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0 pointsa-saleh10y ago0 comments

Sometimes I feel this "most of them prefer the way it is" is just a way to make excuses for us not solving a problem.

For example in my city of ~ quarter mil. people, there are approximately 1000 people living on the streets and another 1000 without home (no adress, permanently living in hostels, people in prisons that no longer have home).

Currently I know that there is project that focuses on the families without home (afaik 300-400 ppl?), where the plan is to move them into the city owned flats (there is more than 20 000 flats owned by the city with several hundred empty)

I like the logic behind that. To catch people without home before they end up on the street and give them an adress. What do you think?

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monkmartinez10y ago

Maybe, but funding new programs for homeless/mentally ill is problematic for a lot of reasons; A lot municipalities have budget problems with structural deficits. This puts pressure on basic infrastructure like roads, water, and sewer. Public transportation is under severe stress due to the budgets. Public safety agencies have been relying on grants (SAFER) from the fed to get basic needs met as the cities are tapped out. Government employees in my area haven't had a raise in 10 years while the costs for insurance, medicare, and everything else has gone up more than 10%. To put it bluntly, asking voters to approve bonds/money for homeless will go over like a turd in a punch bowl.

a-salehOP10y ago

Well that is why the reasoning here is

1. "We already have lot of empty flats nobody lives in and need to maintain them" 2. "We already rent many flats for like 300$ a month to low income families, that have the courage for like 10 different visits to municipal office" 3. "Families that are on the edge of homelesness already live in some hostel and might be paying more than 300$ a month just to have a place to stay."

At least that is the gist of it as far as I know.

Second, this is an EU city, so I know that they want to get some initial funds from EU funds (the first set of flats needs to undergo reconstruction, because the basic utilities, like water and electricity are in terrible state) as a pilot 'housing first' project in the republic.

chris_wot10y ago

No wonder there is a homelessness problem then. With an attitude like this from both public officials and voters alike is it surprising that homelessness is getting worse and worse?

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