Do you think the homeless situation in west coast cities will ever get better?

[The North One]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Uh, yea. That's skid row.
That's the only place in the city that's like what you described.

Is it sad and depressing? Yes. But people don't live or work in that area unless it's services for the homeless. Skid row is worse now, but it's always been the ugliest part of the metro area.
It's not a new thing.

It wasn't just skid row (which itself alone is a large area), it was like almost half of the central core of the city. Also isn't OP complaining about homelessness in other areas as well?

To have this problem in the world's richest country is unacceptable. Weather is not an excuse and yes housing has everything to do with the problem.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by The North One

It wasn't just skid row (which itself alone is a large area), it was like almost half of the central core of the city. Also isn't OP complaining about homelessness in other areas as well?

To have this problem in the world's richest country is unacceptable. Weather is not an excuse and yes housing has everything to do with the problem.

housing DOES help but ultimately a person with mental health issues who is unable to work is not going to have trouble paying the rent whether it's $600 or $3000. SROs help but those are endangered.

edit: doesn't->DOES. doh.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by The North One

It wasn't just skid row (which itself alone is a large area), it was like almost half of the central core of the city. Also isn't OP complaining about homelessness in other areas as well?

To have this problem in the world's richest country is unacceptable. Weather is not an excuse and yes housing has everything to do with the problem.

It is skid row. I was just downtown 2 days ago. Most of it isn't even close to being that bad.
I don't know what to tell you. I walked from union Station to staples center.

The fashion district and South Park is probably 60 percent of the downtown land area alone.. The arts district is probably another 15, at least. Little Tokyo, civic center have some, but not massive tents. Same for bunker hill, finance district.

The historic core might, but half of downtown is just nonsense.

[LA21st]

Again, it's bizarre to read opinions from people who've never been .

I don't make judgements on Detroit, cause I don't know anything. Sure, I know stuff is abandoned. But I've never seen it myself.

If you didn't go to skid row, and walked around in person, most of downtown LA would seem normal to you.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Nite

I have always believed that the more services you have for the homeless, the more you attract and the only solution is to not have any homeless services, ie no food or clothes banks, no homeless shelters, nothing and for the police to confiscate and destroy all their positions except what they are wearing. 90% of the homeless will movie out with a month under these conditions.

I wish someone would do a study showing the amount of homeless per capita vs the amount of services per capita. I fell pretty confident that the homeless end up in the cities that offer the most services.

Absolutely correct. We spend BILLIONS just in LA County alone.

[pip]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

housing doesn't help but ultimately a person with mental health issues who is unable to work is not going to have trouble paying the rent whether it's $600 or $3000. SROs help but those are endangered.

COVID throws everything in to what is expected.

But I do think housing does help. There is a large portion of any society, in America or not, that gets by with low wage jobs to low wage jobs often within short periods of time. Mildly mentally ill, drug alcohol problems, poor life style choices, and on - it is what it is. They may last a little while at one job then go to the next but they are always able to maintain the minimum of shelter no matter how you or I may not like the apartment, SRO, or whatever. With rising housing costs, the ability to maintain that lifestyle is now gone. Living on the street exasperates whatever issue they may have had thus leading to more drug and alcohol problems and other poor lifestyle choices. Humans.

This is not necessarily political as homelessness camps like had LA 5-10 years ago are now appearing in Phoenix, Las Vegas and on and these are two very conservative states unlike California. NYC has dealt with this for decades and has infrastructure in place to deal with it.

[craigs]

The Ninth Circuit, which covers the West Coast, has ruled that the Constitution's Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment prohibits cities from enforcing anti-homeless ordinances as long as there are not enough open shelter beds for all of them.

West Coast cities, which attract homeless people from around the nation because of the relatively mild winters, have their hands tied as long as this ruling remains in effect. Here's the conundrum: if a West Coast city can somehow manage to find a bed for every head, word would spread and even more homeless would show up from elsewhere . . . until the shelters were full . . . and then the ruling would kick in, and the ordinances would no longer be enforceable.

Chicago and Houston and so on are not hamstrung by that same ruling.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by muppet

My city had a massive homeless problem in the 80s under uber capitalist Thatcherite Britain, with tens of thousands of street sleepers each night, and many areas of the centre a cesspool -whenever it snowed about 7 people would die. She also took away the position of London mayor for its problematic left wing opposition, under 'Red Ken', so the crisis couldn't even be unified. 20 years later the position was restored and Ken Livingstone re-elected -begging was made illegal, and homelessness was attacked by the charities. Street sleeping was tackled by getting sheltered accommodation provided for everyone (and they would still be registered as homeless), plus mental health infrastructure and of course the free healthcare covering everything from substance abuse to HIV, plus free housing for the especially vulnerable (big waiting list though), such as those with families or mental health issues. Several no-go areas where tent cities had been (Waterloo, Kings X, Victoria, Docklands, Embankment, Battersea) were redeveloped. Crime rates halved, the coffers actually made a profit.

Homelessness is still an issue but that's people who aren't sleeping on the streets anymore. I know two people whove been through the system and now have stable homes, jobs and families.

Interesting, thank you. I just saw a youtube video about how bad its getting in London though. They even had pictures of homeless tents lining the medians of Mayfair and Park Lane (i think those were the street names)

[l3g0]

Living rough should be illegal.

You go to a shelter.

You go to a detox/mental health facility.

You are a given a knife and sent to live in the woods.




Pick one.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by craigs

The Ninth Circuit, which covers the West Coast, has ruled that the Constitution's Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment prohibits cities from enforcing anti-homeless ordinances as long as there are not enough open shelter beds for all of them.

West Coast cities, which attract homeless people from around the nation because of the relatively mild winters, have their hands tied as long as this ruling remains in effect. Here's the conundrum: if a West Coast city can somehow manage to find a bed for every head, word would spread and even more homeless would show up from elsewhere . . . until the shelters were full . . . and then the ruling would kick in, and the ordinances would no longer be enforceable.

Chicago and Houston and so on are not hamstrung by that same ruling.

Correct. This should be handled on a federal level. I speak to some of the homeless around here in Downtown LA and so many of them are from out of state, that its really frustrating. We need to turn of the spigot so to speak to have any chance

[bnk]

How is it in San Diego ?

No one talks about the homeless there.

I'm going to SD Saturday for a week.
Its going to probably be the warmest city in the continental
USA next week. Even Florida is going to get cold.

And speaking of Florida. I go every year to Fort Myers to Naples area.
Never crossed many homeless people in this area.


EDIT my temp forecast is outdated: Florida will be warm this upcoming week.

[destroycreate]

Originally Posted by bnk

How is it in San Diego ?

No one talks about the homeless there.

I'm going to SD Saturday for a week.
Its going to probably be the warmest city in the continental
USA next week. Even Florida is going to get cold.

And speaking of Florida. I go every year to Fort Myers to Naples area.
Never crossed many homeless people in this area.

I'm a San Diego native and am here temporarily until I find a new LA lease (I just moved out of Koreatown).

It exists, but it is nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to how widespread and depraved it is in LA/SF/Seattle/PDX. There is an area southeast of downtown San Diego near the ballpark that is a little rough around the edges and that someone from out of CA may be shocked by--perhaps a 4x4 block area. To me, it's child's play compared to this (Culver City is one of the nicest parts of LA--note it is 100x worse on this street than a year ago which was shot Jan 2020, the encampments are now on both sidewalks and much more voluminous) or this.

Outside of that, encampments are pretty much not tolerated anywhere in SD. There are some homeless people in Mission Valley living by the "river", and that's as much as I can think of.

Honestly, I think SD being a much more politically conservative metro (by CA standards) plays a big part...I cannot picture residents of Point Loma being OK with crystal meth infested tents being set up next to elementary school.

Downtown San Diego is hands down infinitely cleaner than any other west coast major city. There are visible homeless people walking around here and there, but nothing like the below on seemingly every block like where I've been living in LA. Some of the SJW types on here seem to think I'm talking about someone just laying outside a storefront. When I say encampments, I'm talking about this:





Which supposedly, we as residents (already paying obscenely high costs for rent) should take zero issue with.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I've only been downtown a handful of times over the past year, but I haven't been hassled by any aggressive panhandlers on any of my visits.

But that's probably because, thanks to covid quarantine, I now look like an aggressive panhandlers myself.

Originally Posted by photoLith

Dang dude, are you trying out to be in a reboot of Sons of Anarchy? I wouldn’t panhandle you, that’s for sure.

Dude. When are you coming out with another Jay and Silent Bob movie?

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by pip

COVID throws everything in to what is expected.

But I do think housing does help. There is a large portion of any society, in America or not, that gets by with low wage jobs to low wage jobs often within short periods of time. Mildly mentally ill, drug alcohol problems, poor life style choices, and on - it is what it is. They may last a little while at one job then go to the next but they are always able to maintain the minimum of shelter no matter how you or I may not like the apartment, SRO, or whatever. With rising housing costs, the ability to maintain that lifestyle is now gone. Living on the street exasperates whatever issue they may have had thus leading to more drug and alcohol problems and other poor lifestyle choices. Humans.

This is not necessarily political as homelessness camps like had LA 5-10 years ago are now appearing in Phoenix, Las Vegas and on and these are two very conservative states unlike California. NYC has dealt with this for decades and has infrastructure in place to deal with it.

hah, I meant does, not doesn't. doh...

I fully agree that high cost of living can lower the barrier of entry to homelessness, but once someone is homeless, it doesn't really matter how expensive housing is.

[James Bond Agent 007]

BTW, speaking of west coast, I was in Grant's Pass, OR 2 summers ago and even noticed a lot of homeless people there. There were quite a few hanging out around downtown, and I always saw some walking along the freeway and always some hanging around the shopping centers panhandling. Was pretty surprised how many there were.

[pip]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

hah, I meant does, not doesn't. doh...

I fully agree that high cost of living can lower the barrier of entry to homelessness, but once someone is homeless, it doesn't really matter how expensive housing is.

Yup I agree. Still many more fall in when it is expensive and then it is too late.

[Qubert]

The frank, un-nuanced answer from me is no. Point blank, there's no ending street homelessness without restricting civil rights and the definition of public space. This is coming from a conservative no less. If I was mayor of Los Angeles, my plan would be to construct homeless pods something like this:



in public parks, freeway underpasses, back alleys and the such. I'd also couple this with public lockers as well. This provides clean (I'd have city workers/volunteers provide fresh linens + maintenance), aesthetic, comfortable spaces for individuals to sleep/rest while also maintaining the dignity of public space.

The reality is that for many of the un-housed homeless there's simply no getting them into wrap around services due to severe mental illness or a simple desire to not want to conform to any of the "rules" which shelters often impose. The needle cities have to thread is how to approach such people with compassion while keeping public spaces exactly that...public. Just giving away housing will cause the system to financially cave in on itself not to mention will do nothing for getting the mentally ill off the street (they won't accept it).

[Crawford]

I attend a week-long annual conference at the Marriott San Diego (downtown, bayfront) and I don't notice any difference between San Diego and the other West Coast cities. There are homeless and tents everywhere downtown, same as in the other cities.

I actually think the situations in SF and LA are slightly exaggerated, because they both have ultra-concentrated, highly visible skid rows. Yeah, Skid Row in downtown LA, and Tenderloin in SF are awful, but outside those areas, it doesn't seem worse than Seattle, Portland and San Diego.

It's especially pronounced in SF because you have Union Square, the showplace neighborhood, and two blocks west is a hellish zombieland. But if you live in, say, Marina, or Pacific Heights, I don't think there's an unusual problem with homeless.

[MolsonExport]

^yeah that is my take as well. I was quite shocked at the situation in the Tenderloin, but outside of that area it didn't seem much worse than other big West Coast cities. Vancouver also has a real sketchy area full of junkies (denoted "East Hastings"), and another in the suburbs (Whalley, in Surrey), but outside of these areas, Vancouver is not especially bad for homeless.

[badrunner]

Sorry OP, but it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

Back when I lived in the city it wasn't nearly as bad. It's been getting steadily worse since 2008 then exploded last year, for obvious reasons.

Come on down to the south bay or coastal OC