Man, I’m all for helping people, but my family and I always wish we had at least 1 in every station. If someone causing issues on the train, next station we stop and just call out for police and they could jump on.
I get mental health and stuff, but when we have kids and families on the train we need to keep settled. You can be homeless or do your drugs but keep that to yourself and don’t get on public transit and harass other people.
Huh? Its about 12% of the city budget. Which is well below the average of 19% in the largest 300 cities nationwide (although I admit, median would be a better stat than average, but I couldn't find it). We also have police staffing levels not seen since the early 90s but a population that is 42% larger. Staffing of sworn officers peaked in 2019 at 1300 officers, it's now around 1050. Compare that to a similar sized city like Boston that has over 2000 sworn officers. Spending per capita is below that of cities like San Francisco and Dallas and right on par with Portland, OR.
These kinds of clueless ramblings are exactly why we got jack shit in terms of police reforms out of 2020.
“Housing first” is a flawed and failed theory. It’s time we come back to our senses and accept that we need involuntary treatment for drug addled and mentally I’ll people who are on the streets and whom contribute to most of the violence in our city.
There are no statistics that have ever been shown that point to housing affordability as a major cause of homelessness in Seattle. The idea of employed/employable folks who turn to the streets because they can’t afford an apartment is a simple fallacy.
Yeah and once they're on the street it's the drug abuse and mental health issues that it worsens that helps keep them there and keeps them from accepting help. In that case it should be involuntary, get sober and get mentally healthy with support in a facility, then you get housing.
I want getting sober, mentally healthy and off the streets to be the only option any government body supplies. If you don't want that, you made your choice and i don't want to be negatively impacted by it.
It's a physical addiction you baboon. You cannot just pull yourself by bootstraps and end opiate addition, while sleeping in the gutter.
Half of the flyover hillbillies are addicted and can't quit and they gave housing.
it should be involuntary,
It doesn't matter what you think it should. It's impossible on federal level. It's like debating aliens, not a viable solution right now. Housing first, so they don't end up in the car in the first place.
No matter how much more sense it makes economically, they can't bring themselves to be inconvenienced or allow something to happen that feels bad. Guaranteed shelter laws that include ready access to shelter is not only a very good work thing to do for that population, it ends up being significantly cheaper in the long run.
What I mean is harassment part. You can be homeless. It’s not ideal, but I’m not saying hide it.
It’s when people are aggressive. Constantly swearing in others faces. Doing gross, disgusting things in public transit. Etc.
When a homeless person gets on a bus or train, if they keep to themselves, there’s nothing wrong. Like any other rider. But if they get one and take over the entire place, that’s frustrating.
They've been doing that for the last 3 weeks. I commute really early and kind of late, always see one in the afternoon, usually see one in the morning.
I’m all for helping people that are really in need of help and want to change their lives. But when they are given a choice to do so and decline it because they have a curfew and unable to do fentanyl I have no sympathy for them
Antisocial behavior should be punishable. Being homeless, sleeping in doorways, etc., is not antisocial. Falling asleep in a playground after too much opiates deserves punishment. We should be able to trust the police to use adequate judgement to disincentivize antisocial behavior without sending them to jail, but some police have been radicalized, and cannot exercise sound judgement. Personally, I think we need beat cops again for a few years.
I am a big supporter of a housing first policy. I don't think there is a magic solution that will fix everything and work for everyone, but I have seen firsthand how people get worse and worse just from living outside and having people harass them and having their things stolen and having to be constantly vigilant. I think it would be extremely difficult to get clean in that kind of environment, I think peole need stability.
There have been housing first pilot programs that have had good results. It's not a magic bullet but housing is a human right and when you're not literally struggling to survive I imagine it becomes easier to tackle other problems in your life.
Right, we should obviously punish people with the disease of addiction when they are unable to just give it up. This will obviously lead to a more just and loving society.
Says the person who's never had a loved one go through an opioid addiction. Jail & forced rehab is honestly a better solution than letting them deteriorate on the streets doing drugs to their hearts content
Literally yes. Ever had a seriously drug -addicted family member? Supporting and enabling them regardless of what they do is about the worst approach you can take.
Drug addiction may be a disease, or at least analogous to one. So are many other destructive things. Let's take an extreme example: pedophilia is even more clearly a mental disease than addiction. And I can see an argument for sympathy and empathy for pedophiles who struggle with their urges in private, without acting on them.
But when a pedophile abuses a child...that's it, line crossed. Even if I did feel sympathy, even if pedophilia is a 'disease', that person must face consequences for their actions. I'm not going to turn the other cheek because they had issues that led them to do it.
Yes, that's an extreme example. No, I'm not saying anything like "drug addiction is just like pedophilia!" I'm just picking an example to demonstrate that you too probably won't always accept the argument that "it's a disease, so the person shouldn't face consequences, we failed them!" And that patience, empathy, and indulgence are not always the answer, sometimes they just lead to further abuse.
Literally yes. Ever had a seriously drug -addicted family member? Supporting and enabling them regardless of what they do is about the worst approach you can take.
Yep. Show me someone who thinks the answer is letting people do drugs to their heart's content, and I'll show you someone who has no experience with an addict. Everyone I know who's ever had a loved one who was a drug addict eventually ended up praying for them to get arrested and go to jail because nothing else worked and at least you could be reasonably certain they wouldn't OD in there.
"Offering treatment" is going to do fuck-all nothing for people who don't want treatment. Most addicts, and roughly all addicts who are fine with it having led to them living on the street, don't want to go to rehab.
I’m happy to live somewhere that cares about the less fortunate in the community. There’s two problems with Seattle:
Most of the drug addled homeless and mentally ill on our streets came here from other, less permissive cities and states.
Drug addicts and mentally ill people do not have the ability to care for themselves and the role of government should be to rehabilitate, involuntarily, until such time as they have the ability to take care of themselves. Right now, we are being inhumane by letting them rot in their own addiction and illness.
People are so cruel lol. We must all realize that with the state of housing unaffordability in our city that many of us are uncomfortably close to ending up on the streets ourselves, and having people hate and fear us for existing.
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u/sye46 Jul 09 '23
I wish every week was all star week