This is a long article. If you just want to skim it, I’ve highlighted important pieces in bold. This is from my perspective of things I've heard people say and things I've researched, there's a lot of issues here I feel are deeply under-researched and won't be studied/research grants soon. There will probably be things I change later, I had to rush it cause I'm a little worried about reddit going dark after the 12th. My bit on solutions is at the bottom. Please leave additional solutions in the comments, I'd love to hear it! If you leave something snarky I either won't respond or will point out the tactic you're using.
Content warning: This has a lot of emotionally difficult topics that may be triggering- abuse, violence, mental health, a lot of messed up stuff. Also, if you don’t have a strong understanding of government propaganda and brainwashing, a lot of this may go over your head. That’s okay, it took me a lot of years to understand all this, and it will be a lot for you if it’s new information.
Even though I discuss the negative things about services, there's a lot of great staff that try hard. It's important to discuss the negative things so people like them don't get burned out and hopefully one day won't have to fight the system to help people .
...
I’m going to talk about some stigmatized topics here so let's get (un)comfy.
Unless you have paid off your home and have enough money to cover medical/disability/eldercare until you die, (and possibly enough to purchase another house if it burns down) or live with family that does, you will be homeless at some point.
Let’s start with some facts:
At least 40% of homeless people are employed.
Homeless people do not reject housing.
Only 22% are chronically homeless.
Two-thirds of homeless people have no mental illness.
Big causes of homelessness (becoming and having difficulty leaving) include disability, domestic violence, having been in the legal system and foster care system. I don't talk about these things in too much detail rest of the article but keep it in mind. People with developmental issues are more likely to experience these things. Every one of those things can cause disabling health problems, like Complex PTSD, and is very stigamtized.
Services don’t work because of the non-profit industrial complex.
Pretty much all the biggest nonprofits use the methods in the CIA’s handbook on how to destroy organizations. If you find the free reading link please drop it in the comments: http://www.simplesabotage.com/the-book/
Did they actually read the handbook? Probably not. These are basic workplace abuse tactics that work anywhere and anyone can figure out. All nonprofits must function like a business to survive, and many exist to do the bare minimum to maintain maximum profit. Solving homelessness is not profitable. Keep in mind that some of the organizations that San Diego contracts with are for-profit corporations with executive offices hundreds of miles away.
Non-profits don't solve issues because the demand is cut off from the supply. Nonprofits don't solve the needs of homeless people, they solve the needs of public opinion and funding requirements.
Homelessness is causing conditions similar to developing countries- starvation, diseases, etc. Solutions to homelessness are implemented in the same way as foreign aid to developing countries. Millions of dollars are spent on solutions that don't work because they did not listen to the people directly affected by issues- they brought in experts from other places. When developing solutions there are inaccessible public comment listening sessions. The homeless people who attend are often hand-picked from organizations. There's a lot of listening that isn't happening- there's big gaps between clients, staff, management, and the government.
Homeless people do not refuse services. Unfortunately, people who say that homeless people "shy away" from services are participating in gaslighting. Here’s what happens:
The services that exist right now are difficult to access, difficult to use, and there are not enough services to help everyone.
If a service is not accessible for a person with disabilities, that breaks ADA law. That’s illegal. But services don’t like to admit that, so instead of changing anything or admitting they broke the law, on the client’s chart they write that the person “refused services”.
Social services and treatment services have a lot in common with domestic violence situations. Sometimes it is because of toxic employees or bullying clients- but the biggest causes are systemic. City, county and state-level beuracracy, complacency, as well as federal laws. The main differences are as follows:
Abusers provide disability accommodations, services don’t.
Abusers do honeymooning, love bombing, and gift giving. Services don’t.
Compared to a domestic violence situation, service providers won’t hunt you down and kill you but you can absolutely be killed through gaslighting, trauma, and lack of support during life threatening situations in a similar way a narcissist may attempt to murder a victim. The biggest causes are systemic issues that also traumatize staff, although there are plenty of situations created by their toxic coworkers.
Services are unpredictably good, domestic violence situations are predictably bad. By unpredictably good, I’m describing point 3 above. What option sounds better is dependent on if you have sources of certainty in other areas of your life. For someone with CPTSD, situations that are unpredictably good can cause extreme anxiety because in a sense you are walking on eggshells waiting for life to inevitably get worse- and when it does you’ll fall hard because you don't have the same supports as other people.
These are the only differences I have found. Off the top of my head there was about 27 types of abuse, abuse tactics, and abuse dynamics that social services and treatment have in common with domestic violence. This post is already long, so you can read about it further here. I didn't have much time to edit so it's messy: https://radpride.wixsite.com/start-posting/post/comparison-between-social-services-and-domestic-violence
Why are there so many homeless people?
It's what you voted for. Or didn't show up to vote for. If we live in a society where the people who show up to vote do so with vengence, and everybody else thinks politics is a hobby, you get exactly what we have. We do have more people who are voting now, which is great, but we have a shortage of candidates that keep their word, and a shortage of people that do research before they vote. Making good voting decisions really hard, and if everyone was involved in the community there would have been public civic projects to make those decisions waaay easier. Until people care, you're stuck doing research and picking your poison. Solve this by doing political work one hour, once a week. If you don't have time, just do one thing. Research, campaign volunteering, developing solutions, working to get solutions done.
You don't help people. I hear so many people say that they can't help their neighbors or do mutual aid because of capitalism, time, anxiety, etc. For some people, they really, legitimately, can't. But for most people it's a priority issue. It's an individualistic culture issue. And I know because when we have immigrants from collectivist cultures or people from collectivist religions see someone who needs help, all of a sudden none of the excuses matter- they just help. Pitch in by helping someone in your community one hour, once a week. If you don't have time, just do one thing.
The pandemic. Breadwinning family members died or became disabled. The mental health crisis exploded. Many people in general became disabled. Many people lost their jobs and became homeless.
The cost of living is rising, globally. There is a global housing shortage. San Diego recently became the most expensive city in the US. According to inflation, rent should only be 800 per month. The average in San Diego is just under 2,000 a month.
Many social services had a shortage of workers during the Great Resignation. This meant that for two years, many people in homelessness programs did not have social workers. Some shelters serving special populations closed because there were no workers, and those people may have not been comfortable getting housing at places like the Convention Center. Then the convention center closed.
People are fleeing red states. San Diego is the obvious place to go because we have the best weather- you can live outside without freezing to death or getting cooked by high temperatures. The next points describe what people are running from:
Jim Crow-era laws began to return in some red states.
Abortion bans.
Trans people have been banned from getting gender-affirming care, using restrooms, and don’t have rights to medical care, including in emergencies.
Immigrants are at risk of being deported.
Climate change- people are losing their homes in disasters. We will also have more immigrants coming from the south due to these disasters.
Slavery
Slavery is legal, and it’s happening now.
Historical issues don’t disappear because new laws get passed or the constitution gets changed. Unless it is fully and completely addressed, (which has not, given how many people worship the confederate south) the same historical problems pop up under new, fancy names and “technically legal” situations. How does this relate to homelessness? We need to understand the consequences of not having the ability to work.
But surely things can’t be as bad as slavery was before?
Here’s why slavery is happening now:
Full-time employees on average work 47 hours a week, 40% of them work over 50 hours a week. If you go to highschool, college, or university in San Diego and are employed or simply trying to get straight A’s, there is a good chance that you are working and commuting 60-133 hours per week. (On the higher end that’s 4 hours of sleep per night) If your kids are failing their classes or cheating, please congratulate them on my behalf as they are much braver than I ever was.
We are forced to work. If you have enough money to pay rent but have a gap of income or employment history, it will be close to impossible to find a place to live and you'll need to work for a year straight while being homeless before you will find a landlord willing to rent to you. If you are interested in white-collar work, you can’t have a history of “job hopping” or gaps in employment.
Historically, police were slave patrols. San Diego has struggled with police brutality, (thanks for making the reform that made a bunch of cops leave) and if you don’t work or don’t work “enough”, you will likely become homeless. Homelessness is criminalized. Poverty is criminalized. Not working, or not working yourself to death, is criminalized.
If you have kids and don’t make the living wage of 93,000 (single parent, one child) or 51,000 (two working parents, one child) you are at risk of having your child taken away by CWS for “neglect” due to poverty. Keep in mind that before 2018, one-third of foster kids in group homes were trafficked. (If you’re reading this as a parent don’t worry, that data only considers a 40 hour work week and doesn’t include the things you do to “make it work” or things you can get with a lower income, like EBT. And there have been changes in CWS since that expose.)
Heinous violence. Happens constantly. Everywhere. The cops don’t help. The legal system doesn’t help. A good portion of it is completely legal.
Back then there were house slaves and field slaves. We have something similar- most of my points above apply to people who are working, housed, or trying to work or be housed. These people I'll call house slaves. Quality of life is exponentially lower for people who are disabled, homeless or undocumented without an income, or incarcerated. Prison has slave labor. Everyone in those categorizes often experience trafficking, domestic violence, or have other continuous, horrific experiences. In the next section I'll be referring to this group as street slaves.
Slave owners in these time can look like corporate executives and management, slumlords, the wealthy, and even sometimes family. They hold incredible power on our housing, healthcare, and ability to survive. They also have great control on our environmental/physical safety and whether we can set healthy boundaries.
If you are stressed about these unlivable conditions, workplace abuse, or abuse in general, you will be pathologized and diagnosed with “depression” or “anxiety” much like slaves were believed to have “drapetomania” because slavery “greatly improved their life” and anyone who wouldn’t want to be a slave must be “mentally ill” (Think about all the conservative people that say capitalism is good because it improved conditions) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania I think that a large portion of the one-third of homeless people who are reported as mentally ill, including the portion of people who are chronically homeless, aren’t sincerely mentally ill.
We are at risk for forced birthing. In rare cases, this already happens. California blue is center-right by global political standards. "The left" barely exists. If any reproductive rights are taken away on a federal level, the state will not protect you. Police departments here are illegally selling reproductive health related data of people who travel for abortions to red states. In 2020 a woman in San Diego was arrested because her baby died after giving birth at home.
Segregation
Segregation happens when slave owners and house slaves prevent street slaves from gaining rights and social status. Homeless people are not the only ones who experience segregation. There is no black-and-white label on a sign outside a door. Most of the following points also relate to people with disabilities, incarcerated people, and low-income undocumented immigrants:
Without an address, homeless people do not have the right to vote. Because of this they tend to not have any political representation, even though the population(174,600) would rank 32nd out of 58 counties in California. (Population numbers are for the state of California) For incarcerated people (199,000), the population ranks 29th out of 58 counties. Disabled people recently got the right to vote in 2020 because of the pandemic. In San Diego, the population of homeless people (8,427) and incarcerated people (5,259) each have a population bigger than Del Mar and each should have their own city council.
Without an address, many homeless people do not have the right to work.
Homeless people are often not allowed to enter businesses.
If a homeless person is having a medical emergency, oftentimes they will be barred from entering an emergency room and threatened with arrest if they try to enter. If they manage to get in, doctors and nurses often refuse to treat them, and again threaten them with security.
Homeless people do not have the right to housing. If they can pay rent or use a voucher, their application will be denied. NIMBY's prevent affordable housing and housing services from establishing in their neighborhood.
People frequently commit violent crimes against homeless people.
Shutting down encampments and moving people is not okay. Years ago, black people were repeatedly run out of towns without a place to go or a city that would accept them.
"But they are loud at all hours of the night." You know who else is? Shitty neighbors, in houses. It's really not different, you don't notice quiet neighbors/homeless people, and loud neighbors/homeless people stick out like a sore thumb. The solution is to zone housing that is right against freeways specifically for people that want to constantly blare music, have super loud cars and motorcycles, DIY a major construction projects solo with one loud tool, have a pack of incessant small dogs, or are otherwise be obnoxious with their volume. Maybe once they are subjected to people like them they will learn from their mistakes. The immediate solution is to give the portion of homeless that like to party, a place to party. A designated spot for them to be as loud as possible without bothering others. I think it's wrong to shut down their fun when it's essentially dancing on the sinking titanic. Seriously, pretty soon Chula Vista and Mission Valley will be underwater, everything else is going to be burned to the ground in wildfires, and according to historical patterns and predictions the US government is on the brink of collapse. The world is ending. Have fun!
Chronic Homelessness
Remember that there’s a lot of chronically homeless people that are simply disabled, and social security does not cover the costs of living. They are not severely mentally ill.
A lot of you have an obsession with chronically homeless people who are severely mentally ill. This obsession is often used as an excuse to deny people of the resources they need- the overwhelming majority of people can make decisions for themselves. This obsession is used to advocate for coercive and controlling housing solutions, such as forced treatment. Don't talk about treatment unless you know what it is. Because you're so obsessed with it, I'll address it.
Out of chronically homeless people, we have a few categories that get brought up:
People who have bipolar disorder or schizophrenia
People who struggle with addiction
First off, people who are bipolar or schizophrenic often get mistaken for people who are on drugs. But it’s very different.
There’s a false assumption that these people are the way they are because they don’t take medication or refuse treatment.
Here's why that's wrong:
People are expected to keep track of and take their own medication- this isn’t realistic when there are frequent gaps in prescription refills, pharmacy stock/order refill/deliveries, gaps in doctors appointments, when scheduling and attending appointments isn’t accessible, and when people may struggle with taking medication on their own because of issues like insomnia, memory loss, or inaccessible reminder systems.
Medication doesn’t work, anywhere between 20% and 60% of the time depending on the diagnosis.
Providers do not use reccomended protocols like trauma-informed care or the L.E.A.P. method. Many break contractual agreements by not following trauma-informed care.
Hospitals kick people out even if it’s medically necessary they stay because insurance stops covering or there’s a pressure to open hospital beds.
Nothing is prevented. Services are only for recovery, not prevention- preventative care is against the rules. They are not allowed to get help. It is only available after there is a crisis, entering the legal system, or chronically homeless. This means that people are repeatedly turned away until they have been forced into the worst state they could possibly be in. Recently there has been funding alloted to services to address this issue, but many of the approved applicants still do not provide preventative care. This gives a huge false sense that solutions are being implemented.
Treatment isn't available. The waiting lists are long. Programs and services are close to impossible to get into. Employees actively discriminate against people who are homeless or disabled.
Hospitals are inhumane. When discussing homelessness, a lot of people bring up how mental institutions were shut down and we need something to replace it. Hospitals and assisted living facilities do not provide an answer- they are equally as inhumane as the facilities shut down years ago. There is severe abuse and medical abuse and neglect for both physical and mental health. Hospitals are essentially holding cells- they are not safe, there are stanford prison experiment dynamics, and there are many staff that have no training in mental health. Hospitals, the county, and the state are all well aware as to how bad things are and no one does anything. Hospitals even use HIPAA as an excuse to prevent evidence collection and stop lawsuits. The accountability systems in place don't have the authority to solve these problems, or (in the case of insurance) can be equally as bad.
I also suspect that a lot of homeless people are mis-diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and actually have autism, ADHD, or CPTSD
People who are autistic can do things or have symptoms that look like schizophrenia- like talking to themselves, discussing topics that are considered delusional or inappropriate, hallucinations, catatonia, or erratic behavior. Treatment for schizophrenia will not work because they are not schizophrenic, they are autistic.
People who have ADHD, CPTSD, or autism can have symptoms that look like bipolar disorder- but it’s not. If it’s really CPTSD, their “bipolar symptoms” will go away once they no longer experience abuse or trauma. Again, treatment for bipolar disorder will not work for all three because they aren’t actually bipolar.
People might be misdiagnosed as bipolar or schizophrenic by their family. There is a disturbingly common psychological abuse tactic where a person will intentionally destroy a person’s mental health. Once they are dysregulated, they will convince therapists, psychiatrists, people outside the family (and even the victim, through gaslighting and brainwashing) that the person is delusional, spending thousands of dollars on treatment and never making tangible efforts if they do family therapy. They use psychiatric medication to sedate them and be compliant to abuse. If they run away, their family often speaks about how they “did everything they could to save them” and “they just didn’t want help”. If the person commits suicide they pretend to be devestated and bathe in the attention they get, even for years later via going to grief counseling. If the person dies it is often because they encouraged the person to commit suicide. The abusers go to mental health support groups and “vent” and “learn to support” their mentally ill family member. If it’s intimate partner violence, the perpetrator will use the support group to find a new person to abuse under the guise of a “shared experience/struggle”. In a nuclear family with two or more children, they treat one of the children well. This child is brainwashed to believe the abuse happening around them is normal, and they are treated well to increase loneliness experienced by the neglected child, as well as so people outside of the family believe they are good parents because “(sibling) turned out great so you know it isn’t the parents!” If you think everything I described is ridiculous, you have never been exposed to the true side of a person with narcissistic personality disorder. Also remember that this type of abuse is more common nowadays because standard physical abuse and murder is illegal and more difficult to get away with. I guarantee you if what I just described above became illegal and easy to prosecute, people would come up with abuse tactics that would make Black Mirror episodes blush. It is very important to learn about narcissistic abuse both to protect yourself, support victims, and because these dynamics happen in society on a larger, systemic scale. How so?
Societal narcisstic abuse. Billionaires and corrupt politicians find narcissism as an easy way to maintain control over everybody. Here’s some descriptions of the roles:
Narcissists: Oligarchs and corrupt politicians (especially the charismatic ones)
Golden child: Capitalists and business owners
Brainwashed child: Followers of propaganda and religious extremism
Truth teller: Investigative Journalists and activists
Invisible Child: Minorities that are ignored
Scapegoat: Minorities that are blamed
In the family, the scapegoat is the child that acts out. They are often mentally ill, have behavior challenges, and some might struggle with addiction. The family abuses them, blames them for all their problems, and sets them up for failure.
On a societal level, the scapegoats are homeless people.
Neurodivergent people have no support.
So why are all these people with CPTSD, ADHD, and autism homeless?
Because support does not exist. Here's why:
For ADHD and autism there are some medications that can help, but it’s a developmental disorder that can’t be cured. Despite this, treatment is designed to "solve" the problem and make dependent people "independent", which doesn't work. The recommended treatment for autism, called ABA therapy, is comparable to conversion therapy for LGBT+ people. One ABA center in the US was called out by the UN for committing torture.
There are exponentially less resources for adults than there are for kids. Luckily, during the pandemic, entreprenuers started developing their own solutions to support themselves. Many of these services are only available to people with internet access and some cost money- this is not accessible for people who are homeless, and these solutions only address the tip of the iceberg and leave out important support needs.
Because ADHD and autism is often an invisible disability, people can be undiagnosed for years. This impacts women and people of color at much higher rates. and often viewed as “lazy” “irresponsible” “immature” or a “couch potato” who “doesn’t try” and “chose to ruin their life”
Getting a diagnosis is often not possible. ADHD and autism is a developmental disability, not a mental illness. It can only be diagnosed by a neuropsychologist. This means people often end up in the mental health system first and don't get the support they need. If you were not diagnosed as a young child, finding one and getting through the wait list can take years, and in many cases it’s not covered by insurance. Testing sometimes is hundreds of dollars but often is thousands of dollars.
Discrimination: people do not like them. They think their needs are “unreasonable”, “too much”, they don’t like their personality and believe they need to “grow up”. They are often viewed as too sensitive, weird, gullible, boring, under-a-rock, rude, or disrespectful.
Caregivers are not accessible. People who have severe symptoms of either of the three conditions need a caregiver, but specifically a caregiver that can do cognitive tasks. Besides the fact that caregiving is not affordable to most, people who need a caregiver for this reason often do not have the cognitive ability to find, hire, and schedule a caregiver. In addition, most caregivers only help people with physical tasks, not cognitive tasks, and they have the expectation that the client provides instructions for tasks they were hired to figure out.
Addiction
I've heard people say that people who take drugs to be forced into treatment. This is wrong. If you don't think it's wrong, would you want involuntary treatment to address your addictions? A loooot of people struggle with codependency, workaholism, addiction to food, internet, stress, or the news. These are called process addictions. Unlike substance addiction, they are socially acceptable. Contrary to popular opinion, they are not less dangerous. Process addictions do destroy families and cause the addicted person to get sick and even die, and I have never seen someone on drugs organize to overthrow the government.
Taking drugs, self harm/sabatoge, and suicide is seen as a choice, when it's not. This is because of “say no to drugs” campaigns, suicide prevention campaigns, and toxic self-help & hustle culture that frames self sabotage as something that can be stopped.
In some cases, it is a choice. But for many it's not and addiction often happens when people are in situations that aren’t possible to tolerate. As an example, people who are being tortured will do absolutely anything to escape the pain. How they achieve that is not voluntary. People may take drugs in response to horrific traumatic events, excrutiating physical disabilities, mental illnesses, or actually being tortured. (in many cases, it’s not prosecuted, prosecuted far too late, or even technically legal) Sometimes abusers hook people on drugs to control them. Sometime people take drugs because they need the effects to survive, such as staying awake.
People take drugs when it is more valuable to forget than to remember. In order to recover, people need a life worth living.
The famous rat park experiment showed people that rats only took drugs when they were isolated, and when they lived somewhere nice in community with other rats they didn't take drugs. People are very similar. Right now our society is highly individualistic and creates isolation. Our problem with isolation is caused by bad city planning, no third space to be with others outside of home or work, and cars that take up all public and private space with roads and parking. Dependence on technology and parasocial (celebrity) relationships is a symptom, not a cause, of isolation.
People take drugs to feel better. On the flip side, some people use self sabatoge or self harm when things going well feels intolerable- if someone with CPTSD has never had stability, stability can feel excruciating. Again, this is often not a choice.
We need to accept that some people will never recover- and that's okay. Many of people have had horrific trauma, and it was a decision the community made to not prevent those experiences. Even if someone doesn’t recover, they still deserve to have their basic needs met and be given the resources to improve their quality of life as much as possible given the situation.
Complex-PTSD and Ethics
Forcing mental health services or treatment is unethical because force is abusive, the services themselves are abusive, the “positive” aspects of the treatment is not based on scientific evidence and also was never designed to help people with severe and disabling mental health issues.
One of the reasons mental health treatment doesn’t work for people who have CPTSD is because if they were abused as a child, it's likely they have never once in their life experienced emotions such as relaxation or love. Mental health services set these people up for failure when they are asked to use coping skills to feel emotions that they have never felt before- it’s like asking a blind person to look at colors, and saying they aren’t going to get better until they look at the colors, them blaming them for not recovering when the colors are right in front of their face.
Unfortunately, because of the non-profit industrial complex people don’t get the support they need to succeed which can lead to situations where people get a taste of a life they know exists but realize they will never have what they need to get that life. There's a lot of times where people are told that the behavior patterns they have now are because of events that happened in their past, but after trying to change realize that the behavior patterns they have now are because of traumatic events happening now. The solution is to support them, (and serious support, like supportive-family level, but from community members) stop and prevent trauma from happening.
A lot of therapists say the only way to get over trauma is to talk about it over and over until it doesn't make you upset anymore, but there's a lot of people that have so much trauma that, at the pace of a one hour session once a week, it would take hundreds of years before being "healed". CBT, or cognitive behavior therapy, is standard practice but it's really bad for people with trauma. There are much more effective methods of healing trauma but those aren't used. The other issue with therapists is that they have a difficult time practicing what they preach- in the US, there a very, very, few people that are sincerely mentally healthy.
The other issue is that CPTSD often affects the nervous system so badly that medications cause severe reactions and side effects, so it's not safe to take medication.
When doing mental health work it’s normal to have a little bit of healing/growing pain, but with CPTSD, doing traditional mental health work can worsen symptoms or cause severe panic attacks, hallucinations, or seizures. Forcing people to to do what's "mentally healthy" or talking about their experiences in these cases can be dangerous, traumatizing, and close opportunites for growth in the future.
So what are the solutions?
Create one website service system for all services. This would replace the 211 website and the Coordinated Entry System. Here's the description: https://radpride.wixsite.com/start-posting/post/a-better-way-to-distribute-social-services
Make a list of demands, reforms, and prevention measures for nonprofits to follow the law, follow their contract obligations, and increase the quality of services. If they refuse to implement them by a certain date, then cut their contract. If after the date they rollback efforts, it gets cut as well. A nonprofit that is harming people and only makes things worse in the long run.
Some services won't pass. In preparation for this, here's what happens so clients aren't left in the dust:
Increase capacity for excelling programs to take redirected people
Create high-paid gig job positions for social workers, connected to the service system website. This includes jobs such as transportation for clients, medical staff, and anything that clients were getting at previous programs
Mobilize to make multiple refugee camps, with a focus on making the environment as comfortable as possible.
If organizations that are anticipated to not make the cut serve a special population that can't use one of the above points, their needs are identified and alternate solutions made.
After everything is sorted out and the dust settles, the camps and gig workers stay and work with everyone, not just people whose programs closed.
3. Build multiple low-budget cities in California, and never stop building.
Comparatively low-budget, no million-dollar public restrooms. There is a global housing shortage, and with climate disasters it's about to get worse. We need to designate an areas to scrap building codes/permits and liability and allow people to make off-grid communities. Since its too expensive for the government to build housing, let the people do it themselves. Have the first residents be people with experience with van life and bushcraft. If it's build-to-own people will be motivated to do high-quality work. Building codes are designed to keep people safe- and its significantly less safe for people to be homeless than get injured in some hypothetical. If they're really concerned, they can provide step-by step instructions on how to build tiny homes and infrastructure. California is known for its good weather and we have a ton of land- let's take advantage of it! This will allow the portion of homeless people who want to leave, leave. Some people hate this city and want out, so let them out. When the cities become more established and developers/businesses start coming in, having housing available will prevent people from becoming homeless.
Homeless people, immigrants, and red-state refugees will not stop arriving at San Diego, no matter what. There is nothing anyone can do to change that. Once the low-budget cities are established and thriving, give every single person who arrives to San Diego, who doesn't have connections, transportation and a financial incentive to move there.
Here's additional solutions:
4. Have several safe parking lots in every city of San Diego. If possible, add tiny homes. Have each one cater to a specific demographic: families, students, women, elderly, wildfire refugees, cancer patients, etc.- word it in a way that makes NIMBY protesters look especially evil and spark strong counter-protest.
5. Build and create affordable housing as is already supposed to exist or planned to exist, and more- and make sure the people moving in are locals. People have said affordable housing here won't work because people won't stop moving here. Designate affordable housing to locals and homeless people.
6. Improve the quality of independent living facilities and single-room occupancies. This is the most common form of long-term housing for people who are homeless and disabled. Housing services are like college dorms, incompatible people are all in the same place. This is a terrible situation for everyone, especially for disabled/low-income people that need assistance for years. People can be organized with a roommate compatibility score comparable to the Myers-Briggs structure. Here's what would be measured:
Clean/Messy
Quiet/Loud
Early Bird/Night Owl/Changing Sleep Schedule
Low Needs/High Needs (this is based on how much a person needs their roommates to accomodate them. This can apply to things like food allergies, a strong need for alone time, windows closed and locked, or really anything that other people need to adhere to. This is different from disability accommodations such as wheelchair accessibility which could be solved with a ramp rather than a need for roommates to adhere to specific rules.
ILF's
Make independent living facilities client-owned. There's often at least one person that wants to make the ilf a safe, inviting community with game nights, group meals, and chore/rule enforcement. These efforts are always shut down because they don't have authority to enforce rules, don't have cleaning supplies, and chaos & resulting turnover makes it difficult to organize. I've seen people cover meals and buy their own games but they should get support there too. Make people like this the house manager, and give them authority to set healthy boundaries and provide consequences**. Assisted living facilities also need to be client owned**. If residents have the authority to make decisions on caregiving, food, and community needs there would be less abuse.
Because there's rarely beds available for assisted living, people who aren't independent are placed with everyone else. This isn't safe. All ilf's must have the option for as-needed caregiving. They can even hire residents that have a difficult time finding jobs.
All large rooms that fit two or more beds are designated for families, couples, friends, and cohorts of people who frequently don't live there for reasons other than incompatibility. Right now this is against the rules.
All ilf's that have lots of rooms are turned into intentional communities based on commonalities between people who need services- artists, writers, music creators, entrepreneurs.
Comments