• HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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    2 days ago

    There is a debate regarding what the best practice is regarding how to handle homeless people and people who need extensive social services.

    On one hand, it may make sense to put all those people together in one area with support nearby. That way, you can target those who need help with concentrated resources.

    On the flip side, concentrating these people together usually includes a subset who are disruptive and will bring down the quality of life of the area they live in. So, you’re taking vulnerable populations and sticking them in unhealthy areas. This is why a lot of government programs focus on distributing these people over as wide an area as possible.

    • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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      2 days ago

      Yeah. I actually volunteer at my local shelter and one of the guys was talking about how certain guys can’t come to the shelter because they’ll get in fights with other guys there, so I do understand that it’s good to have options. But I still think you could optimize those options and the concentration if we put just a little more effort into it as a society.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        2 days ago

        From what I’ve read, you need to really dilute the disruptive population before it affects local quality of life, which seems to only work if you distribute the homeless population across all of a country rather than localize them in locally impoverished areas.

        The problem is that most places with a functioning local community able to self organize will fight homeless institutions from being built because it potentially threatens the local order, which threatens quality of life, which threatens housing prices.

        • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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          2 days ago

          Oh, I see what’s happening here. You misunderstood what I was saying initially. Probably my fault for not describing it properly.

          I didn’t mean condense the homeless population to certain cities or something like that that. I meant spots within municipalities. Like multiple spots.

          • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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            1 day ago

            That’s covered in the last paragraph. Few people want these institutions built in their local communities and many places will fight the building of these shelters tooth and nail.