What percentage of the homeless people in your neighborhood do you think comprises down-on-their-luck people living for awhile in their cars as opposed to people who are apparently unable to cope with life the way it is? Which situation do you think pertains to the vagrants who took residence on your neighbor’s couch? (One might have expected someone among “the unhoused” to move the couch to their encampment—you know, to make it a nicer space—while local government was unable to handle a basic municipal service. That no one did I find somewhat telling.) Long-term, chronic homelessness is not about the absence of a place in which to eat, drink, and litter, as suggested by the amorphic description “experiencing homelessness.” It’s a behavioral/character problem that anyone who’s had family members in that situation due to addiction and/or serious mental health issues can tell you is virtually impossible to solve but most especially if the homeless person has acclimated to the life.
I wouldn't want to hazard a guess. The more screwed up and disruptive people are, the more visible they also are. The down-on-their-luck folks, some of whom may also be suffering from mental ailments, are harder to see, as the New Yorker article correctly points out. They're also easier to house.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that helping them before they fall into chronic homelessness can be a good investment of public resources. Someone suffering from serious depression, to take a relatively easily treated condition, could easily spiral into self-medicating with dangerous drugs and getting more depressed because of the stresses of living on the street.
There are certainly a lot of RVs parked along several major roads not too far away, but they seem to be long-termers. I only pass them in the car, not on foot (assuming that's even possible), so I can't assess their state of mind.
Presumably because of the nearby VA, there are a lot of older, mostly black men, probably Vietnam era vets, who seem troubled and isolated but are not disruptive or obviously mentally ill or addicted (which is not to say they may not have been addicts in the past). I suspect many have off-and-on shelter.
I think you’re right about down-on-their-luck folks being less visible and easier to help, perhaps because they still have the desire/ability to live on the grid. (On a psychic level, being responsible for oneself and one’s children is way harder than checking out.) I also suspect that those in the parked RVs are long-timers and am hazarding a guess (though I shouldn’t) that they’re probably middle-aged people who’ve lost jobs or were divorced or widowed or have criminal records or for whatever reason no longer feel ties to one place. (Hasn’t it kind of become a *thing* to live in a van and travel the country?) Then, too, some people (men) actually prefer the hobo’s life. . . . All this is simply an attempt to say that chronic homelessness will not cease to impede the day-to-day lives of regular (law-abiding, tax-paying) citizens without cities implementing something like Michael Shellenberger’s carrot-and-stick approach, the thought of which the majority of us seem unable to bear.
Excellent article, Virginia.
What percentage of the homeless people in your neighborhood do you think comprises down-on-their-luck people living for awhile in their cars as opposed to people who are apparently unable to cope with life the way it is? Which situation do you think pertains to the vagrants who took residence on your neighbor’s couch? (One might have expected someone among “the unhoused” to move the couch to their encampment—you know, to make it a nicer space—while local government was unable to handle a basic municipal service. That no one did I find somewhat telling.) Long-term, chronic homelessness is not about the absence of a place in which to eat, drink, and litter, as suggested by the amorphic description “experiencing homelessness.” It’s a behavioral/character problem that anyone who’s had family members in that situation due to addiction and/or serious mental health issues can tell you is virtually impossible to solve but most especially if the homeless person has acclimated to the life.
I wouldn't want to hazard a guess. The more screwed up and disruptive people are, the more visible they also are. The down-on-their-luck folks, some of whom may also be suffering from mental ailments, are harder to see, as the New Yorker article correctly points out. They're also easier to house.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that helping them before they fall into chronic homelessness can be a good investment of public resources. Someone suffering from serious depression, to take a relatively easily treated condition, could easily spiral into self-medicating with dangerous drugs and getting more depressed because of the stresses of living on the street.
There are certainly a lot of RVs parked along several major roads not too far away, but they seem to be long-termers. I only pass them in the car, not on foot (assuming that's even possible), so I can't assess their state of mind.
Presumably because of the nearby VA, there are a lot of older, mostly black men, probably Vietnam era vets, who seem troubled and isolated but are not disruptive or obviously mentally ill or addicted (which is not to say they may not have been addicts in the past). I suspect many have off-and-on shelter.
I think you’re right about down-on-their-luck folks being less visible and easier to help, perhaps because they still have the desire/ability to live on the grid. (On a psychic level, being responsible for oneself and one’s children is way harder than checking out.) I also suspect that those in the parked RVs are long-timers and am hazarding a guess (though I shouldn’t) that they’re probably middle-aged people who’ve lost jobs or were divorced or widowed or have criminal records or for whatever reason no longer feel ties to one place. (Hasn’t it kind of become a *thing* to live in a van and travel the country?) Then, too, some people (men) actually prefer the hobo’s life. . . . All this is simply an attempt to say that chronic homelessness will not cease to impede the day-to-day lives of regular (law-abiding, tax-paying) citizens without cities implementing something like Michael Shellenberger’s carrot-and-stick approach, the thought of which the majority of us seem unable to bear.