So fucking sick of people like this. They genuinely believe that every single homeless person in America is a hyper-visible, unmedicated schizophrenic who's too mentally ill to want to get off the street. Never mind that the vast majority are members of the working poor and live in cars, friends' places and transitional housing—doesn't get more invisible than that.
Universal housing would effectively solve the homelessness crisis and every counterargument is actually a supporting one if you have half more than half of a braincell. Yes, a lot of homeless people need additional (i.e. psychiatric) help, BUT THEY ALSO NEED HOUSING because poverty literally exacerbates mental illness. Yes, libraries shouldn't be treated as homeless shelters, which is WHY HOMELESS PEOPLE NEED HOUSING. Yes, a lot of people who're forced to live in squalor on a literal street corner smell, which is why THEY NEED HOUSING so they can have basic dignity and access to a shower.
A lot of people imagine that housing and government services are available and that people are choosing to be homeless. Many middle class people are under the impression there is some kind of 1950s style welfare state that still exists for the poor and is simply overwhelmed by people that refuse to help themselves. It’s incredible the kind of roads that denial and ego-defence can lead down. I mean this is why Mao tried to do a cultural revolution- because some people just cannot learn except through personal experience.
roughly 50% of leftists are social workers who start their first job and realize that they have no services to provide and are basically just shuffling people in crisis between 20 different punitive and un-funded non-profits while they wait for someone to die so they can get into public housing.
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This is my mother. A mostly kind person, and she won't go as far as these redditors, but she just can't accept that THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT ON THE STREET BECAUSE THEY "WANT TO BE THERE". Sure there are programs, not enough, but there are shelters and programs. Problem is they are all flawed and underresourced and not very good at actually getting people into housing. I feel like I sort of got through to her when I said I trusted the experiences of the homeless people who have to deal with those institutions, and that people don't simply not go to them for no reason (they don't want to lose all their posessions, pets, get robbed, etc. which is rampant in shelters) and she seemed sympathetic to the fact that "normal" people don't have to give up drinking and any other substance use "vices" to have a place to live. But she still called the city when someone was camped out a couple blocks from her home, not bothering anyone. She insisted it all went to a special department that helps people get off the street but honestly I'm willing to bet any outcome that doesn't promptly result in the homeless person leaving town results in the police being called.
This isn't related to your point, but I'm not sure if you're new new or just swapped accounts, but I like your screenname. That's all.