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I kinda made this post out of spite for the fact the most previous post in this community, whose title I quoted/copied, was getting so many downvotes... At the time I posted this, the previous post had about a 30% downvote rate, and it really, really made me mad.
I am relieved tho to see people in the comments here who have real, actual empathy for their fellow humans. Thank you for contributing here.
It blows my mind how normalized it is to hate on those who are struggling. Especially in 20fucking23 when so many of us now are on the verge of it ourselves. Let's be better, everyone - to everyone. I beg you.
There does seem to be way fewer public toilets around these days. We closed them (or at least lock them overnight) because people were doing drugs and having sex in them.
So now they do those things outside, and I have to piss in the bushes when I'm out for a walk.
The trouble with the homeless is that they need to be around the normal people in order to survive and get money for food and drugs, but the normal people want them as far away as possible.
If we were rational about this, we'd set up communes where people would be fed, housed and clothed for free, given all the drugs they want, and help if they want to stop living like that. It would be way cheaper for society to deal with all in one place like that, drugs aren't really expensive to make, and the rest of us can go to their town centre without a psychotic toothless crackhead screaming at them for money. But we're not rational, and likely never will be. This isn't Star Trek, and the idea of somebody else getting something for nothing seems to fill about half the population with a frothing rage.
So basically prisons but with free drugs
I was thinking more like those old people towns, but where it's acceptable to smoke spice all day and sit there dribbling into your own lap and aggressively screaming at each other.
Maybe if the drugs were free, they wouldn't need all that aggro.
Or, maybe just give them a place to live without segragating them? Why are you talking about people like they are fundamentally broken for being homeless?
I havent seen that episode, but it is kind of an issue how whenever you try to put a bunch of poor/homeless people together, others start to avoid that area and jobs/services become scarce.
I like the idea of "mixed income housing". Apartment buildings with a mix of free, cheap, and regular priced units. The standard units would probably be valued a bit lower than the normal market price, giving mid-income people an incentive to live there, and the homeless people who move in get to be part of a normal-ish community.
100 homeless people stuck in one place can cause a lot of chaos, but a small small group here and there seems a lot more manageable.