Recent comments in /f/baltimore

louielouayyyyy t1_j93veu0 wrote

Reply to comment by dopkick in Looking to meet fellow hikers in Baltimore by J8R9L

People are hating, but you are correct. Sure, you can hike Weverton Cliffs and Old Rag, but ex-Coloradans need to lower their expectations. The Whites in NH are the closest you’ll get to western mountains on the east coast and that still cannot compare.

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sllewgh t1_j93unif wrote

Reply to comment by CaptainObvious110 in Baltimore Sees Steep Drop in Unhoused Residents by real_human__bean

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.

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CaptainObvious110 t1_j93smnr wrote

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

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

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sllewgh t1_j93mzfk wrote

Reply to comment by CaptainObvious110 in Baltimore Sees Steep Drop in Unhoused Residents by real_human__bean

>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.

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CaptainObvious110 t1_j93mayy wrote

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

Those people do indeed need resources as well that's true. What I think needs to happen is that people are classified based on why they are homeless.

  1. Loss of job or something else. They need a place to stay temporarily until they can get back on their feet. In the meantime they need to eat and have medical care.

  2. People with mental illness that can be treated and they can hold down a job and just need some stability for the time being.

  3. People with mental and or physical illnesses so severe that they honestly CANNOT hold down a job. As a result, they will always need to be provided with a place to live, food and medical care as well.

  4. Likely there will always be at least a small group of chronically homeless that don't want to live in a traditional home or a shelter. Whether it's because of mental Illness or not I don't think you can force them to live somewhere if that's really not what they want to do.

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Temporary-Light9189 t1_j93gcun wrote

Reply to comment by Frofro69 in What does “are you hacking?” mean when asked by pedestrians in the city? by Vysokojakokurva_C137

Oh yea for sure man, at the end of the day the people getting hurt are the ones that are doing something to earn it. Although I do realize that there are innocents that get hurt, every time I see that corner where that poor young woman was shot in crossfire with her kids in the car I take a moment of silence in respect.

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