Page 2 of 38 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... LastLast
Results 26 to 50 of 931
  1. #26
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    10,906
    I step over needles to get in my car every day. Junkies like to use the corner of my parking garage. The bright orange caps make them easy to see luckily.

  2. #27
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    The Land of Subdued Excitement
    Posts
    5,437
    Many of the homeless are a result of the opiate crisis so the entities responsible there need to step up.

    We have the same problem in Bellingham.

    I would like to see them get very tough on crime as well as anti loitering and camping in parks/on sidewalks and illegally parked RV shitholes while at the same time beefing up the options for drug treatment, mental health treatment, housing programs, etc.

    People either get with a program and stop being a nuisance or they go to jail.

    Our jail is full, though. People laugh at the police here because they know they arent going to jail unless the do something big.

  3. #28
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    33,546
    Quote Originally Posted by AK47bp View Post
    I step over needles to get in my car every day. Junkies like to use the corner of my parking garage. The bright orange caps make them easy to see luckily.
    It's not just Seattle the horrendous overcrowding and conditions in the tent cities and shelters in Seattle have pushed this out to neighborhoods, and cities.
    Quote Originally Posted by Downbound Train View Post
    And there will come a day when our ancestors look back...........

  4. #29
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    At the beach
    Posts
    19,069
    Quote Originally Posted by mtngirl79 View Post
    Many of the homeless are a result of the opiate crisis so the entities responsible there need to step up.

    We have the same problem in Bellingham.

    I would like to see them get very tough on crime as well as anti loitering and camping in parks/on sidewalks and illegally parked RV shitholes while at the same time beefing up the options for drug treatment, mental health treatment, housing programs, etc.

    People either get with a program and stop being a nuisance or they go to jail.

    Our jail is full, though. People laugh at the police here because they know they arent going to jail unless the do something big.
    There is always a one way bus ticket to some nice Red state like Texas or Arizona. In our town the cops just drive them over the bridge and say don't come back. EZ peezy, no homeless people. But it is a small town.

  5. #30
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    10,906
    The millennial hipster “homeless” annoy the shit out of me though.

    Holding the signs asking for weed money smoking cigarettes and using a cell phone. God Bless.

  6. #31
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    In a parallel universe
    Posts
    4,755
    Quote Originally Posted by AK47bp View Post
    The millennial hipster “homeless” annoy the shit out of me though.

    Holding the signs asking for weed money smoking cigarettes and using a cell phone. God Bless.
    WTF, this is a thing?

  7. #32
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    On Vacation for the Duration
    Posts
    14,373
    Quote Originally Posted by mtngirl79 View Post

    I would like to see them get very tough on crime
    People either get with a program and stop being a nuisance or they go to jail.
    NYC did that in the late 70's. Tough on crime, lock them up. No more junkies at Grand Central for me to trip over. Worked for a while. Now the jails are still full and few were helped. Did more damage than the benefit. Money is always the answer or the excuse. I see a connection in someone worth $100 billion not paying any state income tax and the dead baby that was found in the tent camp 15. miles from his "house". You just can't collect enough in "sin taxes" to make it work at some level.
    A few people feel the rain. Most people just get wet.

  8. #33
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Posts
    10,906
    Quote Originally Posted by ACH View Post
    WTF, this is a thing?
    It is. I work in the U District and they are all over. Chain wallet type usually with a dog.

  9. #34
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    On Vacation for the Duration
    Posts
    14,373
    Makes sense to me. Begging is hard work.
    A few people feel the rain. Most people just get wet.

  10. #35
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    33,546
    Quote Originally Posted by AK47bp View Post
    usually with a dog.
    They should have sent to the farm in Chile.
    Quote Originally Posted by Downbound Train View Post
    And there will come a day when our ancestors look back...........

  11. #36
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    in a frozen jungle
    Posts
    2,370
    Quote Originally Posted by mtngirl79

    I would like to see them get very tough on crime
    People either get with a program and stop being a nuisance or they go to jail.
    MAGA tough?
    Scientists now have decisive molecular evidence that humans and chimpanzees once had a common momma and that this lineage had previously split from monkeys.

  12. #37
    Rasputin's Avatar
    Rasputin is online now Полые тростник на ветру
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Missoula
    Posts
    4,491
    I found this very interesting and amazing, and not surprising.

    I lived on the streets during the mid to late 90's in Eugene OR (I was doing the ascetic mystic thing, and renounced worldiness). Back then I saw cops as the big mean dog people would sic on you if they didn't like the way you looked (even if you did nothing to deserve it). It was understood that this would happen if you made a nuisance of yourself, and pushed on the comfort zones of normal people. Even the hard core drunks who drank Cisco, knew enough to stumble from one out-of-sight spot to another, and not stay there very long, or the cops would come.

    This situation baffles me, a rich city where prosecutors are releasing violent offenders, and dealers of hard drugs, it doesn't track with my experience. However, it is not surprising that a city that allows people to hold three grams of hard drugs without threat of arrest, and allow junkies to use the drugs in plain sight, would have all the problems described.
    I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -אלוהים אדירים

  13. #38
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    50 miles E of Paradise
    Posts
    15,570
    Quote Originally Posted by mtngirl79 View Post
    Many of the homeless are a result of the opiate crisis so the entities responsible there need to step up.

    We have the same problem in Bellingham.

    I would like to see them get very tough on crime as well as anti loitering and camping in parks/on sidewalks and illegally parked RV shitholes while at the same time beefing up the options for drug treatment, mental health treatment, housing programs, etc.

    People either get with a program and stop being a nuisance or they go to jail.

    Our jail is full, though. People laugh at the police here because they know they arent going to jail unless the do something big.
    <Anecdote1>
    I worked at my dad's business during summers as a teenager. Going home after work took us through Portland's skid road area. I can still remember driving through there one day when Dad hollered "pull over right now". He jumped out and told me to wait. He went over to a really scruffy-assed stumbling bum and started talking to him. They conversed for a while, Dad reached into his wallet and gave him some $$$, they shook hands and he came back. When I asked "who the hell was that?" he said "that's Einer Bay. I worked in the woods with him 20 years ago. He was one hell of a hook tender (lead man on a logging crew) until his wife ran off with another guy. He got into the bottle and never came back. Sad fuckin' situation".
    </anecdote1>

    <Anecdote2>
    My daughter was a nurse in the Arizona penal system for several years. In her experience most of the inmates are mentally ill, and were homeless before their current stay in the joint. It becomes a revolving door - they self-medicate, make a bad decision, get locked up, can't get a job or a place to live afterward because they are mentally ill ex-cons, so they make another bad choice and end up back in the joint. Rinse and repeat
    </anecdote2>

    My point - too many people see homelessness and addiction as a moral failure. IMV it's a societal failure - too many homeless are self medicating their mental illness (such as vets with PTSD), or made a bad decision from which they couldn't recover, or a fast-changing economy and the skyrocketing cost of housing across the Pacific time zone forced them into camping out. You can't export the problem. We spend more on military shit than the rest of the world combined, but we can't seem to find the will or resources to get these folks off the streets.

  14. #39
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    the ham
    Posts
    13,370
    Quote Originally Posted by liv2ski View Post
    There is always a one way bus ticket to some nice Red state like Texas or Arizona. In our town the cops just drive them over the bridge and say don't come back. EZ peezy, no homeless people. But it is a small town.
    It's the other way around. B'ham is a destination.

  15. #40
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    the ham
    Posts
    13,370
    Quote Originally Posted by TBS View Post
    My point - too many people see homelessness and addiction as a moral failure. IMV it's a societal failure - too many homeless are self medicating their mental illness (such as vets with PTSD), or made a bad decision from which they couldn't recover, or a fast-changing economy and the skyrocketing cost of housing across the Pacific time zone forced them into camping out. You can't export the problem. We spend more on military shit than the rest of the world combined, but we can't seem to find the will or resources to get these folks off the streets.
    Bullseye.

  16. #41
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    The Land of Subdued Excitement
    Posts
    5,437
    Quote Originally Posted by TBS View Post

    My point - too many people see homelessness and addiction as a moral failure. IMV it's a societal failure - too many homeless are self medicating their mental illness (such as vets with PTSD), or made a bad decision from which they couldn't recover, or a fast-changing economy and the skyrocketing cost of housing across the Pacific time zone forced them into camping out. You can't export the problem. We spend more on military shit than the rest of the world combined, but we can't seem to find the will or resources to get these folks off the streets.
    I completely and 100% agree. Before I drove the bus, I would have been completely opposed to jail time but I feel like it's got to suck more than it does. There are so many services in Bellingham... not stabilize your life services but meals, motel rooms, clothes, tent handouts...

    That's why I think we need solutions that have been proven to work, remove the idea that homelessness and addiction are moral failures so people really have options and then they can be held accountable.

    You cant tell someone they csnt camp on the sidewalk until you have a place for them to go.

    Its cheaper to care for the homeless in cheap apartments than on the street. The whole idea that people need to get clean and sober and stable before getting housing is wrong. People need stability to get clean and sober.

    Heroin clinics for people that have failed getting clean multiple times have been proven to work and it takes away desperate customers from the drug dealers. And if addicts dont have to pay for their fix they are less likely to steal...

    Instead, churches provide most homeless services. And that sucks for a lot of people.

    That's my take on it anyways.

    Also, probably 75% of the chronic homeless people I see probably couldn't work enough to support themselves in this economy. Most are pretty disabled.

  17. #42
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    9,300ft
    Posts
    21,938
    This piece should win a pulitzer prize
    Quote Originally Posted by blurred
    skiing is hiking all day so that you can ski on shitty gear for 5 minutes.

  18. #43
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Upper Left, USA
    Posts
    2,151
    The komo story was a bit exaggerated but mostly accurate. Probably a few less on drugs and more just down n out, but yeah it's bad. I could go rustle up a tent or camper van within 2 blocks of my house if I wanted too. They need to let them all back in the jungle again..closing that made em spread out into the hoods.

    I don't care too much for cops but we could use a few more in this city.

    Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

  19. #44
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    On Vacation for the Duration
    Posts
    14,373
    Homeless population is an onion. Lots of layers. From where I sit it seems that fewer homeless seem to be living in hidden camps in the forests than 5 years ago. Don't see as many as I used to passing the house. I do see some leaving the city for the woods every spring to live in the woods. Don't know why the folks who live in tent at Camp 4 at the High Point exit with the rain and snow want to live there. Safety maybe? My wife volunteers at the library a lot and sees a few regulars and a small changing population of homeless using the computers. Couple of months back, a man living out of his car with his family was using the computers. Wife asks how is it going and he tells how he hurt his back, lost his job and his apartment. My wife said to him " Well I hope things will get better for you". Guy goes out the door than comes back in and says to my wife "Thanks for what you said. It's nice to know some people care. I needed that." Definitely married the right lady.
    A few people feel the rain. Most people just get wet.

  20. #45
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    panhandle locdog
    Posts
    7,836
    Quote Originally Posted by AK47bp View Post
    It is. I work in the U District and they are all over. Chain wallet type usually with a dog.
    Crustpunks is the term used often


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

  21. #46
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Posts
    3,262
    The nature of any community or society is determined by what the members of the society allow.
    -me
    Education must be the answer, we've tried ignorance and it doesn't work!

  22. #47
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Posts
    3,262
    Lived in Portland from 2005-2011. Didn't mind the homeless/rubber/or leather tramps too much until I had a kid. Did have to deal with them from time to time when trespassing in MY YARD or throwing bottles across the street towards my kid while he was playing outside. Have been known to personally escort people down to the river. Nice hike.

    Not sure the solution but I am in the camp thinking there is a problem. Went to a wedding in Bellingham and my brother was pretty sketched parking the rental near Pikes on way back. I thought he was nuts until we walked two blocks. We had some nice burgers where we could see the car from

    Again don't know the answer. Grew up in small hippy town in Nor Cal and if you pulled any shit you couldn't buy groceries at the store and we ran you out of town. Also very unfriendly to out of town streets urchims. Want to take drugs and drink, cool. Poop on the street, kick to the head as a warning
    Education must be the answer, we've tried ignorance and it doesn't work!

  23. #48
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Walpole NH
    Posts
    10,832
    God Damn I love New England.
    crab in my shoe mouth

  24. #49
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Posts
    498
    Quote Originally Posted by buttahflake View Post
    God Damn I love New England.
    Yeah, I heard New Hampshire has been very successful in avoiding the Opioid epidemic.
    /s

    The visibility of the homelessness/drug addiction problem in Seattle is disgusting and burdening. But I bet you would find NH healthcare workers, cops and businesses who are equally disgusted and burdened by having to deal with OD's and addicted communities.
    (NH mortality rate by opioids is second. Take heart though, you're not as bad as WV).

  25. #50
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Posts
    3,806
    Quote Originally Posted by tbssux View Post
    Yeah, I heard New Hampshire has been very successful in avoiding the Opioid epidemic.
    True dat, I lost someone very close to this 18 months ago. They aren't homeless and living in the streets however. Seems there is more than the "Opioid epidemic" going on out there..







Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •