How well does your state handle homeless people?

22 comments

1. As with most states: poorly. It could certainly be worse, but there’s an unfortunately common theme in the U.S. of thinking that everyone is or at least should be responsible for themselves and thus that being homeless is some kind of moral failing or inherent laziness or something. As such programs to help them don’t really get as much attention or support as they should.

2. We don’t.

3. Of the states I’ve lived in.
   Florida and Arizona: Hard to say, I hardly saw any and aren’t aware of policies.

   Washington and California: While both have a lot of policies that are supposed to help the homeless, it seems to have resulted in the opposite. Both states are spending (probably hundreds of) millions of dollars on programs, while the problems just keep getting worse.

4. the thing my area does well is opening up public spaces for people to stay when the temperatures outside are particularly inhospitable. I live in one of the coldest areas of the country, and staying outside unprepared for prolonged periods of time could kill you. there are also areas of town where you can legally park overnight without getting ticketed. this helps people who are living in cars.

   there are some good shelters in my area, but they’re not accessible for all homeless people. many require residents to be clean from drugs and alcohol. there are pretty restrictive limits on how long people can stay.

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6. My state pretty much neglects them. This comes from the mouth of one homeless gentleman that approached me recently while I was eating: “I really hate to ask but can I please have some money for something to eat. I don’t like asking but no one will hire a sixty year old man and this country helps Ukraine and millions of immigrants but not me, a veteran”

7. I really can’t speak to Maryland yet, but for Arizona: very badly.

   I worked in a library and people would come to us as their first stop to be hooked up to resources and there just…. Weren’t any, really. In Phoenix, there’s one big shelter downtown and a handful of domestic violence shelters and that’s pretty much it. There’s food banks, but they have limited hours and are exceedingly difficult to access without a car. Sleeping in a tent is illegal and cracked down on, but if you don’t have a tent, you’re at severe weather risk — temperatures are over 90F/32C for most of the year and over 110F/43C pretty much all summer, and the concrete is even hotter than that. It *sucks.* And this is in Phoenix, the largest metro area in the state — in rural areas, there may be no resources at all. The town I grew up in had a soup kitchen and a battered women’s shelter (a domestic violence shelter where men and older male children weren’t allowed) serving the whole north half of the county and that was it.

8. If the government handled it well, there would be far fewer homeless people. A majority of homeless in America are mentally ill, drug addicts, or a mix of both. Plenty of things could be done to help these people but the government can’t make any money off of it so they pretend to help.

9. Ok. We don’t have the challenge of mild weather.
   California probably has half our homeless because not many people want to camp in a couple feet of snow.

10. Maine does a decent job all things considered.

    Winters in Maine can literally kill you. We have shelters and warming stations (you can’t live there but at least there is a warm bed and food). Between those two options we care for most anyone who is homeless and wants help. The sad part is that there are homeless people who just don’t want help for whatever reason and you can’t force it on them.

    I am more familiar with addiction recovery places which always see a spike in winter months of new people. They try very hard to keep people in treatment during cold months through a combination of public and private grants. Homelessness and addiction very often go hand in hand.

    Every shelter or warming station is always in need of funding and donations. Americans are very giving on issues like that. It is heart warming to see former addicts who had been homeless donate time and money even when they don’t have much themselves.

11. Here in Portland, OR we have some of the worst homeless population problems in the country and, from my travels around the country the last couple years and post-COVID waves, I’d argue it’s probably the worst. Our population and government seem to be really passive on the whole issue and I don’t know what the solution is, but something needs to be done about it. Downtown PDX has been a back and forth with decent clean streets and needles/tents everywhere for awhile.

    Part of it, arguably, is the climate of the PNW. Relatively easy to be homeless here. But some of it is political as well.

12. It’s not really a state issue, as much as a city issue. Each city is affected differently and enacts different laws to accommodate or discourage homeless people.

13. Very badly. It doesn’t help that we’re an “attractive” place to be homeless with our year-round mild weather, so a lot of the unhoused population either migrated here or were transported here from other areas and there are a LOT of them.

14. It doesn’t. There is no dedicated department within the state of Indiana or the city of Indianapolis to address people who are without a home of their own. Indianapolis is also the largest US city without at least one publicly owned homeless shelter. The local housing authority from the feds is actually nearly bankrupt and has something like an eight year waiting list.

    It is almost entirely left to private non-profits to address.

15. So Texas doesn’t have one standard set up. Probably the most conscious municipality that handles homelessness as a function of government is Austin. IMO they perpetuate homelessness and don’t really provide any resolution to the problem.

    In Dallas, aid for the homeless is a function of private donation. There’s the public works aspect of it, but it’s simply not enough and is negligible in comparison.

    The governmental aspect is mostly resources– food credits, etc. My wife used to work with the homeless through a Catholic organization that provides housing for the homeless in Dallas County. There are other non-profit organizations that help as well; but my opinion, *clearly* not biased, is that the Catholics are the juggernauts with regards to helping the homeless, as is the norm

16. Sadly where I live, they’re very common. Whenever I see them, I make sure to give to them in the hopes that they’ll use it to help themselves live a better life. I mean Adams is trying to get them from staying in the Subway.

17. We have warming stations that open in winter on colder nights and severe weather stations when the weather is expected to be bad. On top of that the town had a couple of private homeless shelters that are open year round. Still doesn’t stop people from sleeping on park benches. We’re not a huge town but we still have maybe in the ballpark of 35 homeless people. A few have mental health issues, some are down on their luck or had to get out of bad situations. I’d imagine we may have more of we count couch surfers and nit just those on the streets.

18. Very Horribly, I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico. In our city homelessness is a huge issues there are tent cities everywhere and while it’s not illegal they don’t want to lock them up just for setting up camp you know? They don’t want to punish the homeless. Kicking them out of these areas which are usually parks, just causes them to move to residential areas, which nobody wants, or they are just back in a day or 2. We are trying designated homeless camp areas of the city that are far away from residential areas. We also have tiny homes for free to the homeless population, but they do not like to be told what to do so they don’t like living in them. Instead they set up tents outside of the tiny homes

19. Each city will do their own thing, state is a bit of a broad brush to paint with. I am EXTREMELY dissatisfied with the way my city is handling our homeless population.

20. The county cops tend to pick them up and drop them off in a different county so they become that county’s problem. Then that county takes them back. Repeat repeat repeat.

    Which is to say, not well. Not well at all.

21. I’ve lived in a few states that had very few homeless and the shelter systems in place could easily accommodate it.
     

    However, I’ve also lived in California, which has a huge problem. Actually oddly enough many people from the USA goto California when they are homeless, so that probably makes it worse.
     

22. I don’t think any state really handles them *well*, mind you.

    New York is kind of famous for bussing our homeless elsewhere (often Western MA, but other places, too. The urban legend is that cops are always paying for one-way tickets to Hawaii.)

    What I can say is that there are non-police resource groups who, for instance, will check to see if someone has a place to stay on particularly cold nights.