Quote:
Originally Posted by Policy Wonk
The fundamental problem is where stated goals come into conflict with the situation on the ground. Your stated goals for urban intensification need to draw on a whole lot more people than just urbane and tolerant young men unfazed by hobos doing what hobos do. Urban living is already a tough sell for a lot of people. If vagrant's anti-social behaviour is just another bullet point on the list of things they will have to suck up and deal with, it doesn't get easier.
It's like the gang injunctions in California. What is the greater good for the community?
I think a racist rant directed at a child would be a damn good reason to ban somebody from a library.
It isn't about throwing people away, it's about having a system to care for them. For some and possibly many that includes housing them in an institutional setting so they aren't on the street and shelters and loitering in random places. That is a better outcome for everyone. The present situation is ridiculous as it projects a level of competence and responsibility on people who for whatever reason just don't function at that level. I know a former social worker in BC who used to chase these guys all over the Okanogan trying to keep them medicated, trying to get them to appointments, trying to keep them on the right side of their parole officers and it was absolutely hopeless. How was she to deal with a native guy who's voices in his head were telling him the drugs were a government conspiracy to sterilize natives and flushed them down the toilet? Or the woman who while medicated would wander off and then go berserk when the drugs wore off?
But we all know this ridiculous status quo will persist, so we have to look at it from the perspective of what is best for the burgeoning urban communities. Which is usually going to mean discouraging the vagrants from congregating there by any number of means.
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What about patient autonomy? What if we are wrong about competency? What if we cast a net too wide, like how we used to medicate and commit women for "female hysteria"? What if we are accidentally or otherwise being harder on some populations than others?
I see it as thus: There is a problem with two ways to solve it. We can fight it at the supply side (causes of "vagrancy") or the demand side (existing "vagrancy"). In reality, we probably need to fight the problem at both sides, but there are only limited resources to do so.
If we fight it at the demand side, we can get people out of the public now, but as you said yourself - some people can't be helped. These people will probably never get "better" and with a condition that persists and progresses, it's unlikely they will ever be any more fit to enjoy freedom of mainstream citizens. And, there will continue to be more youth to join the ranks.
If we fight it at the supply side, we might be able to reduce the number of people who get into hard drug lifestyles, and get people with congenital mental illness into good lives with productive habits and independence. However, this does little to solve the existing problem for a generation, and there will always be those who slip through the cracks.
Do we want treatment or prevention? I believe that prevention does more to elevate quality of life for the entire community, serving the greater good, and is a much more productive use of resources. However, I'll admit that there will always be a need for treatment, the threshold being "Does the person pose a risk to him/herself and/or others?" Of course, there is ambiguity there, and it is up to physicians, social workers, lawyers, and law enforcement to use reasonable judgement.
Apologies if I'm getting further off topic here, but I find this interesting and pertinent to public space design, especially for the central library.
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