Join orgs supporting the homeless and fighting against the criminalization of homelessness.
Buy from locally-owned businesses that treat their employees well. Not the gentrifying upscale cafes and restaurants and boutiques
With you on that one. But this is a problem of successful, growing cities and it sounds like OP is in a city in the opposite situation that is lacking in economic opportunities.
> Join orgs supporting the homeless and fighting against the criminalization of homelessness.
When most people complain about homelessness, they're talking about the homeless on the streets, and particularly the ones on drugs who accost the people walking by. Criminalization of homelessness might be bad for moral reasons, but letting an unlimited number of homeless people live on streets indefinitely is exactly the opposite of what almost everybody wants. We need to focus on getting them off the streets into shelters and housing, and then everybody wins because they are also not being arrested anymore. Just focusing on the "criminalization" aspect and ignoring everything else is just making the problem worse in other ways.
> Buy from locally-owned businesses that treat their employees well. Not the gentrifying upscale cafes and restaurants and boutiques
This one is where you've really lost me.... who do you think provides good paying jobs and can afford to treat their employees well? Businesses that are making money, such as upscale cafes and restaurants and boutiques. These are also often locally-owned.
In general, gentrification is the clearest path to improving neighborhoods that have probably suffered as a result of "NIMBYism" elsewhere in a city.
Being opposed to gentrification is a form of "NIMBYism". Gentrification is not the enemy of affordable housing.
Gentrification kicks out whoever is already there. If they are dependent on local friends/family for support that makes their lives worse.
You won't care how "great" the new neighborhood is with its SoulCycle classes if you cannot afford to live there anymore.
Building an apartment of affordable housing in an affluent community or building a condo of upscale units in a poor community clearly evokes feelings of NIMBY from some of the entrenched interests in both communities.
Some feel that helping 10 poor families find affordable housing in the affluent community does the greatest good. It certainly does for those families who can get the assistance to support their new lives. It does absolutely nothing though for the vast majority of the residents in their former underserved communities.
I personally feel that a greater good can result from 10 affluent families providing a cornerstone for the gentrification/improvement of an entire underserved community.
I believe we are both advocating for better services, increased safety, and affluence for historically under served communities. We just have a different perspective on how that might be done.
[1]: https://np.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/ib6eh2/a_tale_of... (I would turn off subreddit style for now)
I think there are two big factors that drive people to crime: desperation and lack of accountability. Lack of accountability can also come from the anonymity that comes with different demographics not knowing each other. Desperation can come from poverty or extreme social inequality.
> Buy from locally-owned businesses that treat their employees well.
Similarly, is the rate of violence connected with the affordability / availability of decent housing?
If so, zoning / affordable housing initiatives as suggested by the GP may be relevant.