United States Are Leftists in LA Impotent or Plain Evil?

[MementoMori]

In a city with the highest GDP for cities in the world, why can't Los Angeles solve their homelessness problem? Is there no solution for homelessness? I would say no. So why can't the city government solve it? Is 1 billion not enough to house their homeless people?

Is it because they are too stupid to think off a decent solution, or are they unwilling to do so? At this point I think that they are just willfully incompetent at best, at worst plain evil.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

In a city with the highest GDP for cities in the world, why can't Los Angeles solve their homelessness problem? Is there no solution for homelessness? I would say no. So why can't the city government solve it? Is 1 billion not enough to house their homeless people?

Is it because they are too stupid to think off a decent solution, or are they unwilling to do so? At this point I think that they are just willfully incompetent at best, at worst plain evil.

Part of it is that a great deal of the nation has an unofficial policy of giving homeless one way bus tickets to LA or San Francisco.

There is zero method of preventing that from being done and it works quite well for everyone outside of California. A one way Greyhound ticket from DC to LA costs ~$250 and pretty much permanently removes that individual from being homeless in DC (or wherever) for a far lower cost than any other option.

 

[PsihoKekec]

It is also worth noting that much of the money is actually spent on bureaucracy dealing with homeless and various politically connected non-profits. Thus it is in best interest of all who benefit from homeless care industry that homeless problem is not solved and they have enough political clout to make it so, while keeping the gravy train running.

 

[Terthna]

It is also worth noting that much of the money is actually spent on bureaucracy dealing with homeless and various politically connected non-profits. Thus it is in best interest of all who benefit from homeless care industry that homeless problem is not solved and they have enough political clout to make it so, while keeping the gravy train running.

I think it's pretty much a given that anyone who thought the vast majority of that 1.2 billion dollars was actually going to be spent on building homes for the homeless, is a sucker. Most of it was always going to end up in the pockets of bureaucrats.

 

[Big Steve]

That's why you have to work into the system incentives for tangible, verifiable results that last, at the cost of losing that funding.

But that's not easy to do, and the unscrupulous love ways to earn extra money at everyone else's expense.

 

[LordsFire]

The number from what, 2012 or so, was that for every dollar put into the welfare system, 33 cents gets out to the poor/homeless at the other end of it?

Government welfare systems are insanely inefficient. Private charities can have upwards of 90% efficiency; that's the ones that are mostly staffed by volunteers though.

 

[Marduk]

Part of it is that a great deal of the nation has an unofficial policy of giving homeless one way bus tickets to LA or San Francisco.

There is zero method of preventing that from being done and it works quite well for everyone outside of California. A one way Greyhound ticket from DC to LA costs ~$250 and pretty much permanently removes that individual from being homeless in DC (or wherever) for a far lower cost than any other option.

That only grows the existing problem, rather than being the source for it. Why LA, and not Phoenix, AZ, or some small town in Texas?
The answer is, because the homeless are more than fine with it, so both DC and the homeless win on this skeevy non-solution. Thay like the idea of staying in LA. They see a city willing to have light or no penalties for small theft, minor drug related offenses, squatting and other nuisance crimes that the homeless are infamous for, while its left wing population is willing and able to fund them a lot of services. Combine that with mild weather, and you have a winner for what city will the homeless vote for with their feet.

It's also why, as things stand, LA can't just copy the DC solution and send them along somewhere else. They would protest, and if sent regardless, they try to come back.

In a city with the highest GDP for cities in the world, why can't Los Angeles solve their homelessness problem? Is there no solution for homelessness? I would say no. So why can't the city government solve it? Is 1 billion not enough to house their homeless people?

Because peddling expensive and politically correct yet ineffective solutions to homelessness is a far better and long term business than peddling any kind of effective solution to it, both financially and politically. "Solving homelessness" is always one of the slogans for the left anywhere homelessness is a visible problem...
If they were to actually solve it, they would be one emotionally appealing slogan down.
Meanwhile, if they keep throwing money at the problem with little effect, they have a slogan to use for ages, just promising to throw more money next time.

Nevermind that any effective solution would probably be at minimum somewhat politically incorrect.

 

[Big Steve]

I'm curious as to what solutions you're thinking of, and how any might be politically incorrect?

 

[Marduk]

I'm curious as to what solutions you're thinking of, and how any might be politically incorrect?

a) Making the place no more attractive to the homeless and their lifestyle than any other city. LA can't change the weather, but it can change laws, regulations and their enforcement.
b) All forms of mandatory institutionalization. Mentally ill go to asylum, habitual petty criminals go to prison, drug addicts go to a closed treatment center or something. Between these three categories there would be hardly any homeless left on the streets.

So, in general, do the very opposite of what California is in fact doing.

Why California Keeps Making Homelessness Worse

California made homelessness worse by making perfect housing the enemy of good housing, by liberalizing drug laws, and by opposing mandatory treatment for mental illness and drug addiction.

www.forbes.com

According to Bales and other experts, California made homelessness worse by making perfect housing the enemy of good housing, by liberalizing drug laws, and by opposing mandatory treatment for mental illness and drug addiction.

Homelessness experts and advocates disagree. “I’ve rarely seen a normal able-bodied able-minded non-drug-using homeless person who’s just down on their luck,” L.A. street doctor Susan Partovi told me. “Of the thousands of people I’ve worked with over 16 years, it’s like one or two people a year. And they’re the easiest to deal with.” Rev. Bales agrees. “One hundred percent of the people on the streets are mentally impacted, on drugs, or both,” he said.

 

[Big Steve]

a) Making the place no more attractive to the homeless and their lifestyle than any other city. LA can't change the weather, but it can change laws, regulations and their enforcement.
b) All forms of mandatory institutionalization. Mentally ill go to asylum, habitual petty criminals go to prison, drug addicts go to a closed treatment center or something. Between these three categories there would be hardly any homeless left on the streets.

Former makes sense. The latter, that's going to be pricey. Who's going to pay for those new asylums, and just as importantly, pay to keep the quality up so they don't become the horrors that old sanitariums and asylums could degenerate into? You're going to have to expand jails and prisons as well, and the facilities to rehabilitate those petty criminals, since half the reason they don't remain incarcerated is the need for jail space and priority given to keeping violent offenders locked up (and yeah, I know even there they can fail). New drug treatment centers will probably be needed as well to keep up with demand.

I wish you the best of luck convincing the taxpayers to fund all of this.

 

[Marduk]

I wish you the best of luck convincing the taxpayers to fund all of this.

It's California, they already are spending mad money on this, with little effect in sight.

$2 billion to help house California's homeless isn't being spent — and no one knows when it will be

Nearly two years after California lawmakers approved a $2-billion bond to help finance new housing for the state’s homeless, not a penny has been spent, and it’s unclear when any of the money will be available.

www.latimes.com

Newsom On Billion Dollar Homeless Budget: 'It's About The State Acknowledging Cities Can't Do This Alone'

CBS13 Investigator Julie Watts sat down with Newsom Thursday and asked for his response that story in light of the billion dollars in his budget aimed at the homeless crisis.

sacramento.cbslocal.com

 

[JagerIV]

Former makes sense. The latter, that's going to be pricey. Who's going to pay for those new asylums, and just as importantly, pay to keep the quality up so they don't become the horrors that old sanitariums and asylums could degenerate into? You're going to have to expand jails and prisons as well, and the facilities to rehabilitate those petty criminals, since half the reason they don't remain incarcerated is the need for jail space and priority given to keeping violent offenders locked up (and yeah, I know even there they can fail). New drug treatment centers will probably be needed as well to keep up with demand.

I wish you the best of luck convincing the taxpayers to fund all of this.

Yeah, to eccho Marduk, the homeless are already extremely expensive, both in the direct spending already direct at them, and all the small bits of damage they do to general society and a well functioning urban area.

To take the LA homeless problem, there are apparently about 50,000 homeless in LA. Lets say you wanted to use the most brute force method and just steadily arrest all of them for various petty (and not so petty!) crimes: housing a criminal in prison costs about 15,000 to 70,000 dollars. Assuming the highest number of 70,000, imprisoning all 50,000 homeless in LA would cost about 3.5 billion per year. This is about 0.35% of LAs GDP to very decisively solve the homeless issue, and this is assuming some relatively high costs. Shipping them off to Alabama prison at 15,000 per inmate would be a less than a billion dollar fix. And this assumes you have to arrest all of them to fix the issues had with them! An only marginally more aggressive enforcement system would probably make LA much less desirable as a location to go, and force the Homeless who stick around to be better behaved.

Homeless is actually an easily solvable problem, which is why, even with how "progressive" many laws are now, most cities don't have a major homeless issue.

 

[Floridaman]

Yeah, to eccho Marduk, the homeless are already extremely expensive, both in the direct spending already direct at them, and all the small bits of damage they do to general society and a well functioning urban area.

To take the LA homeless problem, there are apparently about 50,000 homeless in LA. Lets say you wanted to use the most brute force method and just steadily arrest all of them for various petty (and not so petty!) crimes: housing a criminal in prison costs about 15,000 to 70,000 dollars. Assuming the highest number of 70,000, imprisoning all 50,000 homeless in LA would cost about 3.5 billion per year. This is about 0.35% of LAs GDP to very decisively solve the homeless issue, and this is assuming some relatively high costs. Shipping them off to Alabama prison at 15,000 per inmate would be a less than a billion dollar fix. And this assumes you have to arrest all of them to fix the issues had with them! An only marginally more aggressive enforcement system would probably make LA much less desirable as a location to go, and force the Homeless who stick around to be better behaved.

Homeless is actually an easily solvable problem, which is why, even with how "progressive" many laws are now, most cities don't have a major homeless issue.

You can also cover a lot of the costs of housing an inmate through prison work programs, so that can help cover the costs of all but the most deranged.

 

[Battlegrinder]

The number from what, 2012 or so, was that for every dollar put into the welfare system, 33 cents gets out to the poor/homeless at the other end of it?

Government welfare systems are insanely inefficient. Private charities can have upwards of 90% efficiency; that's the ones that are mostly staffed by volunteers though.

I'd also note that I don't think it's normal for private charities to reach that level of effectiveness, particularly not large ones since an organization large enough to operate on a large scale means volunteer labor won't be enough and you need to hire full time professionals. There's a massive tradeoff between size and efficiency.

Though I also don't know of any good charities that are only 33% efficient, that's shockingly inept by any metric.

 

[Terthna]

You can also cover a lot of the costs of housing an inmate through prison work programs, so that can help cover the costs of all but the most deranged.

The problem with those programs is how they intersect with the private prison industry; more than a few judges have been caught wrongfully sending people to prison, because of secret deals they have with private prison owners to keep supplying them with more workers.

 

[Lanmandragon]

The problem with those programs is how they intersect with the private prison industry; more than a few judges have been caught wrongfully sending people to prison, because of secret deals they have with private prison owners to keep supplying them with more workers.

Kill private prisons first off. Second don't allow any work that makes a profit. Put them on janitorial crews, construction (within the prison system),cooks, groundskeeping, and etc.

 

[Cherico]

I can garentee their not impotent they fuck their citizens every day.

 

[Lanmandragon]

I can garentee their not impotent they fuck their citizens every day.

What's amusing is folks still believe it's due to incompetence. As opposed to being done purposely to create a captive voting population. The worse the cities conditions are the better for them. They just blame Trump/Nazis/patriarchy etc. Then promise socailcism will save the day. Even better keeping them poor prevents them from moving somewhere they can succeed. With the icing on top being of course. They are to poor to afford private or home schools. So they are forced(by men with guns) to send thier kids to Marxist Indotrination centers. Kind of impressive in a HOLY S*** BATMAN THAT'S EVILLLLLLLLL kind of way.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Kill private prisons first off. Second don't allow any work that makes a profit. Put them on janitorial crews, construction (within the prison system),cooks, groundskeeping, and etc.

Or give them a garden and encourage them to grow fresh food for themselves?

 

[Lanmandragon]

Or give them a garden and encourage them to grow fresh food for themselves?

Sure why not I was just throwing out random ideas.