fietsbob

Where is this away that things get discarded, and now throw away people. ??

indyfabz

I knew a guy who was staying in a shelter of that sort. Forcing people out in the morning meant not having to have as many monitors throughout the day. (Even some HI hostels used to work that way. I stayed in two while cycling across the country.) It also made it easier to clean the place. The point of requiring people to return by a certain time each day was to prevent the place from being used as a flop house where people came and went whenever they pleased. And the later people stayed out the better the chance that they would get into trouble with drinking, etc. The place was focused on helping people get back on their feet, not just providing a place to sleep. The guy I knew eventually got a job cleaning bars over night so he was given special dispensation to be out after curfew hours.

mr_bill

See if you can find that segment of S. Bay Harbor Trail on this Strava heatmap.

(Some bikeracks aren't bikeracks. Some bikepaths aren't bikepaths. I was shocked to see someone walking on it to be frank.)

Anyhow, found info on the mural.

-mr. bill

KD5NRH

Right; making it pretty much impossible to get a lot of low-skill jobs. If they really want to help, they would work with the main issues a lot of homeless have with getting a job; hygiene, basic people skills, (I've been the first line of hiring for an office job in a nice downtown building, and the number of even college grads who were otherwise qualified but seemed to have no clue that they should shower, put on deodorant and nice clothes, and refrain from profanity for a job interview was mind-boggling.) transportation and paperwork.

The paperwork issue can be pretty bad; I let my DL expire by too long to use it for simple renewal, so had to come up with a certified copy of my birth certificate, (try getting one from the county clerk without valid photo ID - luckily mom still had one in some old files) two items to verify residence address, (and they only accept certain bills, which are the ones I don't get paper bills for, or mail from state or Federal agencies...and a lot of my "official" mail goes to mom's address...and it all has to be less than 90 days old, which meant waiting for a two-week-late quarterly statement) and it was inconsistent between 3-4 different clerks as to what's acceptable each time I went back. All this after my previous employer liquidated under Chapter 7, and while I had two potential employers ready to hire me as soon as I could provide the ID for an I-9 form. I can't imagine what someone who has all their worldly possessions in a small backpack would have to do to get a legitimate ID, but having a residence address is definitely on the list.

Transportation comes back to simple bulk carriage with bikes for individual "last mile" trips. Looking around town, there are six major employers of non-degreed and/or low-skilled folks, and while I can ride to any of them within 30 minutes, a shuttle bus making stops at each of those would also be putting people within a half mile of nearly every other potential job in town; fast food and other services cluster around them for the most part, and one is directly across from both the local Texas Workforce Commission office and a large grocery store. Either secure bike parking at those locations or even following the bus with a pickup full of bikes would be far more efficient than dropping off 20-30 people individually.

I tend to only heat/cool anywhere other than the sleeping area as much as necessary to not fear going to the bathroom or break a sweat getting a soda from the kitchen. Heating and cooling a sufficiently small area to whatever standards one prefers is vastly cheaper than trying to keep thousands or tens of thousands of extra cubic feet comfy.

Exactly; having a tent inside a solid shelter achieves the "small space to heat and cool," as well as providing some privacy and limited security. Dome tents don't need stakes to stay up, so putting one on a solid floor isn't an issue. Keep the wind off even a thin nylon tent and it'll hold heat a lot better than out in the open.

CliffordK

I wouldn't heat a tent, although a small 200W space heater can do wonders in a small enclosed area, and are relatively safe. Actually, I'd prefer a 100W heater.

Nonetheless, a tent should be fine for sleeping down to about 32°F, maybe a little lower, and will capture some body heat. Of course one wouldn't need a tent in an enclosed building, and it does take up extra space, but it does also keep one's belongings together, and give one that extra bit of privacy. Even a family area. Too comfortable encouraging long-term residents?

Insulating and heating restrooms and shower areas would be nice, but not necessary, again down to about
32°F, below which one also has to worry about ice.

KD5NRH

Depends on what you've got inside the tent; my mummy bag would do just fine at that as long as it's kept dry, whereas my spring/fall rectangle bag would just be an easy way to carry the corpse. The tent also provides a framework for a bit more; a tarp or even a bedsheet over my dome tent will keep the interior noticeably warmer, since the poles will help turn it into an air-insulated double wall at that point.

If actually trying to get people back on their feet, 2-4 weeks should be a bare minimum expected residency, as a two week pay period and two week delay would mean no paycheck until four weeks after starting a job. Even then, deposits and other costs of starting a lease might mean 3-4 paychecks would be needed to effectively be ready to get out of the shelter. Spending $100 on a tent and a fluffier sleeping bag to make that time more comfortable is quite reasonable.

IMO, though, one of the better factors of a tent is overnight security; if my stuff is zipped inside with me and I'll wake up at the sound of the zipper, I don't need to find other ways to secure everything before I can go to sleep.

If it's too cold, even scalding hot water won't entice many to shower as often as needed. If I were going to heat any common areas, it would be the bathrooms. Maybe use something like those camper stalls with the shower, toilet and sink all in a tiny cubicle so it's easier to heat, and a hot shower would help a lot with keeping it warm. Then a small, insulated changing stall just outside that, which would be heated by air escaping the cubicle when the door is open.

barnfind

Around here, they put odd fixtures on benches and walls to prevent skateboarders and bmx riders from 'grinding' on the edges of stuff.
For a while just about every public wall, stairway, or railing was all gouged up from kids riding the edges with their bikes or boards.
They're replacing such structures with rough surfaces, either with masonry irregularities or steel structures or dividers that make such activity impossible.
When it comes to homeless, they seem to wonder around during the day but I can't say where they go at night, they used to down along the railroad tracks but they cleaned out an access road along the whole area so the police can get back in there.
Lately, Walmart has become a late night hang out for homeless on the benches in front of the store late at night. There's nothing like having to walk past a half dozen panhandlers to go shopping late at night.

Milton Keynes

Which, if they'd just let them hang out down by the tracks, they wouldn't be hanging out in front of the Walmart. I'll never understand the mentality of "Let's make the homeless move along" as if that will solve the problem, but it just moves it from one place to another. But then, in my years working on law enforcement I was told stories of "escorting" homeless people to the state line and dropping them off there, hoping they'd move on to the next town.

barnfind

Same deal here, towns seem to shuffle them off across the county line in hopes they keep going.
These aren't usually just people who are down on their luck, most are drug addicts, mentally disabled, and often illegal aliens. Some though are able bodied persons who simply choose not to work. I know of at least three who drive cars and have homes yet they make a living panhandling in front of Walmart and a few other stores. Those are just scam artists out for a free buck. The real homeless congregate anywhere they might get a handout or be able to sneak in for some free heat.
There are no homeless shelters, other than what a few small churches may offer here that I know of. They had one shelter but I think it burned down a few years ago. The number of homeless has been growing since 2007 here. For a long time you never saw people just camping out in parking lots or setting up shanty towns in the woods but its becoming pretty common all over.
I hunt and fish, a few of the game preserves have become unsafe to leave a vehicle unattended due to break ins and thefts.
They arrested a guy in the woods behind my house last fall, he had set up a 'tent' out of old tarps and part of a shed he had stolen. They found him after neighbors complained about him setting fires in the woods. When they arrested the guy, they said he was wanted for several assaults and a possible homicide out west. The guy had been wandering state to state to avoid getting caught. He had warrants in several other states for various violent crimes, a few car jackings, and burglaries as well. It took the police a week to finally respond and round the guy up, when they did they had 40 officers and a team of dogs running all over the neighborhood to take in one drunk man. He left screaming he was going to kill everyone when he gets out including the officers who were walking him back to a patrol car. If he hadn't have gotten belligerent with a few of the neighbors he wouldn't have ever been caught, they probably wouldn't have bothered him out there but he felt he had to wage war with everyone I guess. I have homes in three states, and I see this all over. Its not just here. It seems worse in warm weather climates since they seem to attract homeless.

Milton Keynes

Yeah, there are a few scam artists out there. I don't trust anyone with a "will work for food" sign. Locally, there was a guy who went from town to town hanging out in front of Walmart stores with his "will work for food" signs, along with his wife & kids in a car. When people would get tired of him and he'd get run out of one town, he'd go to another. Begging was his job. One guy offered to pay him for some yard work but he refused.

KD5NRH

Had a neighbor in Dallas who did a research project on that; basically, quit shaving for a while, put on his car-fixing clothes and stood around a few different intersections for a week. Averaged $250/day, plus at least one meal and a couple of odd-job-for-cash offers each day. (He would tell the ones offering work what was going on and point them to people who really would work for food.) He donated most of the cash to a church that was doing a lot toward getting the real homeless employable and employed rather than just feeding them and sending them on to the next round of handouts.

One thing I'd really like to see, though, is a breakdown of the actual cost per homeless person (including organized handouts like from charities and government) vs what it would have cost to keep them from getting there in the first place.
I've been there, and really, it was down to bad timing; if I'd had another month's rent and bills in savings, it would have saved me a lot of time and effort in getting past things like an eviction on my rental history, not having an address for a couple months, and so on. (Landlord gave me an extra month, but with other expenses, it was still almost 40 days short of having enough on hand to have dealt with it. As it was, new deposits and other costs were more than if I'd been able to beg or borrow another $800 until I could give a solid "I'll be getting a paycheck on X date and I can give you $Y then and the rest two weeks after that.")

Gresp15C

Keeping people from falling through the cracks may actually produce a net benefit, not a cost, if they turn their incomes into consumer demand. I suspect we all make ourselves a bit poorer, just to maintain a society that punishes the poor for being poor.

Chris0516

Also looks like a high traffic area where. Some idiot driver not paying attention could easily run up on the curb sadly killing a homeless individual.