It's not a perfect system, but it's better than leaving them homeless. Maybe it's the model we need to follow for our own homeless.
It's not a perfect system, but it's better than leaving them homeless. Maybe it's the model we need to follow for our own homeless.
$35 a month housing projects. Then we even have loads of "Human Service Homes" or halfway houses for people that need more help. They get food, clean clothes and transportation provided daily. They even have planned outings like bowling or they get $20 to go shop at a thrift store.
Some people make it work, but the housing projects tend to have lots of drug addicts that are functional but would prefer to spend their money on drugs instead of housing but the low price point keeps them mostly off the street. Of course they frequently get too high and cause issues. The large concentration of addicts also leads to gangs being present which causes other issues. So overall it's just not a great environment.
The DHS homes are dispersed throughout the community. A high amount of drug addicts but also more mentally unstable. They frequently leave the houses, often times entering other people's property. They will cause scenes and messes in the yards, many of them are sex offender. Sometimes they wander off and can't be found. Nothing like wondering where the schizophrenic person nextdoor might pop up.
And at least once or twice a year someone gets killed or seriously injured by a halfway House resident.
Then on top of that we still have a few homeless people that are so disconnected from reality they just won't go indoors.
So to me the biggest issue is that even if you provide housing WHERE can you put it because most people simply don't want to live in close proximity to the mentally ill / drug addicts.
Once you cannot, which is quite characteristic of some mental diseases, the entire system becomes a lot more complicated.