Reply to Homeless tents creeping into the nice/residential part of DC

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[quote=Anonymous]https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/dc/

DC's official homeless population isn't even 1% of the total population. With the amount of wealth and highly educated people, we have in this area, we could completely eradicate homelessness and also provide drug treatment , mental health services, and employment training  to those who need it. Also, while drug use rates in the US are comparable between Whites and Blacks, if you are a BIPOC person and caught doing drugs, you are 3X as likely to go to jail. Once you go to jail, your chance for employment and housing options narrow considerably. The path from jail spirals into drug use and living on the street sadly, all too often.
 
https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice

Also, the DC's rapid rehousing program is a joke. It can take 5 years to get in, but you only have 12 months of subsidy. After that, you are on your own again. If you have mental health or substance abuse issues, a year is an unreasonably short amount of time to try to find employment or go into treatment especially when you have to navigate the byzantine DC bureaucracy to get those services. 
https://dhs.dc.gov/page/rapid-rehousing-individuals

Tents make homeless people more visible because they used to live under bridges or wooded areas. Their visibility makes some people annoyed that despite their own wealth, power and status having to see poor people as their neighbors does not work with their image of what a "nice neighborhood" should be.

It's more of a question of values: what kind of city do we want to be? One that ignores, despises and makes those who have fallen onto hard times navigate never ending hurdles to gain access to services/puts them on a one-way bus to somewhere else or a city that wants to truly care for all of its citizens in the ways that they need it and give readily access to services for them? [/quote]

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