Just returned from an extended stay in Seattle. I must say that despite my trepidation on what I expected to find and having to wade through waves of homeless a few years back, I was pleasantly surprised. There were no homeless down by the waterfront nor Pike’s Place Market. I did encounter a couple of addicts but they were isolated. Only saw one tent by the freeway.
I know that they are there and my brothers-in-law moan about how Seattle is going to Hell in a hand basket, so they must be congregating somewhere else.
The initial observation that homelessness does not have just one cause makes sense. OTOH, I think housing costs could be halved and most of these folks would still be urban campers.
The basic assumption, though, seems to be that people have a right to live any particular place. It sucks if you get priced out of where you were living, but that doesn’t give you a right to camp in a freaking tent on public land or poop in the street.
If you can’t afford where you’re living, move.
When my wife and I got laid off, we were able to stay here in expensive Northern California, but ONLY because we were debt free. Otherwise it’s pack up and hello North Dakota or any other place where I can make enough working to keep a roof over my head (as for (able bodied) people who won’t take *ANY* job available, they can starve to death in the streets and I’ll call it a net plus.
The only things you have any rights to are those mentioned in the Constitution and those owed to you via legally binding contracts.
Very little in San Francisco or Seattle that a beating and a bus ticket to some state where they are desperate for workers and it’s too cold to camp outdoors wouldn’t solve.
I’m confused.
Don’t you normally end up homeless AFTER you’ve become an addict and your friends and/or family toss you out to save their own sanity, or your craziness causes the same situation when you won’t stay on your meds?
Unless you’re born on the streets, as a lot of unfortunate children are, you end UP there, not START there.
With all that tax money they receive from pot sales how can Seattle have any homeless people.
Ok it's not MINE mine, but it is a good reference!
Watch it and learn.