Homelessness in other countries

The problem is largely a mental health one (also addiction which I lump into mental health). A lot of the camper types that you see, the same ones camping in tents for years, would have been in mental hospitals in years past. But, when the government mental hospitals started to be closed (from their prior scale) from the 1960-1990s (or vastly minimized) the (visible) homeless population began to rise. And, this continues to compound drastically with the ongoing mental health crisis and addiction mixed in.

There will always be people who unexpectedly hit hard times due to a medical emergency or sudden job loss or whatever, and may have to sleep in their car for a few weeks between jobs or until they can find a place to stay. These are not who I am referring to, I am referring to the people who camp out in public for years or decades on end with no desire to live in stable housing (or even a hotel), IE the "chronically homeless". Unfortunately, many of these types will refuse help and outreach for obvious reasons, even in communities with abundant resources (and even more private charities as a backup).

Quote: AZDuffman

You could probably ban panhandling by classifying it as "commercial speech." What is upsetting me is just how much more of it I keep seeing. At traffic light after traffic light. Collecting rent from them would be a nice little scam for an aspiring mafia member. I do not go into the "downtown" district so no idea how things are on the streets. I cannot imagine how it is in cities known to have larger panhandling issues.

You can't, the Supreme Court ruled that it (panhandling) is free speech a couple years ago. This is why it has spread so much in the last few years.

You can restrict people from offering goods and services in public without a license, but its perfectly legal to just ask for money or "gifts".

As for collecting rent from them, this is a massive problem (at least here). Many gangs (at least in my City, I am sure everywhere) do exactly this, and some major intersections with traffic lights basically have "shifts" of when certain individuals are granted to be there. And, panhandlers who do not participate usually end up getting robbed and not going to the police (for obvious reasons they make great targets if they do not participate in a protection scheme in a territory -they have cash, rarely have a cell phone to call for help, and even if they do rarely will go to the police for obvious reasons-)

If you're vagrant / homeless and have no visible means of support then you need to be charged with the crime of vagrancy and sent to forest camps to build trails and plant trees.

You'll earn minimum wage and have room and board provided.

Leave when you have enough saved for first, last and a rainy day fund.

It'll never happen...

Quote: Tanko

"List of countries by homeless population"

US 580K - 17.6 per 10k
UK 365K - 54 per 10k
France 300K - 45 per 10k
Colombia 4.9 million - 971 per 10k
Honduras 1 million - 1235 per 10k
Egypt 12 million - 1200 per 10k

The UK figure feels about right. It's not actually many, unless you are one of them.

It's only an impression that I get, but I SUSPECT that the UK does not too badly in the housed but severely poor category. Once someone has a roof over their head, here, the tend to qualify for quite socialist levels of support which the homeless miss out on.

I don't begrudge them any of it.

Instead of fining them $100, make them give that $100 to the homeless. At a $100 a pop they won't be homeless for long.