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Austin Homeless Problem


TexEx15

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Despite living in Austin, I haven't really seen all the horrible homeless effects that people are complaining about.  Granted, I spend most of my time near campus or in NW Austin, but I've yet to see a change other than some more visible tents.  Is there any actual data that supports the argument that there's been an increase in feces and needles on the streets as a result of the legal change, or is this just a conservative, anti-liberal city boogeyman man that based upon rumor and limited anecdotal evidence?

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Just now, Fozzz said:

It seems like the homeless are increasingly becoming a target for the right.  Is the idea eventually to round them up and put them in concentration camps along with the border jumpers?  

it's definitely a weird hill to die on. but they seem to have hitched their flag there

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1 minute ago, Fozzz said:

It seems like the homeless are increasingly becoming a target for the right.  Is the idea eventually to round them up and put them in concentration camps along with the border jumpers?  

If you're talking about Trump wanting to round up the homeless in California and put them in some kind of federal facilities, yeah, it's a weird fucking hill to battle on.  I couldn't decide if that was just Trump being pissed at California, or if he thought by rounding up the homeless (Republicans = "We're small government, but we want to round you up for being homeless and stick you on a federal property!"), that he might actually win more votes in California.

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3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

This is more about Abbott sticking it to the libtards in Austin.

Yes, remember when he was quoted as saying he could "smell the freedom" as he crossed the Travis County line? 

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13 minutes ago, Longhornfan1024 said:

Despite living in Austin, I haven't really seen all the horrible homeless effects that people are complaining about.  Granted, I spend most of my time near campus or in NW Austin, but I've yet to see a change other than some more visible tents.  Is there any actual data that supports the argument that there's been an increase in feces and needles on the streets as a result of the legal change, or is this just a conservative, anti-liberal city boogeyman man that based upon rumor and limited anecdotal evidence?

I live in north Austin and work at UT, and I'd say the same.

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20 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

I have a modest proposal. 

I have one too. If you happen to be a state governor, you can only live and work inside the CIty of Austin if you can run a mile in less than 8 minutes

Should be no problem for most everybody. Problem solved. 

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I work downtown, albeit the north side of downtown.  There was a spike, but yeah - more obvious shelter under highways, that weird little thing in front of St. Ed's, and people in Round Rock or Buda on Facebook never shutting the fuck up about how crazy the homeless epidemic has gotten.

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42 minutes ago, SmokeyTheBear said:

Living in sw Austin, the biggest impact I've seen is on South Lamar by Westgate shopping center. That place has a new town living under the bridge. 

Trucks out there right now cleaning up. 
Amazing how many pallets the homeless accumulate. 

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8 hours ago, TexEx15 said:

I can get behind this state intervention for a change.

Does this mean Abbott is going to heavily fund mental health care and homeless shelters? I expect so because these are fucking human beings we are talking about.

 

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The last time I saw shit like this was at the Superdome when we evacuated it after Katrina.  This shit is unacceptable so while I agree that state GOP legislators are hypocrites about local control, I’m good with it in this situation.

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If you don't admit that homelessness has hockey-sticked in the last 15 years in Austin, you are an asshole because you aren't just wrong but by not admitting an obvious observable (and quantifiable, at least on some level) fact you are just helping those who would make villains the homeless and "others".

It's not just Austin-- Dallas too. And Nashville. Obviously California too. It's apparently a pretty natural and predictable outcome of displacement when cities become expensive to live in with limited wage growth and opportunities to scrape by.

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Abbott went and fucked up on this.  This wasn't a partisan issue in Austin.  Most Austinites are Democrats and most Austinites are incredibly frustrated and dissatisfied with local leadership (read: liberal politicians) with regard to the homelessness issue.  It was, up to this point, a unifying issue across party lines in Austin.  Now Austinites will see Abbott coming, put their valid concerns about City Council/Adler on the homelessness issue aside, join together, and double down on these idiotic policies that continue to treat the surface symptoms.  

All Abbott is doing with this shit is prolonging the problem and giving the City of Austin the ammo it needs to charge us more money in property taxes because they'll know get this fine line item, "$37mm more to reverse the draconian measures taken by the State of Texas and the impact had on our must vulnerable population" (or somesuchshit).  

Way to go, Greg!  

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I was in seattle a month ago and homeless camps are set up all over multiple freeways.  LA has skid row. San Francisco has a homeless crisis and increased amount of drug paraphernalia and human waste littering the city (allegedly). I have a general curiosity about the subject but have no idea what can be done to solve the problem.

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On 10/2/2019 at 4:22 PM, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

it's definitely a weird hill to die on. but they seem to have hitched their flag there

Well, they've taken scary immigrants about as far as they can go.  Need some other fodder for soccer moms and other assorted fearful cunts.  Dirty needles!  Who will think of the children?

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On 10/2/2019 at 4:21 PM, Fozzz said:

It seems like the homeless are increasingly becoming a target for the right.  Is the idea eventually to round them up and put them in concentration camps along with the border jumpers?  

When they lock up a homeless Latino, does it count toward both of their quotas?

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He's proposing the city do their jobs and actually take care of the mess they created.  Cities dictate the price of property, and directly affect affordable housing for the truly underprivileged, not just for the millennials who want to live downtown because it's cool.  But no, let's keep pushing more libraries (which are coincidentally serving as homeless centers), overpriced parks in the lake, more gentrification that pushes the minorities out of the east side, and other crap we do not need right now.  Our council has their heads so far up eachother's asses, no wonder they cant smell the homeless problem.

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When you say "take care of the mess", you're talking about having the homeless camp in the woods.  The thing that Abbott wants is to score easily political points with his dumbass constituency.  The housing issue needs to be fixed with denser housing in the city.  Both downtown and beyond.  Our leadership is terrible but the people who won't shut the fuck up about the shit raining down from the skies downtown also won't shut the fuck up about neighborhoods being ruined with townhomes, apartments, ADUs, etc, and are certainly not going to shut the fuck up about homeless camping in the creek behind their neighborhood.  Just openly call for moving the homeless into the Creedmor landfill.  It's a big multi-faceted problem.  City leadership isn't doing a great job but the loudest voices against them have no interest in addressing it at all.

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1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Seems to be in Abbott’s best interest that homeless problem remains so it remains a problem he can complain about.

I see what you're saying, but at some point it needs to be fixed, or reduced.

 

9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, they've taken scary immigrants about as far as they can go.  Need some other fodder for soccer moms and other assorted fearful cunts.  Dirty needles!  Who will think of the children?

Wouldn't curving illegal immigration help the homeless get jobs?

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On 10/2/2019 at 4:21 PM, Fozzz said:

It seems like the homeless are increasingly becoming a target for the right.  Is the idea eventually to round them up and put them in concentration camps along with the border jumpers?  

Yes. It goes the same every time fascism rises.

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 It was in the 1990s that New York City, like other urban centers, began its mutation from a multiracial, working-class hub to a repository for global capital, unleashing the nonstop luxury development and shredding of rent regulations that fueled inexorable hikes in rent.

 

The shockwaves would come in the 2000s and 2010s, when the inevitable result of policies geared toward making cities habitable for the oligarch class drove tens of thousands to homelessness. Their aesthetic shocks the sensibilities of global capital’s megacities: raggedy men and women asking for money or resting on a street corner are discomforting reminders of all the ways the modern society has fundamentally failed its most vulnerable.

 
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On 10/5/2019 at 4:59 PM, workswithseed said:

I see what you're saying, but at some point it needs to be fixed, or reduced.

 

Wouldn't curving illegal immigration help the homeless get jobs?

Just so you are aware, in Los Angeles, it is estimated that around half of the homeless have jobs. They just don't have jobs that provide basic shelter. The majority of the folks who do not have jobs have mental health issues.  

This is not a population of lazy people.

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