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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30069 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

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I don't really disagree with anything you wrote. But in practice, none of these cities seem to be capable of building the shelters or housing needed, and it is totally unacceptable to let things like public libraries or most public spaces be held hostage for decades, just because every level of government involved is incapable of doing anything about homelessness. The homeless understandably want to go somewhere that feels safe, but so does the general public, and there are many more of us.

Here's a compromise: a huge operational shelter, complete with three hots and a cot, and you can stay as long as you want and even get basic medical services. You can even camp on the outside where no rules are enforced. The only catch: it's in the middle of nowhere. If you're arrested for aggressive vagrancy in a metro area and can't prove you have a residence or employment, you are put on a bus and sent to the camp shelter. You are not required to stay, but the state will not give you a free ride out.

Reminds me of the Charity Centers from "Down And Out In Christania" by AntiDem (and, less optimistically, the terrafoam projects from Manna by Marshall Brain).

But then what do we do? We either have a place to go (day shelters, library, etc) or put them in jail. But the US already has really high incarceration rates to the point even the "soft on crime" states look pretty extreme compared to a lot of the rest of the world. Maybe some of this is explained by a difference in definitions (and I definitely think we should discount some of the countries like Russia and China since they might even be faking data) but it's hard to imagine there's much categorical flummery available within the question of "is a person locked up against their will by the government?", especially compared to western peers so I'm not sure how effective just keep locking up even more is going to work out for us.

At the very least it seems there's a deeper issue to be addressing in why the US seems to have way more visible homeless than Taiwan or Japan or New Zealand or the UK.

But then what do we do?

Institutionalize them. Not jail. These people are deeply unwell and need care.

Do you earnestly believe that everyone in a night shelter who goes to a library or mall during the day due to lack of a day shelter being available are so deeply unwell they need forced hospitalization?

It seems to me the first step should be "make a day shelter available" and then the second step for stragglers who are too unwell to use it is the mental institutions.

I thought the topic of discussion was homeless people who are scary and make formerly good public spaces ruined because regular people now feel unsafe in them. Those people need to be institutionalized.

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