This really is a regional problem. I live around the area, near the beautiful Santa Ana trail which connects two counties to the ocean. A few months ago, I rode down the 40-mile stretch for the first time in a long time, and I was absolutely shocked to see the extent of the tent city near the Anaheim Angels stadium. The people living there were living on hard times, it felt post-apocalyptic in some sense. The tent area spanned for a couple of miles - there was garbage everywhere, people washing the clothes on the trail, people urinating on the side, and some wondering around in a zombie-like state I can only assume was either mental illness or drug abuse.
Honestly, I can't blame Irvine for not wanting this in their backyard. But unfortunately, as the people were getting evicted from these makeshift cities, they are setting up the tents in other neighboring cities. There is a small area near where I live now too.
I don't know what the answer is, or how to deal with it. All I can tell you is that it was not a good feeling, both from a humanitarian and safety point of view, i.e. I felt awful for the people living in this, but also uneasy around it.
So as someone said: if city X has a problem, they fix the problem by evicting the people, the people move to my city (city Y). Why should we (city Y) have to deal with it? Just evict them like city X did.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander..
Maybe. In the Bay Area, try riding the BART between Oakland and Dublin. There are a lot of sprawling shanty towns by the tracks. Just north of the stadium in particular.
How about if you look at it the same way we look at say.. insurance? Would you pay the same amount to remove the perceived risk such a tent city poses you and your family?. I guess that's why people don't want these tent cities around?. My point beeing. Cause if the problem isn't taken care of your going to pay at least that in lesser house valuation and insurance costs...
> Each region/city should host an proportional number of homeless.
And what if they don’t and simply bus their homeless out of town to yours[1]?
Implementing something like that intra-State would be hard enough. Doing it across States is impossible without the Federal government running it and I doubt that’d ever happen.
Then our town will spend our 1% busing them back to where they came from. The issue is that why should my town or city take them in when town or city X isn't.
Because it's the right thing to do? I don't understand why this needs to devolve into an "us vs them" scenario that ends up with the US growing their literal tent slums.
> I don't know what the answer is, or how to deal with it.
The answer is to give them a home, help to get back into a regular life and make sure they don't run into the same issues again that led to their homelessness.
Finland has managed to achieve this, why can't the rest of the western world follow?
Firstly, Finnish climate is a lot different than Southern California with an average temperature of 65F. If the government or society never acted on the problem in Finland it would be a humanitarian crisis with people freezing to death. It is much easier to neglect the problem in SoCal because of the climate.
Second, the state of California is so far in debt, it would put a further strain on its economics. There is simply no money to pay for "solving" the problem, and because people aren't dying in the streets en masse (like they would in Finland during the winter) nobody wants to pay for it.
Third, even if we could solve the problem practically, it would be a recurrent problem. There is a problem of people expecting handouts and capitalizing on them. So throwing money at the problem will simply not fix it.
I'll end with an anecdote from 20-ish years ago. We were having lunch at McDonald's, and a homeless guy walks by: "Hey buddy, you gonna eat all that?".
"Uh, yeah," struggling to finish my mouthful as I'm trying to answer.
"Maaan, it ain't even fun being homeless anymore!" and walks away.
Most of these people had homes and jobs once, but prefer drugs and alcohol over the rules and expectations of those who provided said homes and jobs.
Homelessness is not a sudden condition, it is the result of thousands of choices to indulge in selfish behavior. Inflicting family oriented communities with shelters for these people is the wrong approach. We need to provided a path out of homelessness that enforces sobriety, sets behavioral expectations, and demands they get jobs. Sadly, such shelters exist and yet most prefer to stay drunk on the streets.
For instance it could be the result of ptsd from being in Iraq. Or Vietnam. Or Afghanistan. Where is the support for veterans?
It could be mental health - if you can’t afford healthcare you may not be able keep a job. Once you don’t have a job you very quickly end up homeless. Now you don’t have a home, how do you possibly get treatment or a job? Eventually you are arrested and go to jail, where you can get treatment but now you’re an excon so can’t get a job so end up homeless without treatment.
You were kicked out of your home when you came out as a teenager - you’re homeless, may not have even finished school, and many jobs these days have minimum age rules. So now you’re stuck unless you’re one of the lucky few who manages to get support and a home before drugs and alcohol become the only “escape”
Same as above but you’re a kid abused by a family member, foster family, ...
Note how all of these paths eventually put you in a position where you cannot escape homelessness. You cannot get healthcare or a job without somewhere to live unless you’re very lucky.
So instead you end up cycling through prison, which in just a small amount of time costs much more than covering the cost of housing in the first place.
How do you know this about these people? Frankly I think the population is far too large to come to one conclusion across the board.
And what is a “family oriented” community? Is that just code for making other people deal with the problem and not taint your backyard?
And you think you can just expect people to “get a job”, like that is straightforward? Like there’s just so much opportunity out there, with more than enough income from one job to survive in these crazy-expensive places? (Hint: No way.)
That is a popular narrative, but not an accurate or effective description. We have always had lazy and crazy people around but we now have a generation starving for opportunity and purpose and families with kids on the streets. Something has changed so that blaming all homelessness on fun seeking is no longer sufficient.
> Finland has managed to achieve this, why can't the rest of the western world follow?
Consider the homeless person for a moment. Given the same population with the choice to (A) stay indoors (in whatever solutions are provided by the government) or (B) be homeless, how would you expect the probability distribution of people choosing B instead of A to look like in Finland and Southern California?
Because the rest isn’t identical? Scale, education equality, discrepancies in make up and values, notions of state responsibility, healthcare accessibility, etc.
Finland has a population that is 70x smaller than the US. They also invest heavily in education. I assume other countries struggle scaling programs from 5 million people to 350 million... and that’s why many of the great programs that Finland has don’t scale to elsewhere.
that's always the argument: "doesn't work here because the population size is n times as big". but i don't understand why this should be the case. it's not that the culture in the u.s. is fundamentally different. and it's not like their budget to combat homelessness couldn't also be n times as big. and the problem in the u.s. is pressing (at least compared to other rich countries) and, one would think, warrant drastic measures.
i think one of the underlying problems is that homelessness is a very diverse problem - people are homeless for very different reasons and need very different solutions - and mostly a symptom of underlying problems that are actually hard to fix. i.e. fixing the symptom would be easy compared to fixing the many, many root issues, because the solutions may run counter to american cultural values, which aren't a problem in countries like finland (an expanded social safety net, for example).
decriminalization of (hard) drugs as seen in portugal might be easier to implement (at least under the next democrat government).
on the other hand i fear that a rising income disparity all over the world might actually cause the problem to worsen in other countries that don't have a huge pressing homelessness problem right now and follow americas lead in the latest tent city fashions.
The camps are people's homes. That's the language issue when talking about "the homeless." It constrains our discussion of homes narrowly. We limit "home" to particular built structures, living arrangements, and cultural values.
How condescending can you be? I guess that's solved!?
There are multiple 'types' of homeless, that I have encountered across multiple states. There is some overlap. Most of the homeless DO NOT WANT to have the responsibility (cognitive or financial) of a home, bills, etc. They believe that they are happy making do and tend to congregate in the same municipal areas. What do you think happens to the least intelligent of a society? Honestly, this population will only grow. On the other side, people who want help get it, as every camp and clearout includes copious social workers. You need 0 resources to get a medical and dental insurance in Washington State. Social services are offered everywhere the homeless gather, but unsurprisingly they don't usually take it.
One of the most common 'types' is the homesteader. The kind of people who live out in the desert in trailers have moved to more populous, relatively comfortable areas to live as they like due to the purchase/development of the areas they would normally squat on. This type of nomad living isn't strictly a mental illness, but it's also not an issue of housing.
The second 'type' is the addict. Now this isn't always drugs, although it almost always devolves into that. Some people are hoarders (an addiction) or pet hoarders, or whatever and slowly but surely are stripped of everything they have. Then it tends to turn to a replacement like drugs. These are also the most common criminal element. Stealing bikes, hoses, whatever to feed their various addictions and to give them purpose. Being homeless is boring.
The third type is the more sympathetic hard case. These are the people that are turned away from shelters, but won't let go of the dog they keep, which is all that's left from their previous life. They tend to accept help, but there's a shortage for even this sliver.
For now, making homelessness illegal in incorporated counties, without enrollment and participation in rehabilitation programs, this will continue.
I'm Asian/Canadian (arrived in Canada in 1988 at 8) and have worked in the US since 2009. I consider myself a 0.5 generation immigrant.
Talking my parents, other first generation immigrants, and even some second generation etc. They do have a common view. If we came here with very little (my parents arrived with $200 in their pockets), worked hard, and eventually became successful then why can't other people do the same. These people had much easier start then us (they didn't coming here at mid 40s with $200 in total) and had better opportunities. Most of them see people collecting welfare we leeches off them (and the taxes they pay).
Drug addiction, mental illness, little education / scaffolding, no family support, etc.
Their view that if they did it why can’t others is the same as the libertarian / rich people perspective of “I got mine, you should be able to get yours.” Except not all people are the same, not all people have the same abilities, support, drive, etc. One should have compassion for those unable to help themselves. There will always be people trying to exploit a common good, but that doesn’t mean they’re the majority.
If you’re willing to risk everything by moving to a new country with no money where you might not even speak the language, you’re have above average drive and appetite for risk. For example, grandchildren of such immigrants do not share the same economic outlook [1].
If you talk to the group, their answer to drug addiction is its their fault for starting drugs. For family support, they had none when the came here and had very little opportunity too. My mom's first job was an sewing machine operator in a garment shop in Halifax. My wife's mom had barely finished grade 8 school.
Note that this is my oberservation of their views only.
> If we came here with very little (my parents arrived with $200 in their pockets), worked hard, and eventually became successful then why can't other people do the same.
such logic error is called "survival bias" - they only look at those who didn't fail by the system.
My dad would they they weren't persecuted like he was. His biggest mistake was talking too long to a foreign academic who was giving a lecture at the university where he was.
This is very similar the stories one hears regarding NIMBYism in the Silicon Valley. Hard working, successful immigrants seem to subscribe the just world hypothesis, exactly as one might predict. Their tolerance for those who aren’t able to do the same is pretty low from what I’ve seen. If they can come here poor and in a generation become millionaires and buy a home in California of all places, then why can’t everyone else.
You can’t expect them to have the solutions for a societal problem. The fact that there isn’t affordable housing and job opportunities for these homeless is a failing of the US government, not Irving’s government, and definitely not of that local community.
However if all the homeless congregate in that area, it’s an unfair burden to that community from a problem caused by a failing of the government. They have the right to complain, and they don’t have the responsibility to accept that burden alone. They can certainly take action to remove the burden without being blamed because no other community will step up to the plate.
Surely city governments are responsible for acute mental health issues. Not all homeless have need for serious mental health care, but the number is high and those needs should be taken care of before (or at the latest, while) talking about jobs.
EDIT: At least, local governments should be educating the public about how much help they need from state and national government.
That would assume that the homeless were caused by / came from Irving. That’s unlikely, as there are no borders in the US and people are free to move about.
Problem is nobody wants them, yet no one will enact policies that will solve the problem. So if you sit back and accept the homeless while not really solving the issue, you’re just being a chump.
> That would assume that the homeless were caused by / came from Irving.
Something can be your responsibility even if it's not your fault. Particular people with particular problems is a local issue. Particular tent cities hurting particular parks or businesses is also a local issue. Go ask a local social worker or police officer. They know everyone on a first name basis. They just don't have anywhere to go with their information.
> Problem is nobody wants them, yet no one will enact policies that will solve the problem.
So instead of shifting responsibility in one way or another, local governments and communities need to organize more around these issues. It's true that it's a huge problem, arguably one that will never get solved completely, but the local governments need to start by getting the word out about the particular needs they have: studies, funding, legal frameworks, training, coordination systems, etc.
This is the kind of targeted Medicaid expansion that should be discussed, especially since mental health is in the news so much these days.
If Irving absorbs the cost of it, then other communities will simply keep sending their homeless. The problem will never be solved this way unless it's pushed back to its source.
> So instead of shifting responsibility in one way or another, local governments and communities need to organize more around these issues.
That's exactly what happened. Other communities shifted responsibility to Irving. By doing nothing, they are continuing to skirt responsibility. You're not going to get anywhere by forcing or shaming whatever current community is to shoulder the whole problem. For all you know, the encampments got there because of some initial sympathy and homeless-forward policies, and now you think it'd be fair to punish them for having shown some compassion?
I'm saying local governments are the best equipped to solve the problem and drive reform.
> The problem will never be solved this way unless it's pushed back to its source.
Well, the problem is that people have mental illness. That shouldn't be a federal issue, and tackling the problem state by state has the same "source of the problem" issue you're concerned about.
The sanest solution and the sanest reform starts local. The legal changes and funding models should probably be state or national. But we don't get there until we expect our local government to be responsible instead of plaintive.
Here's the part I don't buy. She says Irvine is made up of 45% Asians, but the protesters are mainly immigrants. Unless all 45% are first-generations, then what she said doesn't add up. She uses the word immigrant only twice in the article, near the top, with little proof backing her statement. Those that she interview have Asian names, but that doesn't mean they are immigrants.
By using the word immigrant, she made the article sensational. She tried to turn the protest into a topic of race, rather than simply stating Irvine residents don't want a homeless shelter in the neighborhood.
Are most immigrants intolerant of homeless in Irvine? That's rather absolute to be true. What about the other 40% whites? Do all of them approve of the homeless shelter? 40% vs 45% are about the same weight, but she chose to focus on only one side of the story. It would be more correct to state: Irvine, made up of 45% Asian ethnicity, fights back against homeless shelter.
She almost definitely categorized non-whites as “immigrants” based on assumption, simply based on the fact that I highly doubt she conducted a background survey of the protesters.
It's a trend in the media, that everything is framed as A vs. B. Whether that's immigrant status, race, color, religion, sex, it's all done to create a division, pander to one side or the other, and get viewers.
Another angle I've seen, in Austin, is that people who are close to falling off that cliff are among the least tolerant of those who have. Those who are scraping by with service jobs are often least tolerant of the mentally-ill homeless person who hassles them on the way to work, and quickest to call the police. If you are a first-generation immigrant, I think it often means you do not take it as a given that you cannot fall out of the successful class, even if you are doing well now. Someone born into the professional class may feel better about themselves for tolerating uncomfortable behavior from someone less fortunate, whereas someone who in the back of their mind is worried about "that could be me someday" is not feeling good about themselves for being tolerant.
Just my own anecdotal view, I have no data to back that up on a large scale.
No data but I have similar anecdotes, and also have to point out that in the past 50 years or so a lot of the strongest political opposition to increased social programs has come from the working class. Most of the wealthy I've spoken to are less opposed to social spending.
In addition to the reasons cited another factor might be diminishing marginal utility of money. A 1% tax hike on a millionaire will have zero tangible perceived effect on his or her lifestyle. A similar tax increase on a working class person could be devastating.
Certainly, but that was no doubt true before it became an immigrant community. First generation immigrants are more likely to have experienced a very different level of wealth earlier in their life, which makes one's attitude towards the possibility of losing it different than if you were born into that class and society and had always been there.
Edit: it looks like you've also been breaking the site guideline that asks people not to use HN primarily for political or ideological battle. Could you please fix this? That word 'primarily' is an important marker—being on the wrong side of it means being a negative contributor to HN regardless of which views you're arguing for. There's more explanation of this here:
> Asians are usually quiet, you know. Not this time.
I'm just pleased to see more Asian-Americans getting involved in politics. I lived in Irvine for a few months a while back, and it was a very clean city. I didn't see any leaves on the street, or homeless people for that matter (which I thought was strange, but I also felt safe not being accosted like in other areas of LA.) People can throw the NIMBY card around but if this is the issue it takes to see my former neighbors get involved in politics, so be it.
Homelessness isn't a regional problem. It's a national problem. There needs to be an area designated for them at a a national level. Pushing people from place to place regionally is a terrible solution. An area needs to be designated for them nationally like Native American reservations when they were first created. The national solution needs to have programs to assist with addiction, mental health, and job training.
This is a really national issue. There are homeless everywhere. Let's approach it together with a national area all homeless people can go to for help.
In response to other children of this post: perhaps you can give more evidence as to how this solution would end up like the harsh imprisonment by oppressive regimes? Why do you instantly shoot down one of the only creative solutions in this entire discussion, other than trying to raise more money to throw at it (which clearly has not even begun to solve these problems).
This solution is basically just advocating putting all the homeless in one place without discussing how to actually fix anything once they are there (will there be houses and jobs for them?), which makes it sound like it will just be one big government mandated slum
That's a terrible idea. A better solution is to spread them out accross the entire country so that each city has maybe only a handful of homeless people.
No there would be job training, substance abuse rehab, and mental health programs. Its just getting homeless off the streets nationally and getting them to one central place where all efforts can be combined. Regional approaches don't work. We have to tackle it in one place nationally. We cannot have people living on the streets who don't get help all in one place. Now people are going town to town aimlessly and without direction.
What troubles me about the Irvine case, is that it sounds like every other "concerned" group across the country when it comes to homelessness. No to tents, no to shelters in the neighborhood, no to homeless sleeping on the benches, etc. Everyone, it seems, wants the problem to go some place else, but no community, particularly in Silicon Valley, has stood up (to my knowledge and please correct me if I'm wrong here) that the homeless people of a community are PART of that community, and the community should embrace them, and integrate them.
ACLU lawsuits against LAPD and other entities have provided legal framework for living on sidewalks and public parks (judge’s opinion ruled that sit-and-lie ordinance is likely unconstitutional), pitching up tents on public property, like sidewalks (by ruling that any regulation that prevents that in 100+ degrees LA summer constitutes cruel and unusual punishment).
Prop 57 also removed legal framework for prosecuting casual drug trade, so LAPD basically stopped making drug-related arrests in Skid Row, as the culprits just get a misdemeanor charge.
There are even programs in various cities in the middle of the country that will pay to bus homeless people to California. And then those states try to stop all federal funding on homelessnes.
California is housing the country’s homeless, federal funding should be taking care of most of this problem.
California is definitely a destination for homeless people due to climate and tolerance.
There is a practice known as Greyhound Therapy where many cities around the country put mentally ill people on a bus and just ship them off to be someone else’s problem. Many times they pick California because they know that the homeless person would be better off there.
The US allows local governments to control zoning. Local government will always protect incumbent landowners since incumbent landowners probably have control of local government. As such, ceding control to localities will result in a lot of localities protecting their investments and preventing dense developments.
A possible solution is to enforce national level zoning laws that forbid such practices that prevent dense developments where they otherwise should be.
I read a theory that it is due to CA offering drug programs designed to get addicts off drugs. Addicts move there, and when the program fails, they stick around. I've no idea whether it is a valid theory.
tl;dr: they opened a homeless shelter in a heavily (Asian) immigrant community and were met with protests. The result was a sadly hilarious exchange between the two groups with one side yelling "get a job" and the other side yelling "go back to [some Asian country]".
A more paranoid person would see these moves as politically intentional. As the stereotype goes, they're expected to take it quietly, they're not as politically involved, and when they do, they're less likely to invoke sympathy (xenophobia in America seems to be more acceptable, at least vs. racism, and there appears to be a lot of resentment towards Asians.) The problem then becomes minority-vs-minority, so racism accusations are not directed at whites.
The problem I see is that the county (Orange) is unilaterally deciding which cities (Irvine, Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel) the homeless should be moved to.
It comes down to land ownership - county owns more land in some cities than others. They cannot propose homeless housing in Rancho Santa Margarita or Coto de Caza since most of that land is owned by someone other than the county.
Yeah, I had the same thought. It didn’t cost them anything.
Also shout out to the people whose first involvement with politics was to say “fuck you stay out of my community”. I’m sure they’ll be sticking around to help with constructive alternate solutions to the problem.
I read the article and then realized why is it on the front page of Hackernews. Half the comments are flame-baiting. Wonder if there was a better way to self-moderate this without the moderators who may be offline on a Sunday.
excuse me dang, i have tried repeatedly to contact the admins through email without any response. i believe that my account tempagain567i and its associated ip has been incorrectly rate limited. i havent posted or commented in more than a day and it still wont let me post anything. i would be more than happy to correct my behaviour if you would be so kind as to point out my violation of site guidelines. Thanks.
> a dentist with offices in Irvine and Orange, said he paid about $5,000 to sponsor seven buses…
I understand this dentist wanted to protect his neighborhood in his mind, but it's really sad if he's not donating any money to actually help the homeless.
The problem is nobody wants the homeless at their doorsteps, including this community. If you leave them in tents in some place, nothing will change. If you apply pressure to the problem then hopefully it will get solved.
Finally, officials decided to close the trail to do a clean-up. There was about 400 tons of trash, 14,000 needles and 5,000 lbs of "waste" removed. http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/04/07/santa-ana-river-tr...
Honestly, I can't blame Irvine for not wanting this in their backyard. But unfortunately, as the people were getting evicted from these makeshift cities, they are setting up the tents in other neighboring cities. There is a small area near where I live now too.
I don't know what the answer is, or how to deal with it. All I can tell you is that it was not a good feeling, both from a humanitarian and safety point of view, i.e. I felt awful for the people living in this, but also uneasy around it.