This is really the crux of it, pairing enforcement with housing, emergency shelter, and treatment is the way to go.
There’s a genuine question to ask…if you’ve offered someone all the support you can muster to move into their own apartment, fully paid for with support staff on site, and that person says no, they’d rather live in a tent in the park, what options are left?
I totally understand turning down emergency shelters. They can be crowded, difficult places. But when you’re offering people their own rooms and they say no, what do you do next?
Finland is a very different place than California. If you don’t have your wits about you outdoors in Finland for at least 3 months of the year, you will die. The weather, in a way, forces solutions on people. Finland is more comparable to Minnesota in terms of weather, population, and size, and the issue of homelessness in Minnesota pales in comparison to California.
Finland also has universal healthcare, and it’s hard to overstate how impactful easy access to competent mental health and substance use treatment is.
In California, you can wear shorts all year, and mental health and substance use treatment are difficult to access and largely administered by for-profit companies providing awful care.
What alternative universe California are you from? In this one where I live, anywhere except the Southern Cal coast, it’s too cold in fall and winter because valley and desert weather are extreme.
Clearly I’m exaggerating about wearing shorts all the time, but also I’m talking about where all the people live. It rarely if ever goes below freezing across almost the entire state, save the mountains and the deserts, where people don’t live.
It’s often stuff like forcing spouses to separate in order to get housing, concerns that the provided housing is unsafe, or mental illness which prevents sleeping inside.
This is really the crux of it, pairing enforcement with housing, emergency shelter, and treatment is the way to go.
There’s a genuine question to ask…if you’ve offered someone all the support you can muster to move into their own apartment, fully paid for with support staff on site, and that person says no, they’d rather live in a tent in the park, what options are left?
I totally understand turning down emergency shelters. They can be crowded, difficult places. But when you’re offering people their own rooms and they say no, what do you do next?
Finland has, essentially, solved the problem of homelessness. They still have approximately 1000 willfully homeless people.
There is no perfect solution, but we can get really, really close, and that’s what California (and the US) need to do.
Finland is a very different place than California. If you don’t have your wits about you outdoors in Finland for at least 3 months of the year, you will die. The weather, in a way, forces solutions on people. Finland is more comparable to Minnesota in terms of weather, population, and size, and the issue of homelessness in Minnesota pales in comparison to California.
Finland also has universal healthcare, and it’s hard to overstate how impactful easy access to competent mental health and substance use treatment is.
In California, you can wear shorts all year, and mental health and substance use treatment are difficult to access and largely administered by for-profit companies providing awful care.
I get that.
That’s why I say there are no perfect solutions. We can only ever get most of the way there, which is what California and the US should shoot for.
What alternative universe California are you from? In this one where I live, anywhere except the Southern Cal coast, it’s too cold in fall and winter because valley and desert weather are extreme.
Clearly I’m exaggerating about wearing shorts all the time, but also I’m talking about where all the people live. It rarely if ever goes below freezing across almost the entire state, save the mountains and the deserts, where people don’t live.
They think all of Cali is IB, lol
You figure out why they’re saying no.
It’s often stuff like forcing spouses to separate in order to get housing, concerns that the provided housing is unsafe, or mental illness which prevents sleeping inside.
I work in homeless services and can tell you first-hand it’s not that simple
Definitely not. But just force people isnt going to do anything but send people to jail.
This is the correct answer, and it’s sad it has any downvotes.