What do you do with people who are broken and appear to be incapable of functioning?
Since no one responded, I will assume people have not watched KOMO's 'Seattle Is Dying'. A point they make is that a large chunk of the homeless population (at least in Seattle) is mentally ill, drug addicted, and usually both (attempting to self-medicate).
You can blame Republicans for unwillingness to fund asylums and mental health programs, or Democrats for touchy-feely policies that didn't address bad actors and just exacerbated the problem. Or you can admit there IS a problem, gently collect these poor souls up, and put them someplace supervised they simply can't walk out of.
I can hear the screams now. But here's the thing: what else do we do? A lot of these poor souls are broken. I am not faulting them. I am not 'hating' on them. But they are completely unable to function. Yes, institutionalization is a big step and not in a great direction. I am completely at a loss as to what to do otherwise, because the alternatives are even worse.
See, here's the thing. People get excited when it's in their backyard. NIMBY doesn't just apply to nuclear power. If you let homeless people camp across the street, let them defecate in the gutters and harass people... sooner or later there's pushback. Ugly pushback. The word 'pogrom' comes to mind. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to open up the news and find out that 'persons unknown' burned a homeless camp to the ground with molotov cocktails.
Collect them, treat them kindly... but do not let them back out unless they can (re)learn to function properly.
Greetings!
Hey there, Ghostmaker! I've watched KOMO's "Seattle is Dying". Good documentary, as well as tragic and frustrating. I think Tiny Homes are a great idea and a good development for affordable housing, and for different housing options for not just young couples or singles searching for a place to live--but everyone, or anyone. There are many "empty nesters" that don't want to live in a 4,000 square foot house, as something much smaller is easier to maintain, and a great option for one or two people.
As to the homeless--well, yeah, they are a growing problem. A vast majority of them are drug addicts and alcoholics, or some combination of both. Add in the mentally damaged--some of which are naturally dealing with such, from birth, etc, through no fault of their own--while many of these mentally defective homeless people have developed mental illnesses as a consequence and byproduct of their years of drug addiction. The huge spectre of many of these people is yeah, they are not just "unemployable"--they have become entirely non-functional. These people's lives revolve entirely around fucking, getting high on drugs, and laying around. Through some of my work several years ago, I often encountered homeless people up close and personal, on a daily basis. I have actually talked to them, interacted with them. Many of them *Like* being homeless. Their lives have been an endless train-wreck of disastrous and poor judgment, every step of the way. Emotionally, socially, their relationships, jobs, everything. Pumped with alcohol and drugs, laying about and fucking, doing whatever they want, is what their lives are centered on. Entirely entitled and narcissistic. They do not care what you, I, or anyone in society believes or wants. They get to live how they want, do what they want, and fuck everyone else.
The answer to how to deal with them is no doubt complex, with lots of self-promotion and fucked up ideology and utopian thinking, bureaucratic ennui, and more ultimately meaning that lots of money is poured into it, some people feel virtuous along the way, and nothing really changes.
I have argued about this problem extensively with my girlfriend, who is a social worker. She is a counselor that routinely deals with children, adolescents, and adults that are drug and alcohol addicts, or otherwise suffering from such relationships, in the case of children. She has a very benevolent and generous attitude about if her work saves just 1 out of every 10, she feels it is worthwhile and meaningful. She knows the stats are terrible, as I regularly list the *facts* for her about how the drug rehab industry is largely a fraudulent scam that accomplishes nothing, counseling is mostly circle jerking to platitudes, and so much of it is just a barrel of inefficient, wasteful bureaucratic shit that we just keep throwing money down the fucking drain for. I admire her generosity of spirit and her Christian faith, though she allows she doesn't like the facts that I present to her, she knows the system is fucked, and doesn't really have any definitive answers to my argument--other than her Christian conviction, which I can't argue with in good faith.
It bothers me greatly, though, that we are confronted with what? 10%? 20% or more of the population that gets a free pass. They get to fuck and breed, and do drugs, and lay around, vandalizing the community, threatening the community, and just being an endless, bloated fucking cockroach, totally dysfunctional, and mostly due to their own shitty, poor choices, their own selfishness and irresponsibility on a monstrous sale, for years in many cases, if not the vast majority--and the rest of society gets to pick up the whole fucking tab. We work, pay taxes, obey the law, try and live life right, and we are stuck with the tab for these millions of irresponsible, selfish, fucked up homeless people, most of which are addicts.
Like I tell her, how is that moral? How is that right and just?
She knows I sit at the right hand of Ghengis Khan though.
It is difficult for me to have any sympathy for most of the homeless people. Veterans should be helped, however, of course. I always strongly support such endeavors. She doesn't have definitive answers though, and she knows nearly everything I have argued to her is factual, and supported by research and reputable data, whether from counseling, the FBI, court cases, investigative research, and so on. The system is an absolute mess, all the way around.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK