Yuuuup.

If we provided people healthcare instead of throwing them in jail we'd all be a lot better off.

what if we did neither tho?

Do you think they will politely curl up and die in an empty corner somewhere?

That seems to be America's official unofficial plan for dealing with the opiate epidemic. Cheap.

Except there isn't anything cheap about it! The cost of policing and incarcerating these people is far more than the cost of housing and treating them. Leaving them like this and responding only by inflating police budgets is the most expensive way to deal with it by far.

After the Blake decision, we're not really policing these people, and very much not incarcerating them.

You can be homeless smoking blues on foil in the woods all day and the police are just going to make you move your crap every couple weeks, and keep referring you to treatment that isn't really available. Maybe showing up and Narcaning folks when they OD if there's someone around to call.

buddy, you can be smoking fent on the _bus_ and the police aren't going to do anything about it.

seattle has a very low police force for the population size. i don't think you are going to fix this one by (only) diverting their funds into services.

Homeless people are like pop-up ads in real life.

The only thing you can really do is wait for them to click on their own X

I mean, yeah, some people are just fucked. They don't want help, or they're just too crazy or fucked up on drugs to ever function.

But for a lot of them it's the compounding issues of no housing, no money, no or poor transportation, poor health, poor mental health, and substance abuse. Not to mention that they're frequently the victims of crime. There's a pretty big subset of folks that could be helped and want help, but it's just not available.

There's also a pretty big group of homeless people that are just poor usually old and on a fixed income, or young with no support system working a shitty job, have some life problems, and can't afford anything other than living in a van. They could be find tomorrow if they got a small apartment. Or they could get way worse if some shithead cuts their catalytic converter out while they're sleeping and they can't afford the repair bill.

You know how you fix houselessness?

Give people housing.

It's not hard. And that's way cheaper than ignoring or policing the problem.

bUt tHaT's SoCiAlIsM

That would be rad, but no it is not.

He shouldn't be driving and trying to talk at the same time. He clearly doesn't have the brain capacity to do both competently.

Gonna get me a 1997 Honda Accord with a back window made of packing tape.