Comment on I'm gonna mute this one
timmy_dean_sausage@lemmy.world 16 hours agoWow. I remember the way the right wing propaganda machine tried to spin that into a story of total cruelty. At the time, I assumed their version of events was bs, but never really looked into what the dem’s were actually doing. Converting old motels into homes for homeless people is an absolute no-brainer.
wpb@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
I mean, it’s not perfect. A lot of advocacy groups for the homeless are actually critical of the plan, primarily because it doesn’t address the underlying issues that cause homelessness and because the efficacy of forced drug and mental health treatment is questionable at best. But it’s better than putting arm rests on benches, that’s for sure.
timmy_dean_sausage@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Yeah, of course. I used to live down the street from a house for homeless men. I spoke with one of them that would hang out at the gas station every day and, according to him, they had to apply and be accepted on the condition that they would stay out of trouble. Did that stop them from busking until they got their substance abuse fix for the day? Absolutely not. But they were a lot cleaner and much more safe than people without that house. I also regularly saw a few of them cleaning around that house and a few square blocks of it. They seemed to feel the need to upkeep the place and it actually looked much nicer than most of the houses in the area, including mine. But yeah, helping people into homes is really just the starting point to getting a lot of people in that situation on track to a more stable living situation.