in CA, yes, I've seen the data, every year it was increasing but may have started dropping a bit real recently.Are there actually more homeless now than ten or twenty years ago?
in CA, yes, I've seen the data, every year it was increasing but may have started dropping a bit real recently.Are there actually more homeless now than ten or twenty years ago?
Trees don't grow on money
I keep thinking that some of these aging/dead shopping centers could be renovated as housing of some sort. They could also provide space for on-site services.
I just wish our government would stop making piece-meal efforts and step up with some real solutions.
oh yes! Send all homeless out to the ‘burbs where those dead malls live. Great idea! I am behind this all the way.Originally Posted by Lainey
Signed,
Iris, Urban dweller in the land where there are no malls because developers and chain stores would not build in the gritty urban dirty city habituated by po’ folks
In Portland, they built a jail, for some reason. It sat empty for years. Many have suggested the city repurpose it as a homeless facility, which has drawn criticism from various fronts. At this point, it has been bought and probably will be demolished. And Portland has a huge homeless population. I don't get it.
One of our malls has been turned into a huge Homeland Security facility after years of issues with the contractors. It would have been well placed to provide additional housing since it is on good bus lines, with a large grocery store on the same block. It is also in an area of high need. An abandoned Kmart was turned into a huge storage facility and it to would have been well placed due to existing bus lines and easy access downtown to facilities.
But these require immediate funds to acquire the property and time to renovate. Something to think about. Neither of these were in the burbs but in the downtown donut areas of auto repair shops, small auto sales businesses and other low end businesses.
As Jane mentioned, we have a huge homeless population in Portland. It is actually a destination from other states since we seem to be very generous in programs for them. We live backed up to a greenspace called the Springwater Trail. We are not fenced and a couple of years ago there was a homeless camp just on the other side of the creek from us. Drug use is rampant as well as theft. They fenced off the property due to all the erosion and garbage problems and things have improved a great deal. All the blankets, coats, socks, gloves etc that were getting wet in the weather were being dumped on shore and they would just go get new dry items and continue dumping. Huge cost in having police and abandoned camp cleaning patrols.
We have a very large population here which came as a surprise to us when we chose this city to retire to. They are everywhere - living in camps, cars, RVs, alleys, parks...must be a good place to be homeless though I would pick someplace warmer if I were in that boat.
I see that the California Justice Department has approved the merger of Dignity Health (Head Office San Francisco) and Catholic Health Initiatives - CHI (Head Office Denver) into "CommonSpirit" which will be one huuuge non-profit health care system. The State of California will require CommonSpirit to spend $20 million over the coming 6 years to provide housing solutions for people experiencing homelessness in CA.
On one hand the CEO of Dignity Health seems to be all for it! He says addressing homelessness (together with illness and substance abuse) needs to be an integrated approach, rather than trying to solve any of the 3 problems in isolation. And I believe $20 million from Common Spirit will result in some highly affordable housing units in CA, possibly on land that already is owned by Dignity Health affiliated hospitals.
On the other hand, Dignity Health is barely breaking even on operations, and CHI has been losing lots of money in recent years. For CHI, the cost to borrow more money was going up due to debt downgrades by Fitch, S&P and Moodys. A major attraction of consolidation with Dignity Health was to improve upon CHI's ability to borrow for capital expenditures. The combined entity of CommonSpirit will start with about $10 billion in debt. It gives me some angst that the regulatory approval process in CA on this merger included the $20 million mandate to address homelessness. (There is also a mandate for CommonSpirit to provide CA residents a 100% discount on their hospital bill if they earn less than 250% of the "poverty line".)
I hope for wellness outcomes for all concerned.
Who in his right mind would lend money on the strength of a merger of two overleveraged entities burdened by such large State mandates? Is California offering some kind of guarantee?
A remember seeing a graph just a couple of weeks ago indicating that in most states, the homeless trend was downwards, but also suggesting there's a concentration in a few cities.
I can't quickly relocate it, but it might be worth digging up actual data, if available.
Our County's homeless counts show a reduction in numbers, even though by anecdote, everyone here thinks the problem is "worse" and that we need to "do something fast!".
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