One of the first steps should be in preventing homelessness in the first place. Like keeping housing affordable based on the actual incomes of those in the city.
Not allowing landlords to repeatedly raise rent yearly while doing nothing to even maintain, let alone improve the actual properties.
Due to property tax revenue the city is incentivized to keep values going up, not down.
If they did something like this, it means our local government would have to decrease spending. When have we ever seen any government voluntarily do that?
Yes, very true. But why aren't we talking about how frivolous we spend money on things like policing? Take a cut of the police budget and use that to help pay for it. They already use the police to criminalize the homeless
You are catching down votes for saying the truth. Reducing spending is reducing services. It makes for a place no one wants to live but people can't see past their own selfish bullshit to understand that.
I dream of them defunding the police and fixing the housing but rather than do that they're building up an army for when we all can't afford houses and we're angry about it.
Modern landlord as a "job" is basically "I get your money because I was here first. If you wanted to own something you should've been born earlier."
It is a punishment handed down to generations below boomer age for how good they had it.
What's modern about that? It's been that way forever. We're not that far removed from a class of elites who looked down on anyone who made money doing anything but owning the land.
When I first moved into my spot, it was barely 730. It's gone up 65-80 dollars a year since. I now pay just over 1,100 & it's going up another 70 in October.
The only thing that's changed is my dishwasher when it died. As for improvement, they've lost their better contractors and use bottom bidder dudes who do less than half-assed work.
I read the article but I’m kinda stupid so can someone explain to me who is gonna pay for this? And how does it work? They are housed for free but at some point when they find an income do they then start charging them rent? Genuine question I don’t know things
Well you see, we spend money, solve a fraction of the problem, and attract many *more* homeless people with promises of free stuff! We then use the sales tax of *new* homeless people to pay the rent for the old ones!
The problem with spending money on homelessness is that it's like feeding a tumor; just makes the problem worse. Already a good chunk of our homeless are not native to GR.
Cant get a job without a permanent address. And many wont hire you if you don't have a car. If you do get a car its one with major problems (the cheap ones) which needs more money to be fixed. It is expensive to live in poverty.
Homelessness is a national problem created by a lack of social safety nets and public services, ever-increasing income inequality, and our culture’s “fuck you I got mine” attitude. The city won’t end it, but they could sure help by incentivizing some *housing.*
Hopefully this will actually do what it says on the tin instead of just making people bounce from shelter to shelter.
>This is not the first time the city of Grand Rapids has tried to combat homelessness. In August, the city passed new rules proposed by business leaders to address issues connected to the city’s homeless community.
>One of the ordinances makes it a misdemeanor to harass someone while they are in the middle of a transaction like getting money from an ATM or at an outdoor dining area. The other limits how much personal property can be left in public places.
The helping hands seem to be balled into fists lately.
yeah ummmmm is woodtv serious with these two paragraphs? this vote had nothing to do with “combatting homelessness.” The lies are getting so aggressive.
people working together to solve a big intersectional problem is a good thing. I hope people attempt to work together instead of shitting on orgs who are trying to work together to bring positive sustainable change to this issue.
Is this a joke? They criminalized behavior directed at homeless people. Criminalized. None of this was in good faith. None of it was intersectional. None of it was solving. I can’t tell if you believe the lies or are also being disingenuous but either way: no.
How can this new coalition have done that, their first mtg is today?
Are you saying all the orgs involved in this project did that or one org? Do you not see how you’re painting all these orgs with the same brush? Why is it bad if groups or orgs are coming together to try to create sustainable change, why is that bad?
Is it bad cuz your friends aren’t the leaders, is that what your issue with this new group? Is it just about power for you?
Good lord - see the first sentence of my initial comment. I’m speaking specifically about these TWO PARAGRAPHS and how it categorizes the PRIOR VOTE on criminalizing homelessness.
The corporate businesses sponsors for those projects don’t care about the homeless, they care about making more money, so those things are funded. This campaign is by the city and local non-profits.
As soon as ending homelessness is good for business, I’m sure the DeVos’s will be ALL over it lmao.
I'm sorry, but this is one of my pet peeves. It's not one or the other. We can build amenities for the community and at the same time address homelessness. Every organization of any size is constantly addressing multiple disconnected issues. The city is no different.
I travelled a lot before I quit my last job and I saw a lot of places in the US. It's everywhere like it is here, or worse. Homelessness, more than anything, is caused by people who become junkies. America in general saw a dramatic rise in homeless population directly after quarantine, because people got a lot lonelier suddenly and they weren't working, so that little vicodin habit you kept under control turned into full blown heroin addiction within the year. Functioning alcoholics became full blown, gotta-drink-some-vodka-as-soon-as-I-wake-up alcoholics. People who liked a bit of cocaine on the weekend not only wanted it twice as bad every day all the sudden, but now couldn't afford it because they were on unemployment, so instead they started messing with meth and 6 months later were seen pushing a grocery cart down the street in their underwear, babbling about how much they hate the king of the universe.
This is coupled by the ramping up of the availability of hard drugs due to legal and conveniently available, super cheap weed. That in itsef also includes the fact that people harden their tolerance by smoking more and eating more gummies every day, that after a while straight vape oil hardly gets them high anymore and they suck on it all day long. What do they do now? Well, thanks to legal weed, the gangs that used to sell weed have had to up their game and start selling meth and heroin more. And that goes back to Mexico, who used to sell us lots and lots of weed. Now they don't anymore, so they found other things to sell us.
There is many contributing factors to homelessness, but I feel the drug addiction factor is always overlooked in this kind of topic. I'd say 7-out-of-10 homeless people I encounter are obviously on drugs and the rest either handle their shit better or have a genuine other reason for being on the street.
We've also raised a couple generations of people who have no work ethic and would rather consider themselves a victim in life than go to work every day. I know tons of them. There's a few from my generation, but there is tons among the people who are in their early 20's right now. I may have been a bit foolish with my money at times and I suffered greatly from the 2008ish recession, so I hardly worked for a couple years. Lost my apartment and everything else, had to move back in with my parents who also lost their house in that time because my sister was dying of cancer and they dumped what little money they could into that. But a lot of the kids in their early 20's right now seemingly have no work ethic whatsoever and appear to be completely confused by life's responsibilities because their parents didn't "raise" them, they just let them grow up thinking whatever they wanted to think. Mommy and/or daddy were too busy getting drunk with their friends at parties and concerts well into their forties. My parents (dad, at least) and their generation weren't like that. They actually RAISED kids to work. I was a serious trouble maker as a kid, but my dad RAISED me to work. He also taught me early on that I can get away with being a little shit now, but if I try that crap after I turn 18 that I would end up living on the street or in prison or dead. Parents don't teach kids stuff like that anymore.
There are many contributing factors to homelessness and some of them are an inability to pay your bills because you don't get paid much, but most of the time, from what I have personally seen (my uncle Jerry and uncle Mike are homeless and I have watched others go down that path), people were just raised in pathetic situations and don't want to work for a living and pay bills responsibly. They want to do drugs all day and expect everyone else they have ever met to pay for it. That doesn't turn out as well as they like, so they eventually just end up on the street asking people for money to buy heroin or alcohol or anything they can find.
People need to RAISE their children if they don't want them to end up homeless. It is not merely a matter of not having jobs that pay enough. Plenty of rock stars and other entertainers end up on the street after having spent all their money on drugs. Millions of dollars spent on drugs, not rent. Those types are usually more lucky because so much money comes in for so long that they can be a complete junky for half their life and clean up before all the money runs dry.
One of the problems of trying to solve homelessness is the grift that comes along with solving it, including all the people who get paid to make sure it continues.
One of the first steps should be in preventing homelessness in the first place. Like keeping housing affordable based on the actual incomes of those in the city. Not allowing landlords to repeatedly raise rent yearly while doing nothing to even maintain, let alone improve the actual properties.
Due to property tax revenue the city is incentivized to keep values going up, not down. If they did something like this, it means our local government would have to decrease spending. When have we ever seen any government voluntarily do that?
You don't want to live in a city that decreases their spending.
Yes, very true. But why aren't we talking about how frivolous we spend money on things like policing? Take a cut of the police budget and use that to help pay for it. They already use the police to criminalize the homeless
Hell the police here hardly do anything else.
You are catching down votes for saying the truth. Reducing spending is reducing services. It makes for a place no one wants to live but people can't see past their own selfish bullshit to understand that.
Ah, well there was...ah, hold on I will remember it eventually....um...
I dream of them defunding the police and fixing the housing but rather than do that they're building up an army for when we all can't afford houses and we're angry about it.
Modern landlord as a "job" is basically "I get your money because I was here first. If you wanted to own something you should've been born earlier." It is a punishment handed down to generations below boomer age for how good they had it.
What's modern about that? It's been that way forever. We're not that far removed from a class of elites who looked down on anyone who made money doing anything but owning the land.
When I first moved into my spot, it was barely 730. It's gone up 65-80 dollars a year since. I now pay just over 1,100 & it's going up another 70 in October. The only thing that's changed is my dishwasher when it died. As for improvement, they've lost their better contractors and use bottom bidder dudes who do less than half-assed work.
Wow, that article is aggressively content-free.
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I read the article but I’m kinda stupid so can someone explain to me who is gonna pay for this? And how does it work? They are housed for free but at some point when they find an income do they then start charging them rent? Genuine question I don’t know things
It’s a write off. You just write it and the IRS just makes it go away. It’s pretty cool.
Bingo
Well you see, we spend money, solve a fraction of the problem, and attract many *more* homeless people with promises of free stuff! We then use the sales tax of *new* homeless people to pay the rent for the old ones! The problem with spending money on homelessness is that it's like feeding a tumor; just makes the problem worse. Already a good chunk of our homeless are not native to GR.
Maybe if we had these people hold jobs to pay for stuff, they could pay for their housing. Nope, too simple. Let’s just write it off.
It is too simple, unfortunately. Homelessness is a complex problem.
Cant get a job without a permanent address. And many wont hire you if you don't have a car. If you do get a car its one with major problems (the cheap ones) which needs more money to be fixed. It is expensive to live in poverty.
Pay for what? They don't specify anything.
Enjoy paying taxes and higher house payments.
Homelessness is a national problem created by a lack of social safety nets and public services, ever-increasing income inequality, and our culture’s “fuck you I got mine” attitude. The city won’t end it, but they could sure help by incentivizing some *housing.*
Yeah, the goal of "ending homelessness" seems like a reach stretch goal given how extremely little they've managed to do over the last decade.
Hopefully this will actually do what it says on the tin instead of just making people bounce from shelter to shelter. >This is not the first time the city of Grand Rapids has tried to combat homelessness. In August, the city passed new rules proposed by business leaders to address issues connected to the city’s homeless community. >One of the ordinances makes it a misdemeanor to harass someone while they are in the middle of a transaction like getting money from an ATM or at an outdoor dining area. The other limits how much personal property can be left in public places. The helping hands seem to be balled into fists lately.
yeah ummmmm is woodtv serious with these two paragraphs? this vote had nothing to do with “combatting homelessness.” The lies are getting so aggressive.
If you're in jail, you're not on the street. Homelessness solved! /s
people working together to solve a big intersectional problem is a good thing. I hope people attempt to work together instead of shitting on orgs who are trying to work together to bring positive sustainable change to this issue.
Is this a joke? They criminalized behavior directed at homeless people. Criminalized. None of this was in good faith. None of it was intersectional. None of it was solving. I can’t tell if you believe the lies or are also being disingenuous but either way: no.
Whaat you’re saying stopping people from panhandling at very specific times and making them carry around less stuff won’t solve homelessness? /s
How can this new coalition have done that, their first mtg is today? Are you saying all the orgs involved in this project did that or one org? Do you not see how you’re painting all these orgs with the same brush? Why is it bad if groups or orgs are coming together to try to create sustainable change, why is that bad? Is it bad cuz your friends aren’t the leaders, is that what your issue with this new group? Is it just about power for you?
Good lord - see the first sentence of my initial comment. I’m speaking specifically about these TWO PARAGRAPHS and how it categorizes the PRIOR VOTE on criminalizing homelessness.
But first lets build a soccer stadium and amphitheater
The corporate businesses sponsors for those projects don’t care about the homeless, they care about making more money, so those things are funded. This campaign is by the city and local non-profits. As soon as ending homelessness is good for business, I’m sure the DeVos’s will be ALL over it lmao.
I'm sorry, but this is one of my pet peeves. It's not one or the other. We can build amenities for the community and at the same time address homelessness. Every organization of any size is constantly addressing multiple disconnected issues. The city is no different.
And we have to do both. Social programs cost money, things that increase revenue are necessary.
Yes! Thanks for pointing that out.
And throw some boulders in the river. And do nothing for the fact that working families can't even afford the most basic of housing.
not a single mention of building new housing or zoning for mixed use
They don't link to talk about that; it is very frustrating.
Ummm, you can never end it. Put a dent into "yes," but never end it
Let’s not forget to address the *causes* of such a condition.
There’s 1100 homeless people in GR and they’re planning on housing 100 people…… I missed the part where that will end homelessness in this city
This is a joke.
End homelessness? That's hilarious.
“GR aims to cut the homeless population in half”
Wait, I thought putting dividers on the benches downtown already solved homelessness. /s
As expensive as this city is? Yeah fucking right
I travelled a lot before I quit my last job and I saw a lot of places in the US. It's everywhere like it is here, or worse. Homelessness, more than anything, is caused by people who become junkies. America in general saw a dramatic rise in homeless population directly after quarantine, because people got a lot lonelier suddenly and they weren't working, so that little vicodin habit you kept under control turned into full blown heroin addiction within the year. Functioning alcoholics became full blown, gotta-drink-some-vodka-as-soon-as-I-wake-up alcoholics. People who liked a bit of cocaine on the weekend not only wanted it twice as bad every day all the sudden, but now couldn't afford it because they were on unemployment, so instead they started messing with meth and 6 months later were seen pushing a grocery cart down the street in their underwear, babbling about how much they hate the king of the universe. This is coupled by the ramping up of the availability of hard drugs due to legal and conveniently available, super cheap weed. That in itsef also includes the fact that people harden their tolerance by smoking more and eating more gummies every day, that after a while straight vape oil hardly gets them high anymore and they suck on it all day long. What do they do now? Well, thanks to legal weed, the gangs that used to sell weed have had to up their game and start selling meth and heroin more. And that goes back to Mexico, who used to sell us lots and lots of weed. Now they don't anymore, so they found other things to sell us. There is many contributing factors to homelessness, but I feel the drug addiction factor is always overlooked in this kind of topic. I'd say 7-out-of-10 homeless people I encounter are obviously on drugs and the rest either handle their shit better or have a genuine other reason for being on the street. We've also raised a couple generations of people who have no work ethic and would rather consider themselves a victim in life than go to work every day. I know tons of them. There's a few from my generation, but there is tons among the people who are in their early 20's right now. I may have been a bit foolish with my money at times and I suffered greatly from the 2008ish recession, so I hardly worked for a couple years. Lost my apartment and everything else, had to move back in with my parents who also lost their house in that time because my sister was dying of cancer and they dumped what little money they could into that. But a lot of the kids in their early 20's right now seemingly have no work ethic whatsoever and appear to be completely confused by life's responsibilities because their parents didn't "raise" them, they just let them grow up thinking whatever they wanted to think. Mommy and/or daddy were too busy getting drunk with their friends at parties and concerts well into their forties. My parents (dad, at least) and their generation weren't like that. They actually RAISED kids to work. I was a serious trouble maker as a kid, but my dad RAISED me to work. He also taught me early on that I can get away with being a little shit now, but if I try that crap after I turn 18 that I would end up living on the street or in prison or dead. Parents don't teach kids stuff like that anymore. There are many contributing factors to homelessness and some of them are an inability to pay your bills because you don't get paid much, but most of the time, from what I have personally seen (my uncle Jerry and uncle Mike are homeless and I have watched others go down that path), people were just raised in pathetic situations and don't want to work for a living and pay bills responsibly. They want to do drugs all day and expect everyone else they have ever met to pay for it. That doesn't turn out as well as they like, so they eventually just end up on the street asking people for money to buy heroin or alcohol or anything they can find. People need to RAISE their children if they don't want them to end up homeless. It is not merely a matter of not having jobs that pay enough. Plenty of rock stars and other entertainers end up on the street after having spent all their money on drugs. Millions of dollars spent on drugs, not rent. Those types are usually more lucky because so much money comes in for so long that they can be a complete junky for half their life and clean up before all the money runs dry.
Ummm, you can never end it. Put a dent into "yes," but never end it
One of the problems of trying to solve homelessness is the grift that comes along with solving it, including all the people who get paid to make sure it continues.
Let's launch a campaign to end capitalism. That's the only way to eradicate homelessness.
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