Regarding the homelessness situation in California, I learned in school that it had something to do with Governor Ronald Reagan dismantling the state's mental health system.

Have you seen skid row in Los Angeles? I can't imagine that such a scene exists anywhere in western Europe.

This article looks relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Stat...

I'd really love to learn about what is actually done in Europe. Where is a "mentally unstable" person to be found in Germany? If a "San Francisco-style lunatic" (like the one you saw in public in Germany) is encountered out in public in Germany, where is he put?

P.S. I have adequate reading knowledge of German to be able to read German-language links about what is done for such people in Germany, if anyone here has any such links to share.

If you're in public a police officer will use a section 136 - that's to take you to a place of safety and have you assessed by doctors.

If you're in a hospital nurses and doctors have powers to detain you for short times for you to be assessed.

If you're in your home your "nearest relative" (that person is defined in law) can ask the community mental health to consider assessing you. They must consider your request, but they don't have to do an assessment.

Or you can ask for an assessment. Or you could ask for a visit from your crisis[1] team, and they'll suggest an assessment.

In general it is much better to be an informal patient (someone who goes into hospital voluntarily) rather than someone detained under section.

In theory there should be a bunch of checks and measures. But, well, it's an imperfect world.

If you are ever detained you should ask for the Code of Practice (they have to have a copy available for patients. They have to help you read it if you're having trouble reading) and for an advocate. (They must make advocacy available for you.) make a record of everything that is said to you.

(http://www.mentalhealthlaw.co.uk/Mental_Health_Act_1983_Code...)

(http://www.mind.org.uk/mental_health_a-z/8052_mental_health_...)

This is a state-sponsored program that provides housing and work for people with disabilities (I believe this includes or perhaps even mostly refers to mild mental disabilities, but I'm not sure). They operate a restaurant, a hotel, a bicycle workshop, landscaping service, mail delivery, and a bunch of other things.

Mission statement (translated): "Our central task is to create opportunities so that people with disabilities can develop personally and professionally. We ensure this through individually tailored offers in the areas of employment, housing and food. For people - by people!"

Some notes about the Finnish system:

There are plenty of psychiatric hospitals where most mentally ill people are (those who are not cared by their parents or relatives). There are some alcoholics/"crazy people" on the streets, but most of them have housing that they pay for themselves (through social security) or they live in special apartments for homeless people.

The whole country has about 1000 homeless people (for 5 million citizens). They could pay for their rent since they're entitled to "toimeentulotuki", a sum of about 700-1000 euros per month, but they probably spend it on alcohol or are unable to fill in the papers correctly (not an expert on homeless people here).

There's no official minimum wage, but "general employement contracts" make the minimum wage about 7-10€ depending on the job. There's some regulation on rents too.

Lulz Europe.

In that particular case, everyone just kind of steered clear of the guy and let him go about his (crazy) business. Bystanders appeared shocked and fearful of his behavior, which in San Francisco would have been completely mundane.

EDIT: While there are obviously outlier cases where treatment is difficult, the majority of mental illness and homelessness is circumstantial and preventable.

The homeless here are people mostly people with mental health issues that reject or don't respond to treatment.

It's by far not a perfect utopian system, but to have people being homeless just because they can't afford it would be considered an unacceptable failure of a civilized society. Decent housing, like healthcare, is considered a human right, not something people have to be able to "afford".

However, having been in SFO multiple times, the number of poor/homeless people with no resources is much more evident there. My take is that generally the unemployment, healtchare, etc. benefits offered in most European countries do play a significant role in reducing the number of cases.

Also, weather in California is pretty nice year-round. I know I'd prefer California to Arizona or Michigan if I was homeless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar (I recommend visiting, it's a fascinating place).

I would speculate that this is true for San Francisco, especially in the downtown (tenderloin) area.

With that said, what you see in San Francisco is largely a product of the combination of homeless friendly policies and tolerable weather. Many of the 'homeless' you see during the day don't actually sleep on the street (although a decent number do) and actually reside in SRO's, subsidized housing, and shelters (One complaint I have heard about SF, you can only afford to live here if you are really rich, or if you are really poor).

Fact is the homeless situation may be a bit ugly, but it exists everywhere, it just may not be as visible. At least in SF, it's harder to ignore.

I never hear discussions about Iran or Russia being a possible threat in Europe. I do in the US. Which is funny because it really is much bigger problem for Europeans to have guys like Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at their door steps. Never happens. The US bases and military spending is taken for granted. They prefer to talk about universal healthcare and help for the poor instead. As security is non-issue with the US soldiers deployed to this continent.

The thing that really gets on my nerves is that some politicians even want the US bases to be moved out from Europe. They simply don't understand the world in which they are living. Talking distances Syria is closer to Greece than Greece to Germany. Nobody thinks about it that way though.

The US pays the military bills for the whole of Europe and this amounts to money that can and is spent on social services.

European nations that provide universal healthcare spend less (as a share of GDP and per capita) on healthcare than the US does. So, while they may get a "security subsidy" from the US, it doesn't make sense to say they wouldn't be able to afford universal healthcare without it, since the universal healthcare they have is less expensive, as a share of GDP, than the non-universal healthcare the US pays for while providing the security subsidy.

Besides, having US base on your territory is not a guaranty of security - South Vietnam had a lot of them and it didn't help them.

If you study Russian expansionism since its inception hundreds of years ago, their strategy has always been the same. Russia strategy for centuries has been always the same: start weakening countries you want to invade decades before military action by the means of exporting intellectual fashions that will destroy country's defense system. They use spies and agents heavily for that. Polish kings used to be Russian agents way before Russia invaded Poland. Isn't that genius? Sponsor some crazy parties that want to cut military spending or some other that will introduce social chaos and not talk about real issues (i.e. "rights" of different groups of people, introduce heavy political correctness to avoid important topics), all the stuff to rotten country from inside first. In XX/XXI century this means helping create in targeted country via KGB socialistic elites, socialistic media, education creating weak confused people. So they will never vote for parties advocating strong military and patriotism.

So, this much better for Russia, this much worse for Finland. First thing KGB does is to make sure you (as a country) loose your common sense. Military spending when neighboring Russia? What for, right? No, we'll spend it all on help for the poor. Well, what I can say: Good Luck!

BTW: http://www.therightsphere.com/2013/04/putins-russia-to-make-...

Also, news flash for you: socialism in Russia ended some 20 years ago. Now they have a pretty ruthless form of capitalism in there.

When I read what you have to say about Poland I start to think you are from some kind of alternative universe. It's just bizarre.

Seing conspiracy theories like those, I am strengthened in the belief that the US extreme left and right are equally crazy. In Europe we mostly see the Chomsky brigade, some variation would make it less irritating.

(There were also anarchists etc, but in general the non-communist extreme left-wingers were few before ~1968, when they got more numerous and varied).

Also, I remember reading surprise after 1989 on how much control Soviet had over the West European communist parties. E.g. that the Italian communist party had such an accomodating attitude by order (Soviet wanted to get a de facto split in Western/Eastern Europe.)

(But OK, even I know that Labor have changed a lot over the last 50-60 years.)

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/labour_party_nationalis...

Turns out that the NHS was a good idea and the nationalising of industries was a bad idea!

Of course, when Labour re-invented itself in the 1990s as "New Labour" they pretty much became "Conservative-Lite" - I'm still not sure what values they actually have.

The Swedish (ex-)communists became feminists and anti-racists (they argue for something called "structural racism" that native Swedes are guilty of to immigrants -- never with references to non-extremist sources).

In short, just the normal marxism, but another group than "workers" to create conflicts around.

This wouldn't be more than a detail, but the left wing extremists has a big, big representation in the journalist profession since the early 70s. You find lots of left wing academics saying weird stuff in the media, without being identified as e.g. extremist ex-mental patients (Hübinette) or anarchists which wrote admiringly about Ghadaffi (Gardell), etc.

Don't tell me it's not genius, please. Russia banned recently all outside world financed NWOs from their country, but they air their propaganda in the US day and night. You don't see that? First divide the country. Find original dividing factor. Whatever it is as long as ti exists. I.e. Tea Party in the US which in fact has been a genuine effort to make the Republic better. Then invest millions, hundreds of millions in them. In their NWOs, show them on your TV, support their papers, bloggers, activists. See how much trouble you're creating in the country without even firing a single bullet? They can and do pull it off all the time.

You think Finland is any different? The whole of Russia belongs to KGB and is governed by it. And don't take my word for this, these are almost exact words of the US Ambassador in Moscow that leaked via wikileaks.

Western Europeans are somehow always so naive in the face of threat. Whether it was Hitler or Stalin, they voted, they believed in it. Stop being so blatantly naive, ok?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_European_Union

Possibly also worth mentioning the tens of billions of dollars (and many hundreds of lives) that countries like the UK have spent in fighting mainly US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given the military spend is 4.7% of US GDP it is patently untrue that military spending means that more couldn't be spent on healthcare. You could have a healthcare system that is 50% better than any other Western country, for everyone, just by reallocating the money already spent on healthcare.

Yes, money != outcomes, but it works roughly. Especially as there is so much low hanging fruit in the USA due to the shocking state of healthcare provision for the poor.

Bullshit. Not only are there examples of military independent countries (ever heard of France?) with better healthcare systems, but your whole theory about military expenses being the root cause for USA's less than ideal healthcare system is far too simplistic.

While Americans certainly tend to overstate the case, I've seen a lot of very proud Europeans claiming the US has had no stake in defending them, after half a century of Cold War left the US the sole standing military hegemon, maintaining an extraordinarily expensive reserve capacity to wage warfare on behalf of the West when it's not directly against their interests.

Universal healthcare is preferable because it's cheaper. The rest of the European-model social welfare state would be possible in the US if we didn't blow so much more than putatively 'military independent' allies on our military, and if we hadn't developed the popular culture we needed to justify that spending in opposition to "Communism". Guess what? We're kind of broke. Europe is going to need to buck up and raise its military spending as a proportion of GDP if it wants to remain in its comfortable non-tenuous position for the rest of the 21st century.

And I see a lot of proud Americans who state that they save the world out of pure altruism. I have breaking news for you: the "extraordinarily expensive reserve capacity to wage warfare" is here because it serves USA's interests, and no one else. I highly doubt that the military policies of your government are conceived with the interests of us Europeans in mind (although there is overlap between ours and yours). I'm pretty sure that, except for a few mistakes, it has been immensely economically profitable for the USA overall, allowing you to influence or overthrow governments, ensure a hand on strategic resources as well as allow you to export your goods and culture pretty much everywhere through strategic alliances (I'm thinking especially about Japan and South Korea). That's the reason why there are USA bases in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and everywhere else.

By the way, as a whole Europe is the 2nd military spender, with France and UK matching Russia's spendings, and when added together also matching China's spendings (despite having less than 200 times the population).

I can't get past this bit - try and provide a credible threat for some country who might be likely to invade France?

Someone invading France is about as likely as an invasion of United States - it's just not credible.

This is the kind of statement that only an American, and a very naive and ignorant of world matters at that, would ever make. US bases in Europe are no security at all.

They are a pest, relics of the cold war and unwelcome by the people of Western Europe. The US took advantage of the battered post-WWII European states and the (then real) threat of USSR, to promote NATO and establish army bases in Europe.

>I never hear discussions about Iran or Russia being a possible threat in Europe.

That's because a lot of Europeans actually follow world news and foreign policy and are not spoon fed the latest "enemies" by their media. Oh, and they travel to those "enemy" places and have been dealing with them, culturally, diplomatically and otherwise, for a millennium of so, instead of just hearing about them whenever their media gets its war mood on.

People in America can think that Iran or Russia are "a possible treat" because they rarely follow what's happening outside their hometown, and because all those ludicrous hollywood movies (I've seen tiny nations in Eastern Europe that their military couldn't hurt a fly even if they tried being portrayed as epicenters of plans to attack the US).

Discussing Iran as a (non terrorist) threat to Europe or the US is the kind of thing that only people needing advice from their Media to not conflate Chechnya and the Czech republic would consider.

>The thing that really gets on my nerves is that some politicians even want the US bases to be moved out from Europe. They simply don't understand the world in which they are living.

Oh, the irony.

by KGB Propaganda Specialist.

This is pretty cool too: http://www.amazon.com/Deception-Testimony-Yuri-Bezmenov-Prop...

I think they already won. Marxist at the White House. Isn;t indoctrination of the education system working wonders for them now?

You are the one who should learn more about Iran or Russia. You are the one naive like a child who thinks everybody's nice, while they are playing you. It was the same with Hitler (who some of you still claim was a great leader). It was the same with Stalin (who many of you still love in Europe). It's the same with Iran now. Seeing world in white & black only isn't good, but going deep into color spectrum so much that you don't see obvious is not too smart neither. Especially given your history of ignorance in the face of threats.

EDIT: "argument" instead of "voice" from here: "country and your only argument"

No. In fact it never shows up in any part of my argumentation that "Americans are stupid".

What I wrote is that Americans are just ignorant. I follow US discussions in tons of places, US media, and have been all over the US. You could not find a people more ignorant of world affairs if you try. The little they know is what they are being spoon fed by tightly controlled media, all "patriotic" and all collaborating on the official country line.

>You are the one who should learn more about Iran or Russia. You are the one naive like a child who thinks everybody's nice, while they are playing you.

Actually, it's us that have direct contact and centuries (actually millennia in some cases) of political experience dealing with Russia and Iran, including at the very direct level, and for which world news and world history are as important as our country's news and history. It's also us that we travel frequently outside our own country (something most of Americans do not do. Heck, only 30% even have passports) and that we speak at least 2 languages (e.g english is my second -- and I have more). Heck, Americans do not even watch foreign movies, much less read foreign books (with the exception of a few classics, that again are only read by a tiny minority).

And you, who, in a house in rural Idaho, some trailer in Georgia or some loft in NY etc, by which I mean, half a world away from both Russia and Iran and in a totally provincial environment, form bizarro ideas on them and their intentions, based on what the absolutely crap your media coverage tells you, mostly based (often copied verbatim) on US government targeting.

>It was the same with Hitler (who some of you still claim was a great leader). It was the same with Stalin (who many of you still love in Europe).

Which is beside the point anyway. The point being the accurate assessment of foreign countries role, intents and power in the global scene.

People who "still claim Hitler was a great leader", did not do it because they miscalculated some world player's strength. They do it because they agree ideologically with him, whoever perverse that might be. That said, those are an irrelevant minority in Europe, on par with those who support things like the KKK in the US (oh, and there are Hitler supporters in the US too).

To continue this off-track theme, lots of people in the US approved of Bush and his policies, they voted Nixon into office, they approved slavery, racism and segregation, approved McCarthyism, approved Truman dropping nuclear bombs on civilians, etc etc. Oh, and this Hitler guy? He had much support in the US too, before the US entered into WWII. Here's a quick insight: https://www.google.com/search?q=hilter+support+in+the+US&...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Europe

So, any attack on the German soil must result in dead American soldiers. Now, who sane would risk doing so?

Yeah, very convenient preaching universal healthcare and welfare for the poor when somebody else pays your security bill while you are sitting between Arab Spring and Russian Autocracy.

[1] Hardly the best of sources but you can dig deeper if you wish: http://www.japan-press.co.jp/modules/news/index.php?id=2443

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=us+forces+japan+rape&rlz...

What does Arab Spring have to do with it? It is dangerous mostly to some of African dictators and European armed forces in fact supported insurgents in Libya...

Besides, you never addressed my earlier argument that healthy population is vital for national defence.

Arab Spring beneficiaries are Muslim extremists like Muslim Brotherhood. You know, usual pattern, women are treated like slaves, kids at school study Koran and Koran only, etc. They hate, they loathe, Europe as much as the USA. No, it turns out, they don't like your idea of freedom. They want you to be a Muslim or die. As simple as that.

So which way do you think it is? Russia is governed by highly intelligent leaders or stupid brutes?

You see, they are still feudal, you need to account for that when analyzing the country.

So, as feudal masters in the past, the KGB/mafia that currently runs Russia understands politics very well. They are extremely skilled at political strategy and know and understand how to gain advantage. They will read Dostoyevsky and listen to Bach. At the same time they don't really care or/and understand economy as this is not really needed for them as long as they sit on the vast natural resources reserves. Something like Saudis.

The US with no projected power in Europe? Perhaps go write to your congressperson on that one and see how they respond.

The US, acting as a post-colonial superpower, took advantage of the collapsed post-WWII Germany, to setup a protectorate in the heart of Europe. The country was divided in two, and the Eastern side was given to USSR to play with, whereas the west was the US/NATO frontier to eastern Europe.

The "US bases in Germany" are a relic of this past. And they were meant to establish a stronghold on Europe, and keep the USSR at check. Now they also serve as operations base for missions to further pursue US interests (i.e exploit local people) in Middle East and Africa.

Despite what BS you have been fed, no Iran, no Iraq, no Syria and nobody bloody else, including Putin's Russia, would ever attempt to

To understand how inane your beliefs are to actually foreign affairs savvy Europeans, non fed with Fox News and Glen Beck and non provincial, it would be like South Dakota attacking Texas. Nay, it would be like Fargo attacking Texas.

I think you left out a "think" between "really" and "the NHS" there. And, yes, the UK's public expenditures per capita on healthcare are less than the US's. In fact, the UKs public and private expenditures on healthcare combined are, per capita, less than the US's public expenditures (which, in turn, are less than the US's private expenditures). The UK's public expenditures on health care are also less than the US's public expenditures on health care as a share of GDP.

http://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/BriefingNoteUSA2012.pdf

"The homeless here are people mostly people with mental health issues that reject or don't respond to treatment." Well in most cases it's the other way around. They become mentally ill because of being homeless (and lonely, and drugs all around to 'ease' the pain).

Did you know there are homeless people in the Netherlands that have a job? Divorced, have to pay child alimony so they don't have enough money to pay the rent. There are children that have a home but can't call it home, so they prefer to live in the streets.

And there are a lot of people with a home but without gas and/or electricity because they can't afford it. They aren't homeless but imagine living in a house when it's -7 degrees outside (most of the time they can add like 3 degrees to the outside temperature).

What I'm trying to say is that a lot of the failure of civilized society is hidden.

Now, not being able to afford housing depends on many factors, it's not just about how much you earn, it's also about the artifical bubbles created on property values by the actors in place...

The English benefit system is complex. Here's an attempt to describe some of it.

We pay a national insurance. Some of our benefits are based on contributions you make. Other benefits are income related (means-tested.)

If you have a mortgage and lose your job you get the interest on the mortgage paid, but not the capital.

If you're renting there's something called the Local Housing Allowance - that's a list of property types (one room; one bed; two bed; etc) and maximum prices for those properties. You get all your rent if you're under the limit, but you have to pay anything over the limit yourself. Actually, it's a lot more complicated than that. You cannot be "over accommodated" (more on this later, with the 'bedroom tax'). You cannot have savings over a certain amount (£16,000?). It has to be a real rental situation; renting off family becomes tricky. There are rules about living with people as if you're married, etc.

Housing benefit is paid by the local council, using money they get from central government. It's a horrifically inefficient system, and has a lot of fraud.

Then there's "social housing". This is provided by companies providing it, or by local councils. Council houses tend to be high quality buildings in not-good areas. Rents are very cheap. There are very long waiting lists. Recently there's something people are calling the bedroom tax - if you're in a house that has extra bedrooms the rent for those rooms is not paid. This has always been the case with private renting. There's a bunch of reasons why this is horrible, and those exceptions should be baked into the new law.

Some people need emergency accommodation. Local authorities should provide bread and breakfast accommodation, or hostel accommodation. There are pretty strict rules about what counts as "homeless". And if you're found to be 'intentionally homeless' it's going to be very hard to get help.

Apologies for the garbled text. It is a complex, large, bit of law with many overlapping bits of legislation.

I am personally in favour of the bedroom tax, so it'd be good to hear why this is horrible (I'm sure there are edge cases I've not thought of).

Completely agree about housing benefit being a horrifically inefficient system. I was talking to a person who deals with people on housing benefit yesterday, about the number who lie about not cohabiting (so they get higher payments for being 'single'). Not sure any way round that.

The theory is that people are over accommodated, and should move to more appropriate housing. But moving home is expensive, and these people by definition don't have much money.

I haven't seen evidence that moving these people around will make any difference to the housing shortage.

But yes, it's a good idea.

Housing benefits for cohabiting / single people is weird. Ann and Bob live in separate flats and get full benefits each. They move into a flat together, and as a couple they get less than either of them was getting singly. That system is wrong, I think.

In the U.K. you get various benefits if you are unemployed and that includes accommodation normally - though there is a waiting list (and people with children are top of the list) and job seekers allowance.

Health is free (NHS) for everyone it doesn't matter if you have a job are rich/poor, have a job etc.

There are some people who are homeless - though it's not particularly common due to government support.

[However, I don't claim to be an expert on benefits system here, as I've never used them - fortunately]

- More social housing than the US

- Higher minimum wages (so fewer homeless)

- This is just a personal impression but Europeans are less mobile than Americans. Therefore there is more likely to be the family / friends safety net to catch you.

  Places with good weather have huge visible homeless 
  populations