The Bell Riots start on Sunday. Stay safe out there!
<Anyone coming from /c/all please note this is a joke post for an in universe Star Trek event. Remain Calm.>
Meanwhile, in the real 2024, a lot of homeless people would probably prefer being put into a sanctuary district than having their very existence made illegal and cops either clearing them out or arresting them wherever they went.
When the actual future dystopia is worse than the one that writers came up with.
Kevin Spacey is a monster and I hate him like Weinstein, but he has one of the most salient moments on Colbert’s Late Show from eight years ago (after the Trump joke):
Shit man they had universal healthcare in Star Trek's 2024. In Star Trek's 2024 the tech billionaire decided to help the homeless. We're doing worse in the real world than what Star Trek depicted as being near the absolute nadir of human society.
In reality, getting them to accept services and help is the #1 obstacle to getting them services and help.
Most homeless shelters in San Francisco dont allow people to take their belongings in with them.
Attitudes towards the homeless are highly backwards - demanding sobriety as a condition for aid, when in reality drugs are used as a way to escape the pain of trauma and homelessness. SF residents voted and passed Proposition F, cementing the idea that feeling smugness over the homeless is more important than actually trying to help them escape poverty.
Most shelters do in fact allow people to bring their belongings with them (within reason). Some even provide storage space, and the city provides a free self-storage facility.
Prop F addresses CAAP (cash welfare), not housing. You don't have to be receiving CAAP to qualify for housing assistance, and you don't have to be homeless to qualify for CAAP.
SF has been struggling with a chronic homelessness problem for decades. Offering voluntary services does not work. To put in in Trek terms, the problem isn't the gimmes, it's the ghosts and dims. Gimmes are easy to help because they can act on their own behalf and in their own best interests. They accept services and don't end up being chronically homeless. The ghosts and the dims, on the other hand, are a different story.
Is sweeping their encampments an ideal solution? No, far from it. But what else is there for us to do? Let them languish on the streets? Honestly, what would you have us do?
Housing First is the correct way to reduce homelessness. The main cause of homelessness is being priced out of the housing market, because the vast majority of housing in America is entirely privatized. Plus most public housing in America is not done nor funded well, until our European counterparts.
Drug addiction is a symptom of late-stage homelessness, not a cause. The cause is almost always the private housing market pricing people out of affording even rent. In the US, housing is first and foremost an investment, not a necessity.
Numerous studies show that housing first participants experience higher levels of housing retention and use fewer emergency and criminal justice services, which produces cost savings in emergency department use, inpatient hospitalizations, and criminal justice system use.
https://www.pdx.edu/homelessness/housing-first
This has worked famously in Finland
Housing First has been the policy in San Francisco since 2008, and state-wide since 2016.
No they haven't. Shelters and Housing Lotterys are not Housing First. Housing First is free housing, like studio apartments, where homeless people can get stability in order to recover from addiction and join the job market.
https://sfplanning.org/housing Housing for All is going in the right direction, but Housing First is specifically important for addressing and reducing homeless.
Welfare and Institutions Code 8255.
But it's beside the point if the problem is with getting them to accept services in the first place.
Oh I see that now. Yeah you're right that California has started Housing First. I looked into it but I couldn't find any data about the results of the people who took part, only the overall data of the state of California which doesn't really tell me how well the program itself is in California. The major difference between it done on a State level compared to on a national level like Finland is the amount of financial support and scope of implementation. Looking into it, I also noticed Finland has extensive access to many services for people that are utilizing Housing First, which wasn't the case in California. Another major aspect is that Finland has significantly better access to affordable housing, especially with the amount of public housing available, bit also in the private market.
The root cause of homelessness has not been addressed in America like it has in Finland, so the amount of people becoming homeless is still increasing here in America.
And that is because a large amount of time, those services and help come with conditions they can't accept.
Take shelters for example. If you're a homeless woman, you could stay in a shelter (until they kicked you out) but you probably have a dog to protect you since you're a woman on the streets. The shelter would make you abandon the dog.
I actually work in the SF housing industry, and worked at a housing site in SF that was converted to permanent supportive housing during COVID. In that case, barely 30% of the people even showed up to their intake appointments.
What were the conditions in order to get an appointment? Who was offered appointments? Who was informed about them?
Certification of homeless status from the city (already acquired if they were referred to us) and proof of income (if any).
I think we both can come up with a great many reasons why someone wouldn't want such a certification.
I'll riot a bit just to be safe.
As a treat
PnRTreatYoSelf.gif
since I can't insert a gif from my keyboard.
The fact that even when trying to be dystopian as fuck, depressingly bad, showcasing the worst decisions that the more aggressive (and let's be honest, savage by comparison) people of the past, they give humanity WAY too much credit.
Not a chance in hell anyone would create special areas for homeless people unless there were some ulterior motive. Because even though the cost of housing and programs to educate, therapy to help with any issues stemming from homelessness or mental disorders (including many that you will likely get just from being homeless that never showed up before) and substance abuse problems (that again, likely were not present pre-homelessness) is WAY lower than what we pay to "deal with it" the way we do, everyone just kind of seems okay with how the homeless get treated.
And when you are watching 27 different angles of a bunch of people filming cops going around beating homeless people and dragging out of tents by their hair in order to burn them down with all the possessions inside, and nobody fucking lifts a finger to help those being opressed, it really winks in that maybe we don't deserve to make it past the bell riots.
Because even the shitty oppressive government of a fictional universe where most governments are completely changed, gone or barely dangling by a thread is a hell of a lot better than the shit we're stuck with.
I feel like DS9 imagined a 2024 where liberals had morphed into champagne socialists, providing a social safety net to assuage guilt for their treatment of the people disadvantaged by society but keeping them out of sight. In reality the liberal parties stymie the left and work to keep government moving to the right so that the basic safety net never gets implemented. Instead we have neoliberals and party liners still obsessed with reaching across the aisle and shaking hands with those who would advocate for a 'final solution' to homelessness before voting to feed them. Thats not just America, look at Macron too.
There's assuming the percentage of homeless people is not threatening to create a rebellion. Increase the number to tipping point like 30% of all people and it will make sense.
By the way that's the goal of capitalism in a round about way - accumulate more money by fewer people. And it's getting it's way.
I'm heading up to the mountains for camping this weekend, just to be safe.
Remember to bring your emergency comms system. The mountains can be treacherous.
I thought it was super easy in the future
Just rip it out of the bulkhead and push it up the mountain.
Me too. I plan to make some coffee and watch the world burn.
I do like my coffee hot....
And all Japan gets on Sunday is a lousy typhoon.
You could always move to (northern)Tohoku... not as many jobs but at least the typhoons and quakes are rare.
If we get a star trec future out of it... I say it's worth it
That's the attitude we want around here!
Honestly, the end justifying all means is an attitude I'd expect from lemmygrad, not from here. I know, that's not how you put it, but think about it that way
"The ends justify the means" is an argument often used by people that know the thing that they're doing is pretty awful, and are trying to come up with some kind of hand waving justification.
But as a thought process it isn't bad in and of itself. Every time you undergo surgery it's because the ends justify the means.
It could be more favorably expressed as "short-term pain, long-term gain".
Inaction is being complicit especially when it comes to fighting oppression.
And power structures reproduce themselves. Unity of means and ends is crucial when you don't want to just build a new oppressive system
I shall not remain calm!
i heard this image
God dammit, I lost my ocarina!
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