Can't get over how incredibly clean and bum-free Dallas is

[mhays]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Homeless... unhoused... unsheltered

These terms are all so negative -- so insensitive.

How about we start referring to these fellow citizens as "roof-free" or "wall-free"? Let's celebrate their independent spirit so that we can feel better about ourselves!

You....MONSTER.

Everything needs to start with "people," and it's what they're experiencing right now, now who they are. "People who are experiencing unshelteredness" is the better term. Or "people who are experiencing richness" for the other extreme. Hopefully we'll take it further in a year or two and find a euphamism that says nothing about what it means (see "special needs").

[mhays]

Originally Posted by lio45

The correct way to compare stats is at the metro level though: the whole metro is the “source” for the homeless, but they nearly all gather downtown.

Number of homeless in the downtown / metro area pop
is a much more reasonable measurement than
Number of homeless in the downtown / core city city proper pop

No in my area. First, campers are largely kicked out of Downtown proper. Second, services and shelters have always had multiple nodes inside the city limits and in satellite cities. Third, those services and shelters are now diffusing around the metro in a sizeable way due to new money and policy.

The worst spots are still around services and the main jail in the core. But nothing like the majority of the issue.

[Cress3803]

Chicago gets "cleanest" as well as "rattiest" nods.. So....... clean rats

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Cress3803

Chicago gets "cleanest" as well as "rattiest" nods.. So....... clean rats

Once again, it's the alleys.

We have the regular street system for the free and easy movements of the city's humans.

And then there's the alley street system for the free and easy movement of the city's rats.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by mhays

You....MONSTER.

Everything needs to start with "people," and it's what they're experiencing right now, now who they are. "People who are experiencing unshelteredness" is the better term. Or "people who are experiencing richness" for the other extreme. Hopefully we'll take it further in a year or two and find a euphamism that says nothing about what it means (see "special needs").

But they're not just generic people, man! These are fellow humans!

How about, "HUMAN BEINGS who are experiencing unshelteredness at the present time due to external economic and societal pressures and a lack of collective awareness and love" ?

...

Or maybe we should we just go with "bums" as per the OP?

[Bonsai Tree]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

Good grief, take it down a notch. This reads like a Forbes editorial. You must be new, lol.

East Coast cities generally don't have the same sense of orderliness/tidiness as those in the Midwest (most of it having to do with much less residential density/foot traffic or much more coordinated/better planned trash management). And I'm not saying Philly doesn't still have a lot of room to improve upon, but litter/trash control is definitely going in the right direction, for sure.

As yes the good old we don't have a problem response. You must live in Chesnut Hill.

Philly has a lot going for it- but the trash situation is unacceptable. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by lio45

The correct way to compare stats is at the metro level though: the whole metro is the “source” for the homeless, but they nearly all gather downtown.

Number of homeless in the downtown / metro area pop
is a much more reasonable measurement than
Number of homeless in the downtown / core city city proper pop

But it's not? Homelessness isn't a metro level issue. It's not the same as measuring a labor market. The perception of, blame for, and burden of fixing homelessness are city problems. Right or wrong, absolutely no one expects suburbs to share that burden.

But this point is moot anyway since the source is apparently measuring at the city level.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

But it's not? Homelessness isn't a metro level issue. It's not the same as measuring a labor market. The perception of, blame for, and burden of fixing homelessness are city problems. Right or wrong, absolutely no one expects suburbs to share that burden.

My state expects suburbs to participate. Many others must too.

For example, a new WA state law requires that shelters and supportive housing must be allowed anywhere that allows hotels.

Some suburbs are going in with serious money to build services and housing.

[sopas ej]

I saw this on the news last night, out of Inglewood, California:


LA Daily News

They were Billie Eilish fans camping out for good seats at the Forum.


LA Daily News


LA Daily News

I guess THIS is ok, camping and squatting on sidewalks for capitalism, like a concert, or the night before a Black Friday sale.

But the unhoused, or protests like the Occupy Movement from the 2010s and camping on college campuses last year for human rights in Isr*el, FORGET ABOUT IT. You'll be arrested and your belongings will be confiscated.

[mhays]

Are they blocking sidewalks, strewing garbage, stealing...?

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

Hard disagree with this- Chicago is not nearly the same level of dirty as other major American cities. Even Chicago's most struggling neighborhoods have a level of cleanliness far above that of say LA or the similar neighborhoods in the East Coast Cities. I live in Philadelphia right now (used to live in Chicago), and I can say without a doubt that Philly is disgusting.

Philadelphia is filthy compared to Boston. I'm not sure how you can extrapolate Philadelphia to all "East Coast Cities." I don't know how clean East Coast Cities are in general compared to Chicago, but they're all fairly clean compared to Philadelphia.

[FromSD]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

And I think what we're really talking about is "unsheltered" people. I'm skeptical that anyone would be paying much attention to the issue if all else was the same but the unhoused people were sleeping in shelters or hotels rather than in tent cities.

San Diego has had a homeless problem for a long time. It mostly stayed under the radar though. There were homeless people camped out in the scrub along the San Diego River, homeless youth by the beach, and a few laying low in doorways Downtown. Dealing with the homeless was never a budget priority for the city. There was only one city-run shelter Downtown, and it was only open during the rainy season--December through March. Things have changed in the last 10 years and the homeless crisis is probably the biggest hot button issue in the city today. That's due in part to the increasing severity of the problem, but also because the homeless are much more visible now. The proliferation of tents on the sidewalks, or next to freeways, or even in parks, puts the problem front and center. It is no longer hidden from plain sight and people are upset about that. If not for the tents, people would continue to be more indifferent.

One factor that may also have contributed to the visibility of homelessness in the West was the Federal District 9 judge's ruling that authorities could not remove encampments if there was no housing or shelter available for campers to go to. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling last summer and local jurisdictions are now more aggressive in dismantling camps.

Californians like to think that the homeless here mostly came from somewhere else--that DeSantis and Abbott give the unhoused in Ft. Myers and Ft. Worth bus tickets to SF and LA. Many homeless, if not the majority, were no doubt born and raised in California. But I doubt the 90% statistic cited in the homeless survey. Judging by the stories the LA Times has run about how people fall into homelessness, many arrive from out of state at the invitation of family or friends, but after a while wear out their welcome and end up on the streets. This is especially common if they can't find a job quickly.

[JManc]

I wasn't married, I never would have moved back to Houston last summer. I absolutely loved living in the Bay Area. Still have my CA plates. But yeah, lot of bums out there.

[UrbanRevival]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

As yes the good old we don't have a problem response. You must live in Chesnut Hill.

Philly has a lot going for it- but the trash situation is unacceptable. Sorry to burst your bubble.

No bubble to speak of. I acknowledged trash management is historically an issue in Philly (dense, alley-free rowhome neighborhoods with individual home trash collection arguably makes for the most logistically-challenged scenario in the US of any big city).

But how you've characterized the situation is bordering on Fox News-like rhetoric. Nuance is your friend.

Originally Posted by DZH22

Philadelphia is filthy compared to Boston. I'm not sure how you can extrapolate Philadelphia to all "East Coast Cities." I don't know how clean East Coast Cities are in general compared to Chicago, but they're all fairly clean compared to Philadelphia.

Eh, I've seen enough of metro Boston and NYC to know they're absolutely not pristine by any stretch of the imagination. Generally tidier than Philly, sure, but none are winning awards for "spotlessness."

DC probably takes the cake for East Coast cleanliness, but even parts of it seem "grittier" lately compared to a decade ago from my experience.

[czarizard]

Originally Posted by FromSD

Many homeless, if not the majority, were no doubt born and raised in California. But I doubt the 90% statistic cited in the homeless survey. Judging by the stories the LA Times has run about how people fall into homelessness, many arrive from out of state at the invitation of family or friends, but after a while wear out their welcome and end up on the streets. This is especially common if they can't find a job quickly.

The study doesn't claim 90% of them are born in California, less than 50% of adults in California are native-born. It claims 9 out of 10 of homeless in California had housing in California, prior to losing it. That includes both as a leaseholder and non-leaseholder which means staying with family and friends. Anyway, here's a link to the study if anyone's curious: https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Report_62023.pdf

[destroycreate]

I think fentanyl is the biggest cause of this crisis. The homelessness and visible addict issue absolutely exploded only within the last 5 years or so. The number of people you see nodding out all the time is astounding. Giving how pervasive, cheap, and widespread this drug is, I don't know how opiate addiction will ever get solved at scale at the rate we're going.

[mhays]

Forced detox might do a lot of good. At least it would get them out of the way for incremental periods (with their stuff too).

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by czarizard

The study doesn't claim 90% of them are born in California, less than 50% of adults in California are native-born. It claims 9 out of 10 of homeless in California had housing in California, prior to losing it. That includes both as a leaseholder and non-leaseholder which means staying with family and friends. Anyway, here's a link to the study if anyone's curious: https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Report_62023.pdf

They didnt verify anything. Its a bogus survey. If you keep bringing it up, Ill keep saying nothing was actually verified.

And your statement is so stupid. If someone moves to CA with no job or saving but loses a hostel room or something, that counts? Why would CA get blamed for people's dumb choices?

That survey is complete nonsense and you know it.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by LA21st

They didnt verify anything. Its a bogus survey. If you keep bringing it up, Ill keep saying nothing was actually verified.

And your statement is so stupid. If someone moves to CA with no job or saving but loses a hostel room or something, that counts? Why would CA get blamed for people's dumb choices?

That survey is complete nonsense and you know it.

I understand that it's important to look at a study's methodology and data sources to avoid misinterpreting the findings and obviously surveys can have self-reporting problems. But there's no apparent reason why a large portion of respondents would want to hide the fact that they moved from another state since moving between states isn't illegal (or even stigmatized as far as I'm aware). Plus, it wasn't just the survey but also in-depth interviews. That doesn't mean it can't have problems, but I don't see anything serious enough to write off an entire 90+ page, academic, peer-reviewed study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology as "complete nonsense." It tends to be fairly easy to identify when a survey has a potential weakness, and a study with that level of rigor can generally identify and adjust for such potential weaknesses quite easily.

[Bonsai Tree]

Originally Posted by UrbanRevival

No bubble to speak of. I acknowledged trash management is historically an issue in Philly (dense, alley-free rowhome neighborhoods with individual home trash collection arguably makes for the most logistically-challenged scenario in the US of any big city).

But how you've characterized the situation is bordering on Fox News-like rhetoric. Nuance is your friend.

I said it was unacceptably filthy. Pointing out the obvious should not be the same as spewing bs on Fox News.

Also not so certain about your logic behind it too- I live in West Philly in an area that reminds me a lot of Logan Square in Chicago. Even here- with wider lots and mid-block streets that almost always function as alleys- there is trash everywhere. The only neighborhood I haven't seen trash is Chestnut Hill- and that doesn't really count, cause it's basically if Lake Forest was part of Chicago. The open lid trash can thing and just placing bags on the street is so dumb.

Today is garbage day in my area- there are bags of trash just spewed open on the sidewalks. I don't think this is an acceptable way to do things at all. If you think it is sure, go ahead, but to think most people prefer this is another thing.