The Homeless crisis

[genetic freak]

It is pretty bad in Hawaii as well, but it is different. When I lived on Oahu the homeless were all over, but a lot of them were employed. They just chose to be transient, instead of paying rent. Crime and drugs were still prevalent, but nothing compared to what you see in the homeless on the mainland.

 

[testboner]

I am from Los Angeles and the RV shit is something new within the last two and half years. I never use to see RV's. Now these are everywhere like roaches. I cannot fucking understand how this libtard State taxes us hard up the ass and doesn't do shit to have clean streets.

Here what I think has been happening in the last few decades.

• Too many dumb people reproducing dumb people.
• No one is studying Engineering, Mathematics, or some form of computer science. too many unskilled for the professional job market.
• Indoctrination camps from grade school to high school has been useless. Thanks to the libtard agenda
• Those that have reproduced at a low income have already created themselves a disadvantaged for their offspring.
• The average adult now still lives with their mother and father. What the fuck is the point of reproducing just to have a 40 yr old child living with you?
• libtard gov't handouts - food stamps and some form assistance
• People that have children should be taxed at a higher rate. 60%+ that's my opinion obviously. That would help people think twice before popping out over 2 children per household. This whole 4-6 children is fucking excessive.
• A household making less than 240k should not be reproducing.
• Times have changed. No more manufacturing. It's all overseas with cheap labor. whats your child going to do for income?
• The list can go on. From a broad perspective that's what I think. When a society reproduces in just a short time, exponentially, everything just becomes musical chairs.
• Too bad the pandemic wasn't real. Most of those would have been first to go.

For myself. I decided not to reproduce because I want everything I make for myself. Yes, all for me. I put myself through college, I paid for my education, bought my house with the little earnings I had at the time, and now have a high salary paying career. Two of neighbors asked me if I was ever going to have children. Being in my early thirties I said fuck no. There isn't a shortage of people. I still say fuck no.

Thank you. I’d say I can agree with at least 75% of your examples.

 

[gbagh]

I was homeless not so long ago. There is way too much opportunity in this country for people to remain homeless. I showered at the gym. I lived in my truck. I worked my balls off every day that I could. I saved my money and I got a place to live. There is no reason for anyone to be homeless unless they are sick and can't work. If you're hooked on booze or drugs, get help. Get sober and start working. There is plenty of help out there for people who want it. The problem is that people want to get high and drunk more than they want to remedy their homelessness.

 

[searay]

It is pretty bad in Hawaii as well, but it is different. When I lived on Oahu the homeless were all over, but a lot of them were employed. They just chose to be transient, instead of paying rent. Crime and drugs were still prevalent, but nothing compared to what you see in the homeless on the mainland.

Housing has got ridiculous every where. It's like all the landlords have got together and decided to raise rents to unaffordable highs hence more homeless. My mother, who is 83, has had rent increases from $800 mo. to $1300 mo. over the past 3 yrs. WTF? The parking lots and roads to them are horrendous. The maintenance guy, who is a really good guy, tells us the landlord tells him to just throw sand in the holes! This all in central Maine!! Good news is alot of people have moved out, not sure where there going. My son bought a house about 5 yrs. ago and the inspector did a shit job so he had all kinds of issues with his basement. He just won a substantial lawsuit against the guy. It's like everyone is on the take. I have no doubt the inspector got an 'incentive' to fudge the inspection.

 

[testboner]

I was homeless not so long ago. There is way too much opportunity in this country for people to remain homeless. I showered at the gym. I lived in my truck. I worked my balls off every day that I could. I saved my money and I got a place to live. There is no reason for anyone to be homeless unless they are sick and can't work. If you're hooked on booze or drugs, get help. Get sober and start working. There is plenty of help out there for people who want it. The problem is that people want to get high and drunk more than they want to remedy their homelessness.

Happy to hear that you were able to get your feet under yourself again Bro. Thank you for posting.

 

[HardManifest]

I was homeless not so long ago. There is way too much opportunity in this country for people to remain homeless. I showered at the gym. I lived in my truck. I worked my balls off every day that I could. I saved my money and I got a place to live. There is no reason for anyone to be homeless unless they are sick and can't work. If you're hooked on booze or drugs, get help. Get sober and start working. There is plenty of help out there for people who want it. The problem is that people want to get high and drunk more than they want to remedy their homelessness.

I absolutely agree bro. everyone deserves chances in life. Its those that do not want help need to be managed in some form throughout our cities. May God be on your side.

 

[genetic freak]

Housing has got ridiculous every where. It's like all the landlords have got together and decided to raise rents to unaffordable highs hence more homeless. My mother, who is 83, has had rent increases from $800 mo. to $1300 mo. over the past 3 yrs. WTF? The parking lots and roads to them are horrendous. The maintenance guy, who is a really good guy, tells us the landlord tells him to just throw sand in the holes! This all in central Maine!! Good news is alot of people have moved out, not sure where there going. My son bought a house about 5 yrs. ago and the inspector did a shit job so he had all kinds of issues with his basement. He just won a substantial lawsuit against the guy. It's like everyone is on the take. I have no doubt the inspector got an 'incentive' to fudge the inspection.

Yep. When I was in Hawaii the rent in my 2 bdrm/2 bath apartment went from $1300 to $2800 in 7 years. You didn't dare complain though, because $2800 didn't even get you a room to rent most places on the island.

 

[Pig Vomit]

Regarding the cost of housing.....

We are landlords. We keep our rents slightly below market. We rarely have vacancies, and when we do, we frequently remodel and upgrade.

The last few years our own costs have risen dramatically, especially insurance and utilities. Over half our units come with all utilities paid.

California now has statewide rent control for many landlords. Some are not subject to these laws, we have couple of those units, but most are rent controlled.

We are limited in increases to 5% plus the consumer price index for cost of living increases each year, up to a maximum of 10%. All of our tenants will be receiving a 10% increase this year, and trust me, it is not keeping up with our own cost increases or inflation.

Do we make a good income? Oh, yeah. But why should we be penalized and have our income lowered to subsidize housing just because we were wise enough to invest in fixers, fix them up and provide rental housing? Few other businesses are limited in what they can charge for something, and why should we be any different? Last time I checked we have a free market economy.

All this having been said.....we are not greedy. We just want a fair return on our investment. We have 5 mortgages (used to have 7). We have a tenant in one unit who has heart failure and can't work. He's paying $750/mo for a one bedroom standalone unit. He has not had any increases for many years because we knew he couldn't afford it. He was also not capable of applying for Social Security Disability on his own. Guess who helped him, completed all the paperwork, and he finally got approved for Disability (around $700/mo)? Yeah, that was me, and that stuff was WAY more complicated and time consuming than it should have been. He told me that he had consulted with an attorney who wanted $7,500 to handle his application, and I just thought that was ridiculous so I told him I would do it for him, no charge. He's a good guy, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a hard worker, honest, and would much rather be working than sitting on his ass with heart failure. Were it not for our help and generosity, he would be homeless. We could easily be getting around $1,750 for his unit.....but it will remain at $750 for the rest of his life, and that's coming out of our pockets.

It's easy to paint landlords as being greedy, but we don't dictate what the rents are....the market does. Vacancies benefit us because we can raise rents to current market rates, which are usually several hundred dollars a month higher than what we get with the old tenants. It is not our fault that more and more people want to live in southern California, because that is the reason rents are so high here. People are welcome to move to other states where rents and cost of living are lower. Supply and demand is the underlying prime factor in all pricing. Demand grossly exceeds supply here, and that's why there is a "housing crisis". There's no crisis, it's just supply and demand. There is little undeveloped land in So Cal, so the ability to increase the housing supply is quite limited.

 

[Kluso]

I am from Los Angeles and the RV shit is something new within the last two and half years. I never use to see RV's. Now these are everywhere like roaches. I cannot fucking understand how this libtard State taxes us hard up the ass and doesn't do shit to have clean streets.

Here what I think has been happening in the last few decades.

• Too many dumb people reproducing dumb people.
• No one is studying Engineering, Mathematics, or some form of computer science. too many unskilled for the professional job market.
• Indoctrination camps from grade school to high school has been useless. Thanks to the libtard agenda
• Those that have reproduced at a low income have already created themselves a disadvantaged for their offspring.
• The average adult now still lives with their mother and father. What the fuck is the point of reproducing just to have a 40 yr old child living with you?
• libtard gov't handouts - food stamps and some form assistance
• People that have children should be taxed at a higher rate. 60%+ that's my opinion obviously. That would help people think twice before popping out over 2 children per household. This whole 4-6 children is fucking excessive.
• A household making less than 240k should not be reproducing.
• Times have changed. No more manufacturing. It's all overseas with cheap labor. whats your child going to do for income?
• The list can go on. From a broad perspective that's what I think. When a society reproduces in just a short time, exponentially, everything just becomes musical chairs.
• Too bad the pandemic wasn't real. Most of those would have been first to go.

For myself. I decided not to reproduce because I want everything I make for myself. Yes, all for me. I put myself through college, I paid for my education, bought my house with the little earnings I had at the time, and now have a high salary paying career. Two of neighbors asked me if I was ever going to have children. Being in my early thirties I said fuck no. There isn't a shortage of people. I still say fuck no.

Good thing we still have legal abortion right?

 

[woodswise]

I probably have better insight than most people here.

The LA area has been my home my entire life. Although I'm a bit to the south in OC, and it's not *quite* as bad here, it's fairly bad and getting worse all the time. The homeless walk past my house every single day. Our rental properties have been vandalized and broken into by the homeless. Our downtown commercial building has been broken into by the homeless, who also camp out on the roof. We have involvement with a charity involving an historical building, and a couple nights ago we had to roll out there and meet with the police because a homeless person kicked in a window (antique, historical), broke in, set up camp, etc. They have caused fires in the building, one very serious, which caused a lot of damage.

I was also a police officer for over 15 years in a jurisdiction with a lot of homeless people. Homeless calls made up 50% of our calls. Daily, multiple interactions with the homeless on every single shift. That gave me real insight as to the problems, criminal histories, where people are from.

There is a significant percentage who are homeless due to severe to moderate mental illness, mostly bipolar and schizophrenia. Although I'm calling the percentage "significant", it's maybe only about 20% of the people out there. The balance are homeless because of drugs, alcohol and laziness without an underlying mental illness.

Those with the significant mental illnesses have access to free meds, but they don't take them. Those that do take them for awhile, do much better, convince themselves that they are "cured" and no longer need the meds. They go off the meds, the severe symptoms come back, but part of schizophrenia and bipolar is not realizing just how poorly you are doing because those illnesses can really give people the feeling like they are masters of reality.

I've arranged for some of the homeless to get into supportive housing and other programs. They usually fail out due to an inability or unwillingness to follow the house rules, and they'd rather be on the street where there are no rules to follow them and they can drink and drug to their liking without penalty, because California's justice system is too overburdened and the politics of jailing homeless so distasteful to a significant portion of the population. One guy was an especially hard loss. Grew up in town, had dealt with him for years, thought he had potential, ended up in prison, got out, OD'd on heroin and died. No mental illness. I really tried hard with him.

The majority of the homeless, as I previously indicated, are there because of their like of drugs and alcohol, or an aversion to work and rules, or both. There were plenty of NA and AA meetings all day long in my city, and I always offered to give homeless rides there (they all have free gov supplied bus passes anyway), but not once did anyone ever take me up on it. That majority of homeless are from other states. When asked they will lie and tell you they are locals and grew up in California or the area, but once you run them and especially when you arrest and see their rap sheets you realize the vast majority are from other states.

There's also another problem.... Just as college students use to camp across Europe after graduation as they saw it as a once in a lifetime adventure, there is now a romanticism in a lot of young people about living on the street. It's an adventure, and nothing to be ashamed of. Movies like "Nomadland" only serve to reinforce that it's an adventure that everyone should try rather than a hardship or something to be ashamed of.

Why California? The weather. Would you rather be homeless in the Midwest where you freeze your ass off in the winter and sweat your ass off in the summer while being eaten alive by bugs, or would you rather have the temperate climate and relatively bug free climate that California provides?

The homeless problem in California may have been solvable around 15 years ago when the numbers were much lower, but now there are so many that it cannot, and will not, ever be solved no matter how much money is thrown at it.

Perhaps people aren't aware, but there was a 9th Circuit decision governing western states which indicated anti-camping ordinances are illegal unless the city can provide enough beds for the homeless population. Police can't cite people for camping in public unless the call the nearest shelter, confirm the availability of beds for that particular date, AND show that the homeless person was previously provided with local shelter information (we'd hand it out and write a courtesy notice verifying they had been given the materials so it would be in our records that someone was provided with shelter information). Most cities do not have the resources to provide enough beds for the homeless.

Then there's the issue of "if you build it, they will come". The more resources you have available for homeless, the more you attract. It's a vicious cycle.....increase homeless services because of the need, and more homeless people from out of state hear about how easy it is to be homeless in California, the more come only to find out it's a nightmare but they have no money to get back to their home state.

A contributing issue was the state's population passed a couple of ballot initiatives which made possession of all drugs in personal use amounts no more than a misdemeanor. It was frustrating when I would come across a heroin addict literally with a needle stuck in his arm, but hadn't injected yet and wasn't overly high.....and the most I could do was issue a citation. Even if you arrest/cite someone for drugs, the courts just toss it out....along with every other misdemeanor homeless crime. So....if you're a drug addict, would you rather be an addict in a state which will charge you with a felony and throw you in jail for possession of your drug of choice, or would you rather be in California where your addiction can rage out of control with no real downside?

As for those initiatives.....when people would call the police about someone shooting up in the alley behind their home or in the parking lot of their business, and all we do is issue a citation, they'd be flabbergasted as to why we didn't arrest the person. I would ask them if they voted for the propositions, and most of them did. When I told them that those initiatives changed the drug laws so that we couldn't arrest for most drug or theft crimes and could only issue citations, without fail they would state they had no idea that was what the propositions did. A completely uninformed electorate basing voting decisions based upon highly misleading political ads.

Most people in California, even the uber liberals, recognize that the coddling of the homeless has to stop. Thanks to the 9th Circuit, the coddling will continue.

I've blathered on quite a bit without putting much thought into this...don't have to, know the issues inside and out. Interested in reading other peoples' thoughts on this, especially people who live in the highly populated areas of California.

Well said. Informative, factual, thoughtful and very helpful (I live in the rural northeast and almost never run into homeless people). I agree 100% with providing help for those who can be helped in the manner you described. If we can do something to help those who will help themselves, or who cannot help themselves, I will support it completely.

But my question is what should we do about all the committed drug addicts and those who commit acts of violence, destroy property and commit other crimes? I for one believe there must be consequences for causing harm. Without consequences the problem will never be solved. But what should the consequences be? Jail time?
If we don't come up with a solution I wouldn't be surprised to see a broad based vigilante movement that could quickly become a toxic political movement.

 

[woodswise]

Regarding the cost of housing.....

We are landlords. We keep our rents slightly below market. We rarely have vacancies, and when we do, we frequently remodel and upgrade.

The last few years our own costs have risen dramatically, especially insurance and utilities. Over half our units come with all utilities paid.

California now has statewide rent control for many landlords. Some are not subject to these laws, we have couple of those units, but most are rent controlled.

We are limited in increases to 5% plus the consumer price index for cost of living increases each year, up to a maximum of 10%. All of our tenants will be receiving a 10% increase this year, and trust me, it is not keeping up with our own cost increases or inflation.

Do we make a good income? Oh, yeah. But why should we be penalized and have our income lowered to subsidize housing just because we were wise enough to invest in fixers, fix them up and provide rental housing? Few other businesses are limited in what they can charge for something, and why should we be any different? Last time I checked we have a free market economy.

All this having been said.....we are not greedy. We just want a fair return on our investment. We have 5 mortgages (used to have 7). We have a tenant in one unit who has heart failure and can't work. He's paying $750/mo for a one bedroom standalone unit. He has not had any increases for many years because we knew he couldn't afford it. He was also not capable of applying for Social Security Disability on his own. Guess who helped him, completed all the paperwork, and he finally got approved for Disability (around $700/mo)? Yeah, that was me, and that stuff was WAY more complicated and time consuming than it should have been. He told me that he had consulted with an attorney who wanted $7,500 to handle his application, and I just thought that was ridiculous so I told him I would do it for him, no charge. He's a good guy, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a hard worker, honest, and would much rather be working than sitting on his ass with heart failure. Were it not for our help and generosity, he would be homeless. We could easily be getting around $1,750 for his unit.....but it will remain at $750 for the rest of his life, and that's coming out of our pockets.

It's easy to paint landlords as being greedy, but we don't dictate what the rents are....the market does. Vacancies benefit us because we can raise rents to current market rates, which are usually several hundred dollars a month higher than what we get with the old tenants. It is not our fault that more and more people want to live in southern California, because that is the reason rents are so high here. People are welcome to move to other states where rents and cost of living are lower. Supply and demand is the underlying prime factor in all pricing. Demand grossly exceeds supply here, and that's why there is a "housing crisis". There's no crisis, it's just supply and demand. There is little undeveloped land in So Cal, so the ability to increase the housing supply is quite limited.

I am an attorney. In my state landlords are not limited to what they can charge. But it is hard to evict tenants. During covid all evictions stopped. They seem to be very hard to achieve even after the stay on evictions was lifted. I had an active eviction practice for years and eventually gave it up. One reason I stopped was the tenants who were destructive and angry, were able to take serious advantage of their landlords without any consequences. It was seriously demoralizing. I also stopped doing evictions because I stopped all litigation....

I often hear stories of tenants who decide to destroy their apartment and fight with their landlord, their neighbors, and seemingly anyone who comes into their sphere of influence. Sometimes these are people on drugs, sometimes they are simply angry people. The tenants file counterclaims against the landlord claiming the apartment they ruined is not habitable, they claim the landlord is discriminating against them, etc. The courts bend over backward to be sure the tenants get the full advantage of the court process . . . dragging the eviction out years, sometimes. The police won't intervene. The landlords, other tenants and neighbors become victims to these monsters.

I keep thinking if the system doesn't provide justice, one of these days the people themselves are going to take matters into their own hands and it isn't going to be pretty.

 

[Kluso]

Mental health is the biggest issue in this country. We fix that we fix the homeless problem, mass shootings, and even the Democratic Party. Lol. No seriously. Drug addiction is a mental illness IMO. They say it’s a disease but most of us are just self medicating. This country needs invest in mental illness treatment for all. Make it free for all. Get Drs and police better trained to handle it. That’s my opinion anyways.