I'm a senior on fixed income, I am homeless because of the price of rent and not being able to qualify due to not enough income for three times the rent requred plus deposit, first and last month rent. I have no family or children. I live in an RV on a friend's property, otherwise I would have no place to park. RV parks have become unaffordable. I worked, was a homeowner, never used drugs, and my homelessness is absolutely because of my inability to afford today's rent prices.
The opening is like standup comedy. Great start Michael. There are so many very poor people who cope very well. I crawled on a clay floor as a toddler. I and five other grandchildren of my father’s parents gained tertiary degrees.
Same. He puts into words what I haven’t been able to. He’s respectable, smart af, and does the work for us and then breaks it down in a language we can digest. He is a human anti anxiety tonic. We may actually have a fighting chance bc of this important TRUTHTELLER.
35:30 Jesus, have mercy….praying for the evil of addiction to be lifted away. Pray that they want to heal. Praying for the angels to protect them. In Jesus’ holy name, I pray. Amen. My heart is breaking.
Good information nurse tor 30+ yrs and the drug addict will tell you they don't want to get off the streets. Another huge piece you covered is no mental health care same pts just keep cycling back through, they get their meds lined out get out until they run out of meds come back in. Glad to see someone with spotlight on them saying what we have been seeing, thank you
Local Community Services Boards and mental health have become big government business, as have Equity and environmental and energy programs that combat climate change.
I am 71 and originally from NJ. I can tell you what initiated the closures of the asylums because I distinctly remember the story. Geraldo Rivera was a new up and coming reporter in NY. He did an story on a young man who had MS (I believe) and was mistakenly placed in an asylum. I do not remember how Geraldo came across this story but he was the reporter that broke it. The investigation ended up also exposing the poor conditions in the asylums. This led the crusade to close all of the asylums. Admittedly the conditions were horrendous but instead of addressing the issue of the conditions and cleaning them up, they took the over the top action of closing them without considering the serious consequences of such action . Even as a teenager I thought I did not think this would end well. Now it is virtually impossible to get a person committed.
I see and agree with every observation Shellenberger makes with the exception of one thing he said which was something to the effect that poverty is falling in the west. I like his boots on the ground empirical approach and would encourage him to get back out there and talk to people because with everyone I meet and know the dollar is becoming weaker and weaker without our employers even offering a cost of living increase. I don't think poverty causes addiction but it sure as heck can make that kind of escape appealing to a certain kind of person
Thank you, dear Mike. As a Soviet Union « survivor » I can’t be more grateful for your brilliant mind and bravery fighting the regenerating Marxist cults. ❤ 👏👏👏
I know of homeless shelters which won't admit people who are high or drunk. These places are at capacity and the people there are living sober lives. Do you ever seek interviews with the sober unhoused population?
47:55 - No, it should NOT be done by people with masters degrees. Those people have proven they aren't capable. It should be done by people who don't get paid if they don't cause a real, measurable improvement.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Martin Luther King, Jr. The utter ignorance of these activists is obscene.
As a recovering person, after speaking with thousands of alcoholics and addicts over the past 35 years, it’s clear that pretty much the only reason someone stops drinking or using is their fear of consequences. Current programs remove most consequences, thereby supporting continued usage and eventual death of the alcoholic or addict. That is not compassion, that is evil.
For years I’ve been telling my American friends, that to call these people homeless (or as they are politely called now unhoused) is a hypocrisy. They are on the streets by choice. I personally know some well to do families, whose kids ended up on a streets because of the drug addiction. I hope the problem will be finally addressed. Thank you, Michael for speaking up.
I’m glad people are finally having this conversation. The theory that a regular person just drags a tent onto the sidewalk instead of moving to a less expensive city is frankly laughable. I can’t believe they convinced us all that this is how it worked for years. If you live in downtown San Francisco you see firsthand that it’s clearly a fentanyl problem.
Same. My very privileged darling nephew was holding a sign at a freeway off-ramp I was on. I thought, “ that’s the cutest homeless person I’ve ever seen.” As I got closer, I screamed,”OH MY GOD ITS CHARLIE!” Charlie HATES being sober . He’s tried, my god we’ve all tried. His dad owns a construction company an wants Charlie to take over the business. His mom??? That’s a sad situation; she’s a lovely stay at home mom, devoted wife, sweet mother, kindest soul; her anguish is palpable. She’ll never stop trying to help him that’s an impossible choice.
My mom kicked me out at 15 I didn't do drugs cps said I was to old for them to help me my mother was depressed and had borderline personality disorder. I wasn't allowed to work over 20 hours nobody wanted to hire me because a minor can't even wash a knife couldn't rent an apartment . Maybe you don't know as much as you think you know about this stuff but like in science sometimes people see what they want to see to shore up what they want to believe. We have the highest cost of living about double what the 1970s was
The problem is that no one wants to address the homelessness amongst people working full time jobs or seniors. We are the unseen homeless and there are millions of us.
@@esava44 average rents for a 1-bedroom apartment in Canada are now between $1200-$2800/mo., depending on the province. I dare you to tell me that you wouldn't be homeless if subjected to these astronomical rents. In my city - one of the most "affordable" - yet still impossible for a low-income person to afford IF you can even find a place, because parasitic landlords are deliberately leaving their rentals VACANT so that they can maximize rents on the ones they do make available - the majority of our addicted populations became addicted *after* they became homeless due to impossible rents.
For wisdom and help@@lynb1022, I know God does see and takes care of those who ask him , because they believe that Jesus is our righteousness, our ONLY WAY TO GOD.
How could you walk past people passed out in the street, amid piles of trash, and continue to vote into office the government in San Francisco? I haven't been out there in about 5 years and I'm in no hurry to go back now. It's a shame. I think it's one of the greatest cities.
Housing First is a United Nations idea and was implemented globally a decade agp. In Calif they are spending 700K for a homeless housing. In Texas, people are living in shed to home conversions and very happy.
Fwiw, my part of the se states i've seen free services for all kinds of things, health, mental health, all kinds of aid/training, job help. Saw the first tiny house village in my area, seems to be half-way type, extra facilities. Not where it needs to be, some places more and less, but far better across the board than not too long ago.
Excellent talk, long time fan of Schellenberger, and now University of Austin. Small correction needed at around 19:10. The fellow from Portugal said if they have more than 10 days supply they follow normal criminal proceedings, if they are LESS they go to the commission. Michael describes the opposite in his remarks immediately after the interview clip. Keep up the great work.
"safe consumption spaces" do not work at all. Just ask the residents of Kensington, Philadelphia. It does not work. The encouragement of drug use is absolutely asinine.
I lived under a bridge for two years and almost died five times in that time span in New Orleans early 2000’s. Was in and out OPP, House of D, the Ozinam Inn and all that fun stuff. I graduated from Responsibility House down there, where at the time, it was a one year program. I would not shelter because I couldn’t get high in a shelter. There has to be the consequence of jails, institutions or death. There also has to be a solution that works as well. We all know when we’re being used as financial pawns for so called charity. I know what that solution is, empirically. Unless you introduce the addict to a Power greater than themselves, there’s no chance for them and any evidence you may present to the contrary has not run its full course, therefore revealing it to be the temporary fleeting failure all imposters expose themselves to be.
Thank you for hosting incredible talks like this. Mr Shellenberger has become a hero of mine and completely changed my opinion on this. I live in Vancouver and the claims of compassionate treatment is so warped and infuriating. Our house of commons has erupted about this in the last few days and they have literally not had an actual moment of real debate but a lot of foolish name calling. We need our leaders to follow this example of discussion so we can actually help people. Keep inspiring us Michael! This is helping
This presentation should be required viewing for all policymakers dealing with the open air drug markets in California and Oregon. And for all journalists covering it too. For any of those policymakers and reporters who object to what's being craftfully presented by Shellenberger, we deserve to see any supposed clear factual and emperical evidence refuting it, for the onus is on them for spending billions in taxpayer dollars and over many years only to see conditions dramatically worsen.
Complaining that the drugs you purchased from a drug dealer were contaminated with fentanyl is like complaining that the stolen car you purchased broke down as you drove away. Drug dealers are criminals. They do not have QA/QC protocols in place.
I would like to invite Michael to come to Grants Pass, OR (we are leading the fight against the 9th circuit ruling that is cruel and unusual punishment not to enable the homless). We do have a great homeless shelter that has helped countless people get back on their feet, but they have rules. Also speak with the homeless here (most of which came to Oregon to do drugs). Speak with our park watch group that is trying to shine a light on the destruction of our public spaces in the name of this ideology. The law abiding citizens are being held hostage by the zealots and the grifters that use the homeless as their virtue mascots.
People going to bad-mouth OR, but it's because it's among the only places to be treated almost like a human. Good on OR. A lot of people just need some love, some help without strings, at least of a certain kind. The Christians are generally not going to do anything for anyone without moral blackmail, indoctrination, etc, faik.but in any case it's nowhere near enough and never has been....
There is a subset of homelessness that is mostly money and homes. Hard times with no family to fall back on. They usually end up at a shelter or living in a car. These people are well helped with financial, employment, or housing assistance. Totally different to addiction and mental illness. They dont end up on the street nearly as often, so they arent who we’re talking about. Not refuting anything said in the lecture, just bringing that up.
Thank you! That was our story. Husband lost job and just could not find a new one. Put our house on the market, did not sell for two years. Rented it out during that time and renters also lost job and stopped paying rent. We lived with relative as long as possible, then homeless shelter and then miraculously found a place that rented us a trailer. Been here 8 years, husband full time employed in accounting, still can't afford a place in CA. We have 3 kids. Oldest in college now. We're not addicts so there were no programs for us.
@@KarinAllison pretty close to my story growing up in rural Texas. Single mother, we were lucky to have family in various small towns. Very poor themselves but generous. We’re all ok now, but we were 1 sacrifice of generosity away from homelessness probably 5-6 times between 1999 and 2007. I’m sorry you’re still having trouble getting a home, but i’m glad you managed to stabilize enough to send a kid to college. I hope that sacrifice pays off.
Not sure why this always seems to be a binary choice. Yes of course many of those who are currently addicted would not benefit all that much from housing n some may have become homeless once becoming addicted as many young people livknh with parents mayose that opportunity when using drugs as will many adults if lose job thri addiction. However poverty itself for the non addicted does often lead to homelessness especially if those people have small or no family safety net that many have or if they have some bad luck or few bad breaks..Housing costs have skyrocketed.in past few years so its quite obvious now but in many parts of the country housing n rents had steadily increased n there has been less availability. This is especially true for single never married women n divorced people.
@vivalaleta yea, I see dirtbag climbers and I also see drug addicts when I go out on Public Land. The climbers don't litter, and they're enjoy their youth, not destroying it. They're making a conscious choice, and not following addictive impulses.
@@underthetrees4780 Bullshit. You just prefer to believe that's the common situation. Homelessness has increased significantly every year because they're all choosing it?
This is an incredibly misguided view. Addiction is a disease. A disease debilitates. If a worker is debilitated, it becomes harder for the person to work and earn money. So keeping a house becomes more difficult. This is saying "shame on you for having a disease".
I work and I'm sleeping in my car. I don't drink or do drug's. I just can't afford 700 dollars a month for a studio apartment in my city. After food gas car payment food cc debt. My father's 3 bedroom house costs 550 a month mortgage. We are being ripped off period.
Just got back from San Francisco over the weekend. Dolores Park had a children's playground where adults were dealing and consuming mushrooms & weed 12 feet away from toddlers. There was trash throughout. Homeless loitered or slept wherever. Felt like the city of Lost Boys. Police patrolling blocks on foot was nowhere to be seen. I'm not going back. I was expecting a classy city; instead, I saw some of the worst squallor of behavior in my life.
I’ve lived in San Francisco since 1991. I’ve voted to throw money at the homeless problem, over and over again. Then I decided this was the number one issue in our city and so worked as a volunteer housing rights activist, and worked at a non profit that was supposed to be helping the homeless. The non profit accepted govt funding, and we bought more equipment, threw ourselves congratulatory parties, and paid for salaries with that money. I can’t tell you how many catered events we had. Thousands spent. I began to realize that the people working to help the homeless had no intention of ending homelessness. That having people living in tents on the street was a great way to get public funding. Also at this same time I began to realize that most of the “homeless” were addicts. Specifically opioid addicts. Regular poor people who are down on their luck will move to a less expensive city before they drag a tent out onto the street. We were also told that many of these people weren’t addicts before they had to “sleep rough.” This is not true. Lost start out as middle class people whose families tell them to GTFO after they steal all of their belongings to pay for their addiction. Also weird how all of this started right after weed was legalized. But nobody wants to talk about that.
@Accountdeactivated_1986 Please, people are not laying out on the streets in a pile of trash because of weed. People have used weed for thousands of years in cultures all around the world.
@@thegroovypatriot Nobody said they’re out on the street because of weed. I’m saying that the dealers started selling fentanyl when weed became legal and sold in stores. That’s the thing nobody wants to acknowledge. That the street dealers moved on to other drugs. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear. I forgot that you have to spell things out online because people are too literal.
I've tried getting an apartment after my divorce it's been impossible it destroyed my credit didn't have a rental history because I lived in a home but couldn't get the Mortgage information because it was in her name and my employers kept going out of business so no long term employment history nobody would rent with more than two strikes and for 2 it was a 30 percent rent increase and and extra two months rent up front how is anyone supposed to afford that??
The left has decided that crackheads are the same as fentanyl addicts, and they’re not. So they claim that the war on drugs is “racist.” Which is BS. Crack was a black drug, but fentanyl isn’t.
I have just begun to look at the video, and in this comment, may be working territory which the speaker will work. If so, I beg everyone's pardon. A lot of things cause homelessness, but several carefully controlled studies have shown that half of all homeless men have had traumatic brain injuries. ( One researcher commented that while men only may have been the subjects of the studies, all of the researchers had a strong conviction they'd find at least that high a percentage of TBI in homeless women. ) As a man who is a survivor of a pediatric TBI, it doesn't surprise me at all that this would be the case. Traumatic brain injury does things to one's capacity to function which are difficult for a TBI patient to explain to the uninjured. If you can't work, and you haven't had the opportunity to develop normally as an emotional being, it shouldn't be hard for another to understand that it's remarkable that we don't have more homelessness. If half of all homeless people have had a life altering if not life ruining injury, this must affect everything in a decent society's approach to the problem.
You can have a TBI and a drug problem. Getting rid of open air drug markets and using carrots and sticks will be better for those who are homeless due to drugs, TBIs, or a combination of both.
@@resilientrecoveryministries , beyond question! It's a multifactorial problem: it stands to reason that if only 50% of homeless people have had TBIs, other things, drugs probably foremost among them, have been the factors in the homelessness of millions of others. I brought it up because I rarely see it mentioned. Its possibility does need to be taken into account in the case of each homeless person. What is fascinating is that it usually doesn't take MRIs to establish that someone has had a TBI. A clinical neurologist with three reflex hammers in each hand can give you an answer in about ten minutes.
@@Gingerblaze I don't doubt that you are correct. I wrote what I did because I know about it: I am a pediatric TBI survivor, and in 2002, was homeless for over two months. Homeless people meet other homeless people. I knew a woman who had been r*p*d at age 5, then when she was 9, was kidnapped and r*p*d by another man. She had permanent damage because of the things the kidnapper did to her during the several days he kept her. The point I wanted to make is that I never knew any homeless man or woman who hadn't been through a Hell on Earth early in life. You may know about The ACE ( Adverse Childhood Events ) Study. We know that early - in - life trauma sets people up for lives of sorrow of all kinds.
@@bobtaylor170 thank you for your response! Glad you were able to get out of your situation and find healing and housing. It is definitely possible to overcome childhood trauma with determination and building on ones strengths and talents.
21:25 Obviously if the professor selects only for homeless who are flagrant IV drug addicts, then he is dangerously biased to use that sample to describe "the typical" area person. Aren't like 20% of bay area community college students homeless at some point during each year? What about the >50% of homeless working 40 hours or more a week? They are not the homeless you sample from, then you advocate totalitarianism against what are often senior citizens, disabled, recent foster care orphans, etc. People in economic competition look to justify atrocities. So now a professional working a job, paying debt, maybe sleeping in their car and showering at their gym or office... or people stuck in weekly rentals, or camper homes, or couchsurfing, etc. If I only interviewed millionaires wearing over $100,000 in gold, I'd probably conclude wealthy people are "typically" ostentatious etc. Literally lynching full time law abiding workers because of allegations they do not own or pay a landlord so they are outlaws and outside any lawful or moral protections. Shellenberger writes audaciously, intrepidly revealing previously unknown schemes and scams against the public, including financial exploitation. Yet he appears unable to momentarily consider that that same public may in aggregate have some growing portion that become homeless. Professor indicates grift by afministrators of public funded programs but never considers that the homeless may be victimized.
I have been homeless a couple of times. Luckily I had a friend that let me crash while I was looking for a job, or I could come up with motel money. It's the cost of living. I have given up driving, health care, dental care, dining out, clothes all just to keep a roof over my head. Hedge funds own most apartment complexes, and keep rents high even when occupancies are low. Capitalism is the best form of economy, but wealthy can and do exploit the poor. Jamie Dimon from Chase says inequality is the biggest issue facing our economy, yet he charges me $12 if my account falls below $1,500 for 1 day in a month.
If California would of took the 17 million dollars and put it toward building a facility mental health with doctors and psychiatrist,nures for dual diagnosis a rehab setting they might have made a difference
I volunteer at a place serving food to homeless people. I know California policies have led to this tied to the big money involved. I enter the lion’s den to reduce my anger and remind myself everyone is a pawn
Trauma and homelessness Homelessness is connected with trauma in a number of ways. First, a person who is facing homelessness has often experienced a series of traumatic events prior to the trauma of homelessness. For some, this trauma may include childhood abuse, neglect or household dysfunction
The problem promoting homelessness is deinstitutionalization... which began in the 60s and early 70s as part of radical anti-authoritarian objections to abusive institutions and the ideas that anybody's reality was as good as anyone else's. HOUSING especially in the case of addicts who are often dysfunctional in completing "normal" tasks DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUATE WITH " INDEPENDENT " LIVING -- or living within a support system of fellow addicts that are even more effed up then the person who is in the early stages of self-medication and who MAY BE spiraling down Dangerously for themselves and everyone around them. We've certainly got enough surveillance technology to keep people working in residential facilities from abusing patients, whether they seek admission themselves or with the help of family members, or if they become involuntarily committed inmates. I imagine that it might be nice to do drugs outside in nice weather in California even within the confines of the little tent on a dry piece of cement on what used to be a public walkway serving residents, retail customers, and shopkeepers. Maybe it's just time to rethink and reinvent institutionalization or at least institutional care
THE LEGACY IF THOMAS SZASZ. To understand the proliferation of homelessness especially amongst drug addicts and people self-medicating and frequentlt "off their [ prescribed ] medication And living in open-open-air user communities operated by drug cartels "policing" sidewalk spaces rented out for urban camping in pop tents and facilitating easy distribution of sometimes contaminated drugs -- its heloful TO GOOGLE/PURCHASE/READ " The Myth of Mental Illness" first published by psychologist Thomas Szaz published a series of books and gave lectures upending efforts to treat people who are arguably out of their minds separating them from family members in strangers whom they might disturbed, damage, or destroy when there their idiosyncratic world views and views of themselves are allowed to flourish without mitigation or any kind of intervention that involves conventional behavior, beliefs, norms. Arguably liberating people classified as mentally ill has not achieved entirely favorable consequences for the individuals or surrounding societies. There's been a lot of money thrown at the problem of homelessness which disguises the underlying root causes of individuals being unable to function productively in contemporary settings and who gravitate to camping out in regions with good weather most of the year such as Southern California or the year such as Denver. The application of anarchist rationalizations and extreme libertarian rationalizations to mental health care not a left-right issue unless your vision The Left is that everyone lives off the government either by having a government job or comprehensive government benefits and nobody does anything else or pays taxes. People who could be classified as mentally ill are not known to have high survival rates under Stalin OR under Hitler. And of course the way language devolves mentally ill is a turn with which people do not want to be labeled but is also a euphemism for crazy, or in more common parlance: batshit crazy. If nobody is subject to negative classifications and everything is legal, there's no way for well meaning instruments of social welfare to get a handle on housing and treating individuals who are already organically dysfunctional, or who choose to make themselves so by overly indulging self-medication with drugs and/or alcohol. The world self-medication isn't used to justify self-harm but to suggest that maybe medication prescribed and administered by medical doctors in phds in a confined setting might just be more helpful than a free market economy of street drugs. Thomas Szasz make a career of questioning received wisdom and disturbing preconceived notions -- without providing answers. Presuming that his intent was not 100% cultural and social subversion, it's time that people started grappling with the unintended consequences of institutionalization under the radical premise that nobody has the right to judge anyone else's State of Mind or Behavior. Maybe just maybe radical theories can lead to something other than the impulse to destroy coupled with the impulse for totalitarian authoritarian control of those subjecting the world to their own experiments
Bravo! What a great message about empericism. This is otherwise called a critical thought process that employs the analysis of unbiased supporting evidence. Not an easy task in this Era of censorship and media capture.
Most people on the streets are there by choice. Addiction issues, mental heath issues. Few because of economic realities. Homelessness is a business for activists. It has become an industry for the people who are supposedly trying to 'help'. Why would you cure the problem, if it puts YOU out of a job.
I've tried getting an apartment after my divorce it's been impossible it destroyed my credit didn't have a rental history because I lived in a home but couldn't get the Mortgage information because it was in her name and my employers kept going out of business so no long term employment history nobody would rent with more than two strikes and for 2 it was a 30 percent rent increase and and extra two months rent up front how is anyone supposed to afford that??
@@patrickday4206 You can't. I didn't say there were no economic homelessness. I said the majority were addicts and the mentally ill. I expect economic homelessness to increase. Which in turn tends to lead to more mental illness and addiction. Cause not everybody will be able to cope. And more people than ever before, have no family to fall back on.
@@patrickday4206 when my girlfriend moved out of our apartment I went to a homeless shelter for 4 months till an apartment opened up got help dhs, the VA, and a private housing group helped get my rent down to 99 month if you want off the street there is aid
@@patrickday4206 I'm sorry bro. I think you deserve to have a place to live, even for free. All this is ridiculous. We should house people. If we want the name, honestly. They just don't believe in love basically, faik. Hope you have a place to go or a car at least. There's a ton of hacks out there.
People with mental health issues are not in street by choice. Most mental illnesses are not drug related. People have it because of genetics and trauma. If they are an adult the parents can do nothing to advocate for them unless the ill child signs the HIPPA papers, which he might not understand if he is sick. Psychiatric drugs cost money and how can a person with mental illness afford it? It takes time to get the right meds. Then they need love and support the rest of their lives. Bipolar people are highly creative and intelligent people and can be contributing members of society if the laws were more amenable to parent advocacy. My son has bipolar illness and is a brilliant composer. Why? We cared for him when he could not do it himself. He never took a drug or smoked. The world needs to learn more about what mental illness really is. The internet is full of info. It’s time to educate ourselves.
Shellenberger clarity: “The word ‘homeless’ is a propaganda word in the sense that it’s trying to make you think this is about housing rather than about addiction and mental illness.”
It's the neighborhood associations, and such. Protecting property values. Nobody wants low income complexes and they haven't figured out anything better it seems.
Society won't. People don't on mass. Michael, employ some people with mental distress, invite them to your home. "If you have 2 coats and your brother has none, give your other coat to your brother.
"Does poverty cause homelessness" ...Not by design, but a dictatorship can cause poverty in which makes it harder, by law, to self create a roof over ones head.
A lot of rich Democrats live in California. They should share their enormous wealth and beautiful mansions with the poor and homeless people who live in California.
Canada doesn't allow MAID for mental health or addiction reasons. It has been proposed but has not passed and probably won't. BC has also as of yesterday re criminalized small amounts of drugs and has made it illegal to use drugs in public. This will give police the option to arrest.
The debate about Housing First needs to be furthered through research to identify who benefits most from Housing First, what services are needed in addition to Housing First, and which housing models can serve as effective alternatives to the Housing First model when appropriate or necessary.
To the naive fool who asked why we can’t just accept that most addicts won’t ever reform, so what’s wrong with putting them in a free apartment and letting them carry on ( with free drugs, of course)… I would ask , who the hell do you expect to pay for this non productive, indolent luxury? The taxpayer who can’t keep a roof over his/her head and feed their kids, while working our asses off? Ridiculous idiocy.
Excuse me, but my pension is $1150 while rents start ab above $2000. And I don't take drugs. So do the math. Its a no brainer, all I can afford is a tent. But the cost of living makers me a crimminal. So arrest me! Go on, I dare you.
What are the odds that someone who has a strong work ethic, resists destructive habits, and faithfully pays their monthly bills before discretionary spending will end up on the streets? Those are long odds indeed.
You're either being facetious, or missing the reality of the current job and housing market. Model citizens with great skills and work ethics cannot get hired full time, because employers realized how much money they could save by not paying benefits. Some of these individuals are in their 40s but living with their parents because they simply can't earn enough to live the American dream. That is today's reality.
Nobody wants to talk about how Fentanyl hit the streets just as weed was legalized. And then suddenly we had all of these people in tents, and people bent over on the streets. Guess it’s just a weird coincidence. Just like the whole medical gender issue weirdly happened right after gay marriage was legalized. Just another weird coincidence.
There are few saints really interested in improving societal pressing issues, that can be effective. This dude gets down to the nitty gritty of it by jumping into the discomfort. Discomforting leads to action. Wanting it to improve by empiricism shows a way. His experiences mirror my own over time. Most people just let someone tell them, how it is ideologically. Humanity needs humanity, not ideology to improve. Reasoning that is suggested here seem sound, well done research with facts and direction.
I don't no not every one' that s homeless is on drugs he's talking to drug Addict not all people won't to live indoors or do drugs at all some people just like living out doors traveling I don't do drugs I just like to live out my van homeless panhandle money and travel
The Portuguese official says if a person has more than a 10-day supply of a drug, he or she gets *criminally charged* as before, not that he goes before a drug dissuasion panel, which happens if he had less than a 10-day supply.
British Columbia as of April 26/24 has realized decriminalization experiment has not worked after 1 year. The BC gov is trying to have the federal gov REPEAL the exemption of drug laws in BC. Police will be able to do their jobs again...soon. Still the focus is on harm reduction though.
no, choices cause homelessness, the choices one makes every day, some choose to be homeless for various reasons, some dont feel worthy, some where never taught to mentally mature, so the choices they make are like those of a child and only really consider here and now. How one makes choices is taught by life, what you experience, what your parents teach you or as the case maybe, what they dont teach you. There are cases of just bad luck, but those are few and far between... what it really boils down too, is what and how you teach your children. I am no stranger to poverty but I have never been homeless, my kids always had food and clean clothes and I come from one of the worst housing projects in Canada, Regent Park.
I would like to put Michael in a room with Theodore Dalrymple and Johann Hari and not let them out until they have fomr to agreement on the 'drugs policies' ready to implement ❤
Also, if your reward addicts with free homes, what are you doing to low income people like me? I work two jobs to keep a roof over my head. It’s likes a slap in the face for doing what’s right. Why not incentivize living a normal life by giving better options to low income people’s housing? Show the down and outers that making an effort will pay off!
Absolutely NOT. Landlord greed, selling the house from underneath the renter, hedge funds buying up trailer parks, apartment buildings and anything else they can get their filthy hands on. Homelessness these days is because of OWNER GREED.
I have a question: where does the Fentanyl come from? Big pharma? Or mafia controlled labs? How hard is it to make fentanyl? And why can’t we stop the production of it?
Downtown LA is pretty much a legalized drug zone. I really don’t think having safe spaces will help, particularly in the US. Mental health facilities are what’s really needed
Is this The Onion? Shellenberger is an 'expert' on the environment, climate change, nuclear power, and now, it seems, homelessness. There seems to be no end to his 'expertise'. He'll thrive at University of Austin whose motto should read, "Building a safe planet (sic) for billionaires".
What a silly question to a cat complex economic issue. Does poverty cause homelessness? No only rich people are homeless. In our society, everyone that poor is not homeless. These rich people need to pull themselves by the bootstrap. 🙄
The answer is no, just look at mowie, and artificial constraints on the housing market besides "affordable", high rents, low wages, or Air Bnb's... It costs 72 thousand per year per homeless person, it's a business, #homelessindustrialcomplex
I'm a senior on fixed income, I am homeless because of the price of rent and not being able to qualify due to not enough income for three times the rent requred plus deposit, first and last month rent. I have no family or children. I live in an RV on a friend's property, otherwise I would have no place to park. RV parks have become unaffordable. I worked, was a homeowner, never used drugs, and my homelessness is absolutely because of my inability to afford today's rent prices.
Michael Shellenberger has become one of my favourite public thinkers. So grateful for his work and perspective.
The opening is like standup comedy.
Great start Michael.
There are so many very poor people who cope very well. I crawled on a clay floor as a toddler. I and five other grandchildren of my father’s parents gained tertiary degrees.
Same. He puts into words what I haven’t been able to. He’s respectable, smart af, and does the work for us and then breaks it down in a language we can digest.
He is a human anti anxiety tonic.
We may actually have a fighting chance bc of this important TRUTHTELLER.
Some of his stuff on the vaccine deserves closer look and is disappointing but otherwise he’s a rockstar
35:30 Jesus, have mercy….praying for the evil of addiction to be lifted away. Pray that they want to heal. Praying for the angels to protect them. In Jesus’ holy name, I pray. Amen. My heart is breaking.
Good information nurse tor 30+ yrs and the drug addict will tell you they don't want to get off the streets. Another huge piece you covered is no mental health care same pts just keep cycling back through, they get their meds lined out get out until they run out of meds come back in. Glad to see someone with spotlight on them saying what we have been seeing, thank you
Local Community Services Boards and mental health have become big government business, as have Equity and environmental and energy programs that combat climate change.
I am 71 and originally from NJ. I can tell you what initiated the closures of the asylums because I distinctly remember the story. Geraldo Rivera was a new up and coming reporter in NY. He did an story on a young man who had MS (I believe) and was mistakenly placed in an asylum. I do not remember how Geraldo came across this story but he was the reporter that broke it. The investigation ended up also exposing the poor conditions in the asylums. This led the crusade to close all of the asylums. Admittedly the conditions were horrendous but instead of addressing the issue of the conditions and cleaning them up, they took the over the top action of closing them without considering the serious consequences of such action . Even as a teenager I thought I did not think this would end well. Now it is virtually impossible to get a person committed.
You mean like defunding the police to protect George Floyd?
My mother (also from NJ) told me the same thing!
@@quietstorm483 She must be about my age. Tell her I said hello and ask her if she misses the sane world as much as I do.
Geraldo actually exposed warehousing people with developmental disabilities. But places for mentally ill also were closed
I guess that's under the title of Shellenberg explanation of "Imperialism".
I see and agree with every observation Shellenberger makes with the exception of one thing he said which was something to the effect that poverty is falling in the west. I like his boots on the ground empirical approach and would encourage him to get back out there and talk to people because with everyone I meet and know the dollar is becoming weaker and weaker without our employers even offering a cost of living increase. I don't think poverty causes addiction but it sure as heck can make that kind of escape appealing to a certain kind of person
Thank you, dear Mike.
As a Soviet Union « survivor » I can’t be more grateful for your brilliant mind and bravery fighting the regenerating Marxist cults. ❤
👏👏👏
I know of homeless shelters which won't admit people who are high or drunk. These places are at capacity and the people there are living sober lives. Do you ever seek interviews with the sober unhoused population?
47:55 - No, it should NOT be done by people with masters degrees. Those people have proven they aren't capable. It should be done by people who don't get paid if they don't cause a real, measurable improvement.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
The utter ignorance of these activists is obscene.
Shellenberger is a total legend
As a recovering person, after speaking with thousands of alcoholics and addicts over the past 35 years, it’s clear that pretty much the only reason someone stops drinking or using is their fear of consequences. Current programs remove most consequences, thereby supporting continued usage and eventual death of the alcoholic or addict. That is not compassion, that is evil.
For years I’ve been telling my American friends, that to call these people homeless (or as they are politely called now unhoused) is a hypocrisy. They are on the streets by choice. I personally know some well to do families, whose kids ended up on a streets because of the drug addiction. I hope the problem will be finally addressed. Thank you, Michael for speaking up.
I’m glad people are finally having this conversation. The theory that a regular person just drags a tent onto the sidewalk instead of moving to a less expensive city is frankly laughable. I can’t believe they convinced us all that this is how it worked for years. If you live in downtown San Francisco you see firsthand that it’s clearly a fentanyl problem.
😂😂😂😂
Same. My very privileged darling nephew was holding a sign at a freeway off-ramp I was on. I thought, “ that’s the cutest homeless person I’ve ever seen.”
As I got closer, I screamed,”OH MY GOD ITS CHARLIE!”
Charlie HATES being sober . He’s tried, my god we’ve all tried. His dad owns a construction company an wants Charlie to take over the business. His mom??? That’s a sad situation; she’s a lovely stay at home mom, devoted wife, sweet mother, kindest soul; her anguish is palpable. She’ll never stop trying to help him that’s an impossible choice.
Sometimes it happens the other way
I had a friend lose a job, get hit by a car, prescribed drugs, and lost everything, even his life.
My mom kicked me out at 15 I didn't do drugs cps said I was to old for them to help me my mother was depressed and had borderline personality disorder. I wasn't allowed to work over 20 hours nobody wanted to hire me because a minor can't even wash a knife couldn't rent an apartment . Maybe you don't know as much as you think you know about this stuff but like in science sometimes people see what they want to see to shore up what they want to believe. We have the highest cost of living about double what the 1970s was
The problem is that no one wants to address the homelessness amongst people working full time jobs or seniors. We are the unseen homeless and there are millions of us.
Thank you for pointing out this missing equation.
Yes, I am a senior woman living out of my car. I stay away from street homeless people. I don't use drugs or alcohol. No mental health problems.
As someone who is purposefully poor (I'm a pastor), I can answer the question easily...NO...poverty does not lead to Homelessness.
Then who provides your housing? How much is the place where you sleep each night worth on the marketplace?
God does provide. For example, He provided you with a job that takes care of your basic needs.
@@jonbarr4860 I do. Myself. it's 900/mo. mortgage. Like an adult.
@@esava44 average rents for a 1-bedroom apartment in Canada are now between $1200-$2800/mo., depending on the province. I dare you to tell me that you wouldn't be homeless if subjected to these astronomical rents. In my city - one of the most "affordable" - yet still impossible for a low-income person to afford IF you can even find a place, because parasitic landlords are deliberately leaving their rentals VACANT so that they can maximize rents on the ones they do make available - the majority of our addicted populations became addicted *after* they became homeless due to impossible rents.
For wisdom and help@@lynb1022, I know God does see and takes care of those who ask him , because they believe that Jesus is our righteousness, our ONLY WAY TO GOD.
How could you walk past people passed out in the street, amid piles of trash, and continue to vote into office the government in San Francisco? I haven't been out there in about 5 years and I'm in no hurry to go back now. It's a shame. I think it's one of the greatest cities.
“…seek out discomfort. It is the only way real learning occurs.” Profound.
Housing First is a United Nations idea and was implemented globally a decade agp. In Calif they are spending 700K for a homeless housing. In Texas, people are living in shed to home conversions and very happy.
If it was implemented globally, my country didn't get the memo.
Fwiw, my part of the se states i've seen free services for all kinds of things, health, mental health, all kinds of aid/training, job help. Saw the first tiny house village in my area, seems to be half-way type, extra facilities. Not where it needs to be, some places more and less, but far better across the board than not too long ago.
@@heartofodds Where? Sounds like some rational leadership going on there.good to hear.
You can't put people in sheds in ny. Too cold.
Excellent talk, long time fan of Schellenberger, and now University of Austin. Small correction needed at around 19:10. The fellow from Portugal said if they have more than 10 days supply they follow normal criminal proceedings, if they are LESS they go to the commission. Michael describes the opposite in his remarks immediately after the interview clip. Keep up the great work.
Congratulations guys, your University is one of the best in terms of contributing to the online political discourse
"safe consumption spaces" do not work at all. Just ask the residents of Kensington, Philadelphia. It does not work. The encouragement of drug use is absolutely asinine.
I lived under a bridge for two years and almost died five times in that time span in New Orleans early 2000’s. Was in and out OPP, House of D, the Ozinam Inn and all that fun stuff. I graduated from Responsibility House down there, where at the time, it was a one year program. I would not shelter because I couldn’t get high in a shelter. There has to be the consequence of jails, institutions or death. There also has to be a solution that works as well. We all know when we’re being used as financial pawns for so called charity. I know what that solution is, empirically. Unless you introduce the addict to a Power greater than themselves, there’s no chance for them and any evidence you may present to the contrary has not run its full course, therefore revealing it to be the temporary fleeting failure all imposters expose themselves to be.
Thank you for hosting incredible talks like this. Mr Shellenberger has become a hero of mine and completely changed my opinion on this. I live in Vancouver and the claims of compassionate treatment is so warped and infuriating. Our house of commons has erupted about this in the last few days and they have literally not had an actual moment of real debate but a lot of foolish name calling. We need our leaders to follow this example of discussion so we can actually help people. Keep inspiring us Michael! This is helping
@47:00 “accountability” NEVER happens. The money comes from the city/state, politicians do not fire program directors or change service providers.
Cut all programs, reverse taxes, enforce laws.
There’s no “fixing” this “democraticly”
This presentation should be required viewing for all policymakers dealing with the open air drug markets in California and Oregon. And for all journalists covering it too. For any of those policymakers and reporters who object to what's being craftfully presented by Shellenberger, we deserve to see any supposed clear factual and emperical evidence refuting it, for the onus is on them for spending billions in taxpayer dollars and over many years only to see conditions dramatically worsen.
Complaining that the drugs you purchased from a drug dealer were contaminated with fentanyl is like complaining that the stolen car you purchased broke down as you drove away. Drug dealers are criminals. They do not have QA/QC protocols in place.
I would like to invite Michael to come to Grants Pass, OR (we are leading the fight against the 9th circuit ruling that is cruel and unusual punishment not to enable the homless). We do have a great homeless shelter that has helped countless people get back on their feet, but they have rules. Also speak with the homeless here (most of which came to Oregon to do drugs). Speak with our park watch group that is trying to shine a light on the destruction of our public spaces in the name of this ideology. The law abiding citizens are being held hostage by the zealots and the grifters that use the homeless as their virtue mascots.
I would love that if Michael could come to Oregon! Cue the protesters at any of his public engagements though :(
People going to bad-mouth OR, but it's because it's among the only places to be treated almost like a human. Good on OR. A lot of people just need some love, some help without strings, at least of a certain kind. The Christians are generally not going to do anything for anyone without moral blackmail, indoctrination, etc, faik.but in any case it's nowhere near enough and never has been....
"Virtue mascots" is *so* on the money!!
There is a subset of homelessness that is mostly money and homes. Hard times with no family to fall back on. They usually end up at a shelter or living in a car. These people are well helped with financial, employment, or housing assistance. Totally different to addiction and mental illness. They dont end up on the street nearly as often, so they arent who we’re talking about. Not refuting anything said in the lecture, just bringing that up.
Great point
Thank you! That was our story. Husband lost job and just could not find a new one. Put our house on the market, did not sell for two years. Rented it out during that time and renters also lost job and stopped paying rent. We lived with relative as long as possible, then homeless shelter and then miraculously found a place that rented us a trailer. Been here 8 years, husband full time employed in accounting, still can't afford a place in CA. We have 3 kids. Oldest in college now. We're not addicts so there were no programs for us.
@@KarinAllison pretty close to my story growing up in rural Texas. Single mother, we were lucky to have family in various small towns. Very poor themselves but generous. We’re all ok now, but we were 1 sacrifice of generosity away from homelessness probably 5-6 times between 1999 and 2007. I’m sorry you’re still having trouble getting a home, but i’m glad you managed to stabilize enough to send a kid to college. I hope that sacrifice pays off.
Not sure why this always seems to be a binary choice. Yes of course many of those who are currently addicted would not benefit all that much from housing n some may have become homeless once becoming addicted as many young people livknh with parents mayose that opportunity when using drugs as will many adults if lose job thri addiction. However poverty itself for the non addicted does often lead to homelessness especially if those people have small or no family safety net that many have or if they have some bad luck or few bad breaks..Housing costs have skyrocketed.in past few years so its quite obvious now but in many parts of the country housing n rents had steadily increased n there has been less availability. This is especially true for single never married women n divorced people.
I know of professionals living in their cars. You're not going to find them in a tent on the street but they're still homeless.
There's also a lot of Van lifers with remote work doing just fine. I'm not sure that's the same as homeless.
@@thegroovypatriot It is to the system.
@vivalaleta yea, I see dirtbag climbers and I also see drug addicts when I go out on Public Land.
The climbers don't litter, and they're enjoy their youth, not destroying it. They're making a conscious choice, and not following addictive impulses.
@@underthetrees4780 Bullshit. You just prefer to believe that's the common situation. Homelessness has increased significantly every year because they're all choosing it?
This is an incredibly misguided view. Addiction is a disease. A disease debilitates. If a worker is debilitated, it becomes harder for the person to work and earn money. So keeping a house becomes more difficult. This is saying "shame on you for having a disease".
Does poverty cause homelessness? Gee, What a fckn genius.
I work and I'm sleeping in my car. I don't drink or do drug's. I just can't afford 700 dollars a month for a studio apartment in my city. After food gas car payment food cc debt. My father's 3 bedroom house costs 550 a month mortgage. We are being ripped off period.
What an incredible presentation!
One of the best lectures I’ve listened to in a very long time.
Everyone should watch this, learn and adapt as soon as possible. We need real solutions like this in every major city.
"Netherlands this little country"...which has only historically come up with some of the greatest minds in science and the humanities in the West!
It is sickening to see people are just fine with enabling junkies
Just got back from San Francisco over the weekend. Dolores Park had a children's playground where adults were dealing and consuming mushrooms & weed 12 feet away from toddlers. There was trash throughout. Homeless loitered or slept wherever. Felt like the city of Lost Boys. Police patrolling blocks on foot was nowhere to be seen. I'm not going back. I was expecting a classy city; instead, I saw some of the worst squallor of behavior in my life.
I’ve lived in San Francisco since 1991. I’ve voted to throw money at the homeless problem, over and over again. Then I decided this was the number one issue in our city and so worked as a volunteer housing rights activist, and worked at a non profit that was supposed to be helping the homeless. The non profit accepted govt funding, and we bought more equipment, threw ourselves congratulatory parties, and paid for salaries with that money. I can’t tell you how many catered events we had. Thousands spent. I began to realize that the people working to help the homeless had no intention of ending homelessness. That having people living in tents on the street was a great way to get public funding. Also at this same time I began to realize that most of the “homeless” were addicts. Specifically opioid addicts. Regular poor people who are down on their luck will move to a less expensive city before they drag a tent out onto the street. We were also told that many of these people weren’t addicts before they had to “sleep rough.” This is not true. Lost start out as middle class people whose families tell them to GTFO after they steal all of their belongings to pay for their addiction. Also weird how all of this started right after weed was legalized. But nobody wants to talk about that.
@Accountdeactivated_1986 Please, people are not laying out on the streets in a pile of trash because of weed.
People have used weed for thousands of years in cultures all around the world.
@@thegroovypatriot Nobody said they’re out on the street because of weed. I’m saying that the dealers started selling fentanyl when weed became legal and sold in stores. That’s the thing nobody wants to acknowledge. That the street dealers moved on to other drugs. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear. I forgot that you have to spell things out online because people are too literal.
Dang. But this is the issue the money is always wasted... 🙁
Week makes people unmotivated. My neighbor is obviously not homeless but can't hold a job.
I've tried getting an apartment after my divorce it's been impossible it destroyed my credit didn't have a rental history because I lived in a home but couldn't get the Mortgage information because it was in her name and my employers kept going out of business so no long term employment history nobody would rent with more than two strikes and for 2 it was a 30 percent rent increase and and extra two months rent up front how is anyone supposed to afford that??
This is probably not what you want to hear but watch Bob from cheaprvliving. The same happened to him
lol that “just say no” has turned into “do it with friends” 🤦♀️. Nonetheless I ❤ Shellenberger’s work, thanks for uploading this
The left has decided that crackheads are the same as fentanyl addicts, and they’re not. So they claim that the war on drugs is “racist.” Which is BS. Crack was a black drug, but fentanyl isn’t.
I have just begun to look at the video, and in this comment, may be working territory which the speaker will work. If so, I beg everyone's pardon.
A lot of things cause homelessness, but several carefully controlled studies have shown that half of all homeless men have had traumatic brain injuries. ( One researcher commented that while men only may have been the subjects of the studies, all of the researchers had a strong conviction they'd find at least that high a percentage of TBI in homeless women. )
As a man who is a survivor of a pediatric TBI, it doesn't surprise me at all that this would be the case. Traumatic brain injury does things to one's capacity to function which are difficult for a TBI patient to explain to the uninjured. If you can't work, and you haven't had the opportunity to develop normally as an emotional being, it shouldn't be hard for another to understand that it's remarkable that we don't have more homelessness.
If half of all homeless people have had a life altering if not life ruining injury, this must affect everything in a decent society's approach to the problem.
You can have a TBI and a drug problem. Getting rid of open air drug markets and using carrots and sticks will be better for those who are homeless due to drugs, TBIs, or a combination of both.
@@resilientrecoveryministries , beyond question! It's a multifactorial problem: it stands to reason that if only 50% of homeless people have had TBIs, other things, drugs probably foremost among them, have been the factors in the homelessness of millions of others.
I brought it up because I rarely see it mentioned. Its possibility does need to be taken into account in the case of each homeless person.
What is fascinating is that it usually doesn't take MRIs to establish that someone has had a TBI. A clinical neurologist with three reflex hammers in each hand can give you an answer in about ten minutes.
Add history of childhood sexual abuse for the other 50%
@@Gingerblaze I don't doubt that you are correct. I wrote what I did because I know about it: I am a pediatric TBI survivor, and in 2002, was homeless for over two months.
Homeless people meet other homeless people. I knew a woman who had been r*p*d at age 5, then when she was 9, was kidnapped and r*p*d by another man. She had permanent damage because of the things the kidnapper did to her during the several days he kept her.
The point I wanted to make is that I never knew any homeless man or woman who hadn't been through a Hell on Earth early in life. You may know about The ACE ( Adverse Childhood Events ) Study. We know that early - in - life trauma sets people up for lives of sorrow of all kinds.
@@bobtaylor170 thank you for your response! Glad you were able to get out of your situation and find healing and housing. It is definitely possible to overcome childhood trauma with determination and building on ones strengths and talents.
Asking the question, "Does Poverty Cause Homelessness?" is like asking, "Does having no food goes hunger?" And this is from a university.
21:25 Obviously if the professor selects only for homeless who are flagrant IV drug addicts, then he is dangerously biased to use that sample to describe "the typical" area person. Aren't like 20% of bay area community college students homeless at some point during each year? What about the >50% of homeless working 40 hours or more a week? They are not the homeless you sample from, then you advocate totalitarianism against what are often senior citizens, disabled, recent foster care orphans, etc.
People in economic competition look to justify atrocities. So now a professional working a job, paying debt, maybe sleeping in their car and showering at their gym or office... or people stuck in weekly rentals, or camper homes, or couchsurfing, etc.
If I only interviewed millionaires wearing over $100,000 in gold, I'd probably conclude wealthy people are "typically" ostentatious etc.
Literally lynching full time law abiding workers because of allegations they do not own or pay a landlord so they are outlaws and outside any lawful or moral protections.
Shellenberger writes audaciously, intrepidly revealing previously unknown schemes and scams against the public, including financial exploitation.
Yet he appears unable to momentarily consider that that same public may in aggregate have some growing portion that become homeless.
Professor indicates grift by afministrators of public funded programs but never considers that the homeless may be victimized.
Eye opening, thank you
I have been homeless a couple of times. Luckily I had a friend that let me crash while I was looking for a job, or I could come up with motel money. It's the cost of living. I have given up driving, health care, dental care, dining out, clothes all just to keep a roof over my head. Hedge funds own most apartment complexes, and keep rents high even when occupancies are low. Capitalism is the best form of economy, but wealthy can and do exploit the poor. Jamie Dimon from Chase says inequality is the biggest issue facing our economy, yet he charges me $12 if my account falls below $1,500 for 1 day in a month.
If California would of took the 17 million dollars and put it toward building a facility mental health with doctors and psychiatrist,nures for dual diagnosis a rehab setting they might have made a difference
No, all those systems You've mentioned have completely failed to bring actual health.
I volunteer at a place serving food to homeless people. I know California policies have led to this tied to the big money involved. I enter the lion’s den to reduce my anger and remind myself everyone is a pawn
Trauma and homelessness
Homelessness is connected with trauma in a number of ways. First, a person who is facing homelessness has often experienced a series of traumatic events prior to the trauma of homelessness.
For some, this trauma may include childhood abuse, neglect or household dysfunction
Shellenberger has discovered Empiric research is much more honestly done without College Research Ethic Boards (REBs) restraining your ideas.
The question is can poverty cause homelessness the answer is yes because employment does not go up like inflation and rising rent costs does not help
The problem promoting homelessness is deinstitutionalization... which began in the 60s and early 70s as part of radical anti-authoritarian objections to abusive institutions and the ideas that anybody's reality was as good as anyone else's. HOUSING especially in the case of addicts who are often dysfunctional in completing "normal" tasks DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUATE WITH " INDEPENDENT " LIVING -- or living within a support system of fellow addicts that are even more effed up then the person who is in the early stages of self-medication and who MAY BE spiraling down Dangerously for themselves and everyone around them.
We've certainly got enough surveillance technology to keep people working in residential facilities from abusing patients, whether they seek admission themselves or with the help of family members, or if they become involuntarily committed inmates.
I imagine that it might be nice to do drugs outside in nice weather in California even within the confines of the little tent on a dry piece of cement on what used to be a public walkway serving residents, retail customers, and shopkeepers.
Maybe it's just time to rethink and reinvent institutionalization or at least institutional care
THE LEGACY IF THOMAS SZASZ. To understand the proliferation of homelessness especially amongst drug addicts and people self-medicating and frequentlt "off their [ prescribed ] medication And living in open-open-air user communities operated by drug cartels "policing" sidewalk spaces rented out for urban camping in pop tents and facilitating easy distribution of sometimes contaminated drugs -- its heloful TO GOOGLE/PURCHASE/READ " The Myth of Mental Illness" first published by psychologist Thomas Szaz published a series of books and gave lectures upending efforts to treat people who are arguably out of their minds separating them from family members in strangers whom they might disturbed, damage, or destroy when there their idiosyncratic world views and views of themselves are allowed to flourish without mitigation or any kind of intervention that involves conventional behavior, beliefs, norms.
Arguably liberating people classified as mentally ill has not achieved entirely favorable consequences for the individuals or surrounding societies. There's been a lot of money thrown at the problem of homelessness which disguises the underlying root causes of individuals being unable to function productively in contemporary settings and who gravitate to camping out in regions with good weather most of the year such as Southern California or the year such as Denver. The application of anarchist rationalizations and extreme libertarian rationalizations to mental health care not a left-right issue unless your vision The Left is that everyone lives off the government either by having a government job or comprehensive government benefits and nobody does anything else or pays taxes. People who could be classified as mentally ill are not known to have high survival rates under Stalin OR under Hitler. And of course the way language devolves mentally ill is a turn with which people do not want to be labeled but is also a euphemism for crazy, or in more common parlance: batshit crazy. If nobody is subject to negative classifications and everything is legal, there's no way for well meaning instruments of social welfare to get a handle on housing and treating individuals who are already organically dysfunctional, or who choose to make themselves so by overly indulging self-medication with drugs and/or alcohol. The world self-medication isn't used to justify self-harm but to suggest that maybe medication prescribed and administered by medical doctors in phds in a confined setting might just be more helpful than a free market economy of street drugs. Thomas Szasz make a career of questioning received wisdom and disturbing preconceived notions -- without providing answers. Presuming that his intent was not 100% cultural and social subversion, it's time that people started grappling with the unintended consequences of institutionalization under the radical premise that nobody has the right to judge anyone else's State of Mind or Behavior. Maybe just maybe radical theories can lead to something other than the impulse to destroy coupled with the impulse for totalitarian authoritarian control of those subjecting the world to their own experiments
Bravo! What a great message about empericism. This is otherwise called a critical thought process that employs the analysis of unbiased supporting evidence. Not an easy task in this Era of censorship and media capture.
*Empericism
@@thegroovypatriot thanks
Most people on the streets are there by choice. Addiction issues, mental heath issues. Few because of economic realities. Homelessness is a business for activists. It has become an industry for the people who are supposedly trying to 'help'. Why would you cure the problem, if it puts YOU out of a job.
I've tried getting an apartment after my divorce it's been impossible it destroyed my credit didn't have a rental history because I lived in a home but couldn't get the Mortgage information because it was in her name and my employers kept going out of business so no long term employment history nobody would rent with more than two strikes and for 2 it was a 30 percent rent increase and and extra two months rent up front how is anyone supposed to afford that??
@@patrickday4206 You can't. I didn't say there were no economic homelessness. I said the majority were addicts and the mentally ill. I expect economic homelessness to increase. Which in turn tends to lead to more mental illness and addiction. Cause not everybody will be able to cope. And more people than ever before, have no family to fall back on.
@@patrickday4206 when my girlfriend moved out of our apartment I went to a homeless shelter for 4 months till an apartment opened up got help dhs, the VA, and a private housing group helped get my rent down to 99 month
if you want off the street there is aid
@@patrickday4206 I'm sorry bro. I think you deserve to have a place to live, even for free. All this is ridiculous. We should house people. If we want the name, honestly. They just don't believe in love basically, faik. Hope you have a place to go or a car at least. There's a ton of hacks out there.
People with mental health issues are not in street by choice. Most mental illnesses are not drug related. People have it because of genetics and trauma. If they are an adult the parents can do nothing to advocate for them unless the ill child signs the HIPPA papers, which he might not understand if he is sick. Psychiatric drugs cost money and how can a person with mental illness afford it? It takes time to get the right meds. Then they need love and support the rest of their lives. Bipolar people are highly creative and intelligent people and can be contributing members of society if the laws were more amenable to parent advocacy. My son has bipolar illness and is a brilliant composer. Why? We cared for him when he could not do it himself. He never took a drug or smoked. The world needs to learn more about what mental illness really is. The internet is full of info. It’s time to educate ourselves.
Thank you for bringing this guy. Hes a smart guy for a democrat. SARCASTIC EYES
who knew that people would use a government program to get hooked on drugs and not work. but Michael is still a democrat.
Shellenberger clarity: “The word ‘homeless’ is a propaganda word in the sense that it’s trying to make you think this is about housing rather than about addiction and mental illness.”
Do it together. Right, because drug addicts are so trustworthy. They got your back.
We Californians coulda had this man as our governor. But we chose pain instead and re-elected Newsom. What a damn shame.
Thank you.
Excellent presentation Dr. Shellenberger. I love the concept of empiricism and how you use it to explain this subject. Keep up the good work.
California has completely divested itself from the value of human life. When you invest in healing practices, results follow that process.
It's the neighborhood associations, and such. Protecting property values. Nobody wants low income complexes and they haven't figured out anything better it seems.
This has got to be required viewing at the University level.
Shellenberger is great. But it's funny that we even need this level of discourse on a subject to simply find our way back to common sense.
Yes. Povertly definetly cause homelessness. Stop paying your rent and you see what happens.
Mental distress makes people look like children but they aren't.
Society won't. People don't on mass. Michael, employ some people with mental distress, invite them to your home. "If you have 2 coats and your brother has none, give your other coat to your brother.
"Does poverty cause homelessness" ...Not by design, but a dictatorship can cause poverty in which makes it harder, by law, to self create a roof over ones head.
A lot of rich Democrats live in California. They should share their enormous wealth and beautiful mansions with the poor and homeless people who live in California.
The more funding for homelessness, the more homeless you will have.
Canada doesn't allow MAID for mental health or addiction reasons. It has been proposed but has not passed and probably won't. BC has also as of yesterday re criminalized small amounts of drugs and has made it illegal to use drugs in public. This will give police the option to arrest.
The debate about Housing First needs to be furthered through research to identify who benefits most from Housing First, what services are needed in addition to Housing First, and which housing models can serve as effective alternatives to the Housing First model when appropriate or necessary.
To the naive fool who asked why we can’t just accept that most addicts won’t ever reform, so what’s wrong with putting them in a free apartment and letting them carry on ( with free drugs, of course)… I would ask , who the hell do you expect to pay for this non productive, indolent luxury? The taxpayer who can’t keep a roof over his/her head and feed their kids, while working our asses off? Ridiculous idiocy.
Brilliant ❤
Excuse me, but my pension is $1150 while rents start ab above $2000. And I don't take drugs.
So do the math. Its a no brainer, all I can afford is a tent. But the cost of living makers me a crimminal. So arrest me! Go on, I dare you.
You should see, hear, and read the rhetoric in social work schools.
What are the odds that someone who has a strong work ethic, resists destructive habits, and faithfully pays their monthly bills before discretionary spending will end up on the streets? Those are long odds indeed.
You're either being facetious, or missing the reality of the current job and housing market. Model citizens with great skills and work ethics cannot get hired full time, because employers realized how much money they could save by not paying benefits. Some of these individuals are in their 40s but living with their parents because they simply can't earn enough to live the American dream. That is today's reality.
What you make easier, you get more of.
Ask former addicts what got the off drugs and 9 of 10 will tell you jail. Cold turkey, medical supervised withdrawal.
I don't know about poverty but not having an income and no one to go to for shelder will cause homelessness.
Nobody wants to talk about how Fentanyl hit the streets just as weed was legalized. And then suddenly we had all of these people in tents, and people bent over on the streets. Guess it’s just a weird coincidence. Just like the whole medical gender issue weirdly happened right after gay marriage was legalized. Just another weird coincidence.
There are few saints really interested in improving societal pressing issues, that can be effective. This dude gets down to the nitty gritty of it by jumping into the discomfort. Discomforting leads to action. Wanting it to improve by empiricism shows a way. His experiences mirror my own over time. Most people just let someone tell them, how it is ideologically. Humanity needs humanity, not ideology to improve. Reasoning that is suggested here seem sound, well done research with facts and direction.
Does not eating cause weight loss? 🤔
Housing First works in Finland. Why not in the USA?
In Finland, homeless usually don't survive their 1st winter.
I don't no not every one' that s homeless is on drugs he's talking to drug Addict not all people won't to live indoors or do drugs at all some people just like living out doors traveling I don't do drugs I just like to live out my van homeless panhandle money and travel
The Portuguese official says if a person has more than a 10-day supply of a drug, he or she gets *criminally charged* as before, not that he goes before a drug dissuasion panel, which happens if he had less than a 10-day supply.
British Columbia as of April 26/24 has realized decriminalization experiment has not worked after 1 year. The BC gov is trying to have the federal gov REPEAL the exemption of drug laws in BC. Police will be able to do their jobs again...soon. Still the focus is on harm reduction though.
no, choices cause homelessness, the choices one makes every day, some choose to be homeless for various reasons, some dont feel worthy, some where never taught to mentally mature, so the choices they make are like those of a child and only really consider here and now. How one makes choices is taught by life, what you experience, what your parents teach you or as the case maybe, what they dont teach you. There are cases of just bad luck, but those are few and far between... what it really boils down too, is what and how you teach your children. I am no stranger to poverty but I have never been homeless, my kids always had food and clean clothes and I come from one of the worst housing projects in Canada, Regent Park.
Your comment is disingenuous and disinformation
No it's crafted
I would like to put Michael in a room with Theodore Dalrymple and Johann Hari and not let them out until they have fomr to agreement on the 'drugs policies' ready to implement ❤
When they closed the asylums, they threw out the baby with the bath water. Bring them back, do it right.
How do you make a horse drink water?
Also, if your reward addicts with free homes, what are you doing to low income people like me? I work two jobs to keep a roof over my head. It’s likes a slap in the face for doing what’s right.
Why not incentivize living a normal life by giving better options to low income people’s housing? Show the down and outers that making an effort will pay off!
Absolutely NOT. Landlord greed, selling the house from underneath the renter, hedge funds buying up trailer parks, apartment buildings and anything else they can get their filthy hands on. Homelessness these days is because of OWNER GREED.
What on the earth are the people thinking when they elect the policy makers. Pure evil.
The problem is they say housing first and then they do not build.
I have a question: where does the Fentanyl come from? Big pharma? Or mafia controlled labs? How hard is it to make fentanyl? And why can’t we stop the production of it?
Downtown LA is pretty much a legalized drug zone. I really don’t think having safe spaces will help, particularly in the US. Mental health facilities are what’s really needed
Is this The Onion? Shellenberger is an 'expert' on the environment, climate change, nuclear power, and now, it seems, homelessness. There seems to be no end to his 'expertise'. He'll thrive at University of Austin whose motto should read, "Building a safe planet (sic) for billionaires".
35:21 I'm not used to thinking of "living on the street" that literally.
What a silly question to a cat complex economic issue. Does poverty cause homelessness? No only rich people are homeless. In our society, everyone that poor is not homeless. These rich people need to pull themselves by the bootstrap. 🙄
Hi Micheal. Have you looked at what Dream Center in LA is doing?
The answer is no, just look at mowie, and artificial constraints on the housing market besides "affordable", high rents, low wages, or Air Bnb's... It costs 72 thousand per year per homeless person, it's a business, #homelessindustrialcomplex
No, most people can find a relative or friends couch to crash on. Drug and alcohol addiction are overwhelmingly the factors for homelessness.