Homeless situation.... (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Miller]

I don't think it's the same thing here at all. And I take it you didn't bother to read the article.

oh I've ready many articles on the subject as i am forced to drive and walk back numerous homeless camps to and from work every day. You think these are poor people who never did anything wong that are just down on their luck and need a helping compassionate hand, nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[Jeff Miller]

The first paragraph/last sentence notwithstanding, some people will have a problem with the way you phrased the idea, but there is merit to it.

the concept was actually tried and was successful back in the pre-depression era, a form work farm is actually now a very popular hotel and brew pub outside of Portland. That's where the concept comes from.

Multnomah County Poor Farm (Edgefield)

The Multnomah County Poor Farm in Troutdale was built in 1911 to replace Multnomah County's first home for the destitute, the Hillside Farm in Portland's West …

oregonencyclopedia.org

 

[Jeff Miller]

Getting back on topic. I think the work farm program that was mentioned earlier would be a good idea. I just didn't like the inference of forcing someone to go to one of those work farms. That aspect of it had the feel of indentured servitude or slavery, though I'm sure that's not what he intended.

Multnomah County Poor Farm (Edgefield)

The Multnomah County Poor Farm in Troutdale was built in 1911 to replace Multnomah County's first home for the destitute, the Hillside Farm in Portland's West …

oregonencyclopedia.org

 

[mjcouvi]

Look man, I’m just trying to help.

Given how you grew up, I figured you could use a well adjusted, adult male role model.



This is exactly the message Jesus was conveying to his flock.

Imagine reading almost nothing of this thread, then coming across this exchange by accident. That’s what just happened to me.

 

[crosswatt]

oh I've ready many articles on the subject as i am forced to drive and walk back numerous homeless camps to and from work every day. You think these are poor people who never did anything wong that are just down on their luck and need a helping compassionate hand, nothing could be further from the truth.

I never said that though. I'm not absolving the decisions that led them to the situation they're in, well, for the most part. Homeless people are as much of a monolith as any other cross section of a population. And the work farm idea isn't terrible, except I'm not sure how to get enough homeless folks onboard with the idea short of forced busing, and I think we can all appreciate the negative connotations contained therein.

They have issues. They have real issues that led them there. How best to treat those issues consistently to the hopeful lessening of the actual homelessness problem and an eventual savings to the government is where I think we'd all like this to go. And I just think that the program working in the article I posted would be worth a shot at getting there.

 

[Jeff Miller]

I never said that though. I'm not absolving the decisions that led them to the situation they're in, well, for the most part. Homeless people are as much of a monolith as any other cross section of a population. And the work farm idea isn't terrible, except I'm not sure how to get enough homeless folks onboard with the idea short of forced busing, and I think we can all appreciate the negative connotations contained therein.

They have issues. They have real issues that led them there. How best to treat those issues consistently to the hopeful lessening of the actual homelessness problem and an eventual savings to the government is where I think we'd all like this to go. And I just think that the program working in the article I posted would be worth a shot at getting there.

The reality is the issues they have are the bad choices they made in education, the bad choices they made in substance abuse, the bad choices they made in destroying their ability to be employed, the bad choices they made to alienate their friends and families who can't allow them to tear the rest of their families apart.

Most of them are there because of situations of their own making. And its not like this problem just sprang out of nowhere, it has been growing for years, and all along the solution was help them more, tolerate them more, don't make them responsible form themselves, and by god don't blame them for their situation.

All its done is make the problem worse. Also, the number of 20 something white tent squatters in Oregon took a dramatic increase when pot was legalized. they are more then happen to stand on corners and beg because they make enough money to get fast food and pot, the turn down work when offered and show no interest in anything then living in their own trash.

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

I've been lurking around this thread for days and debated if I wanted to actually participate.

I previously (until last year), for 6 years, was a data analyst supporting an inpatient and outpatient multi-disciplinary care (physicians, nurses, dieticians, social workers, psychiatrists, and health promoters) program for the un & underserved population. In plain English this means poor, un or under-insured, chronically ill patients - the large majority homeless or housing insecure. I have analyzed the data and I have shadowed the clinicians on home visits and spent days in the clinics in order to understand the operations in order to best determine how to build out health information systems to capture meaningful data to drive better patient care and outcomes. I have perspective from the back end of this as well as seeing first hand how these people live and hear about what they are going through.

One of the biggest issues faced in attempting to gain control of their chronic conditions was housing insecurity and homelessness. The majority of the chronically ill were diabetics and they had no refrigerator to store their insulin in and generally speaking in regards to other medications that they'd get at the hospital and put in their backpacks (that we would provide for them), they never lasted because on the streets and in shelters, your backpacks and belongings are constantly stolen or thrown away if you step away from them for too long and you have no house, car,or reliable people surrounding you to look after it for you.

What happens when people who are chronically ill begin to start feeling really bad because they don't have their prescription medications? They start using illegal substances or drinking again. Then after a couple weeks of not having their prescriptions, some serious health event happens and they are taken back to the ER for uncompensated care.

In reality, these people need inpatient rehab and/or mental health residence to go get sorted out and detox, etc. That's the first step. The next step is some place to go when they are finished with treatment (for those who won't be staying permanently in the psych hospital). If they have no place to go, this cycle repeats itself until the patient dies most of the time.

Only after the inpatient care and rehab (for those with substance abuse and mental health issues) can you begin to think about work farms and other such things. You can't send an addict or mentally ill person to a work farm (or any other work program) until they are sober and have the tools to function in society. It's also unreasonable to expect that these same sub-population would be able to flourish at any rate we would deem a success in one of those tiered programs where they work up to being given permanent housing while simultaneously having to deal with addiction or severe mental health (or both) in an outpatient/non-residential setting. You have to address the underlying issues first.

I've seen it first hand. I've studied the data. I know what works and what doesn't with this particular group of the homeless - and I recognize that my post does not address all the various types of homeless characteristics.

My next point I'll make in a separate post as this one is already quite long.

 

[Saint_Ward]

FWIW this is an old but I think still valid piece from PBS from 1995 about the effects of deinstitutionalization of mental health in the 60s-70s that I mentioned in an earlier post. Basically there are probably around 1 million people in the community today that would have been hospitalized on a more or less permanent basis 50 years ago. I think a large segment of that number make up the homeless population. Another large segment are in jail, which this piece describes in detail.

The law of unintended consequences is pretty much undefeated.

Deinstitutionalization - Special Reports | The New Asylums | FRONTLINE | PBS

There are certainly a lot of working poor among the homeless (especially in places like SF where a 1 BR studio is $4000/month) but there are also a lot of mentally ill that are not going to get much more integrated into society even with a free apartment.

Not sure if it was answered yet, but estimates are around 25% of the country's homeless are seriously mentally ill, and about 45% have some mental illness. Granted, plenty of poeple in the work force have some low level mental illness. (about 4.2% of all adults have a mental illness)

now, it could be a bit of a chicken or the egg thing. Becoming homeless can make a mental illness worse, or PTSD can be developed.

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

This post is more personal than my work experience and one I really hope Jeff Miller reads. (also very long)

My oldest brother died in June, 2015 at 42 years of age. He was an alcoholic. He was homeless. He was picked up by local police in Dallas for trespassing (or panhandling, I can't remember). After spending the night in jail with no medical detox, he began having DT's and only then were they like "oh we should probably take him to the hospital". He died as a result of that. Would he have survived if they had not thrown a known alcoholic in jail with no medical detox and instead taken him to the hospital first? Too late to ask now. To this day I feel like there is some fault on the police/jail because everyone knows that at his level of alcoholism, you cannot throw them in jail and not have medical detox but that's beside the point.

His story: My biological father was an alcoholic (he wasn't when my mom married him but quickly turned into one) and from the time my brother was a baby, our father verbally and psychologically abused my brother. My mom, who was beat physically by my father (and is one of two memories I have of the man at two years old is of him beating up my mom and me screaming for him to stop), finally had the courage to leave him when I was 2 and my oldest brother was 8.

My mom felt so guilty about the way she allowed my father to treat my brother all those years that she essentially let him do whatever he wanted and he never had consequences or responsibilities. By the end of 5th or 6th grade, she knew he had some issues but never got him psychological help until he was 16 and by then, it was too late. He was not an addict at that time but he got into a lot of trouble and was not doing well in school.

He managed to hold it together, start his own small business and a family at like 22 or 23. He started to lose control and drink when he was kicked out of this church (it was/is a cult and that's a topic for another thread) that he met his wife in because they demanded everyone tithe 10% of their earnings to the church and he was like um no, I can't because I have a new family and am the only one working and was complaining to other "parishioners" about it and they snitched so the church kicked him out. His wife, instead of supporting him, kept attending.

Then my step dad (who was my dad in my eyes because he raised me since I was 3, my brother was 9 and was a phenomenal person) abruptly died on a business trip in Florida. It was then that his drinking went full-tilt. His wife left him because he was no longer holding down a job and spending their money on booze and also not taking care of the kids while she was at work because he was either drunk or passed out. I can't blame her.

After she left, he rented rooms from various people and job hopped. He then met some lady who was also an alcoholic that was like 20 years his senior who lived on a small trust left to her by her parents which her sisters managed because they wanted to ensure she had housing and was taken care of and didn't blow all of her money on booze. That's when my brother's drinking got realllllly out of control because he no longer needed to hold down a job, even temporary jobs, to pay rent.

After a year or so shacked up with this chick, she got her 3rd DUI and had to serve serious jail time (due to all the prior offenses - I think a couple years) so her sisters ended her lease and my brother had nowhere to go (he had burned bridges with all family members who had tried helping him before) and his alcoholism was out of control. He then moved into his jeep. Then he got a DUI himself, had no money to pay bail and spent like 3 months in jail and by the time he got out, had no way of getting his car out of impound and ended up on the streets.

After he died, I was a wreck. I had not spoken to him in years and the last time (prior to visiting him in the hospital on his death bed) I saw him, I cussed him out in my mom's kitchen because he was hammered and made some inappropriate remark to me in front of my entire family. I had so much guilt because many family members had offered or actually helped him(tried anyway) but I never did because I was so angry with him over his drinking and abandoning his familial responsibilities and wanted him to just pull himself up by the bootstraps.

One day a few weeks after he died, I was having a meltdown in my office and my best friend (who also worked with me) happened to show up to our building that day and stop by my office in the middle of my meltdown. I was lamenting to her all the guilt I had for not helping him. She said to me "Ang, he lost a battle he never had a chance at winning and you certainly do not possess the professional skills needed to help him nor do you or your family have the financial resources needed that would have provided him with the level of help he needed. Don't beat yourself up."

It was then that I really realized she was absolutely correct. So Jeff, while I hear you about choices and to some extent agree, I'd venture to say most homeless people with substance abuse issues do not have the tool kits to be able to to make those good choices. My brother certainly did not and that was established in childhood - as is likely the case with most of these other folks. That's not to say there aren't outliers who overcome the odds somehow.

What are we to do now that these people are adults? Turn our backs against the most vulnerable in society because of choices? Id like to think that as a communal society (which is what we *should* be - nobody can succeed totally by themselves in any situation) that we don't turn our backs on people. Can I personally fix mentally ill or addicted persons? No. But I believe that our society has the financial and human resources to do so.

Another poster said it best. We keep trying things we have always done and it's still not working. It's time to re-imagine the way we help these folks. One of the most detrimental impacts was the decentralization of mental health back in the 80's.

 

[crosswatt]

The reality is the issues they have are the bad choices they made in education, the bad choices they made in substance abuse, the bad choices they made in destroying their ability to be employed, the bad choices they made to alienate their friends and families who can't allow them to tear the rest of their families apart.

Most of them are there because of situations of their own making. And its not like this problem just sprang out of nowhere, it has been growing for years, and all along the solution was help them more, tolerate them more, don't make them responsible form themselves, and by god don't blame them for their situation.

All its done is make the problem worse. Also, the number of 20 something white tent squatters in Oregon took a dramatic increase when pot was legalized. they are more then happen to stand on corners and beg because they make enough money to get fast food and pot, the turn down work when offered and show no interest in anything then living in their own trash.

Again, I'm not disagreeing that they're there mostly of their own volition. That their bad decisions in most cases caused them to be there. I think most would agree with that as the default. That doesn't mean there are some people who had no choice and were relegated into it through little to no fault of their own.

And heaven forbid that we all be held to such a high standard that any mistake or bad decision we may have made be counted against us that stringently if the time ever came that we needed a helping hand.

Regardless of all that, the problem exists. And to fix the underlying factors, we would need a practical and cost-effective way to provide treatment and counseling for them. While the farm idea does that, it also runs the risk of forced incarceration for people who really didn't commit any crimes worthy of prison.

And I get that you would probably have zero problem with them being rounded up and forced to go there, but I tend to think that the vast majority of Americans would have a little bit of a problem with that once the practice got started, and they saw what that truly looked like.

 

[Jeff Miller]

Again, I'm not disagreeing that they're there mostly of their own volition. That their bad decisions in most cases caused them to be there. I think most would agree with that as the default. That doesn't mean there are some people who had no choice and were relegated into it through little to no fault of their own.

And heaven forbid that we all be held to such a high standard that any mistake or bad decision we may have made be counted against us that stringently if the time ever came that we needed a helping hand.

Regardless of all that, the problem exists. And to fix the underlying factors, we would eat a practical and cost-effective way to provide treatment and counseling for them. While the farm idea does that, it also runs the risk of forced incarceration for people who really didn't commit any crimes worthy of prison.

And I get that you would probably have zero problem with them being rounded up and forced to go there, but I tend to think that the vast majority of Americans would have a little bit of a problem with that once the practice got started, and they saw what that truly looked like.

It wouldn't so much be a forced incarceration as an alternative to actual incarceration. In most area's vagrancy, squatting on public land, and most especially littering are all misdemeanor crimes. Currently violations of all these statues are not being enforced as it makes no sense to overflow the prisons for non-violent offenders or fine them an amount they cannot or will not pay. So with the work farm, they can can be convicted of the crime, get an alternative sentence to the farm which would be the equivalent of a work release, only when their sentence is completed, they have the option of staying there if they want to. It would arguable be a better quality of life then they would have living under the over passes and in city parks.

 

[crosswatt]

It wouldn't so much be a forced incarceration as an alternative to actual incarceration. In most area's vagrancy, squatting on public land, and most especially littering are all misdemeanor crimes. Currently violations of all these statues are not being enforced as it makes no sense to overflow the prisons for non-violent offenders or fine them an amount they cannot or will not pay. So with the work farm, they can can be convicted of the crime, get an alternative sentence to the farm which would be the equivalent of a work release, only when their sentence is completed, they have the option of staying there if they want to. It would arguable be a better quality of life then they would have living under the over passes and in city parks.

I get it, and don't disagree in the abstract. But I think that, in the real world, the implementation is not going to really be feasible. Plus you're essentially recreating a debtors prison, and I don't think there would be room constitutionally for that to happen in our country.

 

[Jeff Miller]

I get it, and don't disagree in the abstract. But I think that, in the real world, the implementation is not going to really be feasible. Plus you're essentially recreating a debtors prison, and I don't think there would be room constitutionally for that to happen in our country.

I don't think its a debtors prison because no one is profiting from the work. The work is used to maintain the facilities that they are utilizing. They grow the food they eat. They clean the dishes they use. They clean the laundry of the cloths they where, they clean the tents/buildings that they live in, they clean the rec area's they use. They maintain the grounds of the area. This way the money the tax payer has to spend goes to basic mental health, substance abuse and health care serves. they are choosing to earn the benefits they are receiving. Thats why its not a debtors prison and that way the tax payer is not coddling them for all these basic needs.

 

[crosswatt]

I don't think its a debtors prison because no one is profiting from the work. The work is used to maintain the facilities that they are utilizing. They grow the food they eat. They clean the dishes they use. They clean the laundry of the cloths they where, they clean the tents/buildings that they live in, they clean the rec area's they use. They maintain the grounds of the area. This way the money the tax payer has to spend goes to basic mental health, substance abuse and health care serves. they are choosing to earn the benefits they are receiving. Thats why its not a debtors prison and that way the tax payer is not coddling them for all these basic needs.

What I mean is that you're essentially confining them for misdemeanors that should be fines that they couldn't afford. The abstract is a really attractive idea but I don't think it would withstand a constitutional challenge.

 

[The Moose]

I've been lurking around this thread for days and debated if I wanted to actually participate.

I previously (until last year), for 6 years, was a data analyst supporting a Inpatient and outpatient multi-disciplinary care (physicians, nurses, dieticians, social workers, psychiatrists, and health promoters) program for the un & underserved population. In plain English this means poor, un or under-insured, chronically ill patients - the large majority homeless or housing insecure. I have analyzed the data and I have shadowed the clinicians on home visits and spent days in the clinics in order to understand the operations in order to best determine how to build out health information systems to capture meaningful data to drive better patient care and outcomes. I have perspective from the back end of this as well as seeing first hand how these people live and hear about what they are going through.

One of the biggest issues faced in attempting to gain control of their chronic conditions was housing insecurity and homelessness. The majority of the chronically ill were diabetics and they had no refrigerator to store their insulin in and generally speaking in regards to other medications that they'd get at the hospital and put in their backpacks (that we would provide for them), they never lasted because on the streets and in shelters, your backpacks and belongings are constantly stolen or thrown away if you step away from them for too long and you have no house, car,or reliable people surrounding you to look after it for you.

What happens when people who are chronically ill begin to start feeling really bad because they don't have their prescription medications? They start using illegal substances or drinking again. Then after a couple weeks of not having their prescriptions, some serious health event happens and they are taken back to the ER for uncompensated care.

In reality, these people need inpatient rehab and/or mental health residence to go get sorted out and detox, etc. That's the first step. The next step is some place to go when they are finished with treatment (for those who won't be staying permanently in the psych hospital). If they have no place to go, this cycle repeats itself until the patient dies most of the time.

Only after the inpatient care and rehab (for those with substance abuse and mental health issues) can you begin to think about work farms and other such things. You can't send an addict or mentally ill person to a work farm (or any other work program) until they are sober and have the tools to function in society. It's also unreasonable to expect that these same sub-population would be able to flourish at any rate we would deem a success in one of those tiered programs where they work up to being given permanent housing while simultaneously having to deal with addiction or severe mental health (or both) in an outpatient/non-residential setting. You have to address the underlying issues first.

I've seen it first hand. I've studied the data. I know what works and what doesn't with this particular group of the homeless - and I recognize that my post does not address all the various types of homeless characteristics.

My next point I'll make in a separate post as this one is already quite long.

Thanks brother for getting in the discussion.

Yes most of the frequent flyers in hospital care as they are called (my ex is a rn) are homeless and the working poor.

Can't forget the working poor because they usually are just one setback from being homeless.

And yes they are a huge drain on that already broken system that nobody can afford

In reality coming to help them get thru the addiction and mental health issues would be far cheaper than the frequent flyer thing.

Yeah glad you joined the thread.