If you wander a block off Fremont, you will see people laying on the sidewalks. The stores around there have poop in their doorways. The store owners must be proud to have such a fine location. Did Las Vegas drop the ball on this problem?
If you wander a block off Fremont, you will see people laying on the sidewalks. The stores around there have poop in their doorways. The store owners must be proud to have such a fine location. Did Las Vegas drop the ball on this problem?
You see more of that on the strip. I always see the homeless sleeping under the pedestrian crossovers and on the grates in front of the hotels. This past summer I saw a homeless guy pull his pants down, sit on a trash barrel and take a dump in broad daylight right on the strip in front of Bally's. Then I saw a homeless lady undress in front of the Flamingo and proceed to give herself a bath with a water bottle.
When in Las Vegas always stay downtown with daily walks, see lot people with problems.
While in the Navy, I visited Hong Kong twice. One thing that stood out to me when walking the streets late at night was the sight of an Oriental man sleeping on a mat on the sidewalk, against the outside wall of a jewelry store - a store with a large display window showing literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry - and the only thing separating this poor man and thousands of dollars of jewelry was the thickness (maybe 6 inches) of the wall. Just 6 inches separating the extremely poor from the extremely rich.
We have massive income inequality in the US, in no small part because a lot of people don't think that it's a problem--in fact, they think it's the natural order of things. Social Darwinism, and all that.
If you doubt this, just look at all the massive efforts made--over the last ninety years--to obstruct and prevent any social welfare measures that would make the lives of those at the bottom of the economic ladder a little less horrible.
In other words, if you don't like to see homeless people, you should probably support policies, laws, and politicians that aim to help them.
Don't forget Ronnie Raygun's part in all of this. He shut down federal funding for inpatient mental health care. Most of the homeless people I have encountered in Vegas have obvious mental health issues. Some people simply can't care for themselves due to mental health or substance abuse issues. In the 1980s Republicans said we can't afford to take care of these people anymore and threw them out in the streets to fend for themselves.
Reagan did a LOT of things that, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed people over. And I'm sure he didn't fully realize that; he was a conservative, flag-waving ideologue through and through, but also a nice guy and, I believe, a good person. I think he would have been appalled to see the true consequences of many of the policies of his administration, such as the crushing effect of his anti-environmental initiatives (remember James Watt? Talk about the fox in charge of the henhouse!).
The homeless aren't all lazy bums who just need to get a decent job and everything would be OK. A person with no income, no credit, no residence, etc. etc. etc. will actually have a BRUTAL time finding a permanent place to live and steady employment. I wish that all the people who demonize the homeless could be forced to live just one week without shelter. That might open their eyes.
Some 2/3 rds of all homeless in America are either addicted to drugs and/or alcohol dependant (Google it if you think otherwise). They are there because of the choices THEY made. Think about that. They remain homeless because they refuse to change their lifestyle - and because of this we, the working class, are paying for these addicts to continue to live this way with our tax dollars.
I realize that's the way most people think about the homeless--it's all their fault and they could easily fix their situation if they wanted to. They're all just lazy, worthless bums. So I have no obligation to help them or even consider them fully human.
I think the primary reason why this attitude is so popular is that it gives people an excuse to avoid helping them in any way. You demonize someone, it's easier to treat them as less than human and therefore unworthy of your assistance.
The sad reality is that tens of millions of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck and it would take only one crisis to render them homeless. When that happens, it's VERY difficult to recover. Who's going to hire you if you don't have an address? How do you look for a job or a place to live if you don't have a phone? Who's going to rent you an apartment if you don't have a job and you don't have a couple grand to put up as a deposit?
Sooooo easy to just say they're all worthless bums. And so wrong.
But isn't 7.5% inflation OK for them? You said this was a good thing.
