Homelessness
Mar. 28th, 2025 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithSubstance abuse often follows homelessness, not precedes it — new study finds
According to a recent poll from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 57% of Americans believe that alcoholism and drug addiction directly lead to people losing their housing.
It is true that substance misuse -- and problematic use of substances as prescribed -- can lead to homelessness, because it impairs ability to hold a job and perform other social behaviors that America demands of people. Anyone who can't keep up is abandoned.
In fact, 42% of unhoused Californians reported that they began to use regularly only after they experienced homelessness for the first time.
It's hardly a surprise that people in a miserable condition will seek to relieve their suffering by any means available.
In order to qualify as civilized and functional, a society must meet most needs of most people most of the time. Survival needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, health care, physical safety, etc.) should be guaranteed to the extent that the society possesses those resources. America is downright bad at this. When addressing homelessness, the base is simple: homeless people don't have a stable residence. So you solve that problem by providing a humane residence. This then makes it much easier to address any other problems such as unemployment, substance misuse, mental issues, etc. that often intersect with homelessness.
According to a recent poll from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 57% of Americans believe that alcoholism and drug addiction directly lead to people losing their housing.
It is true that substance misuse -- and problematic use of substances as prescribed -- can lead to homelessness, because it impairs ability to hold a job and perform other social behaviors that America demands of people. Anyone who can't keep up is abandoned.
In fact, 42% of unhoused Californians reported that they began to use regularly only after they experienced homelessness for the first time.
It's hardly a surprise that people in a miserable condition will seek to relieve their suffering by any means available.
In order to qualify as civilized and functional, a society must meet most needs of most people most of the time. Survival needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, health care, physical safety, etc.) should be guaranteed to the extent that the society possesses those resources. America is downright bad at this. When addressing homelessness, the base is simple: homeless people don't have a stable residence. So you solve that problem by providing a humane residence. This then makes it much easier to address any other problems such as unemployment, substance misuse, mental issues, etc. that often intersect with homelessness.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-03-31 02:15 am (UTC)Anything that society requires people to have must be available to everyone, or the society is a failure.
>> Now, trying to figure out reliable access methods, that's the tricky part.... biometrics are still very squirrely with dirty fingers and faces.<<
Biometrics are abusive anyway. Think of all the trouble that a hacked password causes, and then consider biometrics a set of passwords that cannot be changed within a given lifetime.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-03-31 05:39 pm (UTC)Try and get local gov'ts to have a parcel set aside as a mail drop for homeless people and let it be tax free.... I'm pretty sure *someone* is going to have to fund it to start with at least.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-04-01 02:01 am (UTC)The simplest would be for the town to pay for boxes at the post office, which are already there. But if you don't want to do that, you could buy a batch of boxes like for an apartment building and put that in your town's human services building, since most towns like to put a bunch of their stuff under the same roof. Or the courthouse, town hall, wherever you've got a wall you're not particularly using.
But even if you can't talk the government into it quickly, any charity could do it. There are businesses that own buildings just so they can rent boxes, like for small business owners. An advantage of this project is that the cost of a box per year is so low that most people who aren't broke can afford it. That's a way for one person to make a huge difference for one other person, rather than just dropping money into a random fund.