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We need publicly funded SROs, group housing and mental health facilities, with trained medical and security staff as needed. It won't be pretty and it will cost a literal fortune, but we've been living with the alternative for decades now and it's not pretty or cheap either.

And the most-impacted cities can't be expected to pay for all of this. A solution of this scale can only come from the federal level.

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Leftfield solution:

Pay drug buyers to narc on sellers (especially via recordings). Catch the sellers of addictive drugs (especially P/meth) and bust the network by making it too risky to sell hard drugs. However would need a way to prevent buyers from becoming victims of retribution.

If the homeless problem is predominantly due to drug usage then we need an effective way remove the drugs from society. Might help reduce theft too?

Note I am not a fan of persecution for drug usage! Personally, I would prefer to see many drugs (mushrooms, weed, ecstacy) decriminalised and made safe. Currently street drugs are unreliable quality (due to manufacturing adulterants, mixing in fentanyl/crap). I have known some reasonably functional/social users of some class A drugs - so I am not religiously against drugs - but I have also witnessed damage to individuals and society due to drug usage.

I highly recommend watching The Wire as it provides a stunningly accurate depiction of how this strategy failed in Baltimore. As a sibling comment points out, the "war on drugs" was an abject failure, because the people getting imprisoned for their role in the drug economy were usually street-level dealers and foot soldiers. The people who run criminal enterprises tend to insulate themselves from its everyday operations, which is why they could only get Al Capone off the streets by charging him with tax evasion.

I wholeheartedly agree with your notions on drug usage and decriminalization of certain substances though! You might be interested in Dr. Timothy Leary, who wrote extensively on "control over your own nervous system" as long as it did not affect others [1] (on page 49).

1. https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/565255...

  > bust the network by making it too risky to sell hard drugs

This strategy has been thoroughly explored. It’s usually referred to as “the war on drugs”. It hasn’t worked out well.

Drugs should be legalized with few or no exceptions. That's the actual solution.

I think the replacement of SROs by luxury apartments in downtown SF (mid Market neighborhood) was an under appreciated driver of homelessness there. This was housing of last report for many.

Same in Seattle. And to be completely fair, in many cities the reduction in SRO housing was also caused by unwise but well-meaning regulation.

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