Homeless encampments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need a radical new approach. The current situation helps no one. First step, the federal government should purchase one of the many ghost towns in rural America that time has passed by. Second step, offer a chance to 100 able bodied homeless to move there where they will receive free housing, food, and counseling. Teach them roofing skills, how to hang drywall, basic plumbing, life skills, etc. Pay the first 100 livable wages to rehab the town. Then, 100 more move in. They can leave at any time with a set of actual skills or stay and continue to rehab additional housing. If successful, this could be done on scale at 100s of sites around the country.

You are brainstorming from the incorrect assumption that these are able bodied people of sound mind who are homeless simply because they haven't found work lately.

One town is for the able bodied to learn a trade. Another town is for the addicts who will receive on site services. Another town is for the mentally ill to receive care. Each town would have a different mission and set of resources. Local laws should be changed and enforced to make camping illegal. Those arrested will have a choice: go to jail or go get help in this pilot program. This should be piloted in a small scale. What’s to lose?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe dumb question but, where do you think people should go instead? I don’t like looking at homeless encampments either but am curious what the solution is.

jail or work

how are they supposed to find employment that will pay for housing in DC? Honest question.
i'm and RN and I can't afford to live here. The teachers at my kid's school can't afford to live here.
How are the uneducated and addicted supposed to get jobs that support housing here?

Move.

Where? And how should they get there?

Move to where they have a support system (family, most homeless in DC are not from DC), move to a lower cost of living area, and apparently we will bus for free people who cross the US border illegally all over the country. I’m sure we can figure out a way to give a free bus ticket to a homeless person. Come on now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe dumb question but, where do you think people should go instead? I don’t like looking at homeless encampments either but am curious what the solution is.

jail or work

how are they supposed to find employment that will pay for housing in DC? Honest question.
i'm and RN and I can't afford to live here. The teachers at my kid's school can't afford to live here.
How are the uneducated and addicted supposed to get jobs that support housing here?

Move.

Where? And how should they get there?

Move to where they have a support system (family, most homeless in DC are not from DC), move to a lower cost of living area, and apparently we will bus for free people who cross the US border illegally all over the country. I’m sure we can figure out a way to give a free bus ticket to a homeless person. Come on now.

This is what was done in a city I lived in years ago. Bus tickets were purchased for all those had family elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Enroll them in medical trials for drugs and products etc etc. at least they get paid and benefit society,

[Anonymous]

I think the DC DMV should require all registrants sign a woke certification where each driver must pull cleanup duty at a nearby encampment or pay a $500 fee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there an organization that is helping them in terms of toiletries and winter clothing? Are there any children in those encampments and do they have access to a school, school supplies clothing etc.?

I can't speak to DC but my town has groups (some charity, some government funded) that drive around and drop off tents, sleeping bags,
socks, food, and give information on where do get medical and dental assistance.

My boyfriend has an encampment behind his work place and a RN and social worker have dropped by to check on one of the residents
several times.

Why are we encouraging encampments and focusing on making people comfortable camping on city streets? This is not the right thing to do and helps nobody. The focus should be on relocating these people into permanent or at least temporary housing with sanitary facilities and hopefully services that these people need. These are people, not stray cats! Your fake compassion is actually killing them by perpetuating the problem and encouraging the proliferation of street life and all the ills it brings with it: drugs, sexual assaults, crime, trash and more rats. Turning our city neighborhoods into 3rd world shanty towns isn't the solution, but this is precisely what will happen if people will keep focusing on keeping street campers comfortable where they are instead of finding solution to relocate them and help those who could be helped get on their feet and acquire permanent housing and jobs, and getting those addicted or mentally ill help they need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there an organization that is helping them in terms of toiletries and winter clothing? Are there any children in those encampments and do they have access to a school, school supplies clothing etc.?

I can't speak to DC but my town has groups (some charity, some government funded) that drive around and drop off tents, sleeping bags,
socks, food, and give information on where do get medical and dental assistance.

My boyfriend has an encampment behind his work place and a RN and social worker have dropped by to check on one of the residents
several times.

Why are we encouraging encampments and focusing on making people comfortable camping on city streets? This is not the right thing to do and helps nobody. The focus should be on relocating these people into permanent or at least temporary housing with sanitary facilities and hopefully services that these people need. These are people, not stray cats! Your fake compassion is actually killing them by perpetuating the problem and encouraging the proliferation of street life and all the ills it brings with it: drugs, sexual assaults, crime, trash and more rats. Turning our city neighborhoods into 3rd world shanty towns isn't the solution, but this is precisely what will happen if people will keep focusing on keeping street campers comfortable where they are instead of finding solution to relocate them and help those who could be helped get on their feet and acquire permanent housing and jobs, and getting those addicted or mentally ill help they need.

We closed the mental institutions in the 1970's and it is legal not to treat your own mental illness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there an organization that is helping them in terms of toiletries and winter clothing? Are there any children in those encampments and do they have access to a school, school supplies clothing etc.?

I have never seen any children. It is majority men, on lots of drugs.

DC politicians are enabling this ridiculous nonsense. WHY?

Because people put up with it. Look at the poster below saying they drop off supplies so people can live on the street.

I understand how people are driven to be compassionate and wanting to at least temporarily make someone's life more comfortable, but for them to not understand that this will only make the problem worse to the point when our entire streets will be rows of tents and beggars sitting in front of them, making city unpleasant and uninhabitable is stupid. If people choose to live in tents or under the sky, let them! They just cannot do this in the middle of the city, there is plenty of cheap rural land, why not build compounds for the unhoused there with rehabilitation facilities for the addicts, mental health care, and jobs and trade learning for those able and willing to get on their feet and making a living. If we spent the money on building free housing where land is cheap we could house more people. Instead our idiot politicians and do-gooders focus on making homeless campers feel more at home in the midst of the city or agonize over building free housing on very expensive city land.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there an organization that is helping them in terms of toiletries and winter clothing? Are there any children in those encampments and do they have access to a school, school supplies clothing etc.?

I can't speak to DC but my town has groups (some charity, some government funded) that drive around and drop off tents, sleeping bags,
socks, food, and give information on where do get medical and dental assistance.

My boyfriend has an encampment behind his work place and a RN and social worker have dropped by to check on one of the residents
several times.

Why are we encouraging encampments and focusing on making people comfortable camping on city streets? This is not the right thing to do and helps nobody. The focus should be on relocating these people into permanent or at least temporary housing with sanitary facilities and hopefully services that these people need. These are people, not stray cats! Your fake compassion is actually killing them by perpetuating the problem and encouraging the proliferation of street life and all the ills it brings with it: drugs, sexual assaults, crime, trash and more rats. Turning our city neighborhoods into 3rd world shanty towns isn't the solution, but this is precisely what will happen if people will keep focusing on keeping street campers comfortable where they are instead of finding solution to relocate them and help those who could be helped get on their feet and acquire permanent housing and jobs, and getting those addicted or mentally ill help they need.

We closed the mental institutions in the 1970's and it is legal not to treat your own mental illness.

Had tent cities been so bad in the middle of all our major cities for all these decades, or is this a recent thing? And if this is recent, then it must have been illegal before to camp out on city streets. I don't remember DC being this bad before. NYC was turning very bad during the pandemic , but they do not allow tents on the streets and they cleared all the encampments at some point a while ago. Don't get me wrong, NYC still has a huge homelessness problem, and there are unhinged people walking the streets in the numbers that are incomparable to DC, but at least there are no tents on the streets, and clearly NYC isn't trying to make street life comfortable unlike DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe dumb question but, where do you think people should go instead? I don’t like looking at homeless encampments either but am curious what the solution is.

jail or work

how are they supposed to find employment that will pay for housing in DC? Honest question.
i'm and RN and I can't afford to live here. The teachers at my kid's school can't afford to live here.
How are the uneducated and addicted supposed to get jobs that support housing here?

Not all of DC is expensive. My blue collar family members were able to buy homes in South Arlington and Silver Spring, in conveniently located and quiet family friendly areas. My LMC family were able to rent and even buy cheap apartments (coop) in decent parts of the city like residential NWDC and Rosslyn. IDK what you are talking about, every city has areas in different price ranges from super expensive to very cheap and everything in between. People who cannot support themselves are simply not going to be able to live in the nicest and most expensive parts of the city, doesn't mean they cannot find other housing options or even have free facilities built for them where land is cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need a radical new approach. The current situation helps no one. First step, the federal government should purchase one of the many ghost towns in rural America that time has passed by. Second step, offer a chance to 100 able bodied homeless to move there where they will receive free housing, food, and counseling. Teach them roofing skills, how to hang drywall, basic plumbing, life skills, etc. Pay the first 100 livable wages to rehab the town. Then, 100 more move in. They can leave at any time with a set of actual skills or stay and continue to rehab additional housing. If successful, this could be done on scale at 100s of sites around the country.

I am 100% with you, I have the same ideas and I am sure many people do too. There is so much abandoned housing that can be revived with already existing infrastructure, there is no reason for tent cities. But we need to create amenities there that would attract homeless to move there, amenities like free food and medical care and ability to make some money that they are getting in the cities. Also a lot of them hang out in the city because this is where the drugs are sold. If we don't do something about this, nothing will work. Drug dealers will move to these new towns to have access to their customers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need a radical new approach. The current situation helps no one. First step, the federal government should purchase one of the many ghost towns in rural America that time has passed by. Second step, offer a chance to 100 able bodied homeless to move there where they will receive free housing, food, and counseling. Teach them roofing skills, how to hang drywall, basic plumbing, life skills, etc. Pay the first 100 livable wages to rehab the town. Then, 100 more move in. They can leave at any time with a set of actual skills or stay and continue to rehab additional housing. If successful, this could be done on scale at 100s of sites around the country.

You are brainstorming from the incorrect assumption that these are able bodied people of sound mind who are homeless simply because they haven't found work lately.

One town is for the able bodied to learn a trade. Another town is for the addicts who will receive on site services. Another town is for the mentally ill to receive care. Each town would have a different mission and set of resources. Local laws should be changed and enforced to make camping illegal. Those arrested will have a choice: go to jail or go get help in this pilot program. This should be piloted in a small scale. What’s to lose?

This. And this used to be illegal probably, because these tents never got out of hand like this. NYC has no issue clearing out the tents. They still have issues with releasing people on the streets after arrests and many other issues, but at least they care about the appearance of the city and getting that tourism revenue back. What tourist would want to return to DC after what they see now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the DC DMV should require all registrants sign a woke certification where each driver must pull cleanup duty at a nearby encampment or pay a $500 fee.

What are you talking about? You want to penalized tax-paying citizens of DC to have to support vagrants living on the streets? Great idea, let's see tax base leave DC and how wonderful it would be to live among tent cities and utter disinvestment. We need our nation's capital to turn into Detroit or Baltimore, awesome idea Such a great sight for foreign nationals and dignitaries to witness the rot and despair rivaling 3rd world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need a radical new approach. The current situation helps no one. First step, the federal government should purchase one of the many ghost towns in rural America that time has passed by. Second step, offer a chance to 100 able bodied homeless to move there where they will receive free housing, food, and counseling. Teach them roofing skills, how to hang drywall, basic plumbing, life skills, etc. Pay the first 100 livable wages to rehab the town. Then, 100 more move in. They can leave at any time with a set of actual skills or stay and continue to rehab additional housing. If successful, this could be done on scale at 100s of sites around the country.

You are brainstorming from the incorrect assumption that these are able bodied people of sound mind who are homeless simply because they haven't found work lately.

One town is for the able bodied to learn a trade. Another town is for the addicts who will receive on site services. Another town is for the mentally ill to receive care. Each town would have a different mission and set of resources. Local laws should be changed and enforced to make camping illegal. Those arrested will have a choice: go to jail or go get help in this pilot program. This should be piloted in a small scale. What’s to lose?

Are you going to build a fence around the town?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there an organization that is helping them in terms of toiletries and winter clothing? Are there any children in those encampments and do they have access to a school, school supplies clothing etc.?

I can't speak to DC but my town has groups (some charity, some government funded) that drive around and drop off tents, sleeping bags,
socks, food, and give information on where do get medical and dental assistance.

My boyfriend has an encampment behind his work place and a RN and social worker have dropped by to check on one of the residents
several times.

Why are we encouraging encampments and focusing on making people comfortable camping on city streets? This is not the right thing to do and helps nobody. The focus should be on relocating these people into permanent or at least temporary housing with sanitary facilities and hopefully services that these people need. These are people, not stray cats! Your fake compassion is actually killing them by perpetuating the problem and encouraging the proliferation of street life and all the ills it brings with it: drugs, sexual assaults, crime, trash and more rats. Turning our city neighborhoods into 3rd world shanty towns isn't the solution, but this is precisely what will happen if people will keep focusing on keeping street campers comfortable where they are instead of finding solution to relocate them and help those who could be helped get on their feet and acquire permanent housing and jobs, and getting those addicted or mentally ill help they need.

Because liberals seem to enact laws and policies that make problems worse. Kind of like how they kept kids home from school during covid and had everyone going around wearing cloth masks. I assume most of them have good intentions, but I now question any and all D policies and platforms. I experienced firsthand what a disaster their covid restrictions and policies were. I have never been a homeless person but I have to assume democratic leaders have encouraged and enabled people living on the streets.