Do you believe that everyone deserves housing?

Naturally said:
Tonight's Mega Millions Lotto drawing is for $1.13 BILLION DOLLARS ... $537.5 MILLION DOLLARS CASH OPTION

Suppose you won !!! ... hey we can daydream ... just suppose

Following the WIN and a come to Jesus moment you decide to help the homeless with part of your hundreds of millions.
So you buy 100 acres of land and build two or three hundred cozy, comfy, equipped, furnished habitats.

How would you manage such an endeavor and what headaches and showstoppers do you anticipate ??
What about, in no particular order ...
- Alcohol and drug use and abuse
- Antisocial behavior
- Rampant criminal acts
- Daily conflicts between neighbors
- Wanton destruction of habitats
- Abandoned and broken down vehicles
- Trash because trashy people trash
- Liability because anything can happen to anyone at any time, any where on your premises for any and no reason
- Breaking of rules you make but can't realistically or even perhaps legally enforce
- etc etc etc ... etc

Maybe at the end of the day, you have solved no problems, nothing.
Maybe all you've done is move the problems of homelessness onto private property.

Whelp ... so much for daydreams I guess. Shoot ... I wasn't going to win anyway.
Click to expand...
Your list partly describes the mentally ill and/or addicted homeless.

It can also describe Seniors suffering from severe dementia or Alzheimers.

Just as we have gov't. funding (Medicaid and Medicare) for those Seniors, we should have such funding for medical care for the mentally ill homeless.

We should have convalescent homes for them, with staff and cameras in the halls and ankle monitors, just like some Seniors with Alzheimer's have tracking devices on them. They sell AirTag necklaces for children, but I'm sure some family members have a mom or dad wearing one.

The mental hospitals of old were flawed in 10,000+ ways. We have LEARNED a few thousand things since then. We can RE-OPEN them but design them better than before.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was written in 1962!

Have we not learned a few thousand things about mental illness since then? Or is it still 1962 in your brain? God knows it is for some people!!!!!!!!! " It's still 1962 and if we could only get back to women wearing dresses only, life would be better for all of us."
 

VintageBetter said:
I don't want to hear this PREJUDICE of how "immigrants work harder". Again, we are saying "all immigrants are the same" when we say they all work hard.

Stop with the labeling - can we please stop? Can we see all individuals as individuals? Just as God does? Or are we too blind to see that?
Click to expand...
Just for the record, the immigrant who told me this story was the son of a member of the Cambodian airforce. Members of his family were murdered by the Pol Pot Communist regime. He narrowly escaped death and helped support his surviving mother by working in a rice field, and trading Cambodian products with the Thais, products that he transported on a bicycle over the border. He immigrated here legally and was probably the best, most hard working person I ever worked with. By the way when his department was eliminated he went on to a very important senior job in Oregon, where a relative of mine helped him get situated, and he bought a home.

As for my opinion of the current flood of illegal immigrants pouring across our border, I am definitely NO FAN of them or especially the open border that invites them here. Aside from the crime situation, those that are employed are no doubt making it much more difficult for American citizens to find a job. And, I do not appreciate the language you used to inaccurately describe my thoughts on the matter.
 
ElCastor said:
Just for the record, the immigrant who told me this story was the son of a member of the Cambodian airforce. Members of his family were murdered by the Pol Pot Communist regime. He narrowly escaped death and helped support his surviving mother by working in a rice field, and trading Cambodian products with the Thais, products that he transported on a bicycle over the border. He immigrated here legally and was probably the best, most hard working person I ever worked with. By the way when his department was eliminated he went on to a very important senior job in Oregon, where a relative of mine helped him get situated, and he bought a home.

As for my opinion of the current flood of illegal immigrants pouring across our border, I am definitely NO FAN of them or especially the open border that invites them here. Aside from the crime situation, those that are employed are no doubt making it much more difficult for American citizens to find a job. And, I do not appreciate the language you used to inaccurately describe my thoughts on the matter.
Click to expand...
What the people of Cambodia went through under the Pol Pot Regime is unspeakble. It was such a terrible time in U.S. foreign policy because it was flat-out genocide, but since Americans were very bitter about how Vietnam ended for us, our foreign policy interventions were severely lacking in those scandalous years.

We are so completely, dysfunctionally stuck on what to do with our housing markets. Which is precisely why I rejected the notion of going into Public Policy for a living. I don't want to spend my life going to meeting after meeting, writing report after report, and yet, nothing changes in the actual DOING for years. It seems like a hamster wheel 🐹🎡 kind of job and I already have one of those.
 

Do you believe that everyone deserves housing?​

I have trouble answering your question from the way it is asked? Do I believe? No Everyone deserves housing. Define deserving, what criteria for deserving? Everyone deserves shelter do they deserve housing? No
 
VintageBetter said:
Open discussion and not posted to argue.

I believe basic, semi-permanent housing, meaning a room plus access to a shower and a toilet, are a basic human right. Many states say "shelter" is good enough for the homeless, but they do not define shelter at all. It can mean anything from a tent to a giant warehouse filled with bunk beds and bed bugs. Shelter can mean there are no working showers.

What do you think? Do even the lowest of the low deserve to have the right to take a shower everyday and sleep in a bed, with walls and a roof?

Especially galling in our society is how prisoners have rights to all these things: roof, matress, food, showers, toilets. But the homeless do not.
Click to expand...
I absolutely agree. I can't imagine the plight of nowhere to go but the streets.
 
VaughanJB said:
"Mayor Dianne Feinstein approached the homeless issue as a passing phenomenon. Rather than creating permanent housing and long-term services, her administration relied primarily on church-based emergency shelters, soup kitchens and city-funded overnight stays in cheap, private hotels.

The strategy proved costly and ultimately unsuccessful. Many of the shelters were poorly managed and underfunded, and fell quickly into disrepair. In one notorious instance, the city converted a set of old Muni buses into temporary shelters.

But after the city failed to provide adequate supervision, the facilities were vandalized and Feinstein ordered them evacuated and towed away. Contrary to the predictions of officials, the city’s homeless population continued to grow."

TIMELINE: The Frustrating Political History of Homelessness in San Francisco | KQED
Click to expand...
Diane Feinstein ceased to be mayor of San Francisco more than 35 years ago, in1988, so I fail to see her relevance to today's homeless situation -- which, by the way , is largely considered a state issue. As for her term as mayor ...
"During her tenure as mayor Feinstein had a high approval rating and was listed as the most effective mayor in the United States by City & State in 1987." Mayoralty of Dianne Feinstein - Wikipedia

As for more recent efforts ...

"Governor Newsom Signs Historic Housing and Homelessness Funding Package as Part of $100 Billion California Comeback Plan​

"Published: Jul 19, 2021
$12 billion investment over two years to tackle homelessness, the largest in state history, focuses on behavioral health housing and solutions to tent encampments
Package includes $5.8 billion to create more than 42,000 new homeless housing units, including housing options for people with severe mental health challenges." Governor Newsom Signs Historic Housing and Homelessness Funding Package as Part of $100 Billion California Comeback Plan | California Governor
"In all, the 2023-24 budget provides $3.3 billion for various housing and homelessness programs within the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CalICH), and the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee."
The 2023-24 California Spending Plan: Housing and Homelessness​
 
Last edited:
Mr. Ed said:

Do you believe that everyone deserves housing?​

I have trouble answering your question from the way it is asked? Do I believe? No Everyone deserves housing. Define deserving, what criteria for deserving? Everyone deserves shelter do they deserve housing? No
Click to expand...
I have a serious problem with the word "deserve." Back some years ago, credit card company ran disturbing ads that claimed people "deserved" new cars, expensive vacations, new clothes, and so forth. To me, adults "deserve" what they can afford.

When first on my own I lived in some sketchy neighborhoods in semi-raunchy apartments because that's what my pocketbook dictated. What I didn't do was pitch a tent in the expensive neighborhood I grew up. I didn't "deserve" to live in area beyond my budget.

People deserve the right to pursue happiness, not to be handed it. Yes, we need more affordable housing. We also need people to stop deciding it's ok to camp on the streets in areas where they used to live, rather than move to less expensive housing in less posh neighborhoods.
 
VintageBetter said:
So, that's housing for 50 small families (up to 4 people) for only $44 million dollars. They will pay rent, only 1/3 of their earings. Section 8 complex.
Click to expand...
Your math doesn't include what employment is available, health care needs or transportation, or the availability of land to accomplish the same for the rest of the homeless of 652,704.
 
Mr. Ed said:

Do you believe that everyone deserves housing?​

I have trouble answering your question from the way it is asked? Do I believe? No Everyone deserves housing. Define deserving, what criteria for deserving? Everyone deserves shelter do they deserve housing? No
Click to expand...
OK. I will attempt to define my terms.
Deserve: "If you say that a person or thing deserves something, you mean that they should have it or receive it because of their actions or qualities." (I chose this definition only because it is easy to copy and paste - less clutter and code.)

What I mean by deserve is that human beings do not have the physiological qualities that allow them to survive hot & cold without shelter of some kind for long.

Leave a human baby outside for a few hours and it will most liklely die, even if it is held for warmth and fed. It will die from heat exposure or cold exposure. We're not cats and dogs, born with fur and near furry mothers to keep us warm. Our entire human anatomy DEMANDS shelter. As cave people, we learned to live in caves and build huts out of vegetation. I see the homeless doing this ALL THE TIME. They build huts, their DNA programming tells them to build huts, then "decent" people who have jobs, wear badges, and live in wooden homes tear them down.

That's what I mean by deserve. The Cambridge Dictionary says this: "to have earned or to be given something because of the way you have behaved or the qualities you have."

That is what I mean - you were born a human with human qualities, therefore you have earned the right to shelter for your furless, pretty darn fragile and not all that strong as compared to a Grizzly Bear, body.

Would I say this of a polar bear? A husky dog? A moose? No. They are born as they are because they are designed to survive outside.

One of the problems with our highly dysfunctional homeless shelter system, our modern cave system, is that we just don't have enough shelters. I think the Rose Bowl in Pasadena can hold about 92,000 people if full.

California needs TWO Rose Bowl-size shelters every night for its 180,000 homeless. Actually, it probably needs three because people will need to lay down and sleep, not sit in tiny seats all night.
 
@rgp So I'm guessing you never give money to any charities anywhere? "I have mine so a big F-U to the rest of the world!"
Is that your mantra - your daily prayer?
 


Back
Top