Send the homeless to prison....

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm all for taking care of the homeless especially if their mentally ill, however, if we're going to build cheap or free housing the last thing that we want to do is make it appealing so that all of the homeless from other cities flow here in order to take advantage of this. Frankly we're not here to solve other cities homeless problems.

.

...and that's always been the problem with throwing money at homelessness. Bleeding hearts say "c'mon government, build 3 more shelters, Calgary's homeless population suggest that's what we need".

Well, as soon as that happens, Homley McHomelessmen reads it in the paper, tells all the other homelesss, eventually word gets out to Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and where ever else, and bam, your homeless population triples in the coming years.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by flameswin

I believe the DESS references are a little funnier when only one person does it per thread.

Well, I was first. The rest of the people you quoted need to go write their own material.

[Locke]

So, just let me get this straight....

The concept behind this idea is that, as a society, we exterminate one demographic in order to potentially free up the resources to have a long-shot opportunity of saving another?

And the group of people we should be willing to eradicate isnt the homeless?

I dont get it.

[MickMcGeough]

So, execute the criminals and lock up/forcefully rehabilitate homeless people? That would definitely cost less than the current system.

It would be even cheaper to just kill all the homeless people too. If we just execute criminals and homeless people we won't need prisons or shelters! Imagine the savings!

I'm sure we can find a cheaper way to off people than lethal injections, too. Zyklon B was reasonably cheap and effective for the Germans in WWII.

[CaptainCrunch]

Yikes

[Ford Prefect]

I say we just let Darwinism do it's thing. It's the natural order. And besides, do we really want to be dumbing down the gene pool by propagating losers?

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Well, as soon as that happens, Homley McHomelessmen reads it in the paper, tells all the other homelesss, eventually word gets out to Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and where ever else, and bam, your homeless population triples in the coming years.

Another justification to kill the homeless. Take out one or two, the rest will scramble off to other cities.

So long as we avoid poisons or ovens, we could use the bodies to make green energy wafers.

[MickMcGeough]

Uh a less sarcastic response: you're an idiot.

I won't even touch the execution of criminals suggestion. You're obviously so far gone that anything I say about the rape of civil liberties or the flaws in our justice system would mean nothing, so I won't bother.

But about homeless people, you are just grossly misinformed. Actually I'd hazard a guess that you've just made a collection of assumptions about them.

- Homeless people aren't homeless because they "maybe a little lower on the IQ side of things". Most of my friends fit that description, and they have homes. I know a homeless lawyer and a homeless professor. Several homeless people suffer from mental illness but by far the biggest cause of homelessness is addiction.
- Homeless people in Canada have plenty of food. In Calgary, with a bus pass or a bit of walking, they can eat 6 square meals a day. They are not hungry.
- The government cuts a check to a homeless person trying to get a job for boots, basic tools, work clothes, etc. As you might expect this is horribly abused.
- There are showers available at several shelters. Cleaning themselves is not a challenge.
- If a homeless person gets clean, they can stay in cheap transitional housing almost indefinitely which is a lot like a dorm. If they are using, they can stay in "intox" at the Drop in Center. They have a place to sleep all the time.
- no luck is required to get into detox. If you cross MacLeod at the C-Train station, I guarantee you've walked by a free detox center available for homeless people.
- Counseling is readily available at more than one shelter for everything from bitching about what a bad day it was to connecting the homeless to the services available to them.

Most importantly, you can't force someone to get clean. Addiction is a lifelong thing, you can't just lock them up until they are finished their withdrawal and assume they'll never relapse. If they don't want to get clean, they'll be using the moment they get an opportunity, if not sooner.

[Kjesse]

This thread just screams out for a link to Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal".

So here it is:

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

I'm sure we can find a cheaper way to off people than lethal injections, too. Zyklon B was reasonably cheap and effective for the Germans in WWII.

I think the Romans had a pretty good thing going with gladiator contests. We could pit the criminals against the homeless, let them kill each other off, and profit!

Caesar is proud to introduce Timmy the 17-year-old auto thief! Timmy is a high school drop out who enjoys smoking dope, wearing really awesome jeans and talking through movies in the theatre!

And his opponent is Barry, the 34-year-old bum! Barry was caught cheating with a waitress at the Cecil, and lost everything he had to his ex-wife. He's spent the past two years living on a bench at the corner of 9th Avenue and 6th Street since his EI benefits ran out!

Who will win? Find out Friday at the Pengrowth Saddledome. Doors open at 6:30. The first 1000 kids receive a free bloody hobo doll!

[Russic]

The % of homeless people that suffer from mental illness is staggering, so in my eyes nothing will change until we change our perception of the mentally ill. As I don't see that happening anytime soon, I'd say this problem will persist. That's partly why initiatives such as having a homeless free city by 20xx kind of annoys me. Not that it's a bad goal to have, it just seems incredibly unreasonable. The problem is much deeper than many seem to think.

[NSFL]

Now, I haven't read any of the replies, but after reading the OP, I would just like to point out that this is what they did in Canada about 100 years ago.

They were called workhouses. They started over in the UK and Ireland and made it over here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse

[jammies]

This reminds me of my old sig: "For every complex problem, there is a solution which is simple, obvious, and wrong."