There are several, or at the very least were, in the Northwest. Not sure with Covid regulations if they're still around. There's a list of tent cities on Wikipedia, but most don't have information directly linked, you'd have to start searching for more specific information.

The trend I saw though was that rather than the city providing the land/water/toilets, 501(c)(3) organizations developed to pay rent to the respective cities, and self-governed and ruled the tent city environments. There are plenty in more out of the way smaller town/rural areas, but without the park-like services.

I see this as an abject failure of the cities. It doesn't take much to provide the 5 or 10 acres of land with basic water and toilets to help care for the homeless. And the food bank/clinic would develop organically. 25-30 years ago, usually started by a Church. Possibly still, though other non-profits might get involved first these days.

The largest problem I see, when you look at something like Dignity Village in Portland, is the City is profiting off the tent city. AKA, no tax dollars whatsoever going to help the homeless, and instead the homeless still being a net positive for the government. At what point is it more important to allow for a place to eat, shit, and sleep than it is to absolutely require property taxes and 100% compensation for public utility (water) usage?

Paint some rainbows on it so that it looks LGBT friendly.

Lack of affordable housing is the number one reason for homelessness in America. No matter how metal it seems, spikes won't fix lack of affordable housing supply.

IMO we should probably eliminate corporate ownership of individual family homes. If they want to build apartment complexes for people, fine, but single family homes should be for single families to own.

id rather the shit be smeared on the homeless.

Get real lol you guys are loving this kind of stuff, Americans merely copied it

No problem in the creation of new ghettos and slums. What capitalism is all about.

Not really.

Mental illness & serious drug use is a far greater cause.

Many years ago I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter helping in the kitchen. Almost all of the people going there had either mental issues or were doing drugs like crack or heroin.

People on the left constantly bring up some variant of "if we dedicated more money to this cause it would go away" not understanding that money doesn't fix some of the underlying issues.

No matter how much money you dedicate to drug counseling it's useless if the person doesn't want to get clean and is content living in the streets smoking rocks.

No matter how much money you dedicate to a mental health professional or various types of prescriptions if the person refuses to take the help nothing's going to change.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Apr 9 2021 09:49am

Your antecdoctal experience is great and all but all those dudes had incomes and a lot of them are employed. People with mental issues have disability and fixed incomes. Maybe you should listen to the guy who has met with 5000+ individuals in acute crisis and helped them problem solve through it, a bitter veteran master of social work.

How often did you discuss income in vs out with the people you were giving soup to? And could you fact check their statements by verifying though IT databases, calling case managers, chart reviewing medical records, or the any other skills it takes years to learn and master?

I'm glad you volunteer, but that isn't the same as research or professional help. The number one cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing and nothing else is even close. You saying its addiction and mental illness is BS because plenty of addicted mentally people do just fine and that attitude has more to do with Victorian notions of worthy vs unworthy poor. Fuck, I have been living with addiction and mental illness for years and I'm doing great. There are more pervasive causes lol.

This post was edited by Skinned on Apr 9 2021 10:03am

whos fault is it? help me guys i forgot it!