It's an incredibly complicated problem, but if there is one message I can share it is this: homeless people are, first and foremost, people. They span the full range of human experience (the main subject of my movie had a masters degree in psychology) and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Homelessness is not one problem, it is a symptom of at least half a dozen different problems, all of which need different solutions. (And, BTW, some homeless people voluntarily choose the lifestyle. It's definitely a minority, but it's not zero.)
I've left SF and landed in a college town in Sac Valley last year. Rent is $750/mo here. Been working in a kitchen for a year. Am I housed yet? Nope. Just gotta save a few thousand dollars. I have about the same amount of bills as a housed person, between gym + storage + take out food + car insurance.
But then the social aspect, my old relatives and network need to distance themselves from me. Any kind of old reference or something, non starter.
I will beat this. I only keep posting here on these threads because as you say, we span the full range of human existence. I like to think I'll use my approach as a template to help others. Get out of the big metro and into a peaceful place with cheap rent and lots of opportunity, yadda yadda.
Cheers.
This always comes to mind when I see folks on the street here in NYC/Brooklyn. Is it too simple a solution? Is a dense metro better in some ways?
So they probably still have family connections there, friends, maybe a church or AA group, case worker, friendly coffee shop owner, etc. They aren't any more eager to break these ties than you would be.
cold isnt a big problem if u know what ur doing. during the summers u can spend all day at the beach and that makes up for it.
spend the day at the library working on the computer. police and security are relatively lax so long as you know how to blend in, some homeless people are less socially adept and dont take care of themselves so they are magnets for reprisals in a manner of speaking.
I actually think it's a bit infantilizing to suggest that any otherwise capable person would choose sleeping on the streets or in shelters over a basement apartment in a cheap, boring town.
Speaking personally, I'd prefer living in quite literally any town in the entire country if it meant a roof over my head.
Almost no one "prefers homelessness" to anything else per se, but they may decline the terms on which housing is offered. For example "break all your social ties and move away from the only city you know" is extremely hard for anyone to accept.
Look at some other conversations in this comment section! A lot of people want to "solve homelessness" but a lot of them also don't care what happens to the homeless people on the way. "Come with us, to a place you've never heard of and know nothing about, where all your needs are met"? No thanks my man I have read Maus.
FWIW I think it's really admirable of you to maintain those community connections, not everyone would do the same.
I really struggle with this because it feels like helping as much as possible is the only moral stance to have, but I also question what level of responsibility the homeless have for their own situation. If we keep approaching them with these 0 consequence strategies does that encourage failure? Would the second guy who was smoking meth have benefited if he got thrown in jail for two months, forcing him into sobriety and then released into some kind of temporary housing with strict work and curfew rules?
We balk at the idea of limiting someones freedoms, but it seems like a mercy to take someone who is killing themselves and endangering others and putting them through some kind of rehabilitation that forces them to get physically and mentally healthy. It might be a relief to have a schedule and safety and some kind of guiding hand.