I’m in CA, so I’m no stranger to seeing encampments. Basically, camp sweeps are about the most pointless exercise in futility you can get up to. They just pop up in the next place, and the next place, and the next place, over and over and over. We’ve been trying this dumbfuck plan of “make the homeless so miserable that they stop existing” for decades now, and the problem has only continued to worsen. I’m kinda starting to think it doesn’t work. What does work, though, is housing, and lots of it.
I don’t think we should be worrying about busting up homeless camps until we can actually put these people up somewhere instead of playing stupid fucking games of “I don’t care where you go but you can’t stay here,” over and over every three weeks. We need to be focusing on building an a large supply of affordable housing, commie blocks even. I am, unironically, down for the Pacific states to just start laying down tracts of commie blocks. If your eyebrows just went up, let me point out that:
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Commie blocks are better on every front than just having massive homeless encampments.
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Given the choice between homelessness and a commie block apartment, a lot of people would gladly take the apartment. Not to mention a lot of East Europeans will speak fondly of having lived in them.
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If you’re worried about the aesthetics of a commie block, maybe really take a moment to ask yourself if that makes any kind of sense, but in particular on an ethical level. What’s your problem with them, exactly? They don’t vibe with the US’ aesthetic pattern of [checks Google street view] building soulless beige-brown concrete and steel cubes? And is it really a worse look than massive homeless camps? And is that more important than getting these people housed?
Or, you know, just start letting people build housing. I’m looking at you, SF. Home owners have been blocking any new housing and the property pieces skyrocketed.
I’m all for building more housing to alleviate the homeless crisis. I don’t think sweeps work.
As with any major project like this, the question is where the funding comes from. I’d like to see a real state income tax in Washington state replace a lot of the other taxes we have, but that will probably never happen.
I have no problem with the look of commie blocks, but we know they don’t work either in the US. They’ve known for decades having a diverse income of people in apartments helps everyone. We should not let the builders get away with buying themselves out of providing affordable housing.
Okay, this is going to come across as sea lioning, but I honest to goodness have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’d like to understand where you’re coming from on this. What do you mean that we know commie blocks don’t work in the US?
Have you ever heard of the projects? That is basically what those are. They got rid of them because you don’t concentrate a lot of low income people in one area for a multitude of reasons. Probably the biggest is that in the US, it becomes a sort of segregation. Also, it’s really hard to leave that situation. I’ve seen townhomes and tiny homes work here in Seattle, but it has to be integrated into a community, not a giant multiplex.
Okay, yes, the projects. So, here’s the thing: the US used commie blocks as kind of a dumping ground for the poor, while simultaneously cutting services to those areas of the city in order to provide services to the suburbs. Not only that, but a lot of folks who lived in the projects were moved there after the government demolished their homes and mixed-use, walkable communities to put in interstates; so the government just uprooted whole ass communities, destroyed their wealth, and plunked them down all together with no opportunities. There’s a lot to go into about what went wrong with the projects, but it wasn’t the commie blocks; Americans aren’t uniquely incapable of living in them. BanksRail did a really good summary on it recently that goes into more depth than I have hear without being a whole college lecture on the matter, if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/dwK3oRT02k8?si=uki9afrjTdgwyq4N
I agree with you, that’s why I said the US shouldn’t do them and integrate low income homes into all communities. It helps them lift themselves out of poverty, which is the point.
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