WWYD - someone being racist on the street

[DL1WDW2]

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[mrodgers]

...but I can't see how he was justified in any way where it was OK to respond like that.

He's a panhandler. Do you expect them to have morals?

He did nothing more than say "screw you butthole" to someone. He just said it in words that put the perpetually offended over things that don't involve them in full alert.

 

[bcla]

He's a panhandler. Do you expect them to have morals?

He did nothing more than say "screw you butthole" to someone. He just said it in words that put the perpetually offended over things that don't involve them in full alert.

That's not the point. But it sounded to some degree like it was victim blaming, as if it was partially justifiable.

 

[Mysterian]

I wouldn't be surprised if the cops were called at some point. Yes, he's wrong for making rude remarks, and we can't say if his behavior would turn physically hostile or not. At least nobody was harmed either way.

I was curious to see if this character may have ended up in the news, but I found other stories instead:

September 2021. a homeless man opened fire at the LA Shake Shack (no casualties or injuries).
April 2022, a shooting at a Houston mall, right between the Cheesecake Factory and Shake Shack (one injury).
Three weeks ago, an undercover cop shot at a Milwaukee Shake Shack by car thieves (the cop survived).
What's going on, Shake Shack?

My kid is enjoying Shake Shack now, and they have a BOGO offer on a ShackBurger until tomorrow.

This part amused me, since despite the gist of the story, it reads like an unintentional plug for Shake Shack.

"I had an encounter with a beggar too, I probably should have been more kind when she offered me a rose. Speaking of flowers, FTD has a sale on Sunflower Baskets until September 30th. I said some things I shouldn't have said to the old beggar, and well, 'tale as old as time'!"

 

[bcla]

This part amused me, since despite the gist of the story, it reads like an unintentional plug for Shake Shack.

I'll just say I'm a fan now. I thought that it was an integral part of the story which includes the neighborhood gentrifying in addition to that part of Oakland being an extremely diverse area.

 

[Dakota731]

Throwing money at the issue won’t help either. I used to work for a non-profit and the waste is incredible. We got government grants to buy equipment for urban schools, and some of the districts ended up having to buy warehouses to store all the computers and equipment bought with tax dollars that never got used. But instead of cutting back the following year, we had to keep the same dollars in the budget or lose grant money. It’s a vicious cycle and senseless funding of programs with no record of success

 

[Dakota731]

Some cities are allowing this behavior which is why it exists, plain and simple. By closing down mental hospitals, not allowing the police to do their jobs and permitting these tent cities to multiply around families and children, then they are encouraging people to come from other parts of the country to these sanctuary areas.

 

[Dakota731]

Unfortunately our social services in the U.S. as a program is very underfunded.

I don’t think underfunding is the problem.
Homeless spending in NYC went from $1.2 billion in 2014 to $3.5 billion in 2020. That works out to about $58,000 for every homeless person more than double what was spent on school children.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I don’t think underfunding is the problem.
Homeless spending in NYC went from $1.2 billion in 2014 to $3.5 billion in 2020. That works out to about $58,000 for every homeless person more than double what was spent on school children.

Given your other comments I'm not sure we'll see eye to eye.

 

[ronandannette]

Some cities are allowing this behavior which is why it exists, plain and simple. By closing down mental hospitals, not allowing the police to do their jobs and permitting these tent cities to multiply around families and children, then they are encouraging people to come from other parts of the country to these sanctuary areas.

This may sound harsh to some but it is very true. Also your comments about funding; tons of public money and private donations are at work at any given time - more than enough if there were actually simple, straight-forward solutions to the complex problems of who lives on the street and why.

 

[mrodgers]

I don’t think underfunding is the problem.
Homeless spending in NYC went from $1.2 billion in 2014 to $3.5 billion in 2020. That works out to about $58,000 for every homeless person more than double what was spent on school children.

I don't think "homeless spending" increased. On paper maybe, but where the money goes isn't to the homeless. It is going somewhere though

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

One of our biggest issues in my area is affordable housing which trickles down to those ending up homeless. There is a way too long waiting list for Section 8 housing in fact you can't even get on the waiting list in my county at the moment it's closed they simply don't have enough places, my county doesn't even have a permanent shelter that men can go to, really no overnight location for them. Many of the libraries do act as warm and cold centers during certain points of the year but that is during operating hours. The VA while not necessarily always bad here could do better in some cases.

The city in my metro that has the most outward homeless struggles even more, many of the groups are grass roots independent working on donations and volunteers and there's not enough money at the government level going to the issues of which include lack of IDs, lack of transportation, lack of affordable housing and lack of housing that takes vouchers and more. That city also lacks enough shelters (currently they are using a hotel for 40 beds as one of the places). The grass roots organizations are trying but more can be done, so much more. Doesn't it go without saying that the issue is complex?

I'd share some news stories compiled from the last year or so, information from my area about my area, ironically some parts tying back to the original topic, however they are too political in nature.

 

[Colleen27]

I don't think "homeless spending" increased. On paper maybe, but where the money goes isn't to the homeless. It is going somewhere though

Part of the problem is that we're willing to try anything but the obvious... using that money to provide actual, physical housing that doesn't come with ridiculous strings like having to be gone all day, not being able to store any personal property you may have, allowing couples/families to remain together, etc. I suspect history will look back on homelessness policies of our time much the way we look back on Famine relief in Ireland - as more punitive and interested in imposing a particular set of values/priorities than effective or interested in relieving suffering. Most of our policies are still rooted in the 80s profile of who the homeless are (the mentally ill and deeply addicted, lone individuals without social ties) even though we know perfectly well that the nature of homelessness has changed over the last half-century.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

One of our biggest issues in my area is affordable housing which trickles down to those ending up homeless. There is a way too long waiting list for Section 8 housing in fact you can't even get on the waiting list in my county at the moment it's closed they simply don't have enough places, my county doesn't even have a permanent shelter that men can go to, really no overnight location for them. Many of the libraries do act as warm and cold centers during certain points of the year but that is during operating hours. The VA while not necessarily always bad here could do better in some cases.

The city in my metro that has the most outward homeless struggles even more, many of the groups are grass roots independent working on donations and volunteers and there's not enough money at the government level going to the issues of which include lack of IDs, lack of transportation, lack of affordable housing and lack of housing that takes vouchers and more. That city also lacks enough shelters (currently they are using a hotel for 40 beds as one of the places). The grass roots organizations are trying but more can be done, so much more. Doesn't it go without saying that the issue is complex?

I'd share some news stories compiled from the last year or so, information from my area about my area, ironically some parts tying back to the original topic, however they are too political in nature.

I don’t think this article is too political. I saw it yesterday after I posted here. This is the second hotel within a mile or so of one of the most troubled areas in Boston that’s been taken over to help with the homeless situation. I hope it helps.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-n...omfort-inn-permanent-housing/?p1=hp_secondary

 

[mrodgers]

Part of the problem is that we're willing to try anything but the obvious... using that money to provide actual, physical housing that doesn't come with ridiculous strings like having to be gone all day, not being able to store any personal property you may have, allowing couples/families to remain together, etc. I suspect history will look back on homelessness policies of our time much the way we look back on Famine relief in Ireland - as more punitive and interested in imposing a particular set of values/priorities than effective or interested in relieving suffering. Most of our policies are still rooted in the 80s profile of who the homeless are (the mentally ill and deeply addicted, lone individuals without social ties) even though we know perfectly well that the nature of homelessness has changed over the last half-century.

I think you missed my point. There is no doing something else with the money. You'll never get it back out of the pockets of the ones who steal it from your pocket.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I don’t think this article is too political. I saw it yesterday after I posted here. This is the second hotel within a mile or so of one of the most troubled areas in Boston that’s been taken over to help with the homeless situation. I hope it helps.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-n...omfort-inn-permanent-housing/?p1=hp_secondary

Yeah I mentioned that my area has converted a hotel with 40 beds for a shelter of sorts more of a temp solution. There's simply not enough housing to give period although there were calls to convert one hotel to affordable studio apartments you need income to pay for the housing unless you don't charge rent and funding to fund the conversion and rent and upkeep of it and as a long term solution, homeless have been promised things in my area and then failed on those promises being kept. I don't know if the waitlist in the city that has the most is open or not just know that my county you cannot get what used to be referred to as section 8 housing at the moment and from what I remember reading it was a 2-4 year waiting list. Although I appreciate your article.

Most of it is just trying to remove the blight that tents give although that's not to take away from the efforts and collaboration with the hotels. There has been renewed fight towards working here in light of a death due to exposure (in winter 2020 I believe it was) of a homeless person, then this January a person died when the camp they were in caught fire.

It's estimated to be around 2,000 people in just the one city in my metro (albeit the city with the largest population and largest homeless population) with about 200 encampments (figures from July of this year). Granted those figures probably pale in comparison to a few other areas and I don't have figures for any of the multitude of cities in my metro. There are people who during this pandemic have become homeless for the first time due to housing issues, income issues, etc brought on as well as exacerbated by the pandemic.

It's a bit like the covid hotels, there's only so much allocation you can realistically give and can work with the owners to get.

The reason I said the articles for my area were too political is it goes into racism and discrimination (both from treatment AND from funding AND from even outright caring about the situation), lack of policies regarding homeless camps, treatment of those camps (such as sweeping them when organizations were promised they wouldn't), really no direction of where to go to work towards solving not band-aids and funding of any solution all but completely bleak, these grass roots organizations can only do so much.

One of the activists interviewed mentioned hoping they could work on having "clinicians to do street outreach, easier access to medications, a one-stop shop for services and printable IDs for those who lose original copies." because these all do stand in the way.

Most of our present way of handling it could probably be summed up by this "The majority of people see homelessness in one of two ways. One crowd wants them to stop behaving like homeless people, he said: “Get a job. Stop asking me for money. Don’t be an addict. Don’t scare me.” The other half donates clothes, gives out cash, volunteers at soup kitchens on holidays. They want to make homelessness comfortable. But neither is working toward a solution" Usually things such as what your article is talking about converting hotels and in my area even tiny villages for transitional housing for veterans as well as homeless are something but if we have much more funding for a wider encompassing options out there, funding for housing, funding for rehabilitation, funding for medications, funding for job assistance in a compassionate and earnest way, etc it would help. Funding is also about attitudes.

 

[RoseGold]

I find this thread insteresting for the risk analysis. I lived alone in the Tenderloin in SF in my 20s, so maybe I'm more versed in this than some. But if OP is going to be hanging out in places like this, OP needs to open his eyes.

The things that OP used to assume he was harmless -- homeless, in a wheelchair, beginng for food -- to me are all indicators of the exact opposite, someone who can create a very dangerous situation very quickly. The homeless often use wheelchairs just as chairs, which should be common knowledge. Of course it isn't a marker of physical disability, not that I think screaming back at someone with a physical disability is smart either.

OP needs to think about the example he is setting. Does he want his kids picking fights with dangerous people and not reading the room about the situation? Cross the street when you see a person like this. Walk the other way if you have to. Walk by quickly. Don't yell at them and create danger. Escalation is the worst choice. OP solved nothing and could have put himself or his kids (or others) in danger.

Seriously, think about this next time you are hanging in Oakland. Avoid and de-escalate.

 

[Colleen27]

Yeah I mentioned that my area has converted a hotel with 40 beds for a shelter of sorts more of a temp solution. There's simply not enough housing to give period although there were calls to convert one hotel to affordable studio apartments you need income to pay for the housing unless you don't charge rent and funding to fund the conversion and rent and upkeep of it and as a long term solution, homeless have been promised things in my area and then failed on those promises being kept. I don't know if the waitlist in the city that has the most is open or not just know that my county you cannot get what used to be referred to as section 8 housing at the moment and from what I remember reading it was a 2-4 year waiting list. Although I appreciate your article.


Most of our present way of handling it could probably be summed up by this "The majority of people see homelessness in one of two ways. One crowd wants them to stop behaving like homeless people, he said: “Get a job. Stop asking me for money. Don’t be an addict. Don’t scare me.” The other half donates clothes, gives out cash, volunteers at soup kitchens on holidays. They want to make homelessness comfortable. But neither is working toward a solution" Usually things such as what your article is talking about converting hotels and in my area even tiny villages for transitional housing for veterans as well as homeless are something but if we have much more funding for a wider encompassing options out there, funding for housing, funding for rehabilitation, funding for medications, funding for job assistance in a compassionate and earnest way, etc it would help. Funding is also about attitudes.

Even here, where vacancy and blight are major problems, the core of the issue is still not enough safe housing that people can afford. Even so-called affordable housing allocations in new developments set the target rent at 30% of the median income, or $1250/mo. in this area. There is a large and growing share of the population who can't afford that much, which would take a single-earner household a wage of >$20/hr to qualify for, and section 8 waiting lists are many years long if you can even get on. Homelessness is a priority category that can get you on the list when it it mostly closed, but what good does that do if it means you might get a unit in 2027 (assuming, of course, that your contact information remains valid that long and you can even be notified when you get to the top)?

That quote really nails it - one side trying to shame or criminalize the problem away and the other trying to make homelessness less unbearable but few resources going toward actually getting people housed.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Yeah I mentioned that my area has converted a hotel with 40 beds for a shelter of sorts more of a temp solution. There's simply not enough housing to give period although there were calls to convert one hotel to affordable studio apartments you need income to pay for the housing unless you don't charge rent and funding to fund the conversion and rent and upkeep of it and as a long term solution, homeless have been promised things in my area and then failed on those promises being kept. I don't know if the waitlist in the city that has the most is open or not just know that my county you cannot get what used to be referred to as section 8 housing at the moment and from what I remember reading it was a 2-4 year waiting list. Although I appreciate your article.

Most of it is just trying to remove the blight that tents give although that's not to take away from the efforts and collaboration with the hotels. There has been renewed fight towards working here in light of a death due to exposure (in winter 2020 I believe it was) of a homeless person, then this January a person died when the camp they were in caught fire.

It's estimated to be around 2,000 people in just the one city in my metro (albeit the city with the largest population and largest homeless population) with about 200 encampments (figures from July of this year). Granted those figures probably pale in comparison to a few other areas and I don't have figures for any of the multitude of cities in my metro. There are people who during this pandemic have become homeless for the first time due to housing issues, income issues, etc brought on as well as exacerbated by the pandemic.

It's a bit like the covid hotels, there's only so much allocation you can realistically give and can work with the owners to get.

The reason I said the articles for my area were too political is it goes into racism and discrimination (both from treatment AND from funding AND from even outright caring about the situation), lack of policies regarding homeless camps, treatment of those camps (such as sweeping them when organizations were promised they wouldn't), really no direction of where to go to work towards solving not band-aids and funding of any solution all but completely bleak, these grass roots organizations can only do so much.

One of the activists interviewed mentioned hoping they could work on having "clinicians to do street outreach, easier access to medications, a one-stop shop for services and printable IDs for those who lose original copies." because these all do stand in the way.

Most of our present way of handling it could probably be summed up by this "The majority of people see homelessness in one of two ways. One crowd wants them to stop behaving like homeless people, he said: “Get a job. Stop asking me for money. Don’t be an addict. Don’t scare me.” The other half donates clothes, gives out cash, volunteers at soup kitchens on holidays. They want to make homelessness comfortable. But neither is working toward a solution" Usually things such as what your article is talking about converting hotels and in my area even tiny villages for transitional housing for veterans as well as homeless are something but if we have much more funding for a wider encompassing options out there, funding for housing, funding for rehabilitation, funding for medications, funding for job assistance in a compassionate and earnest way, etc it would help. Funding is also about attitudes.

Yes, this is just the latest thing that‘s happening in our area. We actually have a very interesting situation that escalated several years ago when they closed (and blew up) a bridge that led to an island in Boston Harbor where there was a pretty good system in place for our homeless population that included shelter, medical care and services. (I know this because I spent some time there while in nursing school.) They moved the services inland and that caused a group to congregate mainly in one particular area and it’s gotten worse ever since. Different politicians have tried to deal with it in different ways. We had one mayor who left to fill a federal position, then a temporary mayor, and now a permanent one, all with different ideas. The new permanent mayor didn’t want anyone taken off the street that didn’t have housing in place. They put in place an admirable number of housing options for people and cleaned out the encampment, but as I said earlier, it’s building again. There have been crimes, murders and some arrests, but basically the police have their hands tied with what they can do. A cruiser often sits in the midst of the encampment (? for emergencies, I guess) but life goes on there as usual despite this.

Long time businesses in the area have up and left, residents are fed up not only living in an area that’s unsafe, but finding excrement on their front stoops each morning, and schoolchildren in the area have to be led away from syringes and dead bodies in their schoolyard some mornings. Yet not much changes on a day to day basis. We are, from what I understand, trying to get the bridge re-built so as to re-implement the system that was previously in place on the island, but a neighboring city to Boston where the bridge originates doesn’t want it back, so there’s a lot of red tape that has to be sorted through for it to happen. It’s a complex story if you care to read about it. (I’m sure every city’s story is interesting and complex.) Surely, no easy answers. I will say that it hurts my soul to see these encampments when I know what a good system was in place previously. Yes, I think things have evolved (? devolved) since then (someone posted a great article about the drug landscape here a year or so ago and how it’s changed addictions and homelessness in our country, which I cannot find right now) but also I recognize there is a lot of room for improvement. I am amazed at the number of apartment buildings I am seeing going up in Boston in the last several years. I don’t know exactly what percentage of those apartments will be put aside as affordable or low income to offset some of the gentrification of these areas, but I think quite a bit from what I have read about the situation and the new mayor.

(There is a paywall but sometimes can read using Reader View) Clearly addiction is a very large part of the problem: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/09/metro/12-hours-mass-cass/

 

[nw6675]

I know I should put down my popcorn and just move along. In fact, the DIS has become a place that no longer brings much joy or fun. I believe in debating issues and having civil dialogue, but some of the comments pertaining to the situation make me so depressed (no mental health pun intended) that I just give up on some in society. But, our nastiness in the US at all levels has become accepted...wishing I could say more, but that would bring points

I really don't care if you are mentally ill.

Why not? Mental illness is unbelievably real and prevalent. They need help. Most of America can get their happy pills while many cannot. Not all addicts or mentally ill just wake up with the desire to ruin their life and lose everything. They literally may not have control over some of their actions.

He's a panhandler. Do you expect them to have morals?

All panhandlers are not awful and without morals. While maybe the minority, there really are some doing only what they can at that moment. I don't expect it, but I don't assume they don't