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posted by martyb on Friday December 08 2017, @05:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-walk-barefoot dept.

San Diego continues to face a hepatitis A outbreak:

Like other major cities all along the West Coast, San Diego is struggling with a homeless crisis. In a place that bills itself as "America's Finest City," spiraling real estate values have contributed to spiraling homelessness, leaving more than 3,200 people living on the streets or in their cars.

Most alarmingly, the deplorable sanitary conditions help spread a liver-damaging virus that lives in fæces, contributing to the deadliest U.S. hepatitis A epidemic in 20 years. "Some of the most vulnerable are dying in the streets in one of the most desirable and livable regions in America," a San Diego County grand jury wrote in its report in June — reiterating recommendations it gave the city over the past decade to address homelessness.

San Diego has struggled to do that. Two years ago, Mayor Kevin Faulconer closed a downtown tent shelter that operated for 29 years during winter months. He promised a "game changer" — a new, permanent facility with services to funnel people to housing. But it wasn't enough. The result? Legions of Californians without shelter. A spreading contagion. And an extraordinary challenge to the city's sunny identity that threatens its key tourism industry.

Previously: San Diego Declares Emergency Due to Outbreak of Hepatitis A
San Diego Power-Washing Streets to Fight Hepatitis A Outbreak


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday December 08 2017, @07:16PM (5 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @07:16PM (#607356)

    The weather doesn't matter for people with (indoor) jobs and houses, only homeless. And we can in fact fit most of the countries homeless in San Diego, which is what we've kinda done. If you don't own anything and don't have a job a bus ticket to S.D. is much more realistically survivable than sleeping on the streets of, say, Milwaukee or Fargo or Minneapolis in the winter. The folks living on the street in, say, Minneapolis, are those so crazy they can't hold it together long enough to get that ticket to the land of plenty in CA.

    spiraling real estate values have contributed to spiraling homelessness

    Not entirely. There's a lot more to it than "middle class houses cost more". Such as financial pressure to only make housing for rich people (more profit) means there's a thousand empty $5000/mo apartments per block and zero low income housing built. Or high cost of giving someone a job (health insurance, min wage, etc) mean there's lots of unemployed. Or lack of mental health care means people with broken legs get medicare/medi-wtf/free-ER-service and get fixed up, but people with broken brains merely poop on the sidewalk till they die. And then there's the drug issue where giving IV drug users who all have hepatitis from sharing needles, more money, just means they die somewhat slower plus or minus overdose rates, we don't really have a useful success rate at curing addiction; there are people who need money and can benefit and the IV drug users are triaged off to die on sidewalks covered in poop, why throw away money on walking dead, unfortunate as it sounds.

    And an extraordinary challenge to the city's sunny identity

    Outside CA, the way people see CA, post 1990 or so, is, um, not so positive. They don't exactly need a "Trump Wall" and armed guards to keep people out or CA in general or SD as one example, LOL.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Friday December 08 2017, @08:15PM (4 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Friday December 08 2017, @08:15PM (#607383) Journal

    Even the summary reveals part of the problem. They got rid of the tent city and replaced it with empty promises. That is, they got rid of the better than nothing partial solution and replaced it with nothing. So what was once a concentrated issue where they could hope to provide basic sanitation is now a well dispersed problem and much harder to do anything about.

    One might say they shat on the homeless and now the homeless are returning the favor.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:35AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:35AM (#607578)

      To constantly be rousting people who have no home to go to costs twice what it would to provide housing. [google.com]

      the tent city [...] a concentrated issue where they could hope to provide basic sanitation

      Top 30 Homelessness Myths, versus the Realities [orangejuiceblog.com]

      Myth #18: More shelters are necessary to end homelessness

      [More shelters lead to more people in shelters--not to less homelessness.]

      ...so that wasn't really an actual solution either.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:58AM

        by sjames (2882) on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:58AM (#607646) Journal

        Read myth #18 more carefully. I agree that a city of individually improvised tents wasn't a great answer but it was a lot better than an empty promise and a lot better than the shelters the myth was actually talking about.

        Providing proper housing would be even better, but that didn't happen. Instead, the city seems hellbent on removing homeless people's private individual tents so they can herd them into more shelter like sanctioned group tents which the homeless avoid for the reasons in your link.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:53PM (1 child)

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:53PM (#607694) Homepage

        " Some of the most vulnerable are dying in the streets in one of the most desirable and livable regions in America," a San Diego County grand jury wrote in its report in June "

        HO HO HO Ha Ha HAWWWWWWWW! What they are talking about is East Village, which is pretty much like Los Angeles' Skid Row and one step away from becoming a favela or Delhi slum. This is reassurance to the understandably angry out-of-state morons who bought condos there at a ridiculous markup as well as to the potential s̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ buyers who need reassurance that the homeless problem will simply disappear overnight.

        I travel there on a regular basis, and yes, despite all the pressure-washing going on every morning, you will still see bums slamming heroin and smoking crack in broad daylight on the patio of that polished little gentrified-looking coffee shop, and you will most definitely see piles of fresh feces on the sidewalks everywhere because cruel bureaucrats think its a bad idea to provide places for bums to shit. Oh, and East Village is where all the social services are, so those bums aren't leaving anytime soon.

        "One of the most desirable and livable regions in America," indeed. Like Detroit.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:55PM (#607812)

          USA likes to call itself the richest nation on the globe.
          So, why is 60 percent of the populace $400 away from disaster?
          (The majority of USAians would have to sell something or take out a loan if they had an emergency.)

          When FDR was handed the mess that (Republicans) Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover had created, and the boom-and-bust Capitalist weren't hiring, he put 15 million USAians back to work and got the economy jump-started.
          Those USAians patched up dilapidated public infrastructure and built lots of new stuff.

          These days, just look around.
          Much of The Richest Nation looks like an armpit.
          There's clearly plenty of work that needs doing.
          In this (meta)thread, the sorry state of the decades-old sidewalks in SoCal has already been mentioned.
          With all the wealth/resources in it, USA should be the most beautiful place on the planet.
          You shouldn't be able to look anywhere and not see awesomeness.

          Instead, we have a failed nation with a failed economy--and the occasional pocket of affluence.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]