General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy are there so many homeless when we are doing so well?
in Denver it's terrible, middle aged men and younger, women and some children.
you would see a few occasionally in the mid 2000's but the volume has increased exponentially.
It breaks my heart to see so many near retirement age struggle just to live.
LisaM
(27,759 posts)It's because free rein is being given to developers, who are knocking down all the affordable housing and building horrendously expensive apartments for tech company workers. Not only are they evicting people like crazy, they are not building the promised market rate units to replace them. Which aren't going to be affordable to the evicted people when they finally do materialize.
JI7
(89,174 posts)rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)JI7
(89,174 posts)rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)MarcA
(2,195 posts)Aristus
(66,095 posts)So many people are living just one paycheck away from the streets. And, as pointed out above, the accelerating loss of affordable housing is just making an already bad problem worse.
BigmanPigman
(51,430 posts)along with affordable health care. This problem is rapidly growing in most larger cities but I am not familiar with the smaller ones.
arthurgoodwin
(38 posts)I agree that the number of homeless here in Denver appears to be up some, but probably not as much as first appears. I see the homeless a lot since I walk everywhere (10+ miles a day). There used to be a LOT of homeless encampments along the various creek/river open spaces here, but not so much as in previous years because the authorities have been putting a lot of effort into closing these. Some Examples:
1) Central Cherry Creek is very heavily wooded and in years past there were a lot of homeless encampments almost hidden among the trees. Last couple of years police have been closing these down. Village of Glendale in central Denver has gone so far to cut down numerous trees along creek in main places where the Homeless had been congreating.
2) Upper Cherry Creek between Iliff and Quebec had a fairly big encampment where there was a bench along creek that was hidden from easy view. This summer whole area was cleared out, fenced and posted.
3) Area along Platte River south of junction with Sand Creek used to have many, many homeless camps (and many of these people were actually working in the industrial areas nearby). City of Denver police last couple of years have been rousting and moving these people along with regularity.
4) Just about everywhere in Denver where there is overhead cover (under bridges, etc.) is now painted and marked with some variation of "prohibited to stop, loiter, camp, here, etc. per city municipal code". Let Police see you crossing the marked lines and they will cite you (twice they've tried to do this to me when I was walking my dog and I crossed dashed yellow line along edge of marked path).
All of this means that Homeless are now more visible than before - as they have to pick up each morning and keep moving about, whereas when in encampments they were invisible to most people. This can make the number of homeless appear larger than it really is.
I do agree with the comments that lack of low-cost housing is probably the main problem. It seems like everywhere in Denver new expensive apartments are replacing older homes.
Demonaut
(8,909 posts)ago, it's terrible
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Midnight Writer
(21,547 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)Kablooie
(18,571 posts)According tot the Trump,administration, just today, the war on poverty is over. We won. There's virtually no more poverty in the US so we can now Drop all the welfare programs.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/trump-administration-declares-war-on-poverty-largely-over-because-of-huge-success.html
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)we have Homeless Encampments all over the place. And the Local City and County Officials do not want to admit to the real number of Homeless.
When ten percent of our School Children are Homeless,that number is 32k. The rest is quite easy to figure out. And the makeup of our Homeless crosses all segments ,Families,Vets,Mentally challenged,and thousands of teens who are addicted.
Lack of affordable housing and a lousy wages are two of the main reasons for this as well as a total lack of public free health care.
And the Police Department's main task is keeping the homeless off the Strip,that is all that counts.
DeminPennswoods
(15,246 posts)(asset liminted, income constrained, employed), it's easy to see why there is so much homelessness and people just one hiccup away from it.
Link: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2018/06/18/As-economy-surges-they-re-left-behind/stories/201806070179
Across the country, 43 percent of American households struggle to make ends meet, the study shows.
Researchers calculated the cost of living in each county in the country and used data from the 2016 Census Bureau American Community Survey to tabulate the number of Americans in ALICE.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)MFM008
(19,776 posts)My brothers girlfriend's son is mentally ill, refuses
Medication.
He lives on the streets of Seattle.
The only time she hears from him
is when they arrest him.
They cant or wont go through with their treatments.