allowing people a haven to stick dirty needles into their flesh and get maggot infested wounds probably goes a long way to improve their "future prospects", don't you think?
So sticking them in unsafe "sanctuaries" where they don't want to be and leave to go and live on some other street elsewhere is the solution? Sounds like the NIMBY solution. Which I guess is fine if you're downtown SF? But I was under the impression a lot of people actually lived on the streets of downtown SF because they actually had a job in SF, but couldn't afford the rent anywhere remotely viable to get to/from their job. So either those people are all out of jobs now, or the problem is just going to come back immediately.
Now obviously the reasons for being homeless are myriad, but offering people shelter where they can reasonably use it has been found to be a reasonable solution: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/a-paradigm-shift-in-social-policy-how-finland-conquered-homelessness-a-ba1a531e-8129-4c71-94fc-7268c5b109d9
But you actually have to invest in the social programs. Just removing the homeless from the street doesn't solve the problem, especially not if the "shelters" they end up in are worse than the street.
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On August 19 2024 05:37 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 05:34 BlackJack wrote:On August 18 2024 23:40 PoulsenB wrote:On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never. What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps? My understanding is when they go out and clear encampments they ensure there are enough shelter beds for anyone displaced. Most end up refusing a shelter bed for a myriad of reasons, e.g. you can't bring pets, you can't bring opposite sex partners, you can't bring drugs/alcohol, the shelter is temporary, etc. According to the mayor only 77 out of 617 people that were offered shelter accepted. In 2023, 65% of people offered shelter by our workers rejected those offers. This year, that number has risen to 75%. Out of 617 engagements by our teams over the last two weeks, only 77 people accepted shelter. That means 88% of the people we encountered refused to accept a roof over their heads. This is unacceptable. So doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away or that it becomes someone else's problem. Sounds like a colossal waste of money, time and effort compared to actually trying to address the reasons why they are homeless. The unacceptable thing isn't that they refused shelter, its that no attempt was made to actually improve their future prospects.
The real reasons they're homeless being some subset of poor education, poor healthcare, poor mental health support, poor drug control, poverty, and generally a lack of place in the local economy?
It's a big issue that will always exist on some level, I don't think pretending that it's easy to fix is fair.
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On August 19 2024 06:28 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 05:37 Gorsameth wrote:On August 19 2024 05:34 BlackJack wrote:On August 18 2024 23:40 PoulsenB wrote:On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never. What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps? My understanding is when they go out and clear encampments they ensure there are enough shelter beds for anyone displaced. Most end up refusing a shelter bed for a myriad of reasons, e.g. you can't bring pets, you can't bring opposite sex partners, you can't bring drugs/alcohol, the shelter is temporary, etc. According to the mayor only 77 out of 617 people that were offered shelter accepted. In 2023, 65% of people offered shelter by our workers rejected those offers. This year, that number has risen to 75%. Out of 617 engagements by our teams over the last two weeks, only 77 people accepted shelter. That means 88% of the people we encountered refused to accept a roof over their heads. This is unacceptable. So doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away or that it becomes someone else's problem. Sounds like a colossal waste of money, time and effort compared to actually trying to address the reasons why they are homeless. The unacceptable thing isn't that they refused shelter, its that no attempt was made to actually improve their future prospects. The real reasons they're homeless being some subset of poor education, poor healthcare, poor mental health support, poor drug control, poverty, and generally a lack of place in the local economy? It's a big issue that will always exist on some level, I don't think pretending that it's easy to fix is fair. The pain is the point. It acts as a warning to anyone else that thinks they can survive in the US without bowing to their capitalist overlords. They do just enough to keep the masses from calling them on their bullshit and to assuage the debilitating mental anguish knowing these things are being done by people they support should cause in a healthy human mind.
Also, having spent years now working in this area, you'd probably be surprised by how many homeless people have jobs. More of them have jobs than addiction issues.
Democrats are basically tearing down modern Hoovervilles without having a New Deal to lean on to try to rationalize it. It's deplorable.
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San Francisco (and the bay area) artificially constrains the housing supply to inflate prices and funnel wealth from people who don't own homes to people who do. When there isn't enough housing, some people don't get housed.
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On August 19 2024 06:26 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 06:01 BlackJack wrote:On August 19 2024 05:37 Gorsameth wrote:On August 19 2024 05:34 BlackJack wrote:On August 18 2024 23:40 PoulsenB wrote:On August 18 2024 07:42 BlackJack wrote:I'm gonna take a break from my usual complaining about the stupidity of the leaders in SF and California and actually give them a kudos. SF mayor London Breed released an editorial today titled "No more excuses, no more apologies. SF won’t tolerate encampments any longer" with a promise to crackdown on homeless encampments. This comes after Gavin Newsom issued an executive order and vowed to take away funding from cities and counties that refuse to clear homeless encampments. He has even gone out himself to various encampments to clear debris and get some photo-ops. Yesterday Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills to crackdown on organized retail theft, car theft, car break-ins, smash and grabs, etc. providing more resources for law enforcement and more serious consequences for criminals. The metro system in the Bay Area, BART, has started installing new fare evasion gates to prevent people from turnstile hopping to evade fares. The metro police has also more than doubled their presence which has led to a surge of arrests to address rider's safety concerns. This comes after the transit system required a huge state bailout to stay afloat. Perhaps our glorious leaders have finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that fare evasion and riders feeling unsafe might be part of why the system is in financial straits in the first place. Finally, Governor Newsom ordered a surge of state highway patrol officers into Oakland to deal with the rising crime and vehicle theft, leading to 355 arrests and a whopping 726 recovered stolen vehicles. So credit where credit is due. They've finally started to pull their heads out of their asses and realize that enforcing the law is not racist or whatever woke excuse they used for allowing the bullshit to continue for so long. Even if it took them years longer than the rest of us with common sense. Better late than never. What are they planning to do with all the homeless people they will displace by removing their camps? My understanding is when they go out and clear encampments they ensure there are enough shelter beds for anyone displaced. Most end up refusing a shelter bed for a myriad of reasons, e.g. you can't bring pets, you can't bring opposite sex partners, you can't bring drugs/alcohol, the shelter is temporary, etc. According to the mayor only 77 out of 617 people that were offered shelter accepted. In 2023, 65% of people offered shelter by our workers rejected those offers. This year, that number has risen to 75%. Out of 617 engagements by our teams over the last two weeks, only 77 people accepted shelter. That means 88% of the people we encountered refused to accept a roof over their heads. This is unacceptable. So doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away or that it becomes someone else's problem. Sounds like a colossal waste of money, time and effort compared to actually trying to address the reasons why they are homeless. The unacceptable thing isn't that they refused shelter, its that no attempt was made to actually improve their future prospects. The "doing nothing and hoping the problem goes away" option is the one they have been practicing for years where they allow people to set up camps on public sideways and live in squalid conditions infested with lice, scabies, crime, drugs, human trafficking and fires. I know a lot of people consider this the "humane" option, though. Not allowing people a haven to stick dirty needles into their flesh and get maggot infested wounds probably goes a long way to improve their "future prospects", don't you think? So sticking them in unsafe "sanctuaries" where they don't want to be and leave to go and live on some other street elsewhere is the solution? Sounds like the NIMBY solution. Which I guess is fine if you're downtown SF? But I was under the impression a lot of people actually lived on the streets of downtown SF because they actually had a job in SF, but couldn't afford the rent anywhere remotely viable to get to/from their job. So either those people are all out of jobs now, or the problem is just going to come back immediately. Now obviously the reasons for being homeless are myriad, but offering people shelter where they can reasonably use it has been found to be a reasonable solution: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/a-paradigm-shift-in-social-policy-how-finland-conquered-homelessness-a-ba1a531e-8129-4c71-94fc-7268c5b109d9But you actually have to invest in the social programs. Just removing the homeless from the street doesn't solve the problem, especially not if the "shelters" they end up in are worse than the street.
Nah, it’s not true that a lot of people living on the streets of downtown SF do so to be close to their job in SF. If I had to guess I’d say it’s pretty close to 0% of the people sleeping on the streets go to work in the morning.
Also just want to point out that I never claimed removing encampments would “solve” homelessness. That seems like an absurd standard to apply here. There are huge costs to public health and the local economy for allowing people to lay claim to public sidewalks as their preferred living area. I don’t feel compelled to make a grand argument for why sidewalks should be used for walking. You should be the one making a grand argument for why sidewalks should be used for camping. Preferring tents over shelters isn’t very convincing to me.
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EPT
