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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
You’re assuming the way out is the reverse of the way in which is not always the case. There are limited examples, but in the countries where housing-first has been applied (including in Canada about a decade ago) there have been positive results.
You also have to ask yourself what you’re trying to solve. Are you trying to solve addiction? Or homelessness? Because they’re different. And they require different solutions. And you can try to solve both, but you just need a bigger, more comprehensive solution.
Beyond imprisoning these people, how are you going to force them to deal with their addiction issues? And let’s say they kick the addiction, then they get housing? When? And what if they do drugs again? You take it away? That’s just not a workable scenario unless you’re going to proceed with criminalization (or whatever you want to rename it).
Instead, giving them a foundation and building on top of it is the way, which is the idea behind housing-first. Give them a home, and then they’re more likely to seek out support for mental health and addiction issues. Unless you think they just do drugs because it’s fun. It also solves you “interacting” with them, considering there’s a lot less reason for them to be on your car hood or hanging around downtown in the cold when they actually have a place to go to. Do you think they’re hanging out at an intersection because it’s a nice place to be?
Either way, 3% tax isn’t going to cut it, so you’re going to have to be ok with a lot more than that.
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IMO there should be a 3rd 'problem' on that menu, which is Anti-Social Behaviour (or whatever you want to call it).
An individual with just one of homelessness/drugs/anti-social behaviour probably isn't the big societal problem we're talking about here, and are probably the lowest hanging fruit in terms of successful support. But once a second of those issues creeps in it seems like the trifecta is nearly inevitable.
Obviously the hope would be earlier intervention for individuals with relatively minor issues (group 1) to prevent them developing into major issues (group 2). A question I can only guess at is does the existence/prevalence of group 2 undermine/counter the efforts to help group 1?
ie. if group 2 is not an ongoing element in the community, would we be more successful with group 1? Could a 'banishment*' approach for group 2 recidivists coupled with more intensive supports for group 1 be most effective?
*still with supports/dignity/compassion as best as possible, though I'd argue none of those three are true in the status quo
I'm sure this could be articulated much more elegantly, but I guess I'm wondering if the first step isn't to admit that many people are effectively lost-causes and that pretending otherwise is a major obstacle to helping people who actually could be helped (eventually reducing/eliminating the lost-causes)?
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Originally Posted by chemgear
It's become socially unacceptable to call for law and order. The pendulum has swung completely against it.
We worry more about partial solutions like handing out free drugs and making sure people are free to continue killing themselves rather than complete supports (heck we keep cherry picking mere parts of the Portugal example just like mentioned above).
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Nah, we've just recognized that it's ineffective and expensive. But the only alternative we've tried (pretty close to nothing) has also been ineffective and expensive [in different ways]. No reason to limit ourselves to those two options...we'll probably have to fail several more times with tiny wins along the way.