I’m for that. Hell, I would just like small tiny home communities without state government trying to restrict it. Block apartments are fine for many people (newly graduated, small families, and independent elders).
Of course people would rather homeless people have housing instead of living in tent cities everywhere. But they also don’t have any desire to pay for it when it comes time to do something and of course make moral arguments against the homeless.
These are two different groups of people
The first, who are on board with state housing projects, are the common people who still have empathy for their fellow people
The second, who are totally on board with homelessness because the housing projects are “too expensive”, belong to the political and economic elite
Most people aren’t pieces of shit and don’t want people to be homeless, but then they’re unwilling to do anything to solve it because it requires money and effort.
Dishonest framing. The average worker has nothing to do with this issue. They are not the people we’re asking to solve this. Like I already said, it’s the political and economic elite. Capitalists. The state. Where is the worker’s money supposed to be sent? On what is their effort to be put?
We also have internalized that a lot of homeless people “did something wrong” to get there, which doesn’t help.
Yep, neoliberal chuds, as I said
You’re trying to oversimplify a complex cultural issue
How? What variables have I abstracted into a black box, here? What few mechanisms have I reduced the issue to? To me, “people want affordable housing but don’t wanna pay for it” sounds extremely oversimplified.
I have no idea why you’re picking an argument with someone who probably largely agrees with you.
I’m not “picking an argument with you” lol. I’m just correcting what I see as a defeatist, “what can we even do” attitude.
That’s not what cognitive dissonance means. It’s a question of willpower/desire to actually help. No one wants people to be homeless but they also aren’t willing to do anything about it. That’s not cognitive dissonance.
Sounds like semantic fudging to me. “These people need homes! No, stop building homes, it’s too expensive!!” sounds like cognitive dissonance to me.
That’s just a cop out. Of course it’s complex. No reason to just throw your hands in the air and say “it’s too hard, let’s just leave it to the market”. We already tried that. It led to this.
Also, no one is saying, literally, “building more houses will fix homelessness alone, nothing else needed, DURRR”. That’s just a strawman.
What we also need is a complete end to landlording. But this of course won’t happen under the current system, because capitalism fucking worships private property.
The entire post is about low income housing as a solution to people sleeping in tents. Building more apartments won’t stop people from living in tents.
Pointing out that it’s a complex issue that isn’t solved by more houses is pretty much the opposite of a strawman
No, that is not the point it’s making. It’s making the point that neoliberal chuds would prefer to see homeless people than affordable housing. It doesn’t say that building housing itself is the sole solution. Hell, it doesn’t say anything at all about building. We don’t see any construction in that picture, the blocks are just there. You could read it as saying that already built flats should just be given to people.
Nonono, it’s unreasonable for taxes to go toward helping the poor. They live on the street and starve by their own choice. No one wants to pay for those wretched people!
Where are the police when you need them to quickly usher the inconvenient truth of my selfish lifestyle out of my sight?
You’re in lemmy.ml, a Marxist instance, reading a meme criticizing capitalism and saying that Soviet apartment buildings are a stretch?
No, they’re the whole point of the meme. Paying for them is the point, who paid for the Soviet buildings? The message is that the Soviet Union built these and American capitalists allow people to live in tents on the street (while calling those buildings ugly). Housing projects would be a perfect “yeah but” except they are very low priority and not so common.
Ugly Soviet buildings are themselves a meme. Up there with the hammer and sickle and the color beige when Americans visualize the Soviet Union.
It’s also forgetting that a significant portion of homeless people are homeless by choice, or are homeless for reasons that just providing housing won’t resolve.
People have this idea that all homeless people are just regular people who experienced hard times, but that’s just a minority. Most homeless are mentally ill people who won’t take their meds or drug addicts who aren’t willing to quit.
It sucks, and they shouldn’t have to live on the streets, but you can’t force people to change.
I don’t think people have that idea at all, if anything they are more likely to assume a homeless person is mentally ill and drug addicted than they are to think they are experiencing hard times or employed but unable to pay for housing.
However housing first has been pretty successful, but goes against many people’s values for some reason. The big fear of someone getting something undeserved is strong.
You’re more than welcome to look up statistics. ~60% of the chronicly homeless have life long mental health issues, and ~80% have substance abuse issues.
Pretty much every city/state has resources to help the homeless, but the homeless have to be willing to accept the help. Most shelters are drug free, so addicts don’t want to stay there and they won’t accept people whose mental illness makes them violent.
You can’t force a person to take their medicine or stop doing drugs unless you want to start building more prisons.
Again, I was never saying that all homelessness is a choice, but a lot of people choose not to accept the help that’s available.
Source: My wife has her masters in the field and used to work with these populations as an addiction counselor, in Texas, so I know that resources exist at a state level even in a state that clearly hates it’s citizens.
Neoliberals never seem to get around to actually address what’s being said. They just hem and haw about why they can’t do anything about it, as they pull their SUVs into the third stall in their garage.
Yeah, liberals and conservatives only differ on whether gay people should be put to death, so you’re not really saying much. And being liberal does not, whatsoever, make you immune to conservative propaganda. We live in a capitalist society, founded on liberal values: whether conservatives know it or not, it is liberal values they are conserving.
Also, as I’ve said about 5 times now, no one is saying that building houses alone will solve the issue. So stop beating that strawman.
I believe you are arguing in good faith, so I’m hoping you can provide a source for your claim that the majority suffer from mental illness or drug addiction.
Yeah that can’t be right… The problem with these discussions I think is there’s a very big difference between the technical definition of homeless, and the one people use colloquially.
It’s the most visible minority of homeless people that tend to be the entrenched ones people think of when they think of homelessness, and those people essentially have nothing in common with the other “homeless” people other than having no permanent home. It makes the discussion harder as people are using the same word but talking about different things.
It assumes you can recognize Soviet housing block, designed to quickly house as many people as possible. It has nothing to do with a preference for houses over apartments.
If you look through the rest of the photos in the source article, ask if living like they do is worse than homeless in a tent.
The top is meant to represent the socialist solution to homelessness. These are socialist block apartments built to ensure that everyone had housing because homelessness was a huge problem. They were functional, but because they were built to functionally address a need quickly, they weren’t large or luxurious. They were built to last and the rent levels were controlled at a low rate if the people didn’t outright own the place themselves.
The bottom picture is the liberal solution to homelessness. Apartments suck, fuck the homeless, jack up the rent prices. The convenience of the few is prioritized over the needs of the many.
Funny how someone who is mentally 12 could put this together, but you couldn’t be bothered.
It’s only stupid if you don’t address the root causes of the problems that you are listing. If you don’t do anything to lift the people out of their desperation and end the cause of that desperation, then of course they will sell it.
Your middle paragraph is the first part of what I’m talking about, do what is needed to help people lift themselves back up. Only a small part of that is helping with housing. The bigger problem is the second part, if you do nothing about the conditions that contributed to their downward spiral, then that first part will only be a temporary relief.
This second comment made it much more clear that you weren’t just saying, “nah, fuck them,” but covering all of the nuances of what needs to change just isn’t a realistic expectation for text comments online. Frankly, I have a feeling you and I agree a lot on that first part of what is needed to help people, no clue about how you feel about the second part. I appreciate you coming back with a thoughtful answer instead of trolling, because I expect trolling.
What is this trying to say???
That low income housing is good but people like when homeless people suffer.
Or that people living in block housing is preferable to some living in suburbs and some being homeless.
We could have both you know. Suburbistan for those that like it and apartments for those who like it. And homelessness for no one.
I’m for that. Hell, I would just like small tiny home communities without state government trying to restrict it. Block apartments are fine for many people (newly graduated, small families, and independent elders).
That’s a bad take.
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These are two different groups of people
The first, who are on board with state housing projects, are the common people who still have empathy for their fellow people
The second, who are totally on board with homelessness because the housing projects are “too expensive”, belong to the political and economic elite
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Yeah, that cognitive dissonance doesn’t exist, and is misleading.
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Dishonest framing. The average worker has nothing to do with this issue. They are not the people we’re asking to solve this. Like I already said, it’s the political and economic elite. Capitalists. The state. Where is the worker’s money supposed to be sent? On what is their effort to be put?
Yep, neoliberal chuds, as I said
How? What variables have I abstracted into a black box, here? What few mechanisms have I reduced the issue to? To me, “people want affordable housing but don’t wanna pay for it” sounds extremely oversimplified.
I’m not “picking an argument with you” lol. I’m just correcting what I see as a defeatist, “what can we even do” attitude.
Sounds like semantic fudging to me. “These people need homes! No, stop building homes, it’s too expensive!!” sounds like cognitive dissonance to me.
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There’s also the third group of people who realizes that homelessness is a complex problem that won’t be solved by more housing.
That’s just a cop out. Of course it’s complex. No reason to just throw your hands in the air and say “it’s too hard, let’s just leave it to the market”. We already tried that. It led to this.
Also, no one is saying, literally, “building more houses will fix homelessness alone, nothing else needed, DURRR”. That’s just a strawman.
What we also need is a complete end to landlording. But this of course won’t happen under the current system, because capitalism fucking worships private property.
The entire post is about low income housing as a solution to people sleeping in tents. Building more apartments won’t stop people from living in tents.
Pointing out that it’s a complex issue that isn’t solved by more houses is pretty much the opposite of a strawman
No, that is not the point it’s making. It’s making the point that neoliberal chuds would prefer to see homeless people than affordable housing. It doesn’t say that building housing itself is the sole solution. Hell, it doesn’t say anything at all about building. We don’t see any construction in that picture, the blocks are just there. You could read it as saying that already built flats should just be given to people.
I don’t think it fails, but it does come from a specific cultural perspective.
Those are “ugly Soviet buildings” built by the government. That already communicates cost and the unwillingness to bear it in the US.
Nonono, it’s unreasonable for taxes to go toward helping the poor. They live on the street and starve by their own choice. No one wants to pay for those wretched people!
Where are the police when you need them to quickly usher the inconvenient truth of my selfish lifestyle out of my sight?
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Exactly. It’s not hard to keep the exterior of those buildings looking nice. You just have to pay someone to maintain it.
You’re in lemmy.ml, a Marxist instance, reading a meme criticizing capitalism and saying that Soviet apartment buildings are a stretch?
No, they’re the whole point of the meme. Paying for them is the point, who paid for the Soviet buildings? The message is that the Soviet Union built these and American capitalists allow people to live in tents on the street (while calling those buildings ugly). Housing projects would be a perfect “yeah but” except they are very low priority and not so common.
Ugly Soviet buildings are themselves a meme. Up there with the hammer and sickle and the color beige when Americans visualize the Soviet Union.
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Yes, any meme trying to say something with layers is probably misusing the format.
It’s also forgetting that a significant portion of homeless people are homeless by choice, or are homeless for reasons that just providing housing won’t resolve.
People have this idea that all homeless people are just regular people who experienced hard times, but that’s just a minority. Most homeless are mentally ill people who won’t take their meds or drug addicts who aren’t willing to quit.
It sucks, and they shouldn’t have to live on the streets, but you can’t force people to change.
I don’t think people have that idea at all, if anything they are more likely to assume a homeless person is mentally ill and drug addicted than they are to think they are experiencing hard times or employed but unable to pay for housing.
However housing first has been pretty successful, but goes against many people’s values for some reason. The big fear of someone getting something undeserved is strong.
Some might say the big fear of someone getting something undeserved is strong enough to prop up an entire political party.
But it is not exclusive to them, of course. Some are just very bad about it.
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For many it literally is a choice, and framing homelessness as something that no one has control over is problematic.
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You’re more than welcome to look up statistics. ~60% of the chronicly homeless have life long mental health issues, and ~80% have substance abuse issues.
Pretty much every city/state has resources to help the homeless, but the homeless have to be willing to accept the help. Most shelters are drug free, so addicts don’t want to stay there and they won’t accept people whose mental illness makes them violent.
You can’t force a person to take their medicine or stop doing drugs unless you want to start building more prisons.
Again, I was never saying that all homelessness is a choice, but a lot of people choose not to accept the help that’s available.
Source: My wife has her masters in the field and used to work with these populations as an addiction counselor, in Texas, so I know that resources exist at a state level even in a state that clearly hates it’s citizens.
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Neoliberals never seem to get around to actually address what’s being said. They just hem and haw about why they can’t do anything about it, as they pull their SUVs into the third stall in their garage.
This is just conservative propaganda
I’m a liberal, buddy. Homelessness is a very complex issue that won’t be solved by building more housing.
Yeah, liberals and conservatives only differ on whether gay people should be put to death, so you’re not really saying much. And being liberal does not, whatsoever, make you immune to conservative propaganda. We live in a capitalist society, founded on liberal values: whether conservatives know it or not, it is liberal values they are conserving.
Also, as I’ve said about 5 times now, no one is saying that building houses alone will solve the issue. So stop beating that strawman.
I believe you are arguing in good faith, so I’m hoping you can provide a source for your claim that the majority suffer from mental illness or drug addiction.
Yeah that can’t be right… The problem with these discussions I think is there’s a very big difference between the technical definition of homeless, and the one people use colloquially.
It’s the most visible minority of homeless people that tend to be the entrenched ones people think of when they think of homelessness, and those people essentially have nothing in common with the other “homeless” people other than having no permanent home. It makes the discussion harder as people are using the same word but talking about different things.
https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/homelessness_programs_resources/hrc-factsheet-current-statistics-prevalence-characteristics-homelessness.pdf
Page 4
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https://invisiblepeople.tv/capitalism-and-classism-increase-homelessness/
I think it’s a confused message. Not the best meme.
But the basic idea is that homelessness is caused by people preferring houses (“urban sprawl”) rather than apartment complexes.
It assumes you can recognize Soviet housing block, designed to quickly house as many people as possible. It has nothing to do with a preference for houses over apartments.
If you look through the rest of the photos in the source article, ask if living like they do is worse than homeless in a tent.
It’s one of the worst memes ever.
It’s a tankie meme, what would you expect.
This makes the most sense to me so far
It’s trying to say that low income housing is the solution to homelessness.
It’s wrong, but that’s the point it’s trying to make.
No, not really. But it’s easy to read that into it.
seems like it’s trying to imply that homeless people are homeless because houses are too expensive.
as if the guys in the bottom pic could afford a department in the top picture, but have to live in a tent because housing is expensive.
I think what the meme does say is that OP is mentally 12.
The top is meant to represent the socialist solution to homelessness. These are socialist block apartments built to ensure that everyone had housing because homelessness was a huge problem. They were functional, but because they were built to functionally address a need quickly, they weren’t large or luxurious. They were built to last and the rent levels were controlled at a low rate if the people didn’t outright own the place themselves.
The bottom picture is the liberal solution to homelessness. Apartments suck, fuck the homeless, jack up the rent prices. The convenience of the few is prioritized over the needs of the many.
Funny how someone who is mentally 12 could put this together, but you couldn’t be bothered.
It is driving me to despair that so many people just don’t get this.
your average homeless will sell the house in 5 microseconds for crack money or sign it away under duress.
homeless people need safer shelters, healthcare, detoxing, therapy, coaching and resources to help them out of the downward spiral they are in.
throwing free housing to vulnerable people suffering from addiction and mental illnesses is one of the stupidest things I have heard.
It’s only stupid if you don’t address the root causes of the problems that you are listing. If you don’t do anything to lift the people out of their desperation and end the cause of that desperation, then of course they will sell it.
Your middle paragraph is the first part of what I’m talking about, do what is needed to help people lift themselves back up. Only a small part of that is helping with housing. The bigger problem is the second part, if you do nothing about the conditions that contributed to their downward spiral, then that first part will only be a temporary relief.
This second comment made it much more clear that you weren’t just saying, “nah, fuck them,” but covering all of the nuances of what needs to change just isn’t a realistic expectation for text comments online. Frankly, I have a feeling you and I agree a lot on that first part of what is needed to help people, no clue about how you feel about the second part. I appreciate you coming back with a thoughtful answer instead of trolling, because I expect trolling.