A Solution for Homelessness?

June 10, 2019, 8:44 am 8.9k Views 29 Comments

By an edhat reader

I recently stumbled upon the below video that shows how the city of Fort Worth, Texas is handling their homeless population. The city is hiring them to clean up the streets and it appears to be working. Other cities have caught on: Denver, Portland, Albuquerque.

Do edhat readers think this would this work in Santa Barbara?

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Written by Anonymous

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29 Comments

  1. Moratorium on the hoary Blame Reagan falsehood. That does nothing to halt this destructive situation today. New rules and new populations to get off the streets. The promised drug therapy ACLU promised would eliminate the use of state care institutions failed. There no non-institutionalized option available. Do what every other country does – confine this population group to sanitariums. No, providing a team of five government workers to monitor each street vagrant 24/7 is not a solution. The numbers on the streets today exceeds any individualized handling of the remainder of this service-resistant population. In the meantime, they can park in the lobby of any ACLU offices until ACLU figures out their next steps.

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  2. Let’s assume Reagan shut them all down for whatever reason. Jerry Brown had 16 years to resurrect the system, and now Gavin is driving the crazy train. Why weren’t and why can’t state mental hospitals be opened again. (My guess is has something to do with Republicans.)

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  4. It’s been ~50 years since those facilities were closed, and there has been no solution out of Sacramento. It doesn’t matter who is in power in the capitol, there appears to be no political will to find a humane solution to this problem. We’re long past the time for blame because everyone is at fault by this point.

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  5. Thanks. I got the brisket at “Cousins Barbeque” which I do every time. Real slow smoked wood fired BBQ. Cousins just used to be a sandwich joint, now it’s a full on BBQ restaurant. It’s spectacular!

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  7. I like seeing ideas like this, even if it is suitable for only a fraction of the homeless people. This could be a great opportunity for the person who got off track and is looking for a way back to being a participating, working member of society. It’s so hard to climb up out of a hole, and I don’t mind giving a helping hand. Not sure how we would fund the administration of a program like this–that’s always the issue.

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  8. That was what got the whole ball of shit rolling downhill 50 years ago till what we have now..But just wait your boy now is going to really screw things up. The drug industry Ha! Who runs the Drug Industry? Money that is who…The ACLU is the new excuse..

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  9. We discussed this Nov 19, 2018 as reported by Roger Reports: Transients Terrorze Downtown Employees. Here’s one of my comments from then. Reagan only finished what started under Pat Brown which was put into motion by Washington politicians and the ACLU.
    Here’s a New York Times article from 1984 discussing the issue of deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html It looks like the process started under Reagan’s predecessor, Edmund “Pat” Brown. At the Fed level, the initiation looks to be an Eisenhower-Kennedy-Johnson thing with pressure from groups like the ACLU (perhaps). We can all blame politicians and others from the 50s and 60s, but what are we going to now? Making Reagan the Uber Bogey Man is just a cop out.

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  10. No it’s not a cop out in 1967 as Gov. of California Ronald Reagan signed into law the Lanteran Petis-Short act with made forced institutionalzation or medicating people who might be suffering from mental illness significantly more difficult. That still stands today..You can say it’s a cop out all you want but the proof is in the pudding he got the balls rolling…And thanks to Ronald Reagan’s pioneering action we have what we have today So there really is no solution Some day it will be from the 12 year solution to end homelessness to the twenty then Hundred years…Someone saw an opportunity now it’s a business and our founder Ronald Reagan…

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  11. 52 years have passed without the legislature coming up with a replacement plan. That’s a long time. Blame Reagan all you want, but everyone’s been sitting on their hands ever since. What he did then is no longer material. All that matters now is what we are not doing.

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  12. Has Hannah-Beth Jackson or Das Williams or Monique Limon demanded reviewing the negative long-term effects of Lantermann-Perris? Deal with the impacts now, not who was forced to technically sign legislative actions under threat of a veto over-ride. I agree, Landermann-Perris needs serious review.

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  13. Thank you Roger for bringing up Lantermann-Perris Act: (There still remain public guardian conservatorships) The Lanterman-Perris Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
    —To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legal disabilities;
    —To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with serious mental disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism;
    —To guarantee and protect public safety;
    —To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;
    —To provide individualized treatment, supervision, and placement services by a conservatorship program for gravely disabled persons;
    —To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish these objectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;
    —To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.
    The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing, e.g., convicted sexual offenders, and those who were “gravely disabled”, defined as unable to obtain food, clothing, or housing. It did not, however, impede the right of voluntary commitments. It expanded the evaluative power of psychiatrists and created provisions and criteria for holds.

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  14. Key provision of Lantermann-Perris Act: The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing, e.g., convicted sexual offenders, and ………… those who were “gravely disabled”, defined as unable to obtain food, clothing, or housing………….

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  17. It seems to me that the state could build a city on a stretch of waste land that could be used to house the homeless. The homeless should be helped but that does not mean that the current cities should be forced to be subjected to the homeless’ squalor. Building housing for them in some of the most expensive land in the world makes no sense. Just because the taxpayers will be funding this doesn’t mean that the homeless get to live where they want.

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  19. @D8VANILLA- Really…? Reagan 40 yrs ago…? Reagan’s hands were tied and “State Government” had no choice BUT to close facilities like Camarillo State Hospital… Have you ever heard of this group called THE ACLU…? THEY are the REASON that we can no longer kept these walking dead off the Streets. It’s Unconstitutional don’t you know, they have rights… ALSO, The State of California has been under Democratic / Liberal RULE for more than 25 yrs… They have had plenty of time to deal with these mentally ill folks, but NO- They (DEMS) would rather PANDER to illegals by giving Nationals from Mexico-and Central America free medical, food debit cards, Section 8 housing and free education.

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  21. 2004, voters passed the Mental Health Services Act and expected the billions this new “tax on the rich” would take mentally challenged off the streets. What happened to that money. Monique Limon and Hannah-Beth Jackson need to provide a public accounting for all the monies raised from 2004 to the present – 15 years later. Anyone seen any improvement that targeted the mentally challenged street population? Or did all we buy was more “task forces” and group facilitator organizers.

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  22. Just like a reflex: Blame Reagan. He only did what the ACLU wanted at the time concerning the abysmal treatment of the mentally ill at the state hospitals. All the articles on that topic were documented at a previous Edhat thread.

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  23. Reagan closed the state hospitals down when he was gov. of California and as president he did not believe that people could be mentally ill, nor did he believe money should be spent on it…The ACLU had nothing to do with what Reagan did then..Maybe now but not then.

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  24. I’ve been saying for decades that they ought to offer the vagrants a trade-in program, for x many pounds of trash and dog poo you bring in you get nutritious food. Giving them money supports drug and alcohol abuse. And lower State needs proctors empowered to “move along” the riffraff.

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  25. How “abysmal” are the conditions on the streets, in the gutters, in the creek beds now compared to the lovely campus setting of Camarillo State Hospital? One Flew Over the CooCoo’s Nest was not a documentary. This is a tough group to house and treat. But no tougher than trashing up our cities, parks and waterways. Get serious about this; no more game’s playing. No more welcoming the growth of this population in California. There are resources ready to fund court supervised lock-down sanitariums for those who obviously cannot live outside an institutional setting. We chose to fund MHSA and we now want results or it is time to stop this cash flow that has demonstrated no results.

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  26. What are you calling me a whiner because I called you out for bringing up old news that is still in effect and was not put in law by a Democrat? Pretty funny glad I’m a member of my dysfunctional family and not yours….My uncle worked for Reagan when he was governor and quit over this issue I remember how angry he was. Better to shoot down everyone you disagree with so nothing ever gets done. I see FACOTUM is in the solution Thanks FACOTUM for bringing some sanity into the conversation.

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  27. The spirit and intent of this idea – like the CCC
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps) is great and it is a start, and, certainly we all should be concerned about our fellow citizens, However, $10/hour does not support anyone living in SB. I have lived here for 45 years and always had a home – until this past six months, when, after the recession I lost everything. And, were it not for the kindness of strangers, I would still be living in my Jeep, parking in the Mission parking lot at night and sneaking into restaurants to use the Loo…along with the other 1000+ working women and men who cannot find affordable housing in SB. The Non-Homeless among us need to understand that Homelessness is no longer about uneducated drug addicts, alcoholics and the insane. Hard working educated people like myself are losing their homes. In cities like Dallas and any other (non-coastal) area $10/hour covers a lot – it barely pays for food in cities on the coast. Laurie, Realtor, Former Lecturer, UCSB.

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  28. Thank You for your apology That would be nice to be able to do something like that I spent alittle bit of time in a state mental hospital when I was young and it was horrible. I look at videos of these places on You Tube and I remember though there are people who should be in places like that there should be more warmth to them, not as cold. I’m tired of those things too mostly for the children and I wonder how could the ACLU be so cold hearted toward children by protecting those who hurt children…

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