Doc, Homless in LA

[_Res Ipsa]

I found myself mulling this over while out driving. With regard to the concept of microapartments (in the desert or otherwise) how feasible/unfeasible would it be to develop that type of community with microapartments as temp. rehab. housing with Department of Social Services (CA) plopped right in the middle of the development along with the hospital and a child care center (eliminates foster care)?

In this case, DSS could be the gateway to various services including substance abuse rehab, occupational rehab, child care services, and a variety of other support services.

Whatcha think?

I think a model built on a small community pattern that integrates housing with care makes sense. From of I’ve read about successful programs, allowing people to maintain a sense of dignity and self worth, and using a small community model would be a good foundation for doing that.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Who, exactly, is being flippant? People are perfectly capable of understanding the problem and believing strongly the problem should be addressed without believing Markk’s videos tell us anything about the problem or how to solve it. Or are you just virtue signaling and shaming here?

What's your solution?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

In terms of outcomes and expense :

Ideal - People live by themselves or with roommates they've choosen in individual units integrated within the community inside of conventional housing developments. Care related resources that are needed are diffuse throughout the community and supplied to the person either where they are living or via transportation to providers within the community just as everyone else.

Less Ideal - Cluster sites where small groups of people with similar disabilities or challenges live near one another, have pooled care related resources they mutually access, but otherwise exist within the broader surrounding community and still access community-based providers via transportation. This may be a couple of apartments or houses strung together in a neighborhood.

Even less ideal / getting to be pretty bad - Colony based living where whole populations of people with similar needs based on disability or challenge live together within a town within a town where care exists essentially on site, but community access is still possible and somewhat routine. It's its own built development.

Almost always a catastrophic nightmare - Institutional living with a population of people with similar needs based on disability or challenge who are segregated from society entirely with their entire care needs provided on site. All the amenities referred to in this thread and more and built on the Institution's campus.

The whole goal should be to move people as far away from an institutional setting as possible and towards full integration within the community. This is mandated by law under the most recent regulations issued by the federal government for any recipient of MA funds in care. There are people who need intensive in-patient care and segregation, but they're not everybody. They're not most people, in fact.

I'm reading the proposals here as somewhere in-between a colony and an institution, but with a chic-modern aesthetic.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I actually like the idea of colonies, since people are kind of defaulting to that anyway. It's an interesting idea.

- Doc

[_Markk]

bad idea, the "projects" have already proven to be a bad idea. Building them again with Ikea furniture won't change that.

...

Yeah, because the VA track record on fighting homelessness, inefficiency, drug addiction, and mental illness is what puts the "guaranteed" in guaranteed ROI.

You know what those people living in Section 8 housing aren't doing? Living on the streets. I suggested microapartments because it gets people off the streets, but isn't overly comfortable. But hey, if you're good with people living and ____ ting on 6th street then so be it.

Also, I volunteer twice a week doing peer support up at the VA. It actually does a lot of good that isn't published. It helps many, many, many vets with their healthcare, mental health, and transitional needs.

I'm blown away by the crassness of a couple of posters on this thread when it comes to the reality on the streets. Markk took the time to film it so we could get a real sense of the depravity and problem in LA and the flippancy of some here is disheartening to say the least.

- Doc

Did you see the end of the one I posted today...a person was masturbating in front of open shops and a school bus, and people were walking by like business as usual.

What is really crazy is that there has always been homeless, or "bums" as they were called 30 years ago, but the notable growth in just the past three of four years is beyond belief.

You can see them shooting up on the sidewalks, you see a dead person every once in a while..it is just beyond crazy.

I don't know if I shared this here, but one of the building we are restoring downtown is a 8 story mid rise built in around 1918.

Anyways, I got a call one Monday morning about 6 months ago from one of the guys that they found a dead guy in the basement of this building. I rushed out there and sure enough there was a dead in the basement. The police were there when I got there and they figured out he was homeless guy, who broke in over the week end to still copper wire. He apparently thought he was crawling into an attic space, but it was actually a small opening to a duct shaft, and he fell 45 feet or so onto a concrete slab and died instantly. It was weird in that there was not a drop of blood I could see.

The coroner came, confirmed what the detectives believed and they loaded him up and were gone after about 6-8 hours...and that was it...we have not heard a thing since. I searched the papers... but nothing. Just business as usual I guess. The detective said things like this happen all the time.

What this story has to do with the conversation is not much, other than LA is really a messed up place and that the guy was assumed to homeless.

[_Markk]

A study conducted by Oregon State University found that Hispanic immigrants who adopt American lifestyle norms are more likely to abuse alcohol and use illegal drugs. Conversely, Hispanic immigrants who retained their cultural values to the exclusion of American traditions were 13 times less likely to report using controlled substances or dangerous amounts of alcohol.[13]

https://www.futuresofpalmbeach.com/addi ... addiction/

Markk, perhaps God is bringing illegals to LA for a reason?

What cracks me up Glad, is how many here eventually throw out the "God" card to me, in that I am a Christian. Do you believe that it somehow helps your point...or am I mistaken and you have now become a believer?

This is a serious question, and I am in no way offended, nor will I be if you want to elaborate, in fact I encourage it...but why did you feel the need to throw God into the mix? Mak was an expert at this. Do I threaten or offend you by being a man of faith? is it humor?

[_Markk]

I actually like the idea of colonies, since people are kind of defaulting to that anyway. It's an interesting idea.

- Doc

Move over Snake Plissken...there are about 8 city blocks or so that might qualify as a colony.

[_Analytics]

Free market economics has given us a pharmaceutical industry that is making billions off of drugs that are addictive. They have zero incentive to invent painkillers that aren't addictive.

It's an interesting suggestion I hadn't heard before.

Are you saying that if a non-addictive painkiller were invented that policy couldn't simply stamp out its competitors? Or would the taxes received from the competitors ensure the government would never have an incentive to create such a policy?

I don't want to speculate too much about what could happen or would happen. What I'd rather do is focus on the actual problem. After we understand the problem, we can speculate about what caused it and how to fix it.

In terms of doing actual harm by becoming a brain-fried, drug-addicted non-functioning human being, meth is the worst drug on the planet, followed closely by opioids.

Opioids are drugs that work on the molecular level by attaching themselves opioid receptors on nerve cells. It is an extremely pleasant sensation, and extremely addicting. If you become addicted to any one of these drugs, you are addicted to all of them. And this addiction is serious--if you become an addict, it becomes very difficult to function in society, and extremely difficult to care about anything other than getting your next high:

Opioids include:

Heroin
Morphine
OxyContin®
Percocet®
Palladone®
Vicodin®
Percodan®
Tylox®
Demerol®


If the problem here isn't obvious, read the novel The Midnight Line by Lee Child to hear Jack Reacher dealing with a vet who became addicted to heroin about 5 minutes after she earned her purple heart in Afghanistan when she was pumped up with morphine by the field medics.

A reason why this is personal for me is because of a good friend from my mission. He was one of those missionaries everybody liked. He obeyed all of the rules, but he wasn't a dick. He was nice to everybody. He was cool. The Mission President called him to be mission secretary.

And he got into a bad motorcycle accident, and left the hospital addicted to Heroin. For years he was able to keep getting his hits from legal channels through his doctor and the pharmaceutical industry, but when they started to try and wean him off his life turned into a train wreck because he had to turn to the streets to get his OxyContin, Morphine, Heroin, or anything else he could. And he had to turn to crime to afford it.

This was a white, handsome, middle-class, smart, educated, charismatic guy. He honorably served in the marines, honorably served a Mormon mission, and was a fire fighter. And he is a damned felon because of his drug addiction. His drug addiction didn't start because of marijuana. It started because of Percocet®.

Marijuana is not a gateway drug. It isn’t an opioid. It isn’t addicting.

If you want to go to a drug pusher who will get you seriously addicted to drugs that will “F” up your life, go to your doctor and say you have excruciating back pain.

[_Gadianton]

I actually like the idea of colonies, since people are kind of defaulting to that anyway. It's an interesting idea.

- Doc

That's the market at work. The idea about EA's list is to prevent this kind of market from arising.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I actually like the idea of colonies, since people are kind of defaulting to that anyway. It's an interesting idea.

- Doc

That's the market at work. The idea about EA's list is to prevent this kind of market from arising.

Well. It's arisen. We're not going to unring that bell. The question is how do we conscientiously care for others, and still provide an avenue for self-sufficiency and upward mobility?

For example, here in SLC the government is going to spend tens of millions on a couple of homelss shelters with services. I think it comes out to around 350 beds.

That's a huge problem, in my opinion. They could've secured ten times the land for a fraction of the cost and built ten times the beds if they would've considered bilding a shelter in the industrial area of our city. Embed services and provide a bus or two and you you're set. But our retard Mayor was worried about optics.

LA could ostensibly do something similar with city-owned property. I just think no one really cares, and it's even more apparent now that I'm seeing Markk's videos.

- Doc