What do you think of Bernie's "Housing for All" program?

[ultramanhyata]

How do you "combat" segregation when you are also fighting gentrification?

Yeah, you would have to be smarter than a can opener to answer this incredible riddle of the Sphinx.

 

[ultramanhyata]

I prefer the Canadian way: just give people a sum every month that they spend whichever way they want.

So Canada has something like a UBI??? Please elaborate.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Bootstraps and personal responsibility.

I would add - toughness of character. The kind of heartiness that allows someone to live in a cardboard box under an overpass without whining and crying about it.

 

[Renard]

So Canada has something like a UBI??? Please elaborate.

Nah, I wish. People who can't find employment go to their province's "(insert province name) works", which is the welfare organization. They receive a sum every month and are given free education in a technical skill (office assistant training for example) if their CV makes them basically unemployable.

 

[HomeCheese]

Which also makes me question just how much good throwing them in a newly built house will be. If you don't take away an issue that keeps a lot of them on the streets (the mental health coupled with the drugs) then how is them being in a house or apartment going to help them?

Also, didn't places like Baltimore and other major cities try this with their rowhouses and high rises and those just became drug dealing havens?

One of the way housing helps is with infections. A LOT of chronic homeless have wounds of some sort and they get super dirty outside. Plus they don't get consistent healthcare and if they move around some their case worker can loose track of them. In other words, it is a lot easier to help them if they are in a house. Much of the savings for society are in reduced emergency room usage/health care costs. Plus the streets are cleaner and more pleasant. It's also more humane.

I think Salt Lake City has done a lot of housing first type projects. Not all homeless are good candidates for a house but many of the real problem, chronic ones are.

 

[bobgeese]

I would add - toughness of character. The kind of heartiness that allows someone to live in a cardboard box under an overpass without whining and crying about it.

I’m all for helping those who are not of able mind or body.

If you got working hands feet and mind, get a job or enjoy your overpass.

 

[Jack V Savage]

How do you "combat" segregation when you are also fighting gentrification?

Eliminate exclusionary zoning. That's actually the best part of the program, which isn't well-designed overall. The problems with the overall program come from a general problem with Bernie's thinking. The goal should be to put cash in the hands of people, who can then spend it as they see fit, and then to fix malfunctioning markets, but he seems to regularly want to pay for specific goods that the poor find unaffordable.

It is true that in many places, sky-rocketing housing costs are placing a huge burden on the poor and even much of the middle class (in SF, a single person making $100K is still going to likely have a pretty shitty apartment and can't even think of buying). So there's a real problem, but the solution is to allow the market to fix it by making it easier for people who want to build housing units (and multifamily buildings) to do so.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Nah, I wish. People who can't find employment go to their province's "(insert province name) works", which is the welfare organization. They receive a sum every month and are given free education in a technical skill (office assistant training for example) if their CV makes them basically unemployable.

Does this apply to Canadians without a legal address (ie, the homeless)? Also, do these unemployment pay outs have an expiration date? Thanks.

 

[HomeCheese]

Here’s the unfortunate reality of the situation. My mother worked in mental health for at least 30 years, part of that was when she was working in an emergency rehab admission program for homeless people. The vast majority of the people that walk through the door didn’t actually want help, they just wanted a warm place to stay that night. Come in the morning then just head out the door go buy some booze or drugs or whatever and carry down the same path that led them to that life in first place.

You can’t help those on willing to help themselves

A lot of truth to this. It is cheaper for society to give some people a place to stay as it keeps them from doing this at the emergency room. It costs the healthcare system lots of money when homeless do this. Emergency room doctors have a term for when chronic homeless comes in, treat them and street them.

 

[ultramanhyata]

If you got working hands feet and mind, get a job or enjoy your overpass.

Does your "mind" criteria here include substance addiction?

 

[F1980]

They'll strip the houses for copper wiring and sell anything they can sell in these places to purchase their drug of choice. A lot of my side jobs are rewiring houses because crackheads would steal them.

 

[Paradigm]

No. You should step over homeless people because you are so good and they are so bad.

Here in LA, they have a city of their own. I don't really need to step over anyone.

 

[Son of Ireland 34]

How about instead of giving DC MORE money and power, we address their shitty policies that created this crisis?

 

[HomeCheese]

This brings up another issue of where do you put these houses? Recently, my understanding is the city I live in, the affluent portion of the city (aka, the more gentrified old part of town with a lot of the more liberal minded types live to generalize) started crying to put in more homeless shelters and such around the city. The County/City goes "well, we own all this property in YOUR neighborhood let's build them something there"

Immediately that neighborhood started fucking freaking the fuck out doing the "DON'T PUT THAT HERE THEN CRIME WILL GO UP BLAHBLAH"

I know the feeling, NIMBY. Not In My Back Yard. The city I lived in wanted to put a trail through the forrest and wanted an easement for the tail end of my property. Literally my back yard. Hell no, I'm all for trail but not on my place.

Really though, these houses should be as close to services and transportation as possible. By grocery, hospitals, clinics and things like this should be considered. Just because the city has property doesn't mean they should be built there.

 

[franklinstower]

I don't think this guy knows how a single section 8 house can ruin an entire neighborhood. I've had several section 8 nightmares in different neighborhoods and I'm not even that old yet

This self centered concern is missing the point of a plan like this. People who are wanting plans like this enacted are not thinking of themselves but of the "other".

 

[shockaholic12]

Would you rather have them as neighbors shitting on your front yard, occassionally breaking into your house to steal things so they can buy more heroine? Because that's what a section 8 neighbor did to me. Minus the shitting on the front yard part.

In 2013, at my old home, a section 8 neighbor who memorized my work hours broke in to my back sliding door and stole watches, TV, my laptop and iPad among other things. Only got caught because police raided the home for suspected drug deals and found one of the items I listed as stolen

ya I’m sure if that guy was living in the alley on your block instead of an apartment he would never commit a crime lol.

 

[Son of Ireland 34]

Eliminate exclusionary zoning. That's actually the best part of the program, which isn't well-designed overall. The problems with the overall program come from a general problem with Bernie's thinking. The goal should be to put cash in the hands of people, who can then spend it as they see fit, and then to fix malfunctioning markets, but he seems to regularly want to pay for specific goods that the poor find unaffordable.

It is true that in many places, sky-rocketing housing costs are placing a huge burden on the poor and even much of the middle class (in SF, a single person making $100K is still going to likely have a pretty shitty apartment and can't even think of buying). So there's a real problem, but the solution is to allow the market to fix it by making it easier for people who want to build housing units (and multifamily buildings) to do so.

This is a huge problem in SF. They have green lighted programs, only to get caught up in the regulatory red tape. There is no amount of money you can throw at the problem, unless you address how hard it is to build these dwellings.

 

[HomeCheese]

Also, didn't places like Baltimore and other major cities try this with their rowhouses and high rises and those just became drug dealing havens?

This is not my area but I think there is a big difference in public housing for the poor and public housing for the chronic homeless. There are far more poor people and some of the projects were huge for starters. Housing for these chronic homeless would also need more services like case mangers and social workers.

I think housing for the homeless would be on a far smaller scale and not all homeless are good candidates for a place. You would need to be judicious about who was selected.

 

[bobgeese]

Does your "mind" criteria here include substance addiction?

I know junkies, they’re too far gone to help.

You make decisions in life, you live with the consequences of those decisions.


That being said, the government should definitely fund rehab centers etc. There is a difference between a social safety net, and rewarding bad behavior which will result in more bad behavior.

 

[ultramanhyata]

That being said, the government should definitely fund rehab centers etc. There is a difference between a social safety net, and rewarding bad behavior which will result in more bad behavior.

Doubletalk.