OT Just One Reason I Don't Arbitrarily Support BLM's Efforts

Housing them won't work. I could try to go dig up that article about new meth, but basically the meth heads are beyond treatment unless they're clean for six months minimum. I don't think you can throw money at homelessness. There's a reason why they're congregating in larger cities. It's because they can get a free ride here. More will just keep coming. If it was just homelessness it would be one thing, but it's homelessness compounded by major drug addiction and crime.

 

Much of the negative perception could be changed if city leaders would decide to promote the downtown area as not as bad as media makes it out t be. There needs to be an aggressive PR campaign and programs developed to bring families back to downtown. Changing the route of the parade imo, was the wrong thing to do, think of the perception that breeds.
In order to make downtown a safe a comfortable place to visit there must be cooperation from many in order to make it a safe haven for families. Yes crime will need to be addressed and a measure of order implemented. It can be doe the right way with positive public relations. Business's and organizations of all kinds should be asked to help and participate in City Pride and clean up.
There was a time when families spend a lot of time downtown to take in happenings and I remember in the 50's & 60"s Christmas downtown was huge an exciting for families. Rose festival and other celebrated. Yea, there issues that would need to be addressed for public safety but it was a priority. Festivals are a great way to involve families and young people to enjoy downtown but there needs to be order maintained out of respect for the events and those who attend.
The media like to promote the negative more so than the positive which instills fear onto people, then they stay away and go some where else.

 

There isn't an infinite supply of homeless people. Housing them is not throwing money at it. It's saving money. As has been shown in this forum dozens of times.

Just allowing them to be homeless and policing them is FAR more expensive than homing them.

And nothing about housing people prevents them from being treated. I'm not sure where this argument comes from. It makes it easier to identify and treat those who need help. That's ine of the main features in housing first. People in housing first are more likely to seek treatment, and more likely to be effectively treated long term.

Policing has never solved homelessness without resorting to authoritarian tactics.

 

You're going to have to address the homeless before it can be done safely. I don't know how you do that legally before an event.

Unless you just want the streets lined with police who can pounce as soon as something happens.

I guess that might be reasonable just during an event...

 

There might not be an infinite supply, but there's enough to make it nearly impossible to house them all if they keep moving to cities like Portland.

Read this article. Meth addicts are beyond treatment if they're not clean for 6 months.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/

"Over the past year and a half, I’ve talked with meth addicts, counselors, and cops around the country. The people I spoke with told me stories nearly identical to Eric Barrera’s: P2P-meth use was quickly causing steep deterioration in mental health. The symptoms were always similar: violent paranoia, hallucinations, conspiracy theories, isolation, massive memory loss, jumbled speech. Methamphetamine is a neurotoxin—it damages the brain no matter how it is derived. But P2P meth seems to create a higher order of cerebral catastrophe. “I don’t know that I would even call it meth anymore,” Ken Vick, the director of a drug-treatment center in Kansas City, Missouri, told me. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are afflictions that begin in the young. Now people in their 30s and 40s with no prior history of mental illness seemed to be going mad.

Portland, Oregon, began seeing the flood of meth around 2013. By January 2020, the city had to close its downtown sobering station. The station had opened in 1985 as a place for alcoholics to sober up for six to eight hours, but it was unequipped to handle people addicted to P2P meth. “The degree of mental-health disturbance; the wave of psychosis; the profound, profound disorganization [is something] I’ve never seen before,” Rachel Solotaroff, the CEO of Central City Concern, the social-service nonprofit that ran the station, told me. Solotaroff was among the first people I spoke with. She sounded overwhelmed. “If they’re not raging and agitated, they can be completely noncommunicative. Treating addiction [relies] on your ability to have a connection with someone. But I’ve never experienced something like this—where there’s no way in to that person.”

Treating them was daunting. Despite years of research, science has found no equivalent of methadone or Suboxone to help subdue meth cravings and allow people addicted to the drug a chance to break from it and begin repairing their life. And, like many others I spoke with, Jobe found that the human connection essential to successful drug treatment was almost impossible to establish. “It takes longer for them to actually be here mentally,” Jobe said. “Before, we didn’t keep anybody more than nine months. Now we’re running up to 14 months, because it’s not until six or nine months that we finally find out who we got.” Some can’t remember their life before jail. “It’s not unusual for them to ask what they were found guilty of and sentenced to,” she said.

 

Provide alternative location and or housing.

Offer options.

 

It will probably take federal/state funded hospitals but they cant just be left on the streets as a threat to themselves or residents. Its sad as hell but to do zip isnt fair to them if they need intervention help or the resident’s and business. Its takes agressive measures to address serious problems.

 

I love it, we should absolutely be doing that regardless. I don't think it will happen in a short period of time prior to an event.

 

Housing first doesn't prevent any of these successful treatments. I'm not sure why you're using it as an argument against housing?

 

Excellent job by Coach!

 

Nashville has its share of homelessness issues, as well. I'd love to meet with Nashville's Emergency Management Chief, Jay Servais to get better insights from him.

https://fox17.com/news/local/the-high-cost-of-homelessness-whats-being-done-to-fix-this

 

Because people with severe mental illness/drug addiction can require different housing than someone who is not mentally ill. My brother in law has severe bi-polar and schizophrenia. His needs are much more than a regular person and he can be potentially dangerous to those around him if he's not on his meds.

 

I understand that. And I'm sure he'd be far more dangerous outside, off his meds, and anonymous than in housing where trained people know his name and can examine him, get his medical history and get him into the type of housing that best fits his needs.

Housing first provides for all of those types of housing and allows for those who have special needs to be more readily identified and given that care.

Again, housing first doesn't prevent anything you seem to be implying it prevents. It HELPS to get people that care.