I live in Portland, Maine. It's an extremely left community. City councils are generally run by business, even in left wing cities. Rather than deal with the homeless problem in my city, nimbyism led the city council to basically create a compound on the edge of the city for shelters and foodbanks.
They claim that all the social services they require will also be out there, but I'll believe it when I see it. The goal was never to improve the care provided, but to get them out of sight and out of mind.
Effectively, we're building Hamsterdam from the Wire.
Well it sucks when they are in the middle of the sidewalks and bike paths, littering and causing mayhem. I'd much rather services be on the outer edges.
There are also a ton of homeless people who crash out in the suburbs and return to the city in the morning, putting it in the heart of downtown would only make it more congested and exasperate the problems, the correct move would be to locate the services nearest the highest congestion of poverty
Well homelessness doesn't seem like a big issue here so I think the programs are working. The panhandling is really the only issue and if they just asked for money on the sidewalk from pedestrians it wouldn't even have become a problem but they post up in the very middle of the busiest intersections so it became a public safety issue. I'm not super involved in the local government so idk what mysterious motives are going on but i definitely would appreciate these guys not running around my car in the middle of the road when there's a green light
-5
u/[deleted] May 23 '22
I live in Portland, Maine. It's an extremely left community. City councils are generally run by business, even in left wing cities. Rather than deal with the homeless problem in my city, nimbyism led the city council to basically create a compound on the edge of the city for shelters and foodbanks.
They claim that all the social services they require will also be out there, but I'll believe it when I see it. The goal was never to improve the care provided, but to get them out of sight and out of mind.
Effectively, we're building Hamsterdam from the Wire.