Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

CaptainObvious110 t1_j93ldrs wrote

Reply to comment by sllewgh in Baltimore Sees Steep Drop in Unhoused Residents by real_human__bean

How many chronically homeless folks would you say are in Baltimore City? Also, what is the conditions of the shelter you have experience with? Percentagewise how many of those chronically homeless are due to severe chronic mental illnesses that realistically won't allow them to work even if medicated?

2

sllewgh t1_j93mzfk wrote

>How many chronically homeless folks would you say are in Baltimore City?

I don't claim to have an accurate number.

>Also, what is the conditions of the shelter you have experience with?

I've been fortunate enough to not have to utilize city shelters. My knowledge comes from talking with dozens of people who have. No hot water, no hot food, no social distancing, no hand soap... a huge lack of basic needs. These conditions existed before the pandemic, but they got a lot worse. Three weeks into lockdown we were distributing masks at Our Daily Bread and the employees came out to get them, too. They said no one from the city had contacted them, they didn't have supplies, and we were the first ones to actually provide any help to them whatsoever in that time.

>Percentagewise how many of those chronically homeless are due to severe chronic mental illnesses that realistically won't allow them to work even if medicated?

I don't have that information. I doubt it's very high. I do know off the top of my head that the majority of homeless folks are employed, which indicates to me that low wages and poor housing affordability are significant systemic factors, and it's not just individual issues at play.

3

CaptainObvious110 t1_j93smnr wrote

Ok, thanks so much! So let's say that 75% of the homeless population could be in a stable environment. That knocks things down quite a bit for people that need complete permanent help.

That's a lot of people that could be working and providing for themselves eventually. Not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be

2

sllewgh t1_j93unif wrote

Yeah, it's a common belief that most homeless folks are homeless because they have mental illness, drug addiction, or other issues besides a lack of housing. For sure these problems are much more prevalent in the homeless population than the general population, but as I said, systemic issues and housing affordability are huge factors. Fewer folks are aware of how many homeless people are working, but still unable to afford it.

The sort of widespread, visible, chronic homelessness we see today hasn't always existed in this country. Used to be that homelessness was something experienced by relatively few people and as a relatively short term problem. It really began to emerge in the 60s as public housing began to be dismantled. Since then, the HUD budget has been slashed by about 90%, and we've lost more units of public and subsidized housing than we currently have homeless people. There are many other factors as well, including the proliferation of addictive drugs in impoverished communities, the closing of sanitariums with no substitute, but the big one is that the market has failed to made housing affordable. We absolutely know how to solve this problem- we need to spend more money and make sure people have affordable housing, even if its not profitable to do so. There's just no political will to do it.

3

CaptainObvious110 t1_j93vui5 wrote

It's very sad that there is money that could solve this problem but that it's not being used for that purpose.

3

sllewgh t1_j93wg39 wrote

Agreed! Our system is cruel, it fails to meet people's needs, and it's in need of deep reform.

3

CaptainObvious110 t1_j98rj1q wrote

Yes it does. It's annoying to me that people that have the ability to make changes keep talking about it but don't ever really solve the problem. You don't have to do any studies, we know what the problem is, we know why it's that way and we know how to fix it. All that's left is actually doing it.

1