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

[Riverranchdrone]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

You haven't been to Austin. It has been ruined by homeless encampments and associated piles of garbage, needles, tents, etc.. Graffiti is also a huge problem there. You can live in neighborhoods with property values of 1-2M and be only blocks from the mess. The worst was about 5 years ago, but it's still bad. When I left last year, there were still problems with fires under the underpasses. As much as I don't much care for suburban life, my current home of Cypress (Houston suburb) is free of homeless, litter, and graffiti. Cleanest environment I've ever experienced in a fairly large suburb (250,000). There are some areas on the fringes that aren't great, but nowhere near what I experienced in Austin. Austin and Portland used to be incredibly nice, but no more.

Edit: No need to claim Austinites are tolerant of homelessness. They're not. They're angry and people (like me) are glad they left. Businesses and neighborhoods are constantly complaining about the problems near to them. The "leaders" are trying with various approaches, but are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and haven't been successful.

Austin in no way has a homeless problem. It has a problem with the privilege's attacking the homeless. Austin is very nice and safe. The Rich don't like Austin's approach to solving this issue which has been very successful with the tiny homes and the bought hotels. You have the red towns shipping the homeless to Austin that that is the biggest issue on why it is not fixed yet. Not to mention Abbott trying to attack Austin's plans for the homeless. The Homeless were fine in their spots under the highways. Out of site and out of mind. Then Abbott kicked them out and force them in to the parks and wooded areas. This did not fix the problem and increased a fire danger problem. Most of the homeless are nice and kind. I have helped some and taken some in over the year. Others need medical and mental help that Texas keeps defunding. But overall the homeless are rare in the city. Our parks are nice and clean and our city is one of the safest big cities in America.

[czarizard]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

Those types of studies are utter nonsense. They interviewed 365 homeless people in a state of 40 million with 120,000 homeless people. Come on now. Living in downtown LA, interacting and talking to the homeless, watching videos and other interviews, you will see that plenty are not from here and that most are either on drugs, mentally ill or usually a combo of both.

In regards to the OP, im not doubting you at all but those google earth images show areas that seem desolate. You wouldn't find places like that in the LA metro unless you're 75 miles out from Downtown LA.

I lived on Spring St in DTLA for years, and I've watched video interviews. There need to be more affordable SROs like Rosslyn Lofts throughout the state, instead of playing whack-a-mole with encampments. Sure there are homeless from out of state, but being a transplant myself, it didn't seem out of proportion with people from out of state or foreign-born. Crust punks or traveling homeless were a minority. The study is counting when people became homeless, 90% becoming homeless *in* California doesn't sound far-fetched. If 40% are born or come from other states like in SF, after having moved to California and lived there for some amount of time, that probably tracks with the non-homeless population.

Many studies point to housing costs being to blame. California's homeless problems are out-of-scale with other states. California makes up 11% of the US population, but 28% of people experiencing homelessness and 49% of unsheltered. 68% of homeless in California are unsheltered which is the highest of any state: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-AHAR-Part-1.pdf Maybe it's a hard pill to swallow, but addressing root problems is probably a step in fixing the issue, no?

What's the solution if not affordable housing? People with mental or addiction issues can still find housing in other states. I don't buy that restricting homeless from coming to California would solve California's homeless problems. Would people moving to California need to prove stable mind and income and show bank statements to get permission to move to the state? Get real

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Riverranchdrone

Austin in no way has a homeless problem.

In no way????????

I very highly doubt any large US city can accurately make such a claim.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by czarizard

Nah, it's deserved.
It has fewer homeless compared to other cities, fewer tent-cities and because of the harsh winters more of an effort to actually house homeless and not just let them freeze to death. Cost of living is lower in Chicago compared to many other cities, so it's less an issue for people struggling to afford to live or providing services to house the homeless.

I don't agree, at all. Chicago has lots of homeless. Not different from other cold weather cities. There's a block with a Dunkin Donuts right off Michigan Avenue that had a full-block tent city this past August. Right by the Hotel Riu. I also disagree that COL is heavily related to homelessness, as if junkies were just waiting to buy a home in Menlo Park if prices collapsed.

Also, this discussion reinforces my view that "dirty/clean" isn't about garbage or dirt but appearances of order. Homelessness has nothing to do with whether a city is clean or dirty. And I don't agree that if I walked down, say, Halstead in Chicago, and compared to a similar arterial in Boston or LA or wherever, there would be less garbage and grime.

And homelessness isn't even defined properly. We're talking about unkempt street people, not people technically unhoused. A junkie begging on the street has good odds of not being homeless, a teen mom kicked out of her house has poor odds of literally living on the street, but the latter is the homeless one. The public really only cares about the former.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Also, this discussion reinforces my view that "dirty/clean" isn't about garbage or dirt but appearances of order. Homelessness has nothing to do with whether a city is clean or dirty. And I don't agree that if I walked down, say, Halstead in Chicago, and compared to a similar arterial in Boston or LA or wherever, there would be less garbage and grime.

As I stated before, I think the main driver of the whole "Chicago is pretty clean for a big city" reputation comes from the ubiquitous and out of sight service alleys.

It's always a bit jarring to me when I'm in other cities and see trash cans put out front on the sidewalks on garbage collection days.

[czarizard]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't agree, at all. Chicago has lots of homeless. Not different from other cold weather cities. There's a block with a Dunkin Donuts right off Michigan Avenue that had a full-block tent city this past August. Right by the Hotel Riu. I also disagree that COL is heavily related to homelessness, as if junkies were just waiting to buy a home in Menlo Park if prices collapsed.

Also, this discussion reinforces my view that "dirty/clean" isn't about garbage or dirt but appearances of order. Homelessness has nothing to do with whether a city is clean or dirty. And I don't agree that if I walked down, say, Halstead in Chicago, and compared to a similar arterial in Boston or LA or wherever, there would be less garbage and grime.

And homelessness isn't even defined properly. We're talking about unkempt street people, not people technically unhoused. A junkie begging on the street has good odds of not being homeless, a teen mom kicked out of her house has poor odds of literally living on the street, but the latter is the homeless one. The public really only cares about the former.

Not all junkies live on the streets, I'd bet most aren't homeless. If you'd ever lived by large, established encampments, you'd realize why they make an impact on how clean a city is perceived. In DTLA, if the trash room wasn't locked, all of it would be spilled onto the street the next morning. Walking down the street was... gross and full of biohazards. When bathrooms aren't available, and in LA many times they're intentionally not, public spaces are used as bathrooms instead. Chicago doesn't have a modern equivalent of Skid Row or the Tenderloin, nowhere close to the same scale. Nowadays the CTA unfortunately does get used as an ad hoc shelter at times, especially in the winter. I'd say that hurts Chicago's "clean reputation".

At 16% unsheltered, Chicago tracks closely with Minneapolis and Omaha at 14% but behind Boston and New York, although their homeless rates are the top in the country: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/despi...s-some-us-regions-are-finding-solutions/ West Coast has a much larger percent of unsheltered with many cities at above 50%.

[ChrisLA]

Los Angeles has always had a big homeless problem since I can remember, and I’m 60 years old. I used to pass through downtown LA everyday when I was in high school back in the 70’s and there were plenty of homeless. So the argument that people are homeless because of high cost of living, I’m not buying that. It may be true for a very few but the majority are are mostly due to drugs and mental health issues. LA has not always been this expensive, and it has always attracted more people to come here and live on the streets.

I had a friend who started dealing with mental health issues once he reached his 30’s. I didn’t realize he was suffering from mental illness and just thought he needed some guidance and direction to get back on his feet. He was technically homeless but had his family willing to let him stay with them and then myself allowed him to stay with me. This guy was very smart, and could have had any job he wanted and almost any woman he wanted. He was originally from the east coast, had family in LA, and he roamed the country. There are all kinds of programs out there and money to help, but he refused it. The only time he would take advantage of it was when he was in some part of the country where it was starting to get cold and he go to one of the services that will pay for a bus ticket to California. I actually believe once he was even provided an airplane ticket to come back to LA. This former friend of mine chose to live this way, and it had nothing to do with the high cost of living, and he came back to LA each winter because it was easier to live outside here.

There are programs that can assist with housing here in LA, I know plenty of people who have been able to get very nice apartments, for little of nothing. One was a long time family friend, who was college educated, but went through a mental break down and was on the streets for a while. Her kids were able to get her into a nice apartment in a decent LA neighborhood and get government assistance and she pays $150 per month. So there are programs that will help, but we have a lot of people living here with mental health issues and drug problems and a lot choose not to like my former friend who was very paranoid of the government.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Pound for pound, Cali is certainly significantly higher than the midwest, at least going by the numbers in your link.

Winter climate and the cost of housing are almost certainly the two biggest reasons for the divergence.


Homeless population in California cities:

LA - 71,320
San Diego - 10,264
San Jose - 9,903
Oakland - 9,759
Sacramento - 9,281
San Francisco - 7,582
Fresno - 4,493
Long Beach - 3,447
Bakersfield - 1,948



Homeless population in Midwest cities:

Chicago - 6,139
Minneapolis - 3,312
Columbus - 2,337
Kansas City - 1,986
Indianapolis - 1,619
Detroit - 1,482
Omaha - 1,475
Milwaukee - 1,056

(Cleveland, Cincy, and St. Louis are no longer among the 50 largest US cities and thus were not included here, but I'd fully expect their numbers to be in line with their peers)

The Midwest does generally have lower homelessness rates but I would not go so far as to say it is because of climate. Minneapolis has the harshest climate in the Midwest and its homelessness rate is higher than San Diego's... and almost as high as San Francisco's. Seattle also has the second highest homelessness rate on the west coast despite having the harshest winter climate of the region:

Midwest vs West Coast homelessness per 100k residents (by city):

1. Oakland: 2214.7
2. Seattle: 1919.77
3. Los Angeles: 1829.31
4. Sacramento: 1768.
5. San Jose: 977.36
6. Portland: 965.05
7. San Francisco: 937.22
8. Fresno: 828.8
9. Minneapolis: 779.08
10. San Diego: 740.05
11. Long Beach: 738.52
12. Bakersfield: 482.83
13. Kansas City: 390.88
14. Omaha: 303.47
15. Columbus: 258.02
16. Detroit: 231.88
17. Chicago: 223.53
18. Milwaukee: 182.95
19. Indianapolis: 182.39

Cost of living seems to be a factor, although Sacramento notably has a much higher rate of homelessness than San Francisco or San Jose. Bakersfield, on the other hand, has generally lower housing costs and is more similar to Midwest Plains cities. But even the cost of living theory has its limits. Chicago is the most expensive city in the Midwest but also has one of the lowest rates of homelessness in the region.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Crawford

...I also disagree that COL is heavily related to homelessness, as if junkies were just waiting to buy a home in Menlo Park if prices collapsed...

What on earth are you talking about!? The COL issue isn't about leaping from gutter to buying houses. It's about a lack of $600 apartments that could be reachable with a service job. Or at least $1,200 apartments that two can share.

And yes, a lot of homeless and even junkies have jobs. (Anyone who's worked in restaurants knows this.)

[SIGSEGV]

The per capita here is pretty misleading if it's city and not metro population (which I bet it is).

[mhays]

Yeah...nobody is at 2% homeless!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by mhays

What on earth are you talking about!? The COL issue isn't about leaping from gutter to buying houses. It's about a lack of $600 apartments that could be reachable with a service job. Or at least $1,200 apartments that two can share.

$600 apartments aren't even a thing in Detroit anymore, unless you're talking some off-the-books s--tshow. Ghetto apartments are generally higher.

I don't agree that homelessness (really street people) are visible due to high housing costs. There might be some housing-related reasons (disappearance of the postwar male-oriented SROs that housed winos and the like, cultural and legal barriers to shared housing, shuttering of mental institutions, etc.), but I don't think housing costs are directly related. If costs in SF cratered, say 75% off housing units, a visible junkie still isn't getting a lease. Doesn't matter if that one bedroom is 6k or $600.

To me, the term homelessness is a misnomer, as homelessness is more an outcome. They don't exclusively need a home; they need wraparound support services eventually leading to some degree of self-sufficiency, which would include basic human needs like shelter.

[Dallaz]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Yawn. Dallas has way more crime and violence than LA. So there's that.
I'd call more crime and violence as worse off.

Much of south dallas looks pretty undeveloped for a major city and its like half the damn city area.
Did you venture into those areas at all?? Doubt
Going off google maps, some of those areas like Mississipi or something. No sidewalks, few businesses.

There's always someone who's butt hurt, who likes to exaggerate the truth. Every major city across America has ghetto areas, that's not unique to anywhere.

...And yet there's no Skid Row equivalent anywhere in the city and the region is more a popular relocation destination. Imagine that.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Crawford

$600 apartments aren't even a thing in Detroit anymore, unless you're talking some off-the-books s--tshow. Ghetto apartments are generally higher.

I don't agree that homelessness (really street people) are visible due to high housing costs. There might be some housing-related reasons (disappearance of the postwar male-oriented SROs that housed winos and the like, cultural and legal barriers to shared housing, shuttering of mental institutions, etc.), but I don't think housing costs are directly related. If costs in SF cratered, say 75% off housing units, a visible junkie still isn't getting a lease. Doesn't matter if that one bedroom is 6k or $600.

To me, the term homelessness is a misnomer, as homelessness is more an outcome. They don't exclusively need a home; they need wraparound support services eventually leading to some degree of self-sufficiency, which would include basic human needs like shelter.

While there can be some disconnect between the cost of buying and the cost of renting, in most markets housing costs for different unit types are closely related because of the substitution effect. Basically, if you can't afford one type, you'll use make do with something cheaper unless a sufficiently cheap option doesn't exist. So if it's more expensive to buy a house in a particular market then it's usually also more expensive to buy a condo or to rent an apartment or room. So while you may be right to a degree about "visible" homelessness, ie, whether or not unhoused people are tolerated in certain public spaces, the total number of unhoused people is most certainly connected to housing costs. And if one place has a lot more unhoused people than another, it's tough to completely hide all signs of that.

But the fact that high housing prices is major factor causing someone to become homeless does't mean that a lot more isn't needed to help people get their lives back on track if prices drop again. So the fact that many unhoused people wouldn't be in the position to immediately move into a place if they suddenly got the money doesn't change the fact that a lack of money likely caused it. It's like saying that you don't believe that freeze-thaw cycles are a major factor in road cracks because if you took a stretch of cracked road and kept it from freezing, the cracks wouldn't spontaneously repair themselves. That's why it's so important to prevent people from becoming unhoused to begin with because it's so harmful in terms of both mental and physical health.

You can easily find sources showing the connection between housing costs and homelessness. For instance, in one study that reviewed the issue across several countries, they concluded that,

"This review has examined the structural factors related to homelessness in a number of western nations. This review has identified the major factors to be poverty, unemployment, the lack of affordable housing, structural racism and discrimination, and deinstitutionalization in conjunction with decreases in social spending on physical and mental health, social services, income security, and social housing. Macro-economic analyses have demonstrated that rising homelessness in the US was associated with changes in conditions in housing markets in recent decades (Quigley & Raphael, 2001). Social theorists have posited that globalization has been the driving force behind the similar changes taking place in many nations in the western world where there have been increases in homelessness."

https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default..._associated_with_Homelessness_Review.pdf (p.48 of pdf)

So basically, the first three reasons cited are cost related (low income, high prices, or both)

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Crawford

$600 apartments aren't even a thing in Detroit anymore, unless you're talking some off-the-books s--tshow. Ghetto apartments are generally higher.

I don't agree that homelessness (really street people) are visible due to high housing costs. There might be some housing-related reasons (disappearance of the postwar male-oriented SROs that housed winos and the like, cultural and legal barriers to shared housing, shuttering of mental institutions, etc.), but I don't think housing costs are directly related. If costs in SF cratered, say 75% off housing units, a visible junkie still isn't getting a lease. Doesn't matter if that one bedroom is 6k or $600.

To me, the term homelessness is a misnomer, as homelessness is more an outcome. They don't exclusively need a home; they need wraparound support services eventually leading to some degree of self-sufficiency, which would include basic human needs like shelter.

Reality is very different than your impression. A large percentage of homeless are in the gray areas between stability and the gutter. (Sometimes I think you like in your own little dream world.)

Detroit has 13 apartments available at $600 or less per Zillow. They have 190 at $800 or less. The point remains...they're an option for service workers, in stark contrast to LA or SF, even before you get to the limited subsidized units.

[Steely Dan]

^ even chicago has some.

according to zillow: 11 under $600. 119 under $800.

Yeah, they're mainly in pretty rough neighborhoods, but they do exist.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Chicago is the most expensive city in the Midwest but also has one of the lowest rates of homelessness in the region.

If you use metro area median SFH sale price as a proxy, that's not true right now, according to this link:

https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-sta...tan-median-area-prices-and-affordability


Ann Arbor, Madison, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee are all ahead of Chicago.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by czarizard

If 40% are born or come from other states like in SF, after having moved to California and lived there for some amount of time, that probably tracks with the non-homeless population.

According to the 2020 census, 59% of San Franciscans were born outside California.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Dallaz

There's always someone who's butt hurt, who likes to exaggerate the truth. Every major city across America has ghetto areas, that's not unique to anywhere.

...And yet there's no Skid Row equivalent anywhere in the city and the region is more a popular relocation destination. Imagine that.

Imagine having more crime and murder. butt hurt indeed.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by JManc

Not really. Houston is far less lenient on encampments and has had a better system of getting the homeless off the street and into shelters. Austin is more liberal than Houston or Dallas (already liberal) thus more tolerant and even accommodating to the visible homelessness population. Where I live, as soon as someone finds a tent in the trails, they call in HPD and they are quickly removed.

I lived in Austin during the worst of the homelessness, in an area that votes about 80 percent Democratic, yet I didn't know anyone who tolerated it. Our neighborhood had meetings about it and were constantly on the city's case about it. Businesses were angry about the damage the camps were doing to their business. That includes the Downtown Alliance. The Arboretum owners got involved because they were losing their customers. Customers were shying away from businesses in such areas, which were all over the place. The problem was sheer incompetence among the city council and Mayor, particularly former mayor Steve Adler. He simply didn't care, nor did some of the council members. They were misreading their constituents but at least my council member finally got it through her head that we were pissed big time. My understanding is that current mayor Kirk Watson, a staunch liberal, has started working to change things, but only gradually because it had gotten so bad, and because he can't do it alone due to the mayor-council structure. I know they are converting some old hotels to shelters around the city (finally). One of the new shelters is in a converted extended stay hotel right by the Arboretum, in an upper class neighborhood, and as you might expect, that is causing a lot of anger in that area. It's a "not in my back yard" thing.

Inner city Houston is quite liberal based on election data for quite some time, yet doesn't tolerate widespread homeless camps. I think it's largely better leadership all along.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by Riverranchdrone

Austin in no way has a homeless problem. It has a problem with the privilege's attacking the homeless. Austin is very nice and safe. The Rich don't like Austin's approach to solving this issue which has been very successful with the tiny homes and the bought hotels. You have the red towns shipping the homeless to Austin that that is the biggest issue on why it is not fixed yet. Not to mention Abbott trying to attack Austin's plans for the homeless. The Homeless were fine in their spots under the highways. Out of site and out of mind. Then Abbott kicked them out and force them in to the parks and wooded areas. This did not fix the problem and increased a fire danger problem. Most of the homeless are nice and kind. I have helped some and taken some in over the year. Others need medical and mental help that Texas keeps defunding. But overall the homeless are rare in the city. Our parks are nice and clean and our city is one of the safest big cities in America.

Austin does have good overall crime statistics (except for property crimes). But it is not a clean city unless it has changed in the year I have been gone from there. When the camps were under the underpasses, they were not out of sight. It was horrible, and most Austinites saw those camps daily. I did see an increase in evidence of a migration to wooded areas (largely private property). You could see where they left shopping carts and garbage at the entrance to the trails leading to the camps. I lived along Shoal Creek, where property values were high. Our creek was full of garbage and shopping carts left by the homeless. We were constantly having cleanups by volunteers. I hope that has changed.

As for homelessness being "rare" in Austin, either you live in another Austin or it has changed a lot since I left.