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?
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Can you please link to it?
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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
I get what you’re saying, but what if cruelty is the point?
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.
Yeah but the rich have to pay taxes!
Do they? I believe such solutions are surprisingly cost effective
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.
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
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.
