The Guardian is attempting to argue that "better" is not "good enough." It's shit like this: Let's look at that timeline: - "Early 2017": Family of 3 flies from Puerto Rico to Delaware - July 2017: Family of 3 bails on family connections in Delaware, goes to NY - July 2017: City of NY puts family of 3 in shelter for 10 days, buys them 3 plane tickets back to Puerto Rico - July 2017: head of household reports prospects good - September 2017: Hurricane hits Puerto Rico Fundamentally, this was not New York's problem. Fundamentally, these were not long-term residents of New York. Fundamentally, New York went out-of-pocket not to send the family back to Delaware, where there was reasonable accommodation, but back to Puerto Rico, where things were "looking up." But never mind, hurricane, therefore boo hiss New York. Shit like this: So look. Unless you are a proximate threat to your own life or the life of others, no one can compel medication. And if they can't compel medication, they can't compel shelter. 1 in 5 homeless people is mentally ill. The fact that we're discharging from a mental hospital means that of these clients, 5 in 5 are mentally ill. Between 1 in 20 and 1 in 40 homicides are committed by the mentally ill. NiMH, for their part, puts the number of severely mentally ill people in the united states at 9.8 million. There were 15,696 homicides in the United States in 2015; if 3% of them were committed by the mentally ill, That means 471 homicides were committed by the mentally ill. 471/9.8m is .05 homicides per thousand; in a population of 15 thousand homeless, one of them will statistically be a murderer. As far as suicide, 90% of suicides are carried out by the mentally ill. Meanwhile in a 9-year case study, 9 of 1100 homeless people committed suicide so f'n 1 in 15,000 is a spectacular success. Never mind the fact that in that same study, 13% of the homeless died before the study was over. "Do you have a support network here?" "No." "Do you have a support network there?" "Yes." "Great. Go there. Here's a bus ticket." I don't see the evil, and The Guardian really, really wants me to. Follow-up? Yeah, try pitching that one: "We'd like budget approval to track the success or failure of homeless we have bussed out of our district into others to see how well it worked." "You mean how well their homeless programs worked?" "No, our homeless program... after they cease to be our responsibility." "How is that going to help the homeless in our community?" "...it will let us know whether we should keep bussing them out or not?" "No, it will give us data on whose homeless programs work the best. pretty sure we already have that data." "But..." "Look. We spend a half million a year in NY to get people somewhere better for them. We spend 1.7 billion a year housing them. Don't you have, like, work to do?"Just over a week after arriving in Puerto Rico, Ortiz sent a Facebook message to say that his prospects were looking up: he had an interview for a job as a security guard. In late September, Puerto Rico was struck by Hurricane Maria, devastating the island’s infrastructure and sending its economy into freefall. The Guardian has reached out to the family but not heard from them since.
In 2013, the Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas, a state-run facility, was alleged to have discharged around 1,500 patients, often with little more than their medication and a bus voucher to leave the city. One of the patients killed themselves after their bus journey and another committed a homicide, according to a lawsuit brought by former patients.
How can I put this. I'm not seeing evil here either. When I read this article, what struck me over and over was that there wasn't a lot of data collecting and there isn't a lot of communication going on and I can't help but think that those can be really useful. I'm not disagreeing with cgod or you here, because you guys have valid points. What I'm trying to say here, is that I think with a little more effort to collect data this could become a better program, both for the cities and for the individuals involved. I think something as simple as a follow up survey in the form of a postcard, 30, 90, 180, and 360 days after the person has arrived at their destination, could yield a lot of information that makes these programs better. It doesn't have to be communication between cities and agencies and courts and such, but that could provide its own uses. Either way, all the time people say more information could lead to better policies and decision making and I think that's true in this case. If a little extra effort could go to helping more people, I think we owe it to them.
Sure. But what you're asking for and what The Guardian is implying are two different things. You: The Guardian, your summation: "Just unloading people elsewhere." "Just." The Guardian's argument is that there's no reason to believe this program is successful without acknowledging that "success" when dealing with the homeless population is a truly low bar, without acknowledging that what data is available points to success, and without acknowledging that of the 20,000 people they tracked, the only negative outcomes they could find were four people who ended up back in the cities they were bussed out of. The Guardian has given you the impression that this program is a problem. That this is a policy of heartlessness and inhumanity. That ZOMG those 8,000 people San Francisco bussed elsewhere would somehow be better off if they stayed in San Francisco. And they have done so through artless manipulation, and it's annoying.When I read this article, what struck me over and over was that there wasn't a lot of data collecting and there isn't a lot of communication going on and I can't help but think that those can be really useful.
I think what they're trying to illustrate with busing is that instead of being a solution to actively solve the problem of homelessness, cities are just unloading people elsewhere for someone and somewhere else to deal with without much concern as to the outcome of the individuals to actively solve the problem of the local homeless population.
Hey. They used some pretty cool graphics and illustrations for this article. I kid of course. You make a very valid criticism against them and I'd like to quote my original comment, in my defense . . . I will say, that the article does give me the impression that busing seems to be a brute force solution to an issue that I personally perceive as very nuanced and sensitive. I will also say that my perception that these cities aren't too invested in following up with people reinforces that notion. As heavy handed and one sided as the article is (and I felt that way when I first read it, which is why I didn't share it on Hubski) I do think there really might be an issue with data collection, because I'd like to trust that a reporting agency would share the data given them by organizations, and if The Guardian says repeatedly "there's not much data" I'm inclined to think there's not much data. In my defense, I don't think that this is a policy of heartlessness and inhumanity. I know four people who are social workers and while none of them work with the homeless, they all care deeply about their jobs and the people they help. I can expect that social workers who do work with the homeless care just as deeply. Prior to this article I have wondered whether or not busing is an "easy way out" situation. I honestly don't know, but I can say that it'll probably be something that I wonder about for a while.Artless
On a first glance, logical basis, the idea seems to make some sense. After all, I can imagine it would be easier for 10 cities to worry about 500 homeless people a piece than for one city to worry about 5,000 homeless by themselves. Also, comparing the cost of taking care of a homeless person against a one way bus ticket also stands out quite a bit.
The Guardian has given you the impression that this program is a problem. That this is a policy of heartlessness and inhumanity.
I should let this go. I can't let this go. I put a social worker through grad school. Ever done a homeless count? Me neither. Nor her. Because it's literally a bunch of volunteers going out in the middle of the night and counting people sleeping without a roof over their heads and it struck her as goulish and depressing. She graduated Magna cum Laude from the best (at the time) social work program in the United States and as a 3rd year undergrad engineering intern I made more money than she did at her first job. Her dad was a Freudian psychoanalyst. He billed out at $350 an hour. 80% of his time was spent counseling the homeless for $35 an hour. He missed the birth of his son because he was six hours away, being the only staff psychiatrist at DSHS in Grays Harbor County one day a week. Her sister dated a guy I ended up being friends with. His family was a scholarship/grant crew because his dad used his Ph. D. to counsel homeless veterans. Their finances were a patchwork of VA, City and Catholic grants. Even now my kid is friends with a couple hard-luck adoptees. Their mom is a social worker and foster mom. Both of them have some fetal alcohol syndrome symptoms. Both of them break my heart. She's got three adopted kids, no partner, lives on a social worker's salary and sends her kids to private school. All these people have more heart than me. All these people have more education than me. All these people care for the homeless more than me. And The Guardian wants you and me to second-guess their wisdom and their motivations. There's a homeless guy I roll by twice a day down in LA. The "river thug." Far as I can tell, he's been profiled as living on this one island on the LA River since 1989. He's not exactly "homeless"; he's had one home for 28 years. But it has no address, it has no basic services, and in the two years I've seen him he's burned his island down twice. If I need to find the river punk, I go to a section of the river. It's not like I can get him on his phone. There's a homeless guy I jog past. I saw him a couple hours ago. His face is a little messed up; it'd be a lot messed up if I hadn't called 911 on the three thugs I saw beating the shit out of him in October. I'm sure I'm not the only guy who knows him. He probably interacts with a lot of social services. But I also know that he's probably safer without anybody knowing where to get ahold of him. You're talking about a population with no permanent address, indigent to the point of starvation, being sent cross-country (or cross-ocean) in an attempt to improve their lot and The Guardian has given you the idea that really, to justify this sort of thing we ought to "follow up." Follow up how? I mean, the Guardian tried; they got a facebook message from a guy who claimed to be doing well. And then the hurricane hit and now they have no idea. My girlfriend's dad had any number of patients where what he knew was where they usually slept. That's it. They weren't exactly on SnapChat. Here's what I know. There's a bottomless fucking pit of suck associated with the homeless and the people who choose to forego any sort of financial stability to work with them? I'ma give them the benefit of the doubt. I didn't know Alesando. For all I know he was the guy shooting up under the street light while sitting in a beach chair. Maybe he was the guy I yell at for blitzing by me on a 2-stroke moped at 5 in the morning. Either way, if Alesando had the wherewithal to find social services, demonstrate that he had a hope in hell of doing better somewhere else and talk himself into a bus ticket out, Alesando would have been a national merit semifinalist compared to a lot of the homeless I see. Homelessness is shitty. Homelessness is a cascading failure. Homelessness is being out of options. If a bus ticket has even a slight chance of making things better for someone, give 'em a goddamn bus ticket. People often move from places of low opportunity to places of perceived higher opportunity only to discover they're worse off. Then they're stuck because they no longer have the resources to move back. Moving my family of 3 from Los Angeles to Seattle, with two cars and a household of shit, cost a shade under 9 grand. It woulda been hella less if we were living on the street but then, if we were living on the street I couldn't drop half of it on a Visa and whistle merrily away. The Guardian wants you to second-guess the wisdom and motivations of people who can only be described as over-educated and selfless. They want you to be mad at a collection of individuals that are literally trying to save lives. It makes me mad at The Guardian. You and I both know there's nothing "easy" when dealing with the homeless. Same on The Guardian for making you wonder otherwise.
Prior to this article I have wondered whether or not busing is an "easy way out" situation. I honestly don't know, but I can say that it'll probably be something that I wonder about for a while.
It's nothing either of us can let go of. Let me say this. This is a brutally complex and multi-faceted issue and there's so much to explore from anti-vagrancy laws and criminalization of homelessness to temporary vs chronic homelessness to jobs, families, and social safety nets to personal health concerns and public health concerns to God only knows what else. It's a failing aspect of our society that homelessness is an ongoing issue and I'm genuinely afraid that things are gonna get worse before they get better. I think every time homelessness has come up in Hubski, there hasn't been a hint of malice in any of the conversations, even if and when there's been disagreements. I think that speaks volumes about the maturity of users here and how seriously the subject is taken and I think it's pretty easy to believe that as a whole our country takes it just as seriously, even though we fuck up sometimes. Let's table this conversation for now, not out of frustration or disagreement, but because I think at this point we've explored this particular aspect pretty well and I want to avoid ruining it by going in circles. If it helps, this is a subject that is on my mind a lot, and you've given me one more thing to think about, and I have two long days of work ahead of me so there's a good chance I'll be mulling it over during that time. I appreciate these talks, even though they're not easy. I really do.I should let this go. I can't let this go.
Not to throw a wrench in the discussion with even more anecdotes about cruel treatment of the homeless but when I was homeless it was common knowledge that some counties in Georgia take their homeless to Clarke County. And I was threatened with being taken to the county line and dropped off in South Georgia. Not so much threatened as the police were discussing it as an option over the radio while they were deciding what to do with an outsider who some random rehab had dumped in a town where "we don't have homeless people." And there aren't a lot of homeless people in parts of the Atlanta Metro that are close to Clarke County. And yes, Clarke County, Georgia beats any number of jails. If you don't mind shelter uncertainty. At least there are shelters. There aren't in a great many places. Like all of the county I lived in with my parents. But jail is guaranteed shelter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Whatcha gon do? Build infrastructure for the indigent? Sounds like some pinko shit to me.
Anecdotes have their place. They illustrate an issue in ways that numbers can't. One of the frustrating things about being arrested for pretty much anything while being homeless is that it makes the situation that much more difficult for homeless individuals. Having a criminal record, even with misdemeanors, affects their ability to find work, shelter, etc. It's definitely an area of the issue that could use more attention and improvement.