Comment by EugeneThrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EugeneThrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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EugeneThrowaway

While I support the approach I'm not sure Eugene is the best example. There is a huge homeless problem here and police don't respond, including when I wake up in the middle of the night to someone sticking their flashlight in my window (from my locked back yard and they came right up to my back door) nor the homeless man that was sleeping against my bedroom wall and yelling all night about the CIA's listening device in his teeth. I've also had them break into my backyard and turn off my electricity (fun way to wake up freezing). But then again, I'm not sure police should be responding because they think it is appropriate to shoot down Peal (Toshi's towards Safeway) when some dude steals their vehicle and is driving *away* from them (I'd get it if they were driving towards the cops but that's not what happened).

The program is good and I'm glad less people are dying from it, but the problem is very messy and there's still a lot that needs to be done to build upon it. My issue is that many times people make these first steps and then just stop. The homeless problem has only seem to grow since I've been here and covid has made it far worse. Living in Eugene it doesn't feel like the city or state is doing what they can to appropriately fix things. It more feels like people are patting themselves on the back and calling themselves woke while making near meaningless improvements. I don't blame the homeless people for these actions as much as the people that have the power to fix the issues. People do the above actions when desperate. No one wants to live in a tent under the bridge when it is rainy and cold. We can be humane and solve the problem and that's what I want to see my taxes go to. After all, I pay more taxes here than I do in California.

Throwaway because I want to keep my main account somewhat anonymous.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I don't think any of that has much to do with CAHOOTS. If it weren't for them, those same calls would be filled with police... I can't imagine there would be a better result.

Ultimately homelessness is the problem, it's not just worse here, it's worse in a lot of places. Opening up better and safer shelters I think is the only long term solution, but I'm not sure Eugene has the resources to do that. Federal and State collect all the income tax, Eugene's budget is small potatoes.

> After all, I pay more taxes here than I do in California.

Really? I pay about the same income tax, a bit higher property taxes, and zero sales tax. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure the sales tax savings more than makes up for the difference in property tax.

>No one wants to live in a tent under the bridge when it is rainy and cold.

Not to deride from the rest of your comment which I thought was solid commentary but this particular line is not true. Yes it is true the over whelming majority of people have no intention of doing this. But it only takes one or a few people to transform a space. Stuff like boondocking, stealth camping, vagrancy, and alternative living is relatively speaking more popular than people would think and really only kept in check by the threat of the justice system and active policing.

> Stuff like boondocking, stealth camping, vagrancy, and alternative living is relatively speaking more popular than people would think and really only kept in check by the threat of the justice system and active policing.

I really hate when people feel the need to interject this kind of statement into a discussion about homelessness. Unless we had viable alternatives, it's impossible to know what percentage of people on the streets are just out there for a lark. My gut feeling is, it's an extremely low percentage. When it's sub freezing and I rider my bike past a 55 year old trying to sleep on a concrete bike path under a bridge with nothing but a couple of shitty blankets, I don't think he's a tourist. If I was going to do hobo tourism, I'd head for Florida or California, not Seattle or Portland.

But lets assume some number of these guys really, genuinely want to have sleep in half frozen mud puddles. We can still put up housing for the people who don't want that. Give people the option to get a decent roof over them.

Then once we're sure the people still sleeping on Main Street are doing it because they genuinely enjoy being outdoors, you can talk about active policing and the justice system on whoever is left.

Land use (especially in regards public access property) and homelessness go hand in hand. Most people don't care if someone can check off a box that says they have a home address, they care what people are doing in their parks, libraries, roadways, sidewalks, right of ways, etc.

>Then once we're sure the people still sleeping on Main Street are doing it because they genuinely enjoy being outdoors, you can talk about active policing and the justice system on whoever is left.

There are classes of people who have the means to be helped but choose not to. Which are still going to be there regardless of how much resources you throw at the issue, unless you think the future is a dystopian society where people no longer have free will.

Eugene Oregon is bit of an outlier. They have a very dense anti-police/anti-government community and are big participants in the clashes we see in Portland against the Federal Courthouse there.

There's an old CBS interview with them from 1999...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i_4xEBCdys&has_verified=1

If you are going to compare your situation to the homelessness in California you should really experience what Skid Row is like first.

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