Comment by deviantbit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deviantbit | Hacker News Reader

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I was trying to be nice.

Let me put it in terms that Gene Roddenberry would have explained. He emphasized it in his work. You might have heard about it. Star Trek. "The needs of the many, out way the needs of a few, or the one."

When you're more interested in the humanity, and dignity of those afflicted (the few) than those not afflicted (the many) then you're going to continue to generate more afflicted. You have to stop the problem at the source.

That means: Cutting off the drug supply. Enforcing laws. Everything you most likely despise. You only care about those that are on those streets.

You have to make it harder to become homeless, than it is to be a successful functioning member of society.

Jobs are not the problem. There are jobs everywhere. In one of my businesses, I needed truck drivers. I can't find them because hardly anyone can pass a drug test. I will pay for them to get their CDL, if they're drug free. It's not happening. I sponsored 3 people from India to drive trucks for me. They work 6 hour days, make $35 an hour, with route bonuses, and benefits.

I have a software company (or had), where we did DoD projects. It is next to impossible to find anyone that can pass a background check for a security clearance with the FBI. Why? Drugs.

I had another software company that was in the Casino Gaming space. It was difficult to get people licensed. Why? Drugs.

There is opportunity for everyone, bad decisions put you in the street. Then people like you and I have coddled these people, and give them enough to get by, so they don't want to return to being a functioning members of society. Anything else, they steal or commit another crime to get more drugs.

I have spoken to many of these people. Your presumption shows your character. I have donated more money to this problem than you will make in your life. Money is not fixing the issue. I have stopped supporting many alcoves. We keep creating more, and more that end up needing help. The majority of the problem revolves around drugs.

Drugs cause mental issues. This is a fact. People don't want to work. They want drugs.

So, I will not be returning to SF. I will not fund the business I was there to invest in. Keep going with your idealism. The universes own laws will eventually catch up with you, as history shows us every time.

For the life of me I cannot understand why we tolerate antisocial behaviour in our public spaces. The difference in experience between Market Street and most streets in Berlin or Kyoto is astounding.

Forced relocation to care communities (which would need to be built) is the only move I see. Food, Shelter, Waste disposal, etc. The idea of a group of homeless people being able to set up a camp wherever they want, when everything else in society needs to go through planning permission is insane.

> That means: Cutting off the drug supply. Enforcing laws. Everything you most likely despise.

Speaking about presumptions that show one's character...

> Money is not fixing the issue. ... You have to make it harder to become homeless, than it is to be a successful functioning member of society. ... Jobs are not the problem.

On this we agree, very, very, very strongly. Jobs are not the problem. A lack of money for homeless assistance (and "assistance") programs is not the problem. (In fact, there's certainly way too much money thrown at those sorts of programs.) Based on what I've observed over the years here in San Francisco, for the situation in San Francisco, lack of housing is the problem.

As I said upthread:

> Housing the homeless and providing the medical and psychological care they need is the humane thing to do.

When you can't find housing because there is no housing to be had, and when it's tough as shit to hold down a job because you don't have a solid place to sleep, to clean your clothes, to safely store your alarm clock that's gonna wake you up for tomorrow's shift, etc, etc, then you have one of those "self-perpetuating cycles" that leaves you jobless and homeless.

> That means: Cutting off the drug supply.

That's effectively impossible. We can't even do this inside our prisons. If their child is determined, parents usually cannot do this inside their own homes. I guarantee you that even Singapore has drugs and drug use within its borders.

> Enforcing laws.

Yep. We're a nation of laws, and all laws should be enforced at all times. I very strongly believe this... to an extreme degree.

However, you do need to think about a few key points:

1) You can't extract money from someone who doesn't have an income to garnish or assets to confiscate. This renders fines and other monetary penalties largely ineffective.

2) The obvious alternative to fines is prison time. Because our prisons aren't built to rehabilitate, if you're tossing folks back into the very same situation they came out from, once released from prison they're going to be right back in prison in short order... because nothing about their life changed, except for the fact that they got an unpleasant roof over their head and three square meals for a little while.

2a) In practice, that boils down to "We have decided to house the homeless in prisons, rather than in houses.". Most (all?) of the time, that's _way_ more expensive than, like, housing folks in houses and hooking them up with a rehabilitation program so that it's -as you said- "harder to become homeless, than it is to be a successful functioning member of society".

2b) Our prisons have finite space, and are typically substantially overfull. It's better to have free space for new violent offenders (and other substantial threats to public safety) than to cram them 110% full by cramming in nearly every homeless person.

> There is opportunity for everyone, bad decisions put you in the street.

Bad decisions, but also bad luck. Sometimes bad shit happens to decent folks, and sometimes something comes along and absolutely wrecks you... wrecks you so bad that if you don't have really solid friends (or generations of accumulated wealth) to help you out, you're absolutely going to lose everything you have because you're rendered totally useless for a very, very long time.

> [I can't find truckers, or TS/SCI-ready employees because "everyone's" smoking weed and the regulations haven't caught up with the fact that weed is legal now in 75% of the US.]

I mean, this is self-explanatory.

Not too long ago, it was the case that you couldn't get TS/SCI if you were openly homosexual. The requirements for high-end clearance tend to lag substantially behind what's acceptable in the wider world. It's also a goddamn shame that weed stays in one's system for so very long after its psychoactive effects are gone. It makes testing for "Was this guy doing hazardous work while under the influence?" very tough... so tough that absolute prohibition is the easiest way to deal with it. It'd be super cool if we could build more sensitive tests, but that probably won't happen until FedGov drops the charade and de-schedules weed.

Nixon, the grift that keeps on giving

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