Re:Despite money and effort, homelessness in SF as bad as ever
by Mz on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @01:29PM
(#14656190)
I have a chronic illness and I am getting healthier and more productive while on the street. I have been homeless for 5.5 years. My father drank heavily for years and I have another close relative who used to snort $10k a year in cocaine up their nose back when $10k was real money.
First, we can go after the low hanging fruit of helping people who are more easily helped. More availability of actual affordable housing would help with this issue. Some people who are homeless do have income, just not enough to pay for a middle class American lifestyle.
Second there are things that work to help rehabilitate people with serious, entrenched personal issues. I raised and homeschooled my two gifted learning disabled sons, one of whom has the same medical condition I have.
I know quite a lot about this problem space and I see it as solvable. It will take time, but it can be done. Writing people off as hopeless does not help the problem at all. It just compounds it.
2/3 of the chronic homeless have mental or physical disabilities. 1/3 have drug problems. You are talking about 83,000 people in a population of 320 million, but these 83,000 people are creating huge quality of life problems in all of our major cities. In San Francisco, you have 300 million dollars spent fighting a problem created by 2,000 people. The non-profit and social services mafia employs more people to "care" for the homeless -- or more cynically exploit them -- than the actual number of chronically homeless.