Will America’s first ‘right to sleep outside’ actually help unhoused people? - "New York City could soon pass a “homeless bill of rights” with a “right to sleep outside” – something that no other major US city has done. If signed by Mayor Eric Adams, the proposal, which cleared New York’s city council unanimously last month, would add another plank to the city’s unique protections for unhoused residents. Since 1979, New York City has been one of the only places in the country with a “right to shelter”, which requires the government to provide a bed under a roof to anyone who needs it... In addition to naming the right to shelter and the right to sleep outside, the proposed bill of rights includes the right to an interpreter and a right to be placed in a shelter consistent with one’s gender identity... “These beds are not always humane and safe, and if folks feel unsafe in a shelter, they just won’t sleep there.” Shelters are also restrictive: outside food is prohibited, and residents lose their beds if they miss a curfew. Many people “would simply rather be in public spaces, because at least they would have autonomy over how they can move, where they can go, what time they do it, and if they want to find food”, says Cerisier. “For a lot of folks, that choice is way more valuable than the bed... Structural change has proven elusive. While shelters are better than nothing, they’re also very expensive – it costs the city roughly $4,000 a month to provide a shelter bed for a single adult, money that Padgett thinks could be far better spent on housing. But the city’s shelter mandate makes it difficult to divert funding, and the non-profits paid lucrative contracts to run the shelters have “very few incentives” to improve their services or shake up the status quo”
Weird. Some people claim no homeless people would choose to sleep outside
New York City's Right-to-Shelter Mandate for Homelessness Faces New Test - Bloomberg - "Ultimately, a massive network of shelters — administered by the city’s Department of Homeless Services as well as other agencies, private operators and faith-based groups — emerged in the wake of the Callahan mandate, enough to accommodate more than 65,000 men, women and children as of January 2021. So extensive is this system that only a fraction of the city’s homeless population sleep outdoors: Fewer than 2,400 people were counted on the streets at that same time... While her organization opposes any effort to end right to shelter for New York, Oliva says the current policy gives the city little leeway to adopt other strategies — namely the “housing first” principle that the best and cheapest solution is to simply provide housing to people who are homeless. “It has not been modernized in a number of years. When you have a system that is built on litigation in the way that New York City’s is, it can become unbalanced”"
NYC homelessness up 18% in 2023 despite sweeps, new outreach: survey - "Officials pointed out that street homelessness had only increased by 18% as the overall shelter population has nearly doubled, an increase fueled by waves of migrants from the southern border."
Basic Facts About Homelessness: New York City - Coalition For The Homeless - " In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression"
Politicians cower as homeless camps take over Canadian cities - "When enacted, bold moves on homelessness and tent encampments are popular with the public, so why are cities so often paralyzed by fear of doing something about an obvious problem, thereby ceding our city squares and parks to tent encampments? Social media plays a large role in the sense politicians have of the public mood, but those same politicians would be wise to remember Twitter isn’t a real place and it’s time for a discussion free from fear about the serious problems afflicting Canadian cities. A London, Ontario city councillor by the name of Susan Stevenson is an informative example in this regard. Stevenson has been under fire recently for retweeting an article proposing that cities could solve homelessness by arresting homeless people. At least, so Twitter and the headlines would have you believe. Take the time to actually read about the idea and one will notice there is an important second part to the proposal: that homeless people be arrested if they refuse assistance in the form of shelter with mandatory drug and mental health counselling... The proposal, while radical in Canada’s world where the homeless and activists dictate to politicians, is not a call for homeless incarceration, rather it is a thoughtful idea that the author of the article Stevenson tweeted explains is better, less expensive and more humane than the current situation. One can freely disagree with it, but the notion of expecting some standard of behaviour and treatment in return for shelter is emphatically not a hateful idea. The enlightened in our society, however, have deemed that to expect anything from a drug addict, homeless person or anyone in need of societal aid is a secret way of retraumatizing them. As a result, Canada only adopts halfway otherwise good ideas, which ends up making the situation worse. We can look at British Columbia’s decriminalization of drugs as a clear recent example. Proponents of the plan will often point to Portugal as the template B.C. is following due to the undeniably positive results that program had. But B.C. didn’t include the dissuasion and treatment component, which includes non criminal sanctions, such as fines, and inducements to enter rehab, of the Portuguese plan because critics said that would be unfair to demand such compliance from drug addicts. Portuguese experts themselves have said that without the follow up and focus on rehabilitation the only result of decriminalization will be relapses and more drug use. While it is still early in B.C.’s decriminalization experiment, what has become abundantly clear is that the majority of Canada’s allegedly compassionate responses, eschewing any form of accountability from those in need, have frequently hurt more than helped. Vancouver’s response to the tent city on Hastings Street is a striking example of this. For years, former mayor Kennedy Stewart refused to do anything to clear away that site of misery and destruction and looked for responsibility everywhere except in his own office. Businesses closed and the area became an effective no-go area for many in Vancouver... One of the biggest parts of that mess that has led to mass homelessness is Canada’s undeniable housing crisis... The recently approved building at 105 Keefer Street is the poster child for the horror show that Vancouver’s development process has become. I will spare readers the technical details but the highlight is that the Beedie Development Group has been working for over 10 years to get the project to its current approval form. The opposition to this project due to concerns it would ruin Vancouver’s Chinatown (it manifestly would never have done this) has resulted in the project being downsized, with 25 social housing units being removed as a result. Speak to any developer in the Vancouver area and they will tell you a different version of the same story... Good projects in many cities are too frequently shut down by special interest groups or irrational city zoning laws. However, when politicians do find the courage to act, though they may be “ratioed” on Twitter, they are widely supported by the population which understands we have to build if we are going to get out of our housing mess. Twitter isn’t real life, despite politicians treating it like it is. The inability or refusal by politicians to insist that drug addicts or the homeless have expectations placed on them as part of their rehabilitation perpetuates a cycle of relapse to drug abuse or street life. The fear politicians feel from activist groups who rage and seethe at council meetings to approve sensible developments results in a worsening housing crisis. Those governing us should remember to take their cues from real people, not the trepanned keyboard warriors online"
A better homeless solution for Canada: Follow Houston, not Seattle - "the City of Toronto made the right decision to move the homeless out of city parks. It was good for the homeless, those who use the parks, and the city. Otherwise, Toronto was going down the same disastrous route as big West Coast American cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. When the police and city workers moved in to clear the parks, hundreds of protesters showed up trying to stop the police from clearing the encampments. There was also a smattering of support throughout the city with signs of “We welcome our homeless neighbours in parks.” Why would these poverty advocates and progressives want to keep the homeless—many with mental health and drug addictions problems—living in substandard conditions? These makeshift camps were dirty, unsafe, and littered with trash and discarded needles. It’s not as if the homeless were abandoned; most were taken to shelters or hotels throughout the city. Yet protesters insisted that squatters be allowed to live rough in public parks. There are two possible answers; the first has to do with the political use of the poor for PR reasons. This is sometimes called the Principal-Agent problem... progressives see the world as a complex relationship where the powerful oppress those without. This comes directly from the playbook of post-modern thinking about mental illness and crime as “social constructs.”... As far as crime is concerned, extremists on the left advocate radical reform to the point of abolishing all forms of punishment. The underlying foundation for the defund-the-police movement is based on the premise that crime is just another way of “getting by” for a segment of society... In the case of Los Angeles and Houston, two cities with comparable climate—as a factor in attracting the homeless—Houston has seen a steady decline in homelessness by 54 percent over the past decade, while increasing 24 percent in San Francisco, 15 percent in Los Angeles and 25 percent in Seattle. Houston’s successful approach, called compassionate enforcement, was achieved not only with supportive social policies but with an emphasis on enforcing the law by forbidding minor crimes such as panhandling and windshield washers. West Coast cities have moved in the opposite direction by allowing illegal camps to expand, encouraging drug injection sites, and decriminalizing theft under $950. Progressives also see law enforcement as the problem and not the solution. In Seattle, local politicians even opposed hosing down feces-covered sidewalks “because hoses supposedly have racist connotations”... The homeless have been generally seen as a group immune to conventional economic incentives. We now know they act rationally by moving to cities and communities that provide readily available social services, have low levels of law enforcement, and tolerate petty crime. In Seattle, 51 percent of the homeless migrated from other cities."
Japan's Homeless Population - "Japan is the only country that has a homeless population of nearly 0%. However, poverty issues, mental health reforms and housing improvements are still the focus of humanitarian efforts in Japan. Japan and the United States have similar poverty levels, yet Japan has a much lower homeless population than the US... Japan’s strict drug laws, mental health systems and housing options contribute to the countries low homeless population... In Japan, someone with a mental illness is typically placed into a mental health facility, sparing them from the streets. There are 269 psychiatric beds per 100,000 people in Japan, whereas, in the United States, the number is 25... “Japan has a conservative approach to the treatment of mentally ill people who are generally institutionalized”... Japan’s low homeless population does not equate to having low poverty levels. Around 15.7% of Japan’s population is considered to be living in poverty, which is higher than the 13.7% of Americans who live in poverty."
Plus "stigma" and family support. But liberals would oppose most of these on the basis of civil liberties and human rights
Opinion: I watched a major city’s homeless problem vanish. We could do the same - The Globe and Mail - "Ottawa, despite having a national “homelessness strategy” budgeted at nearly $4-billion over nine years, does not really have a strategy at all. As the auditor-general recently noted, the federal government does not know whether its expenditures have prevented or reduced homelessness at all. This is where Ottawa needs to learn from what I witnessed in London. When what became Britain’s Rough Sleepers Unit was created in 1997, it was a high-profile initiative with an outspoken “homelessness czar” in charge (Louise Casey, the deputy director of a rough-sleepers charity) and a hard target: cut the numbers of people on the streets by two-thirds within three years. It accomplished this by not just filling the demand for various sorts of shelter – a lot of its budget was spent upgrading the lowest-end rental accommodations to a level that would make them tolerable to someone in an encampment – but also by slashing the supply of homeless people. The RSU worked directly with the major sources of homelessness – the military, the penal system and the care-home system, as well as the usual mental-health and addiction bodies – to ensure that troubled people who left those institutions would be given places to stay and wouldn’t end up in the street. In practice, I found that the RSU sent out hundreds of staff and volunteers every day to have one-on-one meetings with rough sleepers, focused on one question: What would it take to get you off the street? They were expected to have same-day responses, in the form of a wide array of shelters, hostels, alcohol-permitting “wet spaces,” shelter-to-home transition facilities, residential hotels and more permanent accommodations."
Family broken as homeless mom killed by being run over by lawnmower - "Christine Chavez, 27, was killed on July 8 after laying down in the long grass in Beard Brook Park in Modesto at around noon to sleep. She was tragically run over by an unnamed employee driving a John Deere tractor with a pull-behind lawnmower as he attempted to clear the area... "She didn’t deserve that for that reason, for being homeless. My sister was loved. The only thing she wanted was to be free.""
Comments (elsewhere): "Extremely sad & tragic but nothing more than a horrible accident. I use to drive equipment like that, they are extremely noisy and the ground shakes how she did not hear this while the driver was making paths close by is astonishing!!"
"They want money! But where were they when she was homeless? Now all the sudden they care?"
Sounds like she wanted to be homeless. But liberals mock people who suggest some people prefer to be homeless
Toronto Tiny Shelters announces it won't return this winter after legal fight with city - "Seivwright began building and providing tiny houses to people living outdoors last winter in an effort to provide shelter against freezing temperatures to Toronto's houseless community. The city filed an injunction against him in February, ordering him to permanently stop placing or relocating structures on city-owned land, citing safety concerns. “It is illegal to dump or erect a structure of any kind, whether it’s in a park, a green space,” Chief Communications Officer for the City of Toronto, Brad Ross, told CTV News Toronto when the injunction was served. “They don’t have clean water, sanitation, food, medical, addiction counselling, and so it would be safer inside," Ross said."
The homeless-industrial complex doesn't like to be challenged. Clearly it's better for people to sleep outdoors without any shelter
Pollievre Compares Major BC City to a 3rd World Country : britishcolumbia - "Pierre's comment is out of touch to the realities of BC. I was in Kelowna recently and the camp was pretty tame and compared to previous Vancouver encampments, pretty tidy and contained."
"I’m from Africa and I moved here a while ago. I never expected to see trash, tents, drugs, homeless etc all around with no laws being enforced. It’s does remind me a lot of the third would and it’s very sad. It was not like this when I moved here"
Billions spent each year on social housing in B.C. - "Canada is currently spending $90 billion on housing half-way through a 10-year program and funds for assisted housing surpassed $6 billion in 2022 – the highest in at least 15 years – according to the office of the parliamentary budget office. Ottawa added $20 billion to the housing file last year and the finance minister pledged to “top up” spending in the 2023 budget, expected March 28. Planned federal spending targeted at housing the homeless increased 240 per cent last year, to $420 million annually. Much of the assistance flows into British Columbia, which is recognized as a frontline in Canada’s housing crisis... as the parliamentary budget office noted, there is no standard government definition of affordable housing. And, in B.C., no one knows how many homeless there are, or if the programs meant to house them are making any difference. Questions regarding provincial government spending and accountability has led to a forensic audit of BC Housing, the provincial housing agency. Conducted and complete last year by Ernest Young under orders from B.C. Premier and former housing minister David Eby, the potentially explosive audit has yet to be released. B.C. currently has 70,000 subsidized housing units in 3,200 non-profit buildings and the number is mushrooming as billions of dollars pump in from taxpayers. The big winners, however, appear to be politicians queuing for the spending announcements and registered housing charities with multimillion-dollar payrolls. Losers include the innocent living in old hotels converted to house the homeless, where violence and other crime is a constant threat. On March 15, 2023, four federal politicians and the mayor of Surrey were on hand for the announcement for the latest B.C. homes funded by the federal government under its $4 billion Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) the mandate of which is “serving people experiencing or at risk of homelessness and other vulnerable people.” There are currently 90 such supportive housing or shelter beds under construction in Surrey, B.C.’s second-largest city. Typical of the half-dozen RHI projects approved in Metro Vancouver since 2021, each of the 23 apartments in the latest Surrey project will cost the government $500,000 to build, plus on-going staffing and security costs. A 2021 Surrey permanent modular social housing project for women at risk, managed by Atira Womens’ Resource Society, cost $372,000 per unit and the province is covering annual operation funding for 20 years. In comparison, the average hard construction costs for a private developer to build a 450-square-foot economy-level rental apartment in Metro Vancouver is $110,000, or $245 per square foot, according to the Altus Group construction cost guide for 2023. While developers also pay for land, social housing sites are often either donated or offered in low-cost, long-term lease arrangements by the host municipalities or other levels of government. Surprisingly, despite the billions being spent in subsidies, there is no reliable data on the number of homeless people in B.C. or where or if they are finding homes... Despite the lack of data, tax-exempt non-profit housing societies have been quick to access government funding. A cursory investigation finds that, in 2022, just four Vancouver housing groups set up to house and support the most vulnerable – Atira Women’s Resource Society, Lookout Housing Society, PHS Community Services Society and RainCity Housing and Support Society – took in a combined $204 million from government and, all told, paid their own staff more than $151 million in wages and salaries. A fifth, Pacific Community Resource Society, which is completing a Surrey housing-for-homeless project that was funded under the RHI in 2021, took in $30.2 million in total government funds last year, paid out $18.6 million in wages and salaries and logged nearly $30,000 per month in travel and car expenses, according to its filings with the Canada Revenue Agency... The cost of acquiring old hotels to convert them to house the homeless is also eye-popping, however, Last January, the City of Vancouver, using federal funds allocated through the RHI, bought the aging Days Inn hotel at 2075 Kingsway, Vancouver, paying $25 million and earmarking the same amount for renovations. The 65-room property is valued at just $4.4 million... In the past year, Vancouver police responded to 119 calls at 2075 Kingsway, but this is considered low when compared to other hotels converted to house the homeless. After BC Housing paid $500,000 per key to buy an old 110-room hotel at 1176 Granville Street to shelter former residents of an Oppenheimer Park homeless encampment in 2020, police have been called to the site 2,494 times, including 751 calls last year, according to the Vancouver Police Department. A Vancouver homeless man, who asked not to be named because he is on the list for a BC Housing apartment, said he was sleeping in a car rather than suffering another night in a “scary” downtown SRO managed by a non-profit housing society."
Liberals keep bitching about how governments don't spend on social and affordable housing, but they think everything can be funded by taxing "the rich" (i.e. everyone richer than them)
People working to help B.C.'s homeless population concerned about growing vigilantism - "B.C. advocates working with the homeless population say they're concerned about growing vigilantism after a man was shot while trying to reclaim stolen property from an encampment on Vancouver Island. Nanaimo RCMP were called to the incident Sunday afternoon, after the owner of a local mechanic shop — one of six people who went into the encampment to recover stolen tools — was shot in the stomach... Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog said the city is facing a public safety crisis that goes beyond the scope of what cities can control. "When government is no longer able to protect people and their property, we are in a dangerous place," he said, calling for help from the federal and provincial governments... In Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C., a similar group named "Citizens Take Action" was established last November and, according to local media, wrote city council saying it had "lost confidence in our local RCMP detachment's ability to address the acute rise in crime.""
The homeless-industrial complex is threatened. Trying to take your stuff back somehow makes you a "vigilante". But of course the homeless people who steal it in the first place deserve compassion, and if you get upset at them you are a terrible human being
Austin 7-Eleven owner says he is using opera music as a deterrent against homeless, solicitors - "A business owner in South Austin is playing loud opera music as a deterrent from people soliciting and leaving items on his property. Jagat Patel is the owner of a 7-Eleven at the intersection of East Oltorf Street and Parker Lane. "The music we have been playing for 10 days is 24/7"... Patel said this comes after there have been issues with the homeless encampment next to the store. "Three or four people waiting and coming to your window asking for money or stuff they need and, a lot of time when the customer declines, they will kick the tire or get upset. So it’s affecting our business"... "Customers tell us, 'Hey, there is nobody in the parking lot. Nobody came to my window to ask for a dollar.' The customers are saying it’s working""
LEVY: Police stats show crime surged after Roehampton shelter opened | Toronto Sun - "In the three months after the Roehampton hotel shelter opened in July 2020, crime in the surrounding neighbourhood skyrocketed by 30% compared to the summer before... The Yonge-Eglinton and Mt. Pleasant East neighbourhoods — the two neighbourhoods most drastically impacted by the hotel shelter — saw increases in all the major crime indicators, except assaults"
So much for the "myth" that homeless people increase crime
L.A.'s Failed Homeless Policies Turned My Home Into a Prison - "It’s fashionable in progressive circles to demonize law enforcement, but Rufo explains that in 2006, then-L.A. police chief Bill Bratton implemented a “Broken Windows” policing initiative on Skid Row. It led to a 42 percent reduction in felonies, a 50 percent reduction in deaths by overdose, and a 75 percent reduction in homicides. The overall homeless population was reduced from 1,876 people to 700—a huge success. Activists filed lawsuits and ran publicity campaigns, slowly killing Bratton’s program, on the grounds that it “criminalizes homelessness.” As a libertarian, I’m opposed to drug laws and forced behavior—but only to a point. It is not compassion to leave people to be victimized by criminals simply because they are unhoused, nor is leaving mentally and physically disabled people strewn across the streets amidst piles of garbage a form of freedom. Mayor Garcetti, in lieu of admitting the real challenges—the first step to taking meaningful action to alleviate the homelessness crisis—has simply ignored the human results of his failed policy. As a result, whole sections of the city, including formerly livable streets in my beloved Venice, have been turned into Skid Row by the Sea... Two young cops, three years on the job, came out. They told me the van had an expired registration (since 2015), so by law, they could tow it, or they could use the prospect of towing it to get the woman to move the van out of earshot. But there was a problem: that prohibition by the mayor against the LAPD enforcing such laws. I got in touch with our local Community Policing officer, Officer Adrian Acosta, who confirmed that they weren’t allowed to tow the van. He came out to talk to the woman and offered her space at Safe Parking L.A.—which she refused. She told Acosta she’d be moving on “soon,” and agreed to stop the repeated door slamming. That lasted about an hour. Then, in quick succession: Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! I opened my door and called from my porch, “Stop slamming the door!” “Oh, you gonna call the cops on me?” she answered. “I’ll call the cops on you!” From then on, there was door slamming all day and sometimes at night—a deliberate ritual to show me she was in control. She could disturb my work, my peace of mind, and my sleep whenever she felt like it... The cops came out repeatedly, answering not just my calls but those of my neighbors. Time after time, the police apologized for the fact that they couldn’t do anything to alleviate the abuse, explaining that they’d been neutered by the mayor, with the support of our local city councilman, Mike Bonin. Several of these officers tried to find creative ways to assist us, however. One officer on night duty came by at 3am and blared his lights and siren at the van, hoping it might make our street seem less hospitable to a couple with an aversion to police attention. Another officer looked up the biker’s license plate to get his name. I needed this for a police report, which Officer Acosta advised I get... We citizens can no longer rely on the police to show up. And then the thought hit me: I need to get a gun. You’ve got to love the irony. It’s the Democrats who push for gun control, yet it’s the Democrats in power in my city who are leaving me with no choice but to arm myself... The supposedly compassionate approach to the homeless endorsed by Garcetti and his “progressive” enablers has, in practice, been anything but: leaving mentally ill and addicted homeless people by the tens of thousands to suffer on L.A.’s streets. I support helping the homeless—but with meaningful measures that have been proven to work, as opposed to policy that’s heavy on virtue signaling and ultimately short on humanitarian substance... I’m writing this from California. I’m sure there are many Americans from outside this state—not to mention foreign readers—whose response to all of this is that we left-coast utopians are merely getting what we deserve. But remember, for better or worse, my state has a long history of exporting cultural and political trends to the rest of the world."
What’s Really Driving the Homelessness Crisis - "For the past decade, progressive political leaders, activists, and media organizations have insisted that housing costs are the primary cause of homelessness. There is some truth to that: It’s obvious that in the largest West Coast cities, where a one-bedroom apartment rents for at least $2,000 a month, it’s more difficult for low-income individuals to afford stable housing. However, as an emerging body of evidence shows, homelessness in America’s West Coast cities—particularly unsheltered homelessness—is not driven primarily by high housing costs, but rather by three interrelated phenomena: addiction, mental illness, and permissive public policies... While the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported substance abuse for only 14% of the homeless population, according to a UCLA study, the real figure is likely to be 75%—more than five times higher than the official estimates. The figures are similar for mental illness. Government authorities have estimated that 25% of the unsheltered population suffers from mental illness, while the UCLA study suggests that the true number is likely to be 78%... Contrary to the conventional wisdom, homelessness is not a national crisis. In fact, homelessness has declined 14.6% nationwide over the past decade, while at the same time increasing dramatically in major West Coast cities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. In part, it’s because these cities have adopted permissive policies on public camping, drug consumption, and property crime, which has created an attractive environment for the homeless. In Los Angeles, more than one-third of unsheltered adults migrated to Los Angeles County after becoming homeless. In Seattle, even the former homelessness czar has admitted there is a “magnet effect” because of the city’s policies and availability of services. (As I have reported for City Journal,9.5% of Seattle’s homeless population moved to the city “for legal marijuana,” 15.4% “to access homeless services,” and 15.7% were “traveling or visiting” and decided to stay.)"
