Posted on 08/07/2026 8:53:32 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A recent article in City Journal by Heather MacDonald argued that street homelessness is fundamentally an addiction and mental health crisis disguised as a housing shortage.
I’ve been saying the same thing for a number of years. The romance of the poor homeless on city sidewalks being there because of capitalism, unfair equity practices, poverty, or racism is over. Yet the Left continues to pursue this romantic fiction, despite it being a lie.
Once, there was an element of truth to this myth. The phrase, “Lift them up!” was a favorite among Philadelphia homeless activists.
The truly homeless — people not addicted to drugs who want to get off the streets as soon as possible — are able to obtain housing and move on. But the men and women who make the streets their home, cannot be said to be “homeless.” They are vagrants, 100% of them victims of addiction. Many are superficially “nice” people who panhandle, shoplift, and even rob their fellow vagrants for one reason only: to get money for drugs.
When chronic vagrants are offered housing, they refuse it. They cannot manage the housing application process because their addiction to Xylazine (or tranq), mixed with Fentanyl, keeps them unconscious half the day. They nod out in the street as fellow vagrants go through their pockets and steal what little they own.
The housing process means rules; it means forced rehab; it means giving up the freedom of the streets, where one can roam, score, panhandle, steal, or shoplift. Bicycles are a major theft item. The vagrants hunt for unlocked bicycles in front of convenience stores, or tucked away on city porches.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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I’ve seen this happen several times on the streets of NYC.
A charitable soul might give vagrants warm blankets, heat up milk and feed it to them in a bottle, wash their hair, give them a hundred dollars, cook them dinner or take them out to Applebee’s, but in a few hours’ time, they’ll be right back where you found them: drugged out, broke, and looking as if they are on the verge of death.
I saw a documentary about street people in Los Angeles. Long time ago, in the 80s.
Most of them said they liked living on the street, had a lifestyle all figured out, didn’t want to live in any kind of structured situation. They wanted to be left alone.
Most of the homeless are mentally ill and need to be institutionalized.
Talk to Geraldo Rivera about that.
Root cause is irrational, irresponsible decisions. Hanging around others who make bad decisions can destroy your life.
This is patently obvious to anyone who spend an hour on the streets of SF.
But here’s the rub:
(1) Libtarbs mandate that cities give cash aka welfare to every homeless person on the streets. Does not matter if you are a drug tourist or arrive yesterday or illegal - everyone gets cash. Of course that simply fuels the drug habits
(2) Cannot force them into treatment because liberal judges won’t allow.
(3) Cannot force them into jail because state supreme court said no bail requirement unless extremely violent. So catch and release dozens of times.
(4) There is a massive homeless industrial complex. Literally 1 billion spent annually by city of SF alone. Where does that money go? Not to homeless people but to support 1000s on payroll of NGOs that service homeless.
There is no way to change the system until the legislators and judges are replaced. There is no way to replace them because libtard voters refuse to do so.
As a result it is a death spiral for cities, and those of us who can only have one choice- depart.
PING dumbass toleration of criminal bums
The solution is simple
Bring back vagrancy laws. Anyone sleeping on the streets is arrested and sentenced to 4-6 months at a minimum security camp deep in the woods, where they can live in quonset huts, have a clean bed, showers, be kept away from drug dealers, and do simple work.
You will find that 90% quickly find housing.
As a result it is a death spiral for cities, and those of us who can only have one choice- depart.
100% correct. An ecosystem of political bureaucracy and money are the foundation of this problem.
That's why nothing will change until a REAL economic crisis, collapse and government bankruptcy happens. Crime, homelessness etc... will actually get worse, until society decides it no longer will tolerate it. We will then get leaders who will be much more decisive, and at times brutal, and a lot stronger than the simps we have now.
Then things will be cleaned up VERY quickly.
I believe that one has to be either very clever and resourceful to “live on the street” or resigned to a lonely and miserable death.
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The 6-foot-8 former Houston Rockets draft pick follows fellow former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who announced his own plans to declare amid the growing debate over transgender athletes in women's sports.
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White said the move is meant to challenge the WNBA to clearly define its eligibility rules for transgender athletes, saying: “I'd like to know what the parameters are.”
I remember Willowbrook
Which is why I NEVER give to those *homeless* people standing on street corners holding their signs.
I had a friend who successfully completed the Teen Challenge program and he said to NEVER give to those people. He knew them from his past and knew that they only used the money for drugs. He also said that there were plenty of resources for them to avail themselves of but they didn’t want to follow the rules or the accountability. If they wanted out of that lifestyle, they could do it, but they are choosing to be where they are.
Which is why I NEVER give to those *homeless* people standing on street corners holding their signs.
I had a friend who successfully completed the Teen Challenge program and he said to NEVER give to those people. He knew them from his past and knew that they only used the money for drugs. He also said that there were plenty of resources for them to avail themselves of but they didn’t want to follow the rules or the accountability. If they wanted out of that lifestyle, they could do it, but they are choosing to be where they are.
In the 1950s and 1960s there were 500,000 people in mental health facilities across America.
Needless to say, these were American citizens who consumed tremendous resources from the taxpayers, and most importantly, they did not vote.
In the aftermath of having their heads handed to them by the voters in 1972, when President Nixon humiliated the democrats by winning 49 out of 50 states, a decision was made by democrats in congress to use any and all taxpayer money available to bribe voters with government programs.
This meant reducing funding for those non voters in mental health facilities and use the funding elsewhere.
The population of mental health facilities was reduced by 90 % to 50,000.
This was done by democrats, who controlled Capitol Hill almost without exception for 40 years, from 1954 to 1994.
These inmates were given a couple of weeks worth of prescription medication and then turned loose on the streets of America.
Talk about chutzpah, the democrats then had the gall to blame the ‘homeless’ problem on President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, who had also humiliated democrats with another 49 state landslide election in 1984.
The media then treated America to a cocaine addict named Schneider who posed on tv news programs as a ‘homeless advocate’ who made the unverified claim that there were 3 million homeless on the streets of America.
The media presented this claim as fact for years, until finally, when people had stopped listening in the late 1980s, ‘Advocate Schneider’ admitted on tv that he had made up the number 3 million.
By the late 1980s, it was over and done with, and in the minds of millions, the ‘homeless’ problem was all the fault of republicans.
Hollywood played their part in convincing the public by mischaracterizing what actually took place in those mental health facilities with the award winning movie ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST in the mid 1970s.
Nurses did not have the authority to order lobotomies for patients, and that was really the thrust of this movie’s theme. It served to make people feel that closing the facilities was in the best interests of the country.
It was not, it was in the best interests of the democrats, who subsequently spent the money that had funded those facilities on redundant programs to ‘help’ the poor.
The status quo established by democrats 50 years ago remains.
The truth needs to be told about what they did in Congress back then, and why, and return those in need of help to modern mental health facilities.
The democrats in Congress carry tremendous culpability for their decisions and actions dury the almost half century they controlled Capitol Hill.
If anybody looks up this issue online, they will see the usual ‘spreading the blame’ game, in a continued effort to escape responsibility.
The ‘homeless’ issue in America was created by democrats.
Like almost every other ill the country suffers from, it is entirely their fault.
Before I retired there was a man that worked for our cleaning service. Some employees noticed that he carried everything he owned on his bicycle. He was camping on the creek and was homeless. They told our manager and she was in tears worrying about him. She managed to get funds to get a long-term motel room for him. He refused and quit his job. His reason was that he liked how he lived. He wasn’t on drugs and never came to work drunk. The cleaning service drug tested their employees.
No sitting on their asses watching TV.
Road crews, picking up trash, something like that.
Rehab and AA/NA meetings with forced attendance.
After 30 days, reevaluation and release, or keeping those who need another spin cycle before being streeted.
A handful will see that the rehab/vagrancy has been a good thing; keep them and employ them.
Troublemakers and escapees: a year in jail.
Can't have these toxic drug addicted bums destroying our cities.
Can't have people wasting their lives without intervention; it isn't humane.
The whole druggie/bum subculture is a Communist op that we need to bust up.
GMTA !
Mostly all are getting a monthly gvt disability check of some kind. EBT is easy to trade for alcohol. By living on the street they pay no rent electric and so on.
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