I wish CA was better on dealing with homelessness, it infuriates me that homelessness is seen as a problem rather than a symptom. I thought LA was better than this, but I guess I'm wrong.
You know why though-- California is a hot commodity. Why spend any amount of land you can sell to developer$ on creating housing for the homeless? The fact that the Democratic Party has been taking large ear-marked contributions from developers is proof solid of that. And then housing costs just drive up displacement and homelessness even more. Our priorities suck.
Austin's dealing with the same thing. Our homeless shelter is less than 1/4 the size it needs to be to serve our homeless population and is in the heart of our downtown entertainment district. Rather than deal with the issues leading to us having so many homeless people and expanding the shelter, there's talk of building a new shelter on the outskirts of town (far from all the downtown locations that actually provide services for the homeless like job training, food pantries, disability, VA, etc while our public transpo is SHIT) and selling that land to a developer instead.
And honestly, since the murder at UT in the spring, we REALLY need to step up our game when it comes to the homeless. I've been harassed by several homeless people on the drag who clearly have nowhere else to go, and I wish they did... but also getting screamed at by someone for not giving them money isn't fun.
This is similar to San Fran putting spikes on the cement where homeless would sleep.
How about we find somewhere for these people instead?
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