Rumor What's going on in Portland?

They aren't excuses. It's a proven fact. People who are poor make these kinds of decisions more frequently than the same people when they have disposable income.

We already hold poor people more accountable than virtually any other country (our prisons make up 25% of the world prison population and our total population only comes to less than 5% of the world population).

The countries with better access to education, healthcare, better social safety nets, and rehabilitation and education based corrective systems have less crime and recidivism than we do. As well as cleaner, healthier cities and less homelessness...

 

yet some poor people can still make the right choice.
Im sorry but i dont care anymore. There is sooooo much information and advice out there for them to see(not poor people, poor decision makers, because rich people make stupid decisions too), i dont care if they ignore it snd make bad choices because they are “poor”

Many many poor people still make the right choices.
All just excuses to not hold people accountable for the decisions they make.

Its an age old parenting tactic. When not holding kids accountable, they are bound to make the same mistake over and over.
This hold true for many who are homeless.

The line needs to be drawn somewhere where, as a society, we have put flyers and feet on the ground to help educate. We have built shelters, we have not charged them for the shit they litter every day.
We already cater to them and there is plenty of information and help on how to turn their life around.
We can lead a horse to water but you cant force it to drink snd im not gonna spend my life trying to get someone who refuse to use the tools available to do so. That would be a waste of two lives.
Sorry. Not sorry.
Life in America is not that hard for those who give effort and work hard to progress In life.
There are many tools to help them.

Edit: speaking about mentally healthy homeless or those that started mentally healthy. Obviously outliers are out there.

 

Nobody said that all poor people have to commit crime. That's not at all the topic.

The conversation isn't about how hard things are in America.

I've suggested the most effective way to limit criminal behavior on a social level. You're saying it can't be done, but the fact is that it has been and is being done in many places all over the world.

We have actual verifiable evidence. We don't need to rely on anecdotes.

Just punishing people harder doesn't work. Otherwise we'd have the safest streets in the world.

 

please stop using the word facts. There are no facts that show it will work in America. Different countries have different people and priorities. Lets stick with the people in this country.
Other countries have improved, but that is not a proven model for our country. Only a proven model for theirs. so lets stop saying its a fact we can fix this.
No different than the gun topic. Banning guns may work for some countries and proven to do so. Doesn't mean it will work here.
im sure you get that comparison, yeah?

I never said it cant be done. Anything can be done with the right decision making.
Im saying i will not continue to enable homeless people to make poor decisions when there is plenty of information, tools and advise on what the right thing to do is, to get them out of their situation.
Im all for spending more for those who recognize this and make the right decisions. im done handholding those who refuse to make the right decision in the face of such rampant and widespread information/knowledge out there.
some may say that's callous. Or heartless. I think its more heartless to say, “go ahead. Keep making poor decisions. We will clean up the mess it creates and pay for it for you. Just keep doing what your doing. We have plenty of money.”

Screw that.

 

Why do you think crime rates dropped from the 90s through the 2008?

Because more people had more disposable income. That allowed them better access to healthcare and education and less need for safety nets.

After 2008 we had the weakest recovery on record and things started changing here in the US.

Regarding changes to the corrective systems see Camden, NJ as evidence that the changes I'm suggesting work just as well here in the US as they do in the rest of the world.

Those are the facts.

 

im not disagreeing with you on why people make poor choices. Im simply saying i disagree with helping those not actively reaching out and trying to help themselves.
Law of numbers.
Focusing on those who are wanting to dig out will always have a higher success rate than trying to help those who use and abuse the help with no attempt to be better.

Check this out. Very interesting article:

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/homeless-crisis-overwhelms-cities-5586316/

 

And you didn’t even mention the homeless problem or the tent cities. A friend of mine who just visited Portland was shocked at how bad it was.

 

Of course it's easier to help more motivated people. That's not the discussion.

Refusing to help those who have given up is more expensive than helping them. Leaving them alone or punishing them in any way has a FAR lower "success rate" and is far more expensive than offering the kind of help I've proposed.

In fact, setting up the systems I have proposed is the most efficient way to help the motivated ones, because you aren't wasting the effort and resources trying to exclude most of the people who need help.

The motivated people are helped and no longer a drain almost immediately.

 

What you keep leaving out every time you say this is it only costs less if it works. What you continue to dismiss is you cant help those that don't want to help themselves. You cant teach those unwilling to learn.
so you can propose anything you want. Reality is reality and when you show me some model that takes those who actively don't want help and say fuck the system and turn them into law abiding, productive systems of society ill back it 100%. But i have yet to see that. Portland is rampant with anarchistic types that don't give a shit and want chaos over what we currently have. You are not fixing them. They will take what is given to them and use it to further their anarchistic agenda.
Listen, ive done a walking commute from the college down to burnside and 7th everyday for s out five years. I had a first hand glance at who is doing what and why downtown.
You are not gonna convince me of something that goes against what i have witnessed myself.
And thats the facts.

Did you read the article link?

 

The link went to a conversation on LinkedIn. What was I supposed to learn there?

No model turns every homeless person into a productive member of society. Nobody claimed it did. That's never been the discussion.

It costs less every single time a municipality does it. Even if it doesn't turn every person into productive members of society it makes nearly every person far less of a burden on society. They are nearly all healthier, nearly all engage in less criminal activity, nearly all engage in less property damage.

Doing nothing is the absolute worst thing you can do. I've already shown you dozens of links to back that up. Every one of the links I've shown you has taken people who aren't motivated to help themselves into account. The programs I've advocated for have helped nearly all of these kinds of people in the impacted area be less of a burden on society.

Those marginal gains across so many fronts save a TON of money, and clean up society immeasurably.

 

Took The Rock out on a walk tonight. Cold but nice out….

 

Not everything is an argument bro. I was just sharing the link because i found it interesting and its on this topic. Read it or don't then. Its not a link trying to prove anything.

Its not all about money. Its also about principles and the models I've looked into on the links you posted are not long term enough to show long lasting effects. The one in salt lake failed. Show me one sustainable through the regressions addicts go through.
your models that i have looked into do not get to the details of some of the issues i have brought up in the past you have dismissed.
a two year model does nothing to show long term sustainability. Anything can have money tossed at it for a while to improve it but most funding to things like that are not sustainable.

And reality is most people wont vote to coddle those who make poor decisions and sont want to improve their decision making. Most people would rather spend a little more to not.
We have been through this before and we both know we agree about more than we don't on this topic.
i just think I'm more realistic about the longterm effects of it all than you are.
of course were not going to “fix” everyone. Thats why id rather focus money spent on those that can and want to change.
Have you ever worked with an addict or a drunk trying to get them sober and to care? Its not even close to as easy as you like to paint a picture as.
Now you can focus on that one little aspect of our disagreement and post paragraphs of how its wrong or you can recognize i agree with you on most of what you say call it good.
Go read the article. You will find it a good read. Does it matter if it was linked in or the oregonian or the wall street journal?

its a detailed article about homeless and with how adamant you are you know how to solve the problem for all, i would think you would be interested in it. unless you are only interested in trying to get everyone to think 100% like you?
read the article or dont…geez…

 

Largely the same problem. Drug addiction, crime and homelessness are all tied together. I just dont agree with free aid to those who don't want to better themselves. They can take the first step towards existing aid and then we can help them from there. But until they show a want/will to change/get better, im not for tossing money down the drain.
Plenty of other things can be foxed with rhat money that will render better results for society than building drugs house foe homeless to have shelter and trash. So we have to rebuild them again. The camp trash wont go away. The crime wont go away. Because they are still addicts.
You cant help those that don't want to help themselves. But some people want to spend their life trying. Cool. Im not one of those.

 

@Phatguysrule one thing man. You keep adding to your posts things like:”Nobody said that”. “Nobody is advocating for…”.
For sake of clarity, you should omit those portions. It muddies down your point and is irrelevant. Nobody said anybody is advocating for anything. Its a discussion. It would be better to stick with what is being said. Not trying to say nobody said this or that.

This world is a pretty big place. Im pretty sure you do not know what every person has said or advocated for something on this planet.
Saying nobody said that or this is not constructive to anything with regards to the conversation at hand. It feels more like deflection than anything because no one said anyone DID say anything.
Just saying l, because like we said in our other convo. People are set in their ways. Well when trying to change that, id stick with what is currently being discussed and not wave it off as.. nobody said that or this or whatever.
At least from my perspective, whenever i read you saying that, i roll my eyes and think nobody said anybody said that! And it makes it harder to take anything else i read seriously.
Just friendly advise on how to get your point across more succinctly.
Im down to dissect any model you have and go over the details but you have to be willing to as well. Every link i click on you posted did not address the points of concern i have had.
If i missed it then I missed it. You will have to point it out. Id be happy to go over in detail my concerns to pinpoint things to see if the models address it as you claim. I have not found them to do so. But i will not accept, “they have addressed all your concerns”. You will need to point to exactly where they address those concerns.

 

What argument? I asked what I was supposed to learn at the link. I mostly just saw opinions. That's not evidence of anything.

Nothing failed about Salt Lake City, except they listened to arguments like you're making now and allowed the program to end. It was a 10 year program that saved them a ton of money and virtually eliminated homelessness, drastically reduced crime, reduced emergency services and reduced property damage.

They stopped funding it after the 10 year program concluded and saw homelessness come back and then saw spending drastically increase on homelessness with tent cities, overworked emergency services, police, and damaged public spaces.

Yes, if you end a program it will end. It was insane of them to end it. The people who work with the homeless all say it never should have ended and that it worked better than any other program they've seen.

Which is why they have started using the housing first strategy again. But since they stopped the program for a decade there is a lot to do, and it will take significant investment to catch back up.

It's again cleaning up their streets. In the last few years 95% of people placed in permanent housing have stayed there or moved on to better living arrangements. 95%.

Imagine Portland with 95% fewer homeless...

The biggest problem with SLC's system has been Vegas And LA sending their homeless there. Overwhelming SLC's resources. Because it works.

This needs to be done on a national level and not lose funding every election cycle.

Portland Metro area has the money to fund it here for our local population. Now we need to build it and make sure we have enough support staff to match people with the services they need.

But spending $15k-$25k per year on a homeless person isn't a waste of money.

Because you're saving the $50k-$100k per year they would be costing us living in our public spaces. Speaking of which, we'd get our public spaces back.

Nothing about that is a failure. Not even close. Yes, it's something we have to pay for. But it costs so much less than the alternative, and we all have better living situations because of it.

 

You are arguing against things nobody claimed. I'm trying keep it on topic. Your concerns have either been addressed or are not relevant.

When they talk about reducing homelessness by 91% that includes the people you're talking about.

If there are 100 homeless people in a neighborhood costing $50k each, that's $5 million per year.

Because of that density you see the homeless all over the place.

Now, spend $25k ea to get all of them room and board. Say only 91 people take you up on it. Now you're spending only $2.875 million on the same population. Your police no longer have to worry about the area, most of the public spaces are clear again, and they are nicer because they aren't being constantly damaged.

Now we can more easily monitor our much smaller homeless population and criminals can no longer hide amongst them. We no longer have police, maintenance, or emergency workers working overtime to keep up.

Did that make everyone a productive member of society? No. Does that make it a failure? No.
Did that address the people who didn't want help? Yes. Because overall, society is in a better situation.

We'd be saving over $2 million per year on that homeless population and they wouldn't be wrecking our public spaces or hounding us at every corner. That may sound harsh, but if they weren't in a better situation they would still be there on the corner. But we find that they aren't desperate enough to be there in those high numbers.

So even those who want no help end up costing us less and doing less damage.

Those are all wins.

Then we can focus on what to do with those who want no help. Then it's a much more solvable problem.

 

Yes. You nailed it right here.
Nobody wants to pay into something all their life for someone else failures. Regardless if it costs a little less. Well i shouldn't say nobody. You do. So go get a bill enacted and get it to vote. Not many people feel like you do on this and want to pay their whole life. If 10 years of pay on doesn't fix it for the future then it didn't work. It was just cleaning up the mess without a plan to curtail it in the future.

10 years is plenty of time to fund a program enough to be able to stop the program and have the fix continue.
I take drivers ed. i dont become a bad driver again if i stop taking it. I take college courses. I don't forget what i learned and regress if i stop taking courses.

Find a program that can be funded for a decade that creates a fix for the future that stems longer than a decade(permanent fix) instead of sweeping it under the rug and ill back it. Until then i will not.

 

What you fail to address here and every model i have seen fails to address, is the constant repair and upkeep of these shelters that will inevitably come into play as they are trashed and destroyed.
To think giving a shelter to someone is just going to create discipline, organization and cleanliness is not rational. To think they will just take care of it is not reality as proven already.

 

The monthly rent covers the cost of the upkeep and repairs. Just like any other rental.

Please show evidence that upkeep or repairs is a significant problem in housing first? I've shared several reviews here of landlords saying the opposite.