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Kasz216 on 29 November 2011
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richardhutnik said:
Kasz216 said:

Really if you want to stop the homeless from living "on the street" you've got to, if anything keep the laws about sleeping in public, create some system to coordinate the homeless to get to the shelters, like say, some bus stops with a bus driver who drives people around to the right shelters... and come up with a looser system of checking in and out but not too lose to avoid letting in people while drunk or high.

and that'd cover most of it, though you'd still have issues from things like general threat of injury and sickness/shelters splitting up families.

Really though, like i said, it's really only the chronic homeless who have a serious problem... which, transitory homes work much better for them and they're the ones taking up like 60-80% of the resources.

Which is what is generally already being done.

And if the economy goes south, will chronic homelessness increase or decrease?  What has been advocated is that "let charities do all the work".  Well, if the funds aren't there, and are cut back, then what happens?  That is the issue here that I was discussing, particularly if people being homeless on the streets is outlawed.

Neither... at least not in regards to the homeless.  The funds are there.

Chronic homelessness is completely indifferent to economic factors.  I think the problem is you keep seeing chronic homelessness as some guy that's just poor... when anyone who cares studies the homeless problem can tell you that's not the case.

The Chronic homeless will increase, though it has nothing to do with funding or the economy.  It's going to increase due to the war on terror as the number of PTSD soldiers with no social support network will explode.

The Chronic homeless has nothing to do with economic factors, and pretty much everything to do with some kind of mental trauma.  Most common is severe childhood trauma like sexual abuse, though adult related PTSD will be catching up.

The problem isn't funding, it's getting people to

A) use the services, as like said above, most are menetally ill, often in ways that make the wary of people and authroity.

B) using them in a smart way with more focus on privately run transitory group homes.

C) Finding the way to have the right balance between the strictiness needed to maintain some level of safeness in homeless shelters/transitory homes but also have enough leeway to adjust for the fact that a lot of these people are mentally ill.

D) Again, being homeless on the streets is outlawed for the homeless peoples saftey.  It's to force you to go to a shelter, and if your not in the position to go (Ie: drunk of high) they take you to jail for the night, where you will be safer then sleeping on the streets.

Oh, and by the way, you'll note while the number of mentally ill people are high in JAILS, it's not as high as PRISONS.  Which is kinda of another stumbling point in your arguement.  Jails are places where people are held before trial or serve sentences less then 1 year.   Prisons are where people are sent for good.  So Jail's really aren't used like insitutions because they can only keep someone for a year.

 

There are plenty of funds there, and will still be there, despite cutting funds in the past unsheltered chronic homeless has decreased because the money has been spent smarter.


Essentially chronic homelessness exists because we give people freedom and don't believe those who are mentally ill should be involentairly committed unless they are a severe present danger to society.  In general, it's because of "Innocent before being proven guilty" that chronic homelessness, and chronic unshelted homelessness will always exist.