Posted on 06/18/2022 4:00:17 PM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Newly-appointed Director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) Jeff Olivet visited Houston on April 28 to tout the Bayou City’s “success” in reducing homelessness by 62 percent. On the eve of his trip, he emailed homeless advocates about the city’s efforts, “Houston’s great. We’re not sure if it’s replicable.” The question should be, is it sustainable?
Since the Obama administration, the federal government’s approach to reduce homelessness has been based on a simple concept: The homeless are homeless because they don’t have homes. Give them a home and — regardless of underlying addiction or mental illness — they’ll no longer be homeless. This policy is called “Housing First.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Genius. Prisons provide homes for thousands of people.
"The theory, made mandatory for the groups that receive billions in federal funding to address homelessness, is that people experiencing homelessness cannot be helped unless they first have a home without conditions such as sobriety. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) even defunded mental health, addiction counseling, and employment training services. Unfortunately, this one-size-fits-all policy ignores human nature and too frequently results in soul-crushingly low expectations that consign too many to a life of dependency."
Who wants to live in a neighborhood of drug addicts unless you are one yourself? Why defund all the other services?
"Here enjoy your new home. Good luck with that addiction and no employment."
How does the housing look like after some homeless person spend few years in there?
Can somebody still live in there?
Same for the closed down mental wards where so many of these need to be.
That’s exactly like saying, “The poor are poor because they don’t have money. Give them money and - regardless of underlying financial illiteracy or self-destructive financial habits - they’ll no longer be poor.”
Fools
Jeffy learned that in the 3rd grade. You know the grade he spent 4 yrs in.
I recently let two different homeless families rent my rental house for ten bucks per week . None of the two even paid that paltry fee and both trashed the place and stole from us as well as destruction so bad we can no longer rent it as furnished . I had my fling with trying to help the homeless . From what I have seen there are many reasons they are homeless but the biggest reason is they deserve it .
Fail. A lot of the “unhoused” do NOT want to be in the “system”. Which seems to be getting more attractive. 😳
I’d be okay with building some gated communities and providing tiny homes, $15,000 boxable homes, nothing extravagant. And provide security.
But separate the addicted and mentally ill from others just down on their luck into separate communities.
Don’t cut off addiction and mental illness treatment or job training, but rather insist on it.
GIVE THEM A HOME?
I worked for $$$ & I used that $$$$ to buy my own home.
NO GIVE involved.
A “few years”? Give it a few months.
There is a very small percentage of them who absolutely do not want a home. They want the “freedom” of being homeless.
There is a larger percentage who are addicted to drugs or alcohol who do not want “the cure” and do not want to be in the system. There are those who prefer the street drug culture.
There are many who are mentally ill and there is no effective mental healthcare system for them any longer.
And then there is a minority who have suddenly fallen on hard times and want to get back on their own feet but lack the means to do so while homeless. This group even includes some families. The percentage varies with economic ups and downs, and by locality. These can helped with success.
The free spirit hobo types will always be homeless. The addicts will only get sober or come clean when they really, really want to — and many die on the street before that happens. Our mental healthcare system is totally broken, so there is nowhere for them to go — many cycle through the court system at considerable taxpayer expense, in and out of jail.
Building up a working mental healthcare system would get a goodly number off the street (and out of the court-jail-street-court-jail-street cycle). Addiction programs a few more. Existing charities and programs are already succeeding with sudden hard times folks, and could do even better.
That leaves a whole bunch of drunks and druggies on the street, plus a few hobos. To get the addicts off the street, we’d have to enforce our borders and existing drug laws, plus bring back some old ones. Getting the mentally ill out of the jails and prisons and into care would free up space for addicts who refuse treatment, but ... unless there are some fundamental cultural changes, more new addicts will take their place (and even in that unlikely event, there will always be some addicts, as there always have been).
But no one is protesting about our broken mental health system, no one is raising it as a campaign issue, no one is calling or writing elected officials about it.
We have a housing shortage, and it won’t be fixed in the near future. Home prices abd rents are soaring. Meanwhile, more people are pouring our southern border, yet we lack affordable housing for those already here. It’s nuts.
The theory, made mandatory for the groups that receive billions in federal funding to address homelessness, is that people experiencing homelessness cannot be helped unless they first have a home without conditions such as sobriety.
Even so, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced that thanks to the $615 million in federal Rescue Plan aid, Houston would now spend $100 million under Housing First aimed at half of the chronically homeless population.
If Turner and Hidalgo are involved in any capacity, it will be a colossal failure filled with graft.
In SW Florida the police pick up the homeless and send them to a mental health clinic…maximum fourteen days…if they agree there sent to the Salvation Army for drug treatment…then to Catholic Charities for housings and jobs…if they refuse the procedure is repeated…I assume some just move to some other area
We need treatment facilities for the mentally ill that they are forced into. It is their only hope. They cannot make life dicisions on their own. The rest of the homeless that are druggies or lazy panhandling bums need to be in prison. Bums are bums.
Houston is a hell of a place to be homeless in the summertime.
Plenty of them where we live.
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