I cannot upvote this enough. It also mirrors how Portugal is approaching illegal drug use - with dedicated teams of professionals providing free, compassionate care. “The commission assesses whether the individual is addicted and suggests treatment as needed. ‘Non-addicted’ individuals may receive a warning or a fine, but the commission can decide to suspend enforcement of these penalties for six months if the individual agrees to get help — an information session, motivational interview or brief intervention — targeted to their pattern of drug use. If the individual completes the program and doesn’t appear before the commission again for six months, their case is closed.”
It’s not perfect, but it is getting results: “According to a New York Times analysis, the number of heroin users in Portugal has dropped from 100,000 to just 25,000 today. The number of HIV diagnoses caused by injection drug use has plummeted by more than 90 per cent. Over the last 20 years, levels of drug use in Portugal are consistently under the European average, particularly with young people between the ages of 15-34.”
Turns out when you treat people as valuable and give them real alternatives they’ll more often than not start cooperating in improving their lives. Not all of them - the model isn’t perfect and neither are all people - but it seems to work way better than a “war on drugs/drug users” approach.
But if you treat drug users as human beings, where will the police get their justification for fuckmassive budgets to buy surplus military equipment painted scawwy black (because blue is SO civil servant, and olive drab just isn’t COOL enough) and pay grifters to tell them how hard their pp will get when they kill another human being???
Antifa. and, uh, you know. all those progressives that riot everywhere. and stuff. Collumbia State is a warzone!! a WARZONE!
(excuse me while I go vomit. /s)
It’s hilarious (in an awful, despairing way) how much of what we’re watching directly mirroring how the media manufactured consent for Iraq
In Oregon, we attempted to model Portugal’s drug policy. The roll out was a mess and treatment centers weren’t funded for several years. Additionally, following the advice of people in the field, the measure didn’t include the mandatory meeting with the inter-disciplinary local commission like in Portugal. Instead, there was a hotline set up and possession became a citation. Unfortunately, the citation didn’t have the number to the hotline. In places like Portland, the cops at least gave out a business card with hotline number on it in addition to the citation.
Several years later, we have a roll back of the citations to making drug use illegal again. It’s not as bad as 2019, but it isn’t Portugal either. The biggest strike against it was the public use of drugs in downtown areas and in small encampments. Sadly, this was happening nation wide, but Measure 510 was blamed. And this roll back seems to have taken drug decriminalization off the table in other states altogether. I hope someone braves these waters again, but the advocates who helped design the program have seemingly shuttered their legislative pushes elsewhere.
I wonder if things would have been slightly different if we hewed closer to the Portugal model. Sad that the worst off of us will suffer.
There are definitely a lot of moving parts, and it’s hard to know which are essential until their absence causes failures. Learning how to deal with addiction is not an undertaking the world is anywhere near finishing. It hurts to hear about Oregon’s failure because a) suffering sucks and b) it may impede future efforts by way of being a bad example.
It’s a “tactical deployment”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpUFph-1zy4Intentional sabotage
I’m not sure if this is going to work with our current system because 1) I don’t see enough punishment for their moral failures, 2) not enough profit/investment opportunities to capitalize on their vulnerable position and lastly 3) half of our two ruling parties fundamentally disagrees with the concept of a better future.
It’s a good start, but I think if you underline how we can make big money while maintaining the status quo, then we could arrive at something doable.
People in withdrawal famously work poorly, but the forced slavery model is otherwise popular?
Drug rehab with indentured servitude and thought control?
Maybe you could tack an inflated medical bill on top of an AA protocol, to reuse some established concepts, and rebrand it as NA or something?
/s
We’re going to save the homeless and addicted and make them pay for it!
Half?
I heard about the Portuguese program in a Ted talk. Well done!
Can you please link to it?
Sure. It wasn’t about the Portuguese program in particular, but on addiction.
Here you go: Portugal is mentioned about 8:30 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs&list=PLlT0ph_Ig5Rc8xVBw47aZfLsOGw-lxRWb&index=8&pp=iAQB
Sorry, just realized I was replying to a comment, not the original post. Temperamental anomaly mentioned Portugal’s drug program.
It’s almost as if actually trying to solve problems is the best way to solve problems. The US doesn’t try to solve problems, we just criminalize them.
This! Best treatment against homelessness is:
Give them a home!
Solves the problem of too many empty beds in a for profit jail
As a country, we’ve barely moved beyond nuns smacking you with a ruler and telling you to stop being left handed.
My teacher at a Catholic school tried that on me in the early 90s. Didn’t work, I just became ambidextrous and a little more damaged.
UBH!
(Universal Basic Housing)
All these Universal Basic * programs seem to work, and the only things holding them back are rich people not wanting to be taxed, and the people they have brainwashed into supporting them.
idk, America seems to push Universal Basic Gun Owning pretty hard. Can’t say that it’s helping anyone tho.
Hah! I almost wish that were true, just so more poor leftists would arm themselves. Guns (and ammo) are fucking expensive and there are no subsidies.
As a European, how much does it actually cost to buy a gun in US?
deleted by creator
Damn, didn’t expect guns to be that cheap, but I guess it’s probably the printer ink situation with ammo. Thanks for the reply. (⌐■_■)
Damn. 0.215 USD per round. (9mm)
A 9mm handgun can be as cheap as $100, however that is for a quite poor quality gun (hipoint). For something that is more standard, higher quality handgun like the Glock 19 is around $500.
There are some additional fees, if you buy online you have to have it shipped to an FFA which may charge you, in my state, you either need a conceal carry permit, or a ‘pistol purchase permit’ the conceal carry is like a lifetime pass to buy guns, with the idea being you proved you can be safe by doing the CCW courses and exams. The pistol purchase permit is like $15 and involves a background check.
Private sales require no ancillary permits or anything, so a used hi point 9mm could probably realistically be as low as $50-$75 if it were quite beat up.
A box of ammo for a 9mm may cost around $20 for 20 bullets depending on where you live and such.
That seems cheap and it is. But for regular use at a shooting range for example, a single box would only last a couple a minutes. If you wanted to go for an ‘all day’ thing at the range, it would cost $100-$200 (about 200 rounds) plus the fees for the range, $20 - $100 depending on the place, unless you have safe private property. Though with a hi point, it will probably fall apart before you get 200 rounds through it 😅.
Things do get real expensive though for people like shooting as a hobby, as more exotic ammo can get very expensive ($10-$15 a bullet or even higher)
Jeez, that’s way more expensive than I expected, especially the ammo. How is shooting that common of a hobby in the states with those prices?
Remember, the US is huge. It costs different things in different areas. In Silicon Valley, the cost seems to be around two hundred ipads.
that was for 4 concealed carry permits, so 50 ipads per permit. i’m pretty sure that the guns themselves are a hell of a lot cheaper lol
deleted by creator
But people might be lazy without the constant looming threat of exposure and humiliation.
It might be interesting to see. Let’s try giving people the basic necessities for once, and see how things work out!
We have a similar system in Sweden, strong social safety nets etc. Some years ago I volunteered in a soup kitchen giving free food to anyone, and saw some homeless people. We can offer apartments etc, but some people are not able to handle it due to mental illness and/or substance abuse. It’s quite sad, but ending homelessness completely is very difficult, and requires health care efforts on many levels.
In Sweden and Denmark, where I am from, it’s technically illegal to not be provided with a roof over your head. But as you say, some people just can’t live in a home, for various reasons. Some even choose to be homeless or more precisely; be a vagabond.
In Sweden, there are cracks in the system, especially if you are homeless but an illegal immigrant or from Romania (a common example). There are services but a big hurdle is having to have a legal personnummer or coordination number (though I’m told that doesn’t work for everything). In student towns, lots of homelessness is also among students. It’s even more difficult if you are a drug user. A lot of times the only shelters in the area are offered by churches and non profits which don’t have a large capacity and serve on a first-come-first-get basis.
I wish they would expand this to cover more vulnerable groups. I would love to see Housing First applied in Sweden. Since the recent inflation crisis, I notice more homeless people.
Some people also want to be homeless, as weird as that sounds. In a proper system, those would be the only people who are.
i think it’s more accurate to say that a tiny percentage want to be homeless, and a slightly larger percentage only want to be homeless when their chronic mental illness or serious addiction is particularly elevated; they will need support to stabilize their lives more than once.
and typically, even the tiny percentage actively choosing it likely also have chronic mental health issues but have created a functional life for themselves. example - i knew a former vet some years ago who chose to remain unhoused. he had a lot of skills and worked off and on as needed. he also had some paranoia/delusions. he had autonomy over his life and felt safer the way he lived.
i think part of the problem is that the process of seeking services can be so slow and brutal, so it’s just easier not to bother. while my city has nationally recognized support for people experiencing homelessness, it also involves as much as a month of sleeping outside with others who may not be safe or stable yet, and being certain places and certain times every day during that wait. some feel safer and better able to meet their needs on the street; honestly, for some they’re right.
I don’t disagree, but at the same time, there are mentally ill people who have had the opportunity to get treatment for their illness and refused or rejected the treatment that they have gotten. There are many examples of mentally ill people who just stop taking their meds because they don’t like how the meds make them feel and they shouldn’t be forced to take them. So if someone is mentally ill, doesn’t want help, and wishes to be homeless. Let them. But anyone who wants help, give them help.
well said. i don’t think our perspectives are particularly different on this topic.
also sorry, i have this habit of dumping my thoughts connected to a number of comments on one person, you got lucky! i think because you mentioned people choosing it, and i think a lot of people use that as an excuse to argue against efforts to help when people want it or are ready, or to help only as much as they prefer.
Why end the homelessness crisis when you can criminalize homelessness and have an endless supply of slaves to produce “proudly made in america” things for 15cts an hour ? If you think the bourgeoisie isn’t that cynical, I have a bridge to sell you. It’s the people who caused the fentanyl epidemic by getting regular folks hooked on opioids for profits we’re talking about. Who do you think’s causing the homelessness crisis in the first place ?
Why end the homelessness crisis when you can criminalize homelessness and have an endless supply of slaves to produce “proudly made in america” things for 15cts an hour ?
Because slave labor is notoriously inefficient relative to precarious industrial labor (particularly as your prison population ages), the cost of incarceration eclipses the savings (especially as housing/energy costs climb), and the cruelty inflicted on the populous undermines the health and well-being of the overall population in a way that stunts technological and cultural development.
States like Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma are case studies in economic mismanagement through mass incarceration. Four of the highest incarceration rates in the country and some of the worst economic growth in the nation.
Trying to treat homelessness through incarceration is a bit like trying to treat malnutrition through cannibalism. The policy is inherently wasteful and destructive, sacrificing far more than one might hope to create.
If you think the bourgeoisie isn’t that cynical, I have a bridge to sell you.
The real value of mass incarceration is not in the people you incarcerate but in the submissive atmosphere you cultivate outside the incarcerated group. Mass arrests create a functional economic blacklist of racial cohorts and social dissidents. Associating with these people can be as poisonous for your welfare as being one of them. And “high crime” neighborhoods can be targeted for “economic redevelopment” which often means mass displacement of residents through state seizure of property and other “slum clearance” measures.
I don’t doubt there’s cynicism in the modern incarceration system. But it goes a lot deeper than just “arrest a guy and press gang them”. An enormous component of the War on Crime was busting up minority social welfare groups (The Black Panthers, most famously, but ACORN and BLM in more recent iterations) and scattering their non-incarcerated members.
We’re seeing the same thing play out on college campuses. Organizers and leaders are targeted for arrest and expulsion in order to break up cliches of students focused on that individual leadership.
Short term profit is all that’s considered, longevity is disregarded.
Even in the short-term, mass incarceration is - at best - a loss leader. And if you look at what’s happening in the UK right now, even their police and prisons are getting cannibalized by a government intent on gutting every conceivable public service.
They’re farther along the death spiral than we are, but we’re all headed in the same direction.
You’re missing a critical point. The cost of housing the inmates is borne by the taxpayers. The profit from the labor is reaped by the corporations. It doesn’t matter how inefficient it is, all the costs are borne by taxpayers, so it’s perfect for businesses.
The cost of housing the inmates is borne by the taxpayers.
The cost of housing prisoners is far higher than the cost of housing the homeless. And it isn’t as though incarcerated people weren’t employed prior to arrest.
Moving a farm worker or a retail clerk to a chain gang isn’t economically efficient even discounting the moral atrocity.
It doesn’t matter how inefficient it is.
It matters immensely. And you can see it in the sector growth of states with high incarceration rates.
The motivations behind this policy aren’t purely economic. A lot of it just boils down to fascist bigotry.
The cruelty isn’t a means to an end. It is the end itself.
You fantastically missed the point.
The cost of housing the inmates is borne by the taxpayers. The profit from the labor is reaped by the corporations.
From a company’s perspective, you have rock bottom labor costs but you can sell your product at whatever price the market will bear.
You’re considering “the economy” as a single unit but it’s not. The public and private spheres have very different interests, and the private sphere is generally much more powerful.
From a company’s perspective, you have rock bottom labor costs
Piecework by convicts is rarely quality
The major “desired” impact, I suspect, is not in direct profits from the slave labor but in the wage suppression that it causes outside of the prison population.
Fucking sacklers
Why end homelessness when we can hire our political friends high salaries to hold meetings and surveys to try to think of a possible solution? In America, it is an industry in itself.
The “no preconditions” part is surprisingly important to solving lots of social issues.
Half of the system exists to prevent people from exploiting the system. Most likely at a net loss. As in, it costs more to prevent people from exploiting the system, than would be lost by people exploiting the system.
You shouldn’t think of it that way. It’s not about saving money, it’s about punishing, dehumanizing and marginalizing people in need and sadly, in the eyes of some people it’s worth it
It would preferably be about targetting the most egregious cases of fraud, as they’re the most risky for both parties (the government, and the majority of recipients). Those extreme cases are the ones most likely to endanger such programs.
…i guess I’m not completely against all oversight. Even though “not doing extreme acts of fraud” is a pretty loose condition (which probably applies across the majority of society anyways, wish it applied to the ruling classes and elites a bit more though).
Definitely at a net loss. It always costs more to police the system than is ever recovered or saved. The benefits given to any single person are insignificant to a government budget.
The fraud occurs on the service provider side. Medicare/Medicaid providers are a big one but anyone that collects the dispersement of these services since those create literal billionaires and aka support the exploiter class.
It’s important to note that this is a two fold application. Counseling is just as important as the home.
Mental health is vital.
While I agree that the mental health is vital, I disagree that it’s of equal importance. Housing first has a winning track record, and bundling services can deter people from using either.
Someone might be just one restful night’s sleep away from deciding that counseling isn’t a trap.
It’s worth noting that this is true for the vast majority of homeless, but the most visible contingent of homeless have severe mental issues that preclude a “housing first” approach.
Yeah, also when you throw in drug addiction. Housing-first really runs into issues with people who have destructive tendencies due to addiction or illness.
The track record of Housing First already includes people with drug addictions - it’s been tested in real-world conditions versus existing strategies. This might sound counterintuitive, but “strings attached” only makes it worse.
Having no housing precludes keeping a proper medication schedule, record keeping, and a whole list of other things.
There’s very little about mental illness that permanently frustrates sleeping indoors. Transitional housing, housing with shared bathing and kitchen facilities already exist.
Yes, I’m saying these people need mental care and housing, simultaneously. Not housing first.
That’s not how the world works. Something needs to come first. You can’t push medical treatment on people, the uptake is much worse than making available free housing.
Both are needed to be available, true. Work needs to be done so they don’t depend on each other.
It’s the only way to keep these people off the street, I dunno what else you want me to say. If you give them housing but no supportive services, they’ll just trash it and then leave back to the streets. You can say that’s not how the world works, but we’ll need it to work that way for this small subsection of homeless people.
I think the issue is the term “mental treatment”. Do you want social workers to come by once in a while? Of course: Have a talk, ask whether everything about the apartment is in order – not an inspection, more the “if the drain doesn’t work and you don’t know what to do call us” kind of thing. But that’s not therapy, it’s at most psycho-sociological counselling. Therapy in most cases won’t even work because there’s the bulk of people’s core issues is shitty life syndrome and there’s no pill against capitalism.
You can’t push medical treatment on people, the uptake is much worse than making available free housing.
And that’s IMO part of the problem, combined with some pretty bad history regarding domestic use of asylums etc.
You can’t give somebody who’s had a mental break a house/apartment/etc in the general population no-syringes-attached and maybe a once-a-week drop-in and expect things to go ok. That just results in places getting attacked with drug-fueled parties etc, and it’s not particularly great for the neighbors.
There is group housing, but again if you stick an unrepentant addict who has mental issues in with people who are trying hard to recover, that’ll negatively influence their living situation and mental health situation of those around them.
So… first-start housing needs to be in a controlled or semi-controlled environment that can allow people to recover when they’re not in a good enough mental state to make sound health/life choices. You can’t be no-strings-attached without it impacting those around them and their own ability to recover, and you just end up with a shit hole (literally in many cases) full of junkies, dealers, and people screaming at walls.
As those who are willing to improve things do so, and gain the faculties to make that decision, the housing situation and independence can change as well, but the care, housing, and healing need to go hand-in-hand with some basic ground rules for the good of all.
I said free, not no strings attached. Allowing cleaners in once a week could be a requirement, or having a visit and a chat with a counselor.
Finding some criteria to have disruptive people wash out into a more appropriate living/ treatment setting is ideal.
Don’t make rules like, you have to pass a drug test or stay on medication. That just drives away the people that need the most stability and safety.
The mental health needs to be optional to the rehomed or it won’t work.
As Americans, we desperately need a mental health services for all program.
It’s those preconditions that hurt the most. Gotta get clean to get help. Gotta get help to get clean.
But how will such a classist society survive if the privileged cannot judge,extort and feel better for it?
Won’t someone think of the capitalists!
Correct! If someone cannot profit from it, it can’t be done in the US.
That’s why wars have been so lucrative for the US. Imagine the return of investment of the US military.
It’s not about solving homelessness. It’s about class warfare. The haves and have nots. It was never about a better society. It never will be.
Can you please explain?
If you’re serious, sure. For there to be a top class, a rich class, some winners, there must necessarily be a bottom class, a poor class, some losers. Some people feel like enriching these people will be default destroy their position.
They don’t seem to realize or care that their level of have can fix so many people’s have-not, and it can be done quickly and efficiently and without actually significantly altering their own lifestyle. They’re worried that if the have-nots suddenly have something, they will become part of the haves, the winners, and well… If there are no losers, what’s the point of being a WINNER right?
Okay I see what you mean, I misunderstood your original comment and thought that you were saying that providing housing was somehow orchestrated my the upper class.
Not OP, was just hoping to clear up their point. It’s all good!
I really wish things like this can happen in the US. With the amount of money we spend on stupid shit, we could more than end homelessness and then some.
We could end it many times over.
Note that the “homeless” people in Finland are mainly people who refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent. The social welfare eventually suggests a different system for such people: pay the rent for them and give a special card that can be used for anything except alcohol and cigarette. If the people keep refusing that other option, then they went homeless on their own accord and keep spending the welfare on alcohol and living on the streets. Such people are very rare in Finland in reality however, but they do exist.
If you work part time in Finland, and spend that pay on booze and drugs, can you still collect to social welfare for home and food?
Buy food abd stuff, trade for alcohol. That’s what similiar folk do here.
Here in the UK we just pretend it’s not a problem by calling it a lifestyle choice.
I see that more and more in the US, people saying things like “what can we do to help them, most homeless people want to live that way” like wtf?
Because of the way media seems to work these days.
There is no denying that a small percentage of homeless people are too far gone to help and would rather live that way for whatever reason.
Any person with some critical thought should be able to remove them from the discussion and focus on the vast majority of homeless people that can be helped, where the media will just show this one person and be like see there isn’t any point.
The same can be seen for peaceful protests. We have 10,000 people protesting peacefully and one lunatic being violent. We all know what the news will show the next day.
We need proportionality in the news.
They should at least include some basic quantitative analysis.
That’s the problem. They find one or two of the people who are homeless by choice and use them as an example as if that’s normal.
I read an interview with Bezos once a while ago, and he was asked why he didn’t use his wealth to help end homelessness. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said they did a study and they concluded poverty and homelessness was a moral issue and couldn’t be solved. Not that I believe for a second he actually did a study, and that a valid, science backed study would conclude that. What a total and complete piece of shit.
I get what you’re saying, but what if cruelty is the point?
Yeah but the rich have to pay taxes!
Do they? I believe such solutions are surprisingly cost effective
Not if you’re exploiting them for cheap labor.
Is the hommeles man providing them with cheap labor?
No. Their existence scares shit out of everyone else to work hard for piss money.
So the solution is cost effective like my initial statement said and youre just arguing for arguments sake? Idgi
I don’t get what you did with all the time you saved by typing “Idgi” instead of “I don’t get it”.
You mean “cost” as in the cost of the collective people. Such is not given a fuck about by anyone with enough to not be a communist. That and such wealth would give zero fucks if it weren’t for the fact that this level of wealth can, instead of forcing people, simply buy anything to be done that is delirious, disgusting and more that even I don’t want to talk about here.
At the end of the day it become the choice of every individual who doesn’t want to die to sell their kid to Bill Gates who will do you know what.
I just meant that in terms of tax payer money offering homeless people cheap free housing is not more expensive than not doing that and having all these other costs go up to combat the symptoms nothing more.
When Milwaukee implemented a housing-first homeless policy, they actually saved money.
Turns out that, by almost completely eliminating homelessness, you can save a lot of money on the legal system, policing, healthcare, and other costs associated with homelessness.
Housing-first homeless policy is the obvious solution: it’s humane, it’s effective, and it saves us money.
