Homelessness on the Rise?

[ahhrunforthehills]

-
I made a list of my top 5. I basically just went down the list of what is happening with the most dangerous drugs...





#1 Heroin/Opioids - up 5x in last decade

A surge in heroin/opioids is pretty bad, since it is the most addictive and more harmful:



Even Pablo Escobar never had such an efficient network of drug dealers that are available today. Big pharma makes Pablo look like a clown. There is no shortage of kickbacks for US physicians to write prescriptions for Opiod pain meds, ADHD drugs (discussed below), etc.



#2 Booger Sugar - up almost 4x in last decade

Cocaine is booming lately:



This shouldn't be surprising. We also have a culture in America that teaches children (at a young age) to take medication to solve their psychological issues (i.e. ADHD, etc.). Apparently, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, users of Ritalin (methylphenidate) and similar drugs “showed the highest percentage of cocaine abuse.” In fact, I keep reading that the body can't really tell the difference between the two. Which leads us to:



#3 Methylphenidate i.e. Ritalin (gateway to Cocaine)

Some children may need this, IMHO most do not. It is easier for schools to medicate children than to admit that there isn't a 1-size-fits-all approach to education. So if these are actually gateway drugs, how are sales doing?



Business is booming.



#4 Meth - up almost 4x in last decade

Although there have always been drugs like cocaine, drugs like Meth are somewhat different since they are so insanely cheap to manufacture. El Chapo got huge because he could easily replace (at no charge) any drugs seized by authorities.




#5 Loss Of U.S. Psychiatric Hospitals

Psychiatic Services estimates 3.4% of the Americans suffer from serious psychological problems. All of those people have to go somewhere. Many are in prison, many are not... which is quite unfortunate for this lady:

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/calif ... y-bad-ptsd


But hey, I am sure things are going to get better soon though now that we have massive legalization of weed and casinos across the country. I can probably save a little extra gambling money by turning one of my participation trophies into a pipe. Go America!


TLDR; things appear to have gone from bad to worse since around 2012ish.

[Tyler]

According to this federal report updated in December, the recent rise in homelessness is pretty much a California problem.

"There is significant local variation reported from different parts of the country. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia reported declines in homelessness between 2018 and 2019, while 21 states reported increases in the number of persons experiencing homelessness. Homelessness in California increased by 21,306 people, or 16.4 percent, which is more than the total national increase of every other state combined."

https://www.hud.gov/press/press_release ... _No_19_177

[dualstow]

Things are looking up in New York, WiseOne. /s
Caveat: this isn’t the Onion, but it is Breitbart, so...

‘New York to Allow Accused Criminals to Inspect Own Crime Scenes’
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019 ... -names/amp

[Libertarian666]

Things are looking up in New York, WiseOne. /s
Caveat: this isn’t the Onion, but it is Breitbart, so...

‘New York to Allow Accused Criminals to Inspect Own Crime Scenes’
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019 ... -names/amp

Posted already under the title "Maybe this will convince WiseOne to flee".

[dualstow]

Ah, I missed that thread altogether. thanks!
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10307&p=183739&hili ... ee#p183739

[WiseOne]

Now this is interesting...

I spent the last half hour or so digging into HUD's data on homelessness for three major cities since 2010: New York, LA, and Seattle. Here they are:

Year by Year counts
LA Seattle NYC
2019 56257 11199 78604
2018 49955 12112 78676
2017 52442 11643 76501
2016 43854 10730 73523
2015 41174 10122 75323
2014 34393 8949 67810
2013 35524 9106 64060
2012 31553 8899 56672
2011 34622 8972 51123
2010 33243 9022 53187

Definitely the numbers have gone up, but this is not quite what you'd expect. In fact, the way these numbers are jumping up and down, I suspect that it's more about changes in counting method rather than a major increase in homelessness. In fact, Seattle's homeless population as a proportion of city population has declined, if anything.

These numbers suggest that at least in Seattle, the official response to homelessness (permitting the tent cities) is what's changed. Points to Tyler on that one.

[boglerdude]

The CA courts have said sidewalk sleeping is legal and also the prison population has to be reduced.

I'm tempted to study the law and sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act because of the blocked sidewalks. They city would settle/pay me to go away like they do with the ACLU. (IIRC this idea was posted on this board)

Arent we mostly Libertarian here? Adults should have the freedom to ingest what they want? So I think the only fix is that after X arrests for sleeping in public, you get shipped to a camp like https://www.ksat.com/news/haven-for-hop ... -las-vegas
or https://mlf.org/community-first/

On paper I'm a neoliberal/globalist, but I'll vote for Trump with alacrity if he does anything on this. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/12/ ... rs/603670/

[dualstow]

Has anyone acknowleged ahrunforthehills’ charts? interesting.
Whoever invented the term “booger sugar” is a poet. I’ve only heard Will Ferrell say it.

[boglerdude]

> Neo-Lib makes no sense to me. CMV

Depends how you define it. These days it means high personal freedom including freer immigration laws. Evidence based policy instead of ideology. ie governments, regulations, and wars are sometimes necessary. https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/top/

[Tortoise]

Has anyone acknowleged ahrunforthehills’ charts? interesting.
Whoever invented the term “booger sugar” is a poet. I’ve only heard Will Ferrell say it.

Cheaper, more widely available drugs actually sounds plausible as a potential root cause.

We've certainly seen a lot of news over the past few years about the recent epidemic of opioid addiction and overdosing in the U.S., and my understanding is that it's largely due to cheaper, more widely available opioids (e.g., fentanyl from China).

Perhaps the "barrier to entry" for drug-soaked homeless life in the U.S. has been lowered due to cheaper drugs, so a lot more people are seeing it as an option. I.e., maybe back when drugs were more expensive, staying continuously high required a person to come up with a lot more money -- perhaps via crime or prostitution -- whereas now that drugs are cheaper, a person can stay high all the time using just some money collected from recycling, panhandling, etc.

This possibility definitely seems worthy of careful consideration.

[Kriegsspiel]

BTW, I understand that many people who support these permissive policies see them as acts of compassion. But personally I see it as the removal of an effective feedback loop. Sometimes being forced to face a judge is the best thing that can happen to someone who truly needs help. The decriminalization of the many behaviors associated with homelessness may sound compassionate on the surface but just makes it even harder to legally do anything about it.

You're right, that's how they see it. But tough love would work a lot better and get many of these people back to being productive members of society.

How long do you think shop owners will put up with shoplifting up to $999? They just started that policy here in Cook County (Chicago) and retailers are furious.

After months of seeing its shelves repeatedly cleaned out by brazen shoplifters, the Walgreens at Van Ness and Eddy in San Francisco is getting ready to close.

…“All of us knew it was coming. Whenever we go in there, they always have problems with shoplifters, ” said longtime customer Sebastian Luke, who lives a block away and is a frequent customer who has been posting photos of the thefts for months. The other day, Luke photographed a man casually clearing a couple of shelves and placing the goods into a backpack.

Most of the remaining products were locked behind plastic theft guards, which have become increasingly common at drugstores in recent years.

But at Van Ness Avenue and Eddy Street, even the jugs of clothing detergent on display were looped with locked anti-theft cables.

When a clerk was asked where all the goods had gone, he said, “Go ask the people in the alleys, they have it all.”

No sooner had the clerk spoken than a man wearing a virus mask walked in, emptied two shelves of snacks into a bag, then headed back for the door. As he walked past the checkout line, a customer called out, “Sure you don’t want a drink with that?” link

[Kriegsspiel]

Hah, then a few posts down, Tyler Cowen had another one, from Seattle:

The Seattle City Council is considering new legislation that would create a legal loophole that would make substance addiction, mental illness or poverty a valid legal defense for nearly all misdemeanor crimes committed in the city.

The council's consideration of the plan has occurred with virtually no public discussion about the proposal, which has been included in the municipal budgeting process. The council has not, so far, conducted a standalone meeting to discuss the idea.

Scott Lindsay, the former public safety advisor for the city, said Seattle would be in a class of its own if it ultimately enacted the ordinance.

"I'm not aware of any legislation like this anywhere in the United States (or) even globally," he said Monday. "All cities have criminal codes to protect their citizens from criminal acts. This would essentially create a legal loophole that swallows all those codes and creates a green light for crime."link