http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/01/opinions/homelessness-isnt-a-crime-das/index.html

Quote :

"Homelessness is an affordable housing issue. "

Is homelessness really an "affordable housing issue" I feel like this hypothesis rests on the assumption that the unfortunate souls living on the street are working people who simply due to rising rent prices simply couldn't afford to live in their apartment or home anymore....

I fail to see how this is true. With skyrocketing rent, perhaps you can not live city center or the more appealing parts of town but there are options. My friend for example until he finally got a decent sales job had to rent a place with 3 other roommates in a distant suburb about 20 miles from his job in the city. Having a car he drove but those employed can ride mass transit. A married couple I know shared an apartment with another married couple.

Perhaps the situation in silicon valley is different but most places even in California I don't see how someone that is making rational decisions with some sort of income goes homeless. Those that do obviously lack the flexibility to make sacrifices in order to move/adapt.

What I do see is the homeless fall into a few categories
The mentally ill- Who obviously don't/can't work and thus have no income to afford housing anyway
Drug Addicts- Who spent all their rent and whom can't/don't work. There is overlap between this category and the mentally ill.
Travellers/Transients- There is a documented population on the west coast of young adults who simply choose not to work (some may overlap with drug addicts). Not being homeless for these lads may mean being somewhere not as hip as the riverfront in dt portland and not playing guitar, riding skate board, smoking pot, and bitching about the corporations with your other transient buddies all day.

Often the homeless services that many liberal cities provides ends up providing a positive feedback loop that encourages those in the drug addict and "traveler" category to simply migrate to the big cities. Here while there are programs to get those who want out of homelessness for many others they can continue to survive while living on the street. Hell in Portland I see transient young 20-something looking kids placing their tents on the sidewalks of teh street with no harassment from police.


By the way I saw a great quote in the comments section

Quote :

""I'm going to move to the most stupidly expensive city in the nation. HELP! I'M HOMELESS! What are YOU going to about it you heartless cad?!""

[Edited on February 1, 2016 at 3:35 PM. Reason : a]

2/1/2016 3:30:44 PM

2/1/2016 3:39:06 PM

You give a person who doesn't want responsibility responsibility, you'll have problems.

2/1/2016 3:39:51 PM

Hey look, another thread where HUR thinks a crisis that isn't directly affecting him, isn't actually a crisis. Privilege triumphs yet again.

2/1/2016 4:23:14 PM

Quote :

"So that day, as officials spit-balled ideas, a social researcher named Sam Tsemberis stood to deliver what he framed as a surprisingly simple, cost-effective method of ending chronic homelessness. Give homes to the homeless. ... That conversation spawned what has been perhaps the nation’s most successful...program to end chronic homelessness. Now, more than a decade later, chronic homelessness in one of the nation’s most conservative states may soon end. And all of it is thanks to a program that at first seems stripped from the bleeding-heart manual. In 2005, Utah had nearly 1,932 chronically homeless. By 2014, that number had dropped 72 percent to 539. Today, explained Gordon Walker, the director of the state Housing and Community Development Division, the state is “approaching a functional zero.”"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04/17/the-surprisingly-simple-way-utah-solved-chronic-homelessness-and-saved-millions/

2/1/2016 4:34:25 PM

Quote :

"Hey look, another thread where HUR thinks a crisis that isn't directly affecting him, isn't actually a crisis. Privilege triumphs yet again. "

I'm not saying homelessness isn't a problem or that things should not be done to mitigate and absolve the issue. I just don't see how homelessness is a housing affordability problem. I think YES there is a housing affordability problem in many cities, especially the west coast. This hurts local economies and results in a decrease in quality of life of many if not the majority of citizens that live or have to work in these areas. For example citizens that are paying inflated rent to some investment institution in NY has less money to spend at the local coffee shop down the road.

I just don't buy the hypothesis of this author that housing costs is a cause of homelessness as it
my observations and counter-hypothesis that the homeless wouldn't have the income to afford housing
even before the rental crisis period.

[Edited on February 1, 2016 at 5:10 PM. Reason : d]

2/1/2016 5:09:11 PM

No, it's probably not an affordable housing issue for the long term homeless. A large portion of them are mentally ill or addicts of one kind or another. Rent controls and the like won't do them a bit of good.

For the short term homeless, a lot of the time it may well be an issue of not being able to find affordable housing. If you're literally 50% or more of your take home pay on rent even a very small economic hardship could well result in being homeless for a short time.

2/4/2016 4:27:41 PM

Quote :

"For the short term homeless, a lot of the time it may well be an issue of not being able to find affordable housing. If you're literally 50% or more of your take home pay on rent even a very small economic hardship could well result in being homeless for a short time. "

This could be true but their is a literally a documented population of teenage and 20-something group of transients that intentionally choose to be homeless. Usually they can be spotted by their fancy REI tents under the freeway bridges, hipster looking attire, and daily strolls around the river front smoking pot.

2/4/2016 5:34:54 PM

http://legacy.kgw.com/story/news/2014/07/25/12549190/

Quote :

" The city appears to be a convenient meeting place for men and women without homes or cars hat appeals to the traveling life for me is like the liberation, the freedom. Just having everything you need in your back pack, you know? It s not like you have too many things to make life complicated. "

2/4/2016 5:41:35 PM

I know you're trolling, but it needs to be pointed out [again] that you're a moron. Go work at a soup kitchen for an hour.

Most are not mentally ill. Most are not hipster kids on an adventure. Most are not drug addicts. Most are not vets with PTSD. The vast majority of the homeless are short term and are generally normal people who were on the financial edge, got a big bill, and lost their house.

http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/snapshot_of_homelessness

2/5/2016 9:39:41 AM

we should solve this crisis like we did the problem with people who can't afford health insurance. if you are homeless you should have to pay a fine to IRS up to 2.5% of your income

2/14/2016 6:44:41 PM

Quote :

" Most are not mentally ill. Most are not hipster kids on an adventure. Most are not drug addicts. Most are not vets with PTSD. The vast majority of the homeless are short term and are generally normal people who were on the financial edge, got a big bill, and lost their house."

This is true, but these are not the homeless people you see around Moore Square/Hillsborough street. The short term homeless still usually have some pride and aren't panhandling. When most people think of homelessness, their mind goes straight to the panhandlers.

2/14/2016 9:59:33 PM

Quote :

"Most are not mentally ill. Most are not hipster kids on an adventure. Most are not drug addicts. Most are not vets with PTSD. The vast majority of the homeless are short term and are generally normal people who were on the financial edge, got a big bill, and lost their house."

You haven't been to Portland.

Last week I saw another "Just need a Bud Hand-Out" sign of a guy pan-handling downtown. Bud of course referring to Marijuana per the nicely drawn flowering symbols on the picture. I also go solicited for change last Thursday while walking back from Trader Joe's by a guy talking on his fucking cell phone. Must be tough times but at least his verizon plan is still paid up!

[Edited on February 15, 2016 at 12:03 PM. Reason : a]

2/15/2016 12:01:09 PM

As usual, you seem to base your opinions on anecdotal evidence you encounter, and you don't seem to understand that that doesn't tell the whole story of a broad issue.

2/15/2016 12:33:05 PM

Everyone needs a home and a phone. 34.99 for a phone is much cheaper than any rent so it makes sense that someone who can't afford a home could afford a phone. plus you need a phone to get a job. whats your point?

2/15/2016 12:36:32 PM

For fuck sake, just now returning from lunch there was a vagabond with a

"Weed Me" sign then on the adjacent corner of the road a guy holding a "Need Beer $"

I really should have stopped for a picture.

^Sure you are right, BUT how is this guy illicit sympathy for my change while talking on his paid cell phone plan.

2/15/2016 4:50:51 PM

Because you cant sleep in or eat a cell phone

2/15/2016 5:04:37 PM

Good Call but when i see one homeless guy in rags hunched over a sign and another hanging out making cell phone calls taking breaks long enough to ask passerby's for change, you can guess who will get my handout....

2/15/2016 5:21:36 PM

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/18/technology/sf-homeless-open-letter-to-ed-lee/index.html?iid=hp-grid-dom

Quote :

"'I shouldn't have to see the despair of homeless people"

Quote :

"Who's to blame for gentrification in San Francisco?"

Without gentrification the whole north end of downtown and east side of the river in Portland would be dilapidated buildings and industrial warehouses. Once again CNN seems to be painting gentrification as the enemy and driving hard-working blue collar people into the streets. Although this could be true in places like San Fran, i fail to see it as a the primary factor generating the epidemic homeless in Portland.

Higher rents in the city merely means those with income needing affordable housing must live farther out in the suburbs. This isn't unfathomable as it is what our grandparents and parents did during the whole "white flight" out of urban areas from the 60's with creation of the interstate system.

People in the streets here seem to have mostly immigrated to Portland to be homeless and/or have serious drug problems which is not caused by gentrification. If anything gentrification should be expanding the tax base of cities that want to support programs to end homelessness.

2/18/2016 3:17:24 PM

its fascinating watching how dumb you are

2/18/2016 4:42:43 PM

Yes so dumb for not crying because of a false manufactured narrative on how evil rich people pushing rent prices higher is the reason there are people sitting on the corner with "weed me" signs and walking 100's miles along I-84 with their backpack and sleeping bags that I always pass in the middle of the high desert.

Truthfully i'd be sympathetic and actually agree with the article if it were framed instead on how "high rent hurts working class families" or some other spin that accentuates the real problem of rent squeezing those that are trying to work hard and provide for their families.

2/18/2016 6:57:15 PM

Quote :

"false narrative"

everyone take a shot!

2/19/2016 8:19:03 AM

Homelessness is not a crisis. It is a feature of our current economic model.


We've gutted social safety nets, closed down mental health institutions, stripped veterans benefits, defaulted on low-income housing solutions, outrageously increased the cost of education, and turned entire cities into quasi gated communities affordable for only the most affluent earners. None of this shit is going to be solved by looking at "homelessness" or "mental health" or "drug abuse" or even "affordable housing" as independent issues. They're all tied into our neo-liberal economic model where wealth stratifies and profits goes straight to the top, and those in the proletariat/working class section who only have their labor to offer continue to live paycheck to paycheck with one minor hardship throwing them straight into the throes of poverty.

Tent cities began popping up in major metropolitan areas during the recession, and many have remained. These (architecturally speaking) are informal settlements and slum tenements that are going to increase in the US until we begin to see entire slum cities (favela like) emerge on the edges of major urban areas. And they'll emerge because we simply don't give enough of a shit to challenge our corporate state, profit driven governmental policies that value privatization over basic human rights. We've commodified every goddamn thing in this country and don't give a fuck about the wake of destruction it causes as long as the profits are rollin' in for the oligarchs.

Its not about drug abuse (I'd personally be high as a motherfucker if I was homeless. Why not? It would beat the shit out of accepting my shitty plight while sober). It's not about mental health (who wouldn't lose their shit if they had nothing?) And its not about "hipsterdom" or a lack of bootstraps.

It's about the brink of poverty that a huge swath of the population lives on, and us not giving a damn about changing it.

2/19/2016 5:31:24 PM

if you pay taxes then homelessness is your problem, chances are you pay for whatever handouts they get from any social service or medical service

2/19/2016 5:47:03 PM

Quote :

"until we begin to see entire slum cities (favela like) emerge on the edges of major urban areas. "

Perfect! Glad our society is evolving back into an urban-centric model versus the inefficient, culturally
void suburban bedroom community nightmare many of our parents/grandparents sought for.

Quote :

"ts not about drug abuse (I'd personally be high as a motherfucker if I was homeless. Why not? It would beat the shit out of accepting my shitty plight while sober). It's not about mental health (who wouldn't lose their shit if they had nothing?) And its not about "hipsterdom" or a lack of bootstraps. It's about the brink of poverty that a huge swath of the population lives on, and us not giving a damn about changing it."

while a lot of your post seems reasonable, you haven't met the so called "travelers" that flock to Portland with no intention of seeking work/housing.

Today at the foot trucks, a "transient" was walking up and down the sidewalk, and intermittently
blowing on a kazoo as he flashed his "Need Weed $$$$" sign in front of would-be lunch eaters.
I don't think this is the same guy as earlier in the week.

[Edited on February 19, 2016 at 6:28 PM. Reason : a]

2/19/2016 6:27:38 PM

I live in San Francisco. I see plenty of homelessness on a daily basis.


And I personally don't give a Flying, Rainy, Pacific Northwestern Fuck about a transient homeless person who chooses to live a bohemian life traveling from food truck to food truck in search of the perfect bud. That's his prerogative, and it is of zero statistical consequence to the average taxpayer. He chose to opt out of the capitalist economic model and lives completely off the intermittent charity of others. Fine. Let him. It's not hurting anybody, and its pointless for you to look at a statistical outlier and project his behavioral traits onto the rest of the homeless population who have been forcibly pushed to the outskirts of society. Unless, of course, you are doing that with the intent of excusing your victim-blaming.

2/19/2016 7:23:55 PM

I've got anecdotal shit

Rent in many neighborhoods in NYC havr tripled in 5-10 years. This has caused a huge number of families into homelessness. The entire population of the state of Oregon is 4 million. This is less than half of NYC proper.

HUR's stupid trustifarian Portland shit is a turd of a story.

[Edited on February 20, 2016 at 1:24 AM. Reason : Anecdote]

2/20/2016 1:21:44 AM

Could be fake but seems real:
http://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/48ciqg/sacramento_homeless_man_refuses_to_beg_for_money/d0io1c1

2/29/2016 7:36:05 PM

Quote :

" Fuck about a transient homeless person who chooses to live a bohemian life traveling from food truck to food truck in search of the perfect bud"

Except these bohemian hipsters are the one that breaks into cars and has led to an epidemic of theft in bicycle parts. One time I had my bicycle light stolen in broad day light in the Alphabet District at a pretty busy coffee shop (think Elizabeth in Charlotte or Oberlin in Raleigh) in the 30 minutes I was inside the cafe.

You really can't leave you bike on the street over night even in the nice neighborhoods because you'll come back to just your tire and bike frame. In Charlotte I have literally left my bike in NoDA for days (think I even left it on 35th and N. Davidson for the 10 days i was in Germany in 2014) and nobody has fucked with. Think someone stole my trip computer once. In charlotte criminals either wanted your whole bike or nothing at all.



Besides the theft, the homeless are literally on every street corner within a 40 blocks of city center. Every overpass is a tent city and every non-residential businesses door stoop becomes a crash-pad after closing hours.

I have not been to San Fran but there is nothing to this extent that I've seen in LA or San Diego. Perhaps the police do a better job herding them to one location

[Edited on February 29, 2016 at 7:59 PM. Reason : a]

2/29/2016 7:58:34 PM

I reread your initial post and you're assuming most people make rational decisions and/or make enough money to afford first/last security.

3/1/2016 6:32:34 AM

Quote :

"I reread your initial post and you're assuming most people make rational decisions and/or make enough money to afford first/last security. "

Sad that is bad assumption

3/1/2016 10:59:05 AM

Another reason people are homeless

http://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/blogs/are-prison-release-practices-creating-homelessness

Quote :

"Imagine you're leaving a cell after a relatively short sentence of, say, five to 10 years. Here is the reality you face after you're released: 1. For security reasons, neither you nor anyone who knows you is allowed to know in advance when you'll be released. So it's impossible to make appointments in advance for health care, for job interviews, for housing placement, or for assistance of any kind. 2. You have little money and probably no prospects for income. You get, at most, $200 on release (but even that small amount can be at the discretion of your parole agent). Out of that $200, you must pay for clothes, if you need them, and a bus ticket. You're now down to a small amount of cash, which must cover you for the indefinite future because you are pretty much unemployable. (Too bad if you have contracting skills, since a felon is permanently barred from getting a contractor's license.) 3. You are ineligible for almost all affordable housing. To get publicly subsidized housing, you must be able to pass a "crimcheck" to show you've never been convicted. You'll never pass a crimcheck again in your life. That leaves you the street, a shelter, or trying to bum a night or two on someone's couch. 4. You probably have no relationships left. There's a good chance you haven't seen a friendly face during visiting hours in years. Your girlfriend/boyfriend moved on ages ago. Your parents may have died. Even if your loved ones tried to hang in there, the longer you've been behind bars, the more your relationships have eroded. This erosion is much worse if you are one of the prisoners that California shipped to another state. Who could visit you in Wyoming? 5. You may have health problems, and you have no insurance. Prisoners are older and sicker on release than they used to be. But unless you have HIV or are one of the subset of prisoners whose mental illness was diagnosed in prison, you get no help when you leave -- not even an appointment, not even one day's worth of pills. In fact, you're sent out without even a piece of paper to show what medical conditions developed or care you got in the last decade. Even if you had been receiving federal disability benefits before prison because of, say, a profound learning impairment, your eligibility was automatically cancelled when you were incarcerated. You now have to re-apply, without easy access to medical care, as though you had never qualified before. The process takes months and is extremely complicated. It requires a dedicated, persistent professional working on your behalf, and an address and phone. None of which you have. 6) You probably have no identification. Getting a legal job requires I.D. But when you go to prison, no one lets you go home first and pick up your Social Security card. And by now, your stuff is likely all gone. Your driver's license might have expired while you were behind bars. Proving who you are, without anything that can prove who you are, can be a circular bureaucratic hell. 7) Even if you have a plan for accomplishing all this, it might disintegrate. Release from prison is a rocky, difficult adjustment for most everyone involved. Perhaps a loved one said you could come stay, and then, as issues of blame and hurt and frustration mounted, you ended up on the street. Or maybe a friend of a friend promised you a job, but when you showed up with tattoos, and without ID, the job fell through. And then your wife got angry and Well, you can see how easily fragile support systems can disintegrate after release. When you look at it all together, the way we release prisoners almost seems specifically designed to create homelessness. The people who are incarcerated are already disproportionately likely to come from resource-poor communities, have few job skills, and have diagnoses of learning disabilities and mental illness or both. It's no wonder that so many end up on our sidewalks."

3/1/2016 11:29:27 AM

HUR You do not fall in the "rational person" group.

3/1/2016 12:49:16 PM

^^

That doesn't explain how West Coast cities have a whole magnitude greater of a homeless population then say Charlotte, Raleigh, or Atlanta. If anything these Red State cities should have more homeless due to their stricter drug laws and higher incarceration rates (once the prisoners get out of course)...

I maintain my hypothesis that homeless migrate here to be homeless and that we can't blame things like gentrification of old neighborhoods with rising rent prices as the cause per the OP. With mild weather, legal marijuana, and plenty of the bleeding-heart type of liberals (who like giving out change) here I would probably pick Portland or LA too if i were homeless.

Quote :

"HUR You do not fall in the "rational person" group."

derp de derp

[Edited on March 1, 2016 at 4:26 PM. Reason : a]

3/1/2016 4:23:08 PM

Quote :

"West Coast cities have a whole magnitude greater of a homeless population then say Charlotte, Raleigh, or Atlanta"

i was recently in california, and i'd say the weather has to with some of it. i'd much rather live on the streets in a city that doesn't get below 50 degrees in the middle of winter.

and they also seem much more tolerant of the homeless. you can't just set-up in a tent in downtwon raleigh.

3/1/2016 4:34:57 PM

http://www.wweek.com/2016/02/17/a-field-guide-to-urban-camping/



http://www.wweek.com/2016/01/20/pearl-district-wine-bar-leaving-neighborhood-because-of-homeless-people/



[Edited on March 1, 2016 at 4:40 PM. Reason : a]

3/1/2016 4:39:05 PM

What's your point? If I'm stuck being homeless, of course I'll go somewhere that is friendlier to the homeless.

3/1/2016 4:43:34 PM

My point is quite a few CNN articles recently blame homelessness on gentrification and rising rent. Sure rising rent prices and gentrification does hurt poor working class families and as a society this is a topic we
should be discussing the pro's and con's regarding. This is not though the cause of the homeless "crisis" per the article in the Original Post (yes it has been deemed a crisis any many California cities and Portland).

Some people are the legitimate chronic homeless (mental disabilities, drug addiction), many of the people i see with "weed me" signs with their tent perpetually set-up down the street are ones that either choose to be homeless and/or came to Portland to be homeless.

We have all acknowledged at this point per the above posters that sure the weather is mild and the population is tolerant makes being homeless on the West Coast appealing. Either way the temporarily homeless, the "oh no i missed my rent payment and sheriff kicked me out" can not account for the magnitude of bums roaming around west coast cities; which is what the author of the earlier articles are trying to argue.

While the vagabonds have the right to camp out on the sidewalk here in PDX. I have the right to bitch about them, especially when their make-shift homeless camps begin looking like dumpsters. Today on the way to work one of the camps had a bunch of bicycle parts laying next to their tent. I'm guessing they were not training to be a bike mechanic or found a good deal for random bike parts at the local bike shop....

3/1/2016 7:14:28 PM

When people talk about gentrification creating homelessness they arnt talking about drunks and trustifarians. It's families who live in shelters or 100% subsidized housing.

3/1/2016 8:28:08 PM

my mom was a teacher, living in a one bedroom apartment in south raleigh, living pay check to paycheck ... she's 54.

She developed cauda equina syndrome and struggles to walk or sit now.

It takes 6 months to get disability, which she managed to make it based on what meager savings she had mustered. Found out last week, she was denied disability because she isn't disabled enough.

Apparently walking or sitting aren't skills required of teachers to preform their job.


She's getting evicted from her apartment because she can't pay her rent now, and it'll be atleast 3 months before they reconsider her application for disability.


My mom spent the last 40 years living on her own and supporting herself, and now will be homeless because of one "big bill."

3/1/2016 9:03:31 PM

^ contact your local news media outlet ASAP. Stories like hers are outrageous and sometimes the media is the only thing that can actually help.

3/7/2016 3:04:12 PM

Quote :

" Privilege triumphs yet again."

Good decision privilege sure is unfair!

We should really reach out to help the people that are victimized by their poor decisions.

3/9/2016 12:24:21 AM

ssclarks mom should make the personal decision to suck it up

3/9/2016 3:14:52 AM