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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_itv8zwt wrote

And this is exactly what this sub and many folks fail to understand / ignore about the homelessness crisis in New York. The folks that make up the street homeless causing crime or with untreated mental illness are the vast minority of homeless individuals. Yet folks often present them as the norm.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_itvm581 wrote

>The folks that make up the street homeless causing crime or with untreated mental illness are the vast minority of homeless individuals.

That's part of why it doesn't make sense.

If it's such a small fraction of homeless who are mentally ill, severe drug abusers and/or violent causing so much grievance, why is there so much resistance to address it in more targeted and effective ways?

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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_itvm8h8 wrote

Because the city / state don’t like tackling difficult problems and lack the ability to lead or think critically

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Evening_Presence_927 t1_itxf45c wrote

No, it’s because the mayor is a pig who thinks such targeted policies are “socialism”

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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_itxfrp3 wrote

It’s actually cheaper to address the problem this way though so even as a capitalist he’s failing

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Evening_Presence_927 t1_itxgkvj wrote

You’d think right.

We asked for this when we collectively went “muh crime” and voted in an ex-cop with delusions of grandeur.

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elizabeth-cooper t1_itvngav wrote

You can't effectively help people who don't want to be helped.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_itw0kcd wrote

Some people need to be helped.

But what is unsaid is that the individual is often not the only person who needs that help to happen. The public also needs it.

If it’s only for the individual’s benefit, maybe there’s a liberty/freedom argument here that they should be allowed to refuse help.

But in many of those cases, the need is also in the public interest.

And the balance of one individuals rights and the public’s rights need to enter into consideration.

In many of the cases we often hear about, I don’t think they should be allowed to refuse help.

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09-24-11 t1_itxfjwy wrote

There are mental hygiene laws in place against involuntary hospitalizations for a reason. It is a very slippery slope to have untrained mental health professionals (police) having the power to involuntarily bring someone to inpatient mental health facilities. The hospitals also don’t have the beds to house everyone, so a lot are discharged from triage right back to the streets.

It’s not a question of whether or not someone wants the accept the help. We already have laws and procedures in place for those people. Enforcing, processing and placing those people, is the challenge. Police need more credits in clinical mental health, we need more hospitals beds, DAs and public defenders who will work to process these cases, and safe, sanitary, and audited long term housing for these people.

TLDR: We need more money going to the right places.

  • Mental health worker for over 10 years.
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Menacing_Quokka t1_itvad1o wrote

But how can I make myself feel morally superior without demonizing the homeless?

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iamiamwhoami t1_itwjdqp wrote

And it’s why the tough on crime folks will do nothing to solve the problem. If elected the only thing that will change are the headlines of the NYPost. This is fundamentally a housing problem.

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redditing_1L t1_itvbjuu wrote

More than 104,000 public school students in New York City were homeless during the last school year, according to new data released Wednesday, a number that grew even as overall enrollment in the city’s public schools declined.

Nearly one in 10 students in New York City lived in shelters, doubled up with other families, or in cars, abandoned buildings or outside as the city grapples with a housing shortage and affordability crisis. The data did not include the influx of recently arrived homeless migrant children.

The number of students in temporary housing grew by 3 percent over the prior year and has surpassed six figures for seven consecutive school years, posing steep challenges for the administration of Mayor Eric Adams. The city is grappling with how to help its most vulnerable children recover from pandemic learning losses while also integrating the more than 6,000 additional homeless students who have enrolled in city schools over the past four months.

The vast majority of the newest group of students are immigrants from Central and South America who were bused to New York City from Texas after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. They have strained a system where immigrant students have often struggled.

Jennifer Pringle, who works at Advocates for Children of New York, a nonprofit that collects the data on homeless students annually, said that the system must meet the needs of the newcomers, “while not losing sight of the longstanding issues” facing local children who are homeless.

“If we want to break this intergenerational cycle of poverty and homelessness, we have to make sure we’re prioritizing education of students in temporary housing,” said Ms. Pringle, the director of the organization’s Learners in Temporary Housing project. “The outcomes are just awful, and without a coordinated, targeted response, we’re not going to see a change.”

While other large cities have similar rates of homelessness among students — in Los Angeles, for example, it is 11 percent — New York City’s vast size puts the problem on a different scale. The number of homeless students in New York has swelled from roughly 78,000 a decade ago to more than 114,650 at its peak in 2018, about the same size as the entire public school system of Philadelphia.

About 30,000 students lived in shelters. But about 69,000 children were doubled up with other families, and 5,500 other young people lived in cars, parks or abandoned buildings, meaning they were likely to have less access to social services and other supports provided in the shelter system.

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redditing_1L t1_itvbmpu wrote

Many students living in temporary housing struggled with staggering educational challenges during the pandemic, as they often could no longer rely on school buildings for crucial services like counseling. Some attended classes remotely from shelters that lacked reliable internet access.

More than six in 10 homeless children living in shelters were defined as “chronically absent” last year, which means they missed at least 10 percent of school days, more than double the rate of their peers in permanent housing. Even during more normal times, homeless students often face disruption, sometimes commuting long distances to their schools and transferring to new ones as they bounce between living situations, even though a federal law gives them the right to remain in the same school when they move.

The regular upheaval hurts their academic performance: Only 60 percent of homeless high school students living in shelters graduate in four years. Their high school drop out rate is three times higher than that of students in stable housing.

New York City schools could soon receive a boost in funding for each student they enroll who lives in temporary housing, after a city task force signaled it might propose changing the formula for distributing funds to city schools. The current formula attaches extra money to several groups, including students with disabilities and those learning English as a new language, but it is “missing some special populations,” said Sheree Gibson, a member of the task force, at a recent public meeting in Queens.

The task force will make its recommendations to the schools chancellor, David C. Banks, this month, and the decision about whether to change the formula lies with him. It is unclear if changes will become effective before funding for the next school year is calculated.

Mr. Banks has already agreed to hire 100 staff members to work in shelters this year and to help families get their children to school more often. Still, several top staff roles in the office of the city’s Education Department that oversees students in temporary housing are vacant, including the executive director who exited recently.

Suzan Sumer, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement that no work to support students with unique needs “will be disrupted while we navigate a period of transition.” Officials have already started the hiring process for the new shelter-based jobs, Ms. Sumer said, and expect to begin on-boarding new staff members soon.

The highest rate of student homelessness is in the southwest Bronx, where more than one in 5 students lived in temporary housing at some point last school year.

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redditing_1L t1_itvboa2 wrote

But Queens saw the greatest uptick in the number of homeless students, with a rise of more than 12 percent, the data shows. In District 24, which includes the Corona and Elmhurst neighborhoods, an area that became an early epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic and that is receiving many of the new migrants, the number rose by nearly 22 percent.

The more than 6,000 new homeless students, of which at least 5,500 are recently arrived migrant children living in shelters, have brought fresh challenges to the system. With many learning English as a new language, some schools have struggled to find enough bilingual teachers and social workers to meet their needs. School officials have said that they are working to add more of those staff members, and create new programs for English-language learners.

Nicole Cisuentes is among the new arrivals. A third-grader whose family arrived in the country from Colombia last month, Nicole has enrolled at the Helen M. Marshall School in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, where more than 40 percent of students were English-language learners last year.

But her mother, Julieth Murillo, was eager for her to learn English, so Nicole initially joined a classroom where only English was spoken.

Ms. Murillo said the adjustment was rocky. “She came home with nothing in her notebooks,” she said, and was not always welcomed by other students. About two weeks ago, Ms. Murillo moved Nicole into a dual language class taught in both Spanish and English.

“Now she’s really happy,” Ms. Murillo said in Spanish. “Everything is going really well, thankfully.”

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pokemin49 t1_itwzrkz wrote

Thanks liberals.

−23

redditing_1L t1_itx36mp wrote

You might be right but I’ll bet anything for the wrong reasons.

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vbm923 t1_itz16eg wrote

Right cause Giuliani totally ended homelessness /s

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centuryblessings t1_itv6y3e wrote

I want to read this, does anyone have a transcript?

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IAmGoingToSleepNow t1_itvi29e wrote

> But about 69,000 children were doubled up with other families,

Not to downplay the severity of child homelessness, but this seems like a stretch. My family lived with my brother's family for a few years. In Westchester, in a 4000sqft home. But they would have been considered homeless?

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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_itvizyv wrote

You really think that’s the norm of the 69,000? Lower income people living in overcrowded apartments in the city are a very well documented event.

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elizabeth-cooper t1_itvnm83 wrote

Regardless of whether that's the norm, unless you're suggesting that all the single adults who live with roommates are actually homeless because they couldn't afford an apartment otherwise, doubled up families may be overcrowded, but they're not homeless.

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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_itvnt16 wrote

They would be housing insecure. And my point is the vast majority of these people would likely fit that definition by any reasonable standard. Neighborhoods in the city are filled with 2 bedrooms housing 10 people and multiple families

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IAmGoingToSleepNow t1_itwgvc9 wrote

Being 'housing insecure' is not being homeless. They are not using that definition to define homeless. Not sure why you can't stay on topic. By your measure, nearly everyone is homeless because the high cost of housing.

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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_itwkbsj wrote

Bold claiming that under an article that literally makes that point repeatedly and in a city / state that uses the definitions referenced in the article.

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IAmGoingToSleepNow t1_itwr0d2 wrote

Where does the article state housing insecure?

How can a family be 'housing insecure,' ie. homeless, and still have full protection of the law as a tenant? So they are both homeless and a tenant?

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elizabeth-cooper t1_itvrqsv wrote

I mean, that's what this sub wants - a return to the tenement era. One person gets a coat closet, 10 people get a walk-in closet.

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IAmGoingToSleepNow t1_itvnkbb wrote

Did I say it was the norm?

Quantifying living with other people as homeless is padding the numbers. You use the word 'overcrowded', but I don't see it anywhere in their documentation. That is not a prerequisite to being 'homeless,' according to the Advocates for Children of New York.

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Scout-Penguin t1_itxiozh wrote

This is the Federally-mandated definition of "homeless" in the education context - it's not padding, it's the measurement that Congress told the states they had to use.

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bangsnailsandbeats t1_itvrou1 wrote

> Lower income people living in overcrowded apartments

That’s the very definition of being not homeless.

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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_itvuizr wrote

It’s very much not. Often housing insecure is included as it’s a large problem that can lead to people bouncing between homes and in and out do shelters or even on the street.

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thesecondtolastman t1_itwivjz wrote

Came here to point the exact same thing out. It seems almost intentionally misleading without any clarifying context on how they define a doubled up family. If you live with a Grandmother, are you doubled up? A cousin? How is this number counted and are we muddling definitions with these broad inclusions?

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Double-Ad4986 t1_itxdv0v wrote

i was thinking more like the kindergarten student i had one year who was living in a 3 bedroom apt but only sharing 1 room sith her baby sister and mom while the other rooms were occupied by strangers

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muderphudder t1_itwqbr9 wrote

Children are more likely to live in poverty than any other age group in the United States. I work in healthcare and frequently reflect on this when seeing some of the absolutely fixable problems that affect children and young people.

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dq9 t1_itvwnor wrote

Capitalism is in full effect and working as intended.

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elizabeth-cooper t1_itwh6se wrote

>“I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,” Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen said.

>“The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish,” he added.

https://www.thelocal.dk/20151101/danish-pm-in-us-denmark-is-not-socialist/

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mission17 t1_itwl7bk wrote

The Nordic model is capitalist. But it’s clearly magnitudes more in line with the ideals of socialism than the style of capitalism we embrace domestically.

But if American conservatives want to claim the Nordic model as a capitalist ideal now, I’m all for that.

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k1lk1 t1_itw9ifa wrote

Non-capitalist societies leave people way worse off. Such paradises don't exist. They are a figment of the imagination of naive children.

Even the much vaunted European social democracies are underpinned by robust capitalist economies. Skimming off the top of a capitalist economy, to provide for social welfare, is the smart way to do things.

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froggythefish t1_itymulq wrote

Look up the homelessness rate in Cuba, buddy (~0%). Then look up any other statistic, including life expectancy. Or home ownership rate, which is 90%. Cuba, statistically, is pretty close to the “leftist utopia”, and they got that far despite being a poor Caribbean country under an embargo. Education, healthcare, Cuba has many rich western nations beat. Imagine what they could do if the embargo was lifted?

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Misommar1246 t1_iu1kn2u wrote

Cuba? What’s next, NK? I bet they don’t have homelessness either. And yet you don’t see people clamoring to immigrate to either country, how strange.

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froggythefish t1_iu20gv8 wrote

I can’t find many statistics on NK. I can find plenty of statistics on Cuba. I have no clue how NK is doing. But if you’re curious about NK in general, there is a mini documentary on youtube called “we went to North Korea to get a haircut” which is fairly eye opening.

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yetanotherspaceguy t1_ityntsk wrote

I can’t tell if this is a joke or not. First try actually going to Cuba, then venture a bit outside whatever city you flew into (e.g. cienfuegos, trinidad). Hilarious to see people on the internet quote statistics like this (that are at best misrepresentative but more likely straight up inaccurate) and who have absolutely no idea what the reality of life is like there. Or maybe try talking to someone who came from there. I would imagine North Korea is comparable on all the measures you listed. I feel sort of bad that you’ve been duped by some propaganda piece that you read online, but unfortunately you won’t be the first or the last.

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froggythefish t1_ityo6yf wrote

So essentially, you’re just denying statistics. The statistics show people actually living in Cuba, are doing just fine. Especially when compared to the poorer capitalist countries in South America and africa, constantly in civil war and extreme poverty. In most leftist ideologies, most people will live an average life, perhaps without many luxuries. In capitalism, some people will do very well, like in Europe or America, and others will be subject to total misery and suffering.

You seem to be very misguided in general but interested in the topic, so I suggest you read the book “the conquest of bread”. You won’t need to buy it, it’s available for free on the anarchist library. It has nothing to do with this conversation, but you sound like you might like it.

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yetanotherspaceguy t1_itzriva wrote

Not so much denying statistics as saying that they are extremely misrepresentative of what life is like in Cuba, and it’s clear that anyone who thinks otherwise has never actually been there. It’s not really a competition about who is living a better life in abject poverty, but if it were you certainly would likely prefer to be in any of the poorer capitalist countries you mention. I appreciate any recommendations for reading material though, I’ll check it out. Since you seem to be impressionable, here’s some light reading for you: https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/6/755/5035051

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froggythefish t1_iu21y3q wrote

This article you sent is hilarious.

Ok so they start off immediately by saying basically that since Cuba is an outlier in infant mortality, and they are doing too well, they must be lying. They also say that it makes little sense Cuba can be so poor yet have such good healthcare, though they correct this statement later on. In another paragraph, they say that Cuba limiting car ownership artificially increases life expectancy by 1: lowering car crashes and 2: forcing people to exercise by biking or walking. how is that a bad thing lmfao. They go on to claim that since Cuba has a very high abortion rate, the infant mortality rate is artificially lowered by aborting even slightly risky births. This is silly. Cuba provided free safe abortions, that is why the abortion rate is so high. This article is just a bunch of strawmans and assumptions, trying to make a point that just isn’t there.

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yetanotherspaceguy t1_iu23tkz wrote

I don’t think you really understand the meaning of “strawmans” (or basic statistics for that matter), but you have otherwise completely missed the point and it’s not really worth arguing over.

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frogvscrab t1_iu0nogt wrote

I really wish that people realized this when talking about homelessness. Most homeless are not the chronically homeless people you see on the street. They are often people down on their luck, who will go through maybe a few weeks or months of not having a home.

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TwoCats_OneMan t1_itxtuth wrote

Round of applause to their parents for:

  1. Having children they can't support.

  2. Staying in the most expensive city in the world.

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vbm923 t1_itz1d8j wrote

Ah yes. Let’s punish children because they were born to poor parents. Stupid kids. Be born rich next time!

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Afectionatecrstysock t1_iudyrfp wrote

"the most expensive city in the world" yeah,everyone in new York City lives in midtown Manhattan. There's no other boroughs or housing options besides billionaires row /s

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Locutus_Picard t1_itzfijk wrote

What about those tent cities for migrants. Look pretty comfy compared to living on the street. Even have Xboxes!

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genius96 t1_iu62rmr wrote

Meanwhile people in SoHo lose their shit if they get a homeless shelter in their neighborhood. Housing first is the compassionate, fiscally conservative way to solve this. Same laws and processes that hinder private construction, hinder affordable construction even more.

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FukEveryMod t1_itw8a55 wrote

More cops and cameras in the subway will fix this

−1

Meedad t1_itx3g59 wrote

That’s why Adams found $Billion for migrants

−2

WildMikeGreen38 t1_itvvnvv wrote

All the parents should be arrested for child neglect.

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vbm923 t1_itz1g5k wrote

Cause parents control run away food and housing costs. Ok. Right.

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WildMikeGreen38 t1_itzsdsi wrote

So do you want the kids to stay on the street?

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vbm923 t1_itztccz wrote

No. I don’t want to criminalize poverty like you do. That’s unspeakably cruel. Lose your job and the state takes you kid? What the fuck is wrong with you?

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WildMikeGreen38 t1_itzu6p7 wrote

So you want kids to stay on the street with parents who don't care.

0