Homelessness

[raison de arizona]

It's becoming an epidemic. But what to do? Here comes a radical idea: Offer help, a leg up. And it worked. 88% of homeless people in the program were no longer homeless within six months.

Researchers gave homeless people $750 per month for a year, no questions asked. The recipients spent the money on food, housing, transportation, clothing, and health care. And after six months, only 12% of those who received funds were still homeless.

[AndyinPA]

Yeah, but...we can't trust those people. They are druggies; they don't deserve any help.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

[MsDaisy 2]

Back in the day when I was still running rescue squad a good many of the homeless population in my area were alcoholics and generally called for rescue so they could go to the hospital and get a good meal or a warm place to sleep on a cold night. What was really heartbreaking were children in rags and homeless families living in cars or cardboard shelters and tents and I’m sure there are still lots of them out there across the country. So sad…

[MN-Skeptic]

I rail against the "Trickle Down" believers, the folks who think that giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and big businesses will spur the economy. The reality is that if you give $75,000 to a millionaire, it will not increase his spending one whit. He will just buy corporate stock with that money. It will NOT go back into the economy. (For non-financial people, the stock was issued years ago. The investor buys it from another investor, not from a company). HOWEVER, if you give $750 to 1,000 homeless folks, that money gets put back immediately into the community the homeless person lives in. It benefits the homeless person and the community. That's one reason, also, why SNAP payments are so wonderful. I would much prefer my tax dollars go towards helping the poor versus helping millionaires and big business.

[raison de arizona]

[MN-Skeptic]

And as long as I'm railing against the "Trickle Down" theory, I'll also throw in another of my financial pet peeves. People who complain about millionaires spending millions on things like weddings. "They should be giving that money to the poor." Well, excuse me!, but putting the money back into the economy by hiring caterers, musicians, etc. is an excellent way to be spending your money! And, while Trump is not known for giving money to the poor, many rich people do donate to very worthy causes. It's amazing, though, how spending on something extremely expensive, like a wedding or a house, ends up benefiting thousands of workers. My Iowa niece's farmer/carpenter husband drove from Iowa to The Cities to install shades in a multi-million dollar home being built in a western suburb.

/rant

[John Thomas8]

And as long as I'm railing against the "Trickle Down" theory, I'll also throw in another of my financial pet peeves. People who complain about millionaires spending millions on things like weddings. "They should be giving that money to the poor." Well, excuse me!, but putting the money back into the economy by hiring caterers, musicians, etc. is an excellent way to be spending your money! And, while Trump is not known for giving money to the poor, many rich people do donate to very worthy causes. It's amazing, though, how spending on something extremely expensive, like a wedding or a house, ends up benefiting thousands of workers. My Iowa niece's farmer/carpenter husband drove from Iowa to The Cities to install shades in a multi-million dollar home being built in a western suburb.

/rant

Ya, many high-dollar sportsball folks have charity foundations they run that do much good in their communities. Warrick Dunn started one getting single mothers into homes. That's one of hundreds if not thousands of player charities.

[raison de arizona]

Story: https://www.themusicman.uk/donald-gould/

[sad-cafe]

Story: https://www.themusicman.uk/donald-gould/

that is really awesome~

I play piano but would never have the courage to play alone in the streets like he did.

[bill_g]

Portland had a Piano Project last Summer. They place uprights all around the city for random people to play. It was facinating to listen to.

[RTH10260]

WSDOT's controversial approach to fixing homelessness | FOX 13 Seattle

FOX 13 Seattle
1 day ago

Boulders placed on the shoulder of I-5 in Olympia send an undeniable message: the unhoused are not welcome here.

[raison de arizona]

Great thread well worth the click.

This fall, I got an e-mail from a guy named JM Simpson who'd read things I'd written about homelessness. He mentioned he was a photojournalist in Olympia and that he'd been photographing the unhoused population there. He wanted to share some work with me . . . (1)

[raison de arizona]

Time to revive this thread now that homelessness is now potentially illegal, per SCOTUS. A long thread on the anti-human pro car policies that have been pervasive in Grant's Pass. Also worth remembering, is that Oregon was not only home to sundowner towns, it was a whole damn sundowner state until well into the 20th century (1926.)

When you read about homelessness in #GrantsPass, #Oregon, remember one thing. For more than half a century, the city has adopted, enforced, and defended laws that push people into homelessness.

Consider just one of them.../1

[Uninformed]

We in the UK have a vastly more enlightened attitude regarding homelessness!

[raison de arizona]

So this is a global issue, noted. He's great, love his work.

[keith]

I love Johnathon Pie.

This is one of his more gentle tirades.

[raison de arizona]

No whiteboard, but in the words of Elizabeth Warren, she has a plan.

The cost of housing is way too high. As #NationalHomeownersMonth comes to a close, Californians deserve to know what our leaders are doing to make owning a home more affordable.

I recently laid out how Washington can get more affordable housing built

[RTH10260]

At this time I suggest you ask the Dem voters for a full voting expierence else the former guy will appoint the sleepy Ben Carson as Secretary of HUD again

[raison de arizona]

The Supreme Court Just Opened the Door to the Criminalization of Disability

In a 6–3 ruling, the Supreme Court just held that people experiencing homelessness could be subject to criminal and civil penalties for sleeping in public spaces. In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the court overturned a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which had held that these penalties were unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. This case stemmed from Grants Pass, Oregon, where local politicians were seeking to eradicate the homeless population through fines and jail time.

As a disability rights lawyer who has a disability, I know that this decision will devastate my community. People with disabilities are disproportionately likely to experience homelessness. Data reveals that 78 percent of homeless people report having mental health conditions, and an estimated 52 percent of homeless adults in shelters nationwide have a disability. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities in particular face a housing crisis with many contributing factors, such as a serious lack of safe, affordable, accessible, and integrated housing, and significant housing-related discrimination. Outdated public policy and programs unnecessarily segregate people with IDD, and community-based programs are frequently underfunded. Likewise, the lack of physically accessible and affordable housing pushes people with disabilities who rely on Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income into homelessness. Only 6 percent of homes nationwide are wheelchair accessible.

People with disabilities are at the heart of the Grants Pass case. At the trial court level, multiple people submitted declarations that they were not able to stay at the only shelter in Grants Pass because of their disqualifying disabilities. For example, CarrieLynn Hill could not stay at the shelter because it banned residents from using the nebulizer she needed regularly in her room. Debra Blake’s disabilities prevent her from working, and she could not comply with the shelter’s requirement to work 40 hours a week. Hill and Blake are examples of the impossible choices faced by so many homeless disabled people. They cannot be at the shelter, but they risk prosecution under the ordinances if they remain unhoused.

Faced with criminal sanctions for not having a place to live, Hill and Blake, alongside other homeless people, sued Grants Pass because they felt that the ordinances amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. They relied on Robinson v. California, a Supreme Court decision from 1962. In that case, the court held that the Eighth Amendment bars state and local governments from criminalizing a status, such as being addicted to drugs.

In Robinson, the court based its decision partially on an understanding that the Eighth Amendment bars the criminalization of disability. Writing for the Robinson majority, Justice Potter Stewart declared, “It is unlikely that any State at this moment in history would attempt to make it a criminal offense for a person to be mentally ill, or a leper, or to be afflicted with a venereal disease.” Even in the early ’60s, the court recognized that the criminalization of disability was unconstitutional.

This was a groundbreaking decision. From the 1860s to 1972, cities in the United States succeeded in criminalizing disability through so-called ugly laws. These horrific ordinances prohibited disabled people from existing in public. For example, an 1881 Chicago ordinance provided that “no person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object or improper person [is] to be allowed in or on the public ways or other public places in this city.” Professor Susan Schweik has documented how this type of ordinance was enacted in cities across the country. In essence, ugly laws were designed to suppress disabled bodies (including “unsightly” beggars). Such legislation was obviously unconstitutional post-Robinson because it criminalized the status of being “diseased” or “maimed” in public.

Yet in Grants Pass, the Supreme Court has sent the Eighth Amendment back to the 19th century. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch distinguished the case from Robinson, claiming that the ordinance in Grants Pass prohibits only actions like sleeping outside, regardless of housing status. The opinion implicitly overrules Robinson by casting it as an outlier that “sits uneasily with the [Eighth] Amendment’s terms, original meaning, and our precedents.” The opinion contains no reference to disability, even after a group of 24 disability rights groups filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to consider how Grants Pass’ ordinance criminalizes being disabled and homeless. My organization, the Arc of the United States, proudly signed on to this brief.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... sness.html

[pipistrelle]

claiming that the ordinance in Grants Pass prohibits only actions like sleeping outside

Ummm, am I the only housed person who's taken a nap on a park bench or on a picnic blanket on a hot day?

[sugar magnolia]

claiming that the ordinance in Grants Pass prohibits only actions like sleeping outside

Ummm, am I the only housed person who's taken a nap on a park bench or on a picnic blanket on a hot day?

Or went camping, or napped by the lake, or grabbed a few minutes of shut-eye in your car during your lunch break, or let rowdy kids sleep in a tent in the wilderness of the backyard?

[Foggy]

I was homeless three separate times in my life. Yes, because of alcoholism and addiction. I spent many nights in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, living in the bushes in a tent and sleeping bag. I overcame. Not everyone has the resources I needed and used. I'm trying not to be so terribly angry about these rulings, but it's difficult. However, I can't affect reality. I have to work on stabilizing my wa.

[raison de arizona]

Moving quick.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court ruled it was legal to remove homeless encampments.

Last night, my city (Manchester, NH) passed an ordinance banning all street camping.

Today, they sent in the bulldozer.