If You See Something, Say Nothing

“Give them money and a place to stay!” I’m all about it, experiments show that works. But what about the recalcitrant homeless? The ones for whom a “leg up” won’t get it? The violent, mentally ill and addicted? Want those people near your home? Get some upvotes for calling me a NIMBY motherfucker. I stand by it.

Many who are poor don't want to interact with "the system" because they have been subject to violence and hypocrisy by those in the government.

If you have been beaten by police and a social worker, paid by the same government who paid the police who beat you, comes and says they want to help you for your own good, you are likely to know it means medication and pressure to not drink or use drugs (also backed up by police power once you are in the system that way). People, including poor people, are often very rational when it comes to happiness. A 50 year old man with no work history for 15 years, depression, and no money is not likely to start a normal family, get a normal job, and have normal happiness and may be much more likely to obtain the maximum happiness or reduction in suffering by being intoxicated. Additionally, psychiatric drugs often make the homeless more palatable to others, while increasing bizarre side effects like sexual side effects and twitching, without that much of an increase in happiness, and simultaneously make it harder to really feel good by getting high. Homeless people, despite being crazy and addicted, are not always irrational and most of them know that once a homeless person is classified by a psychiatrist and taking medications, the medicated person will continue to be pressured to do that and will lose autonomy and possibly even be forced to take medication in a coercive way.

There are intellectuals smarter than I who have done papers on how addiction is often a rational choice to maximize happiness.

The highly intelligent Finnish people realized that people weren't accepting help from the government because it came with all sorts of rules and duties and requirements and that a lot of expenses were going into programs that involved giving people services that weren't actually helpful when provided in a semi-coercive context to people who often have had bad experience with the government and society. So instead they made free housing, no strings attached, and then suddenly, the people in the housing wanted to get help and improve their lives. It's incredibly empowering to improve your life when an agent of the government is not putting pressure on a person to do it (with partial coercion) and people have their immediate needs met. People with immediate needs met can advance up Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid and exist in a manner that isn't just day to day survival.

I’ve brought up the issue in my city are the same mentally ill violent homeless that residents are used to seeing, not the people in tents trying to survive. We have to accept that even with all the assistance in the world, some people don’t want it, and they need to be forced into it.

When I bring up these people, the young Lemmy users usually ignore it altogether or flat out insist that there’s no such thing as a person who wants to be homeless or refuses help.

If you know guys who bailed on perfectly good homes because they couldn't handle being around other people, they weren't perfect for them.

Imagine being paranoid around others but your only housing option is a homeless shelter sleeping on the for with a hundred strangers, having to leave during the day and find somewhere to chill where you're safe and warm and can take a piss. They might get into a group home, maybe an apartment in the city. Cops will destroy their shit, cut up their tents, and make them move if they camp out too long near us wage slaves. No one's giving guys like that private places to live. If they lived far from town they'd need a ride or a car to get or do anything anyway. No one's is gonna help with that.

I don't know why you're getting harassed by homeless people so often you carry a concealed gun with your wife around. I'm paranoid as fuck and that sounds really paranoid, bro.

You're gonna have violent mentally ill people as neighbors in your suburban and rural places, too. Better hope they don't have money or you're fucked. The police won't make them disappear like the harmless dude living out of his car.

You don't get how fucked you are if you have no money and no friends or family who can/will help you. Throw in a serious mental illnesses or substance use disorder (both?) and the level of fucked fucking skyrockets.

If you cant walk with your wife downtown in a us city without a firearm youre a coward that thinks the worst of people.

Per usual it's the "bed eggs" that fuck it up for the rest of us. One bad egg spoils the whole bunch n all that.