Image: sanfranciscoinformer.com
I live in Haight Ashbury San Francisco, where homeless and travelers have been gravitating to since the 1960’s. But long before that and since the arts have provided homes and housing for people who don’t fit elsewhere.
From what I've observed and chatted with and overheard on Haight Street for 19 years is that there are 6 main categories of "Homeless", which each need a separate specialized solution. SF gov is about to spend $80,000 per year per homeless person. Below I've noted the categories and synopsis of ideas for solutions.
1. Genuine Homeless: who had housing in SF / Bay Area and lost it and can't afford housing in their home town. - Solution: Affordable housing and job referrals.
2. Mentally Ill and Drug Addicts: who need hospitalizing and the government is committing a human cruelty violation by not looking after them. I've seen better care for mentally ill in 3rd world countries first hand in India and Nepal. But note it's the local villagers and local doctors that voluntarily look after them. - Solution: Funding for facilities to house and treat those who are born or lived here, and send "out of area" ones to facilities in their home towns and bill their home town governments. Send them by plane with carers/handlers, so they can't jump off at the next Greyhound stop and jump a Hound back.
3. Runaway Teens: Going through hormonal changes and can't thing straight so runaway to join a "Tribe". But then they get lost and don't know how to find their way back and feel safest in the "Tribe" regardless of the harsh lifestyle. The same as staying in an abusive relationship, you forget what it's like to be standing on your own two feet, or that you are capable of it and have a support network back home. I've watch some grow into adults and still they have the same problem, because it's been so long and started when they were still developing their adulthood they don't know any other way. - Solution: This is the complicated one because teens won't do anything they don't want to do or doesn't get a "Tribe" thumbs up. In Australia we co created arts programs and referrals to gigs on festivals and shows. Which still works today 20 years later.
4. Out of area homeless: I've overheard a few saying they are from out of state. One elderly woman the other week was from NYNY and Greyhounded it here for the weather, better services, and easier living. Which in truth is very intelligent of her fighting for her own survival. Solution: Send "out of area" homeless to facilities in their home towns and bill their home town governments. Send them by plane so they can't jump off at the next Greyhound stop and jump a Hound back.
5. Travelers/Tourists: Camping out is the cheapest way to backpack. San Francisco has beautiful wooded parks with free concerts, roller discos, drum circles, free food, free world class museums first Tuesdays. And walking distance to free indoor lounges with TV and wifi, free cell phones, free needles for shooting up, and other free stuff all over the city. Services regularly drive up with mobile showers and laundries to Buena Vista Park. Some of the units are designer made to resemble Victorian houses, yes really. If I hadn't seen the Victorian house mobile showers and laundries with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it. Honestly if somebody had told me that I'd think they were talking about a comedy youtube video. Sorry, but it's true and an eye opener on how much the city and non-profits really do for the unhoused… and where all that money is going. - Solution: Unfortunately this is why camping in the parks must be made illegal and the parks swept every night all night and more staff or police to patrol all night. To clear out and deter the fake homeless to save budget to treat the real homeless.
6. Dealers: Self explanatory. Plus according to their customers it's way cheaper and less chance of chemicals buying from hippie street dealers than the dispensaries. Mostly because their growers either can't afford and or are organic freaks. Plus it helps the "Tribe" or "Cause" or "Movement". Some customers ride their motorbikes from across the Bay or Sacramento for the "coolness" of buying cheap good grass from street dealers in "Haight Ashbury". - Solution: Make legal cannabis more affordable by monitoring the growers while growing and curing, not the product after growing. Also investigate the testing companies and the real costs and conduct serious negotiating. I mean what company doesn't want an ongoing government contract?
In the case of drug addicts and homeless in some cities, such as San Francisco, police hands are tied. That's why to seek ways around it. Treat the causes not the symptoms.
Addicts are addicts, they will do it no matter what you do. They need mental health care. Best to pop them in drunk tanks for a couple of weeks to dry out in facilities in their home towns and bill their local governments for it. If San Francisco wasn’t paying for other town's problems, her citizens would will have many hundreds million$ more to help her locals.
When an addict overdoses on the street, a ride to the hospital in an ambulance $6,000 and over night in critical care $50,000 at San Francisco General Hospital. For every person they arrest one night in prison costs around $3,500 per day per prisoner, on top of court, lawyers, and processing costs. San Francisco is about to commit another $80,000 per year per homeless person on top of that, yet most homeless in SF are from other states and towns.
If a city is going to spend $80,000 per year per homeless person it is more than enough for used trailers and trailer parks and living wages in low cost land and living regions. This would ease up congestion in cities and save $40,000 and more per person plus save costs of homeless, addicts, and crime. Plus it would improve economies in those regions with whole neighborhoods of paying customers on fixed incomes. Shopping with cards with approved stores and products means no cash so less able to buy drugs/booze etc. It's not out of reality. Used trailers and trailer parks for sale can be found online. Swipe cards for buying food and clothing and medical, or better to use smart phones for better monitoring, are a no brainer.
I used to work with runaway teens in Australia, Byron Bay. 20 years ago it was like Haight Ashbury, but by the beach. Now real estate is very expensive in Byron, like Haight Ashbury. Everybody in Australia has social security and extra for rent, so nobody is technically homeless, only runaway or feral (something domesticated that has gone wild). USA very different, so takes years of study to work it out.
There is a lot in the news about the homeless and giving them hosing and medical care. Yet that seems to be treating only the symptoms and not the causes. The main problems for non addict or mentally ill homeless are jobs and affordable housing. These days you can’t get a job if you can’t give a prospective employer an address or resume. In old school entertainment it was different, because the entertainment industry was where the homeless and runaway misfits often lived, not so much on the streets.
In USA 2018 you need a college degree to work in a circus. It wasn’t like that before the internet. Before the internet you started as a beginner and were trained and moved up as your skills improved into life skills, not classroom skills. Not that schooling isn’t great for honing skills, but it shouldn’t be a requirement to get a beginner gig. Real skills come from doing, not watching. Likewise invest in a child’s education early, preschool, primary, and high school to get ABCs 123s, history, geography, creativity, literature, and cognitive thinking. Then see if they want to go to college or do an internship and learn on the job while building their resume.
The other thing old school entertainment industry provided was food and housing on top of a scalable wage. Unions and industry associations provided benefits in retirement. But that was before the internet. Before the internet the mainstay of social hubs and visual arts and music were traveling shows. Circuses, music bands, cabaret, art instillations, performance artists, theatre troupes, and more.
Pre WWW venues and promoters were always hiring live entertainment in resorts, hotels, city parks, pubs, bars, cafes, shopping malls, restaurants, nightclubs, services clubs, radio stations, television shows, and festivals. Even chain restaurants. All provided pay, food and housing for traveling artists, crew, and management. It wasn’t always pretty or luxury. Sometimes it was bunk beds in touring trucks with no bathroom. But it was home and caring family like tribe. I spent a total of 4 years on the road in Australia and Europe on one and two year gigs in circus and cabaret.
My first touring gig I ran away from home as a teen and was hitchhiking and got picked up by Australia’s largest traveling circus at the time, Sole Brothers. I got to wear fabulous sequined and feathered costumes and ride real elephants and play with real monkeys every day for a year. Then I worked in cabaret in resorts for two years. Then went to dance and acting and art schools to hone my skills and then got gigs in Europe in cabaret to fund art school in London, Heatherleys. I started off being homeless and confused and ended up with a career and traveling and studying around Australia and the world and minor celebrity as an MTV Australia dancer in the 80’s.
But then music videos happened, which were invented in Australia producer Ian “Molly” Meldrum, of one of the live music TV shows I worked on. MTV caused Molly’s show to be cancelled due to music audiences suddenly being suddenly mesmerized by commercial USA big budget music videos. MTV was the beginning of the decline of paid jobs with food and housing for indie bands and some big bands. Why spend money going to a show and dealing with crowds and not being able to see anything when you can watch it at home?
Then the internet happened and everybody was entertained by that for a while, but when they started to drift back to live entertainment somebody invented streaming on demand video of anything and everything. On top of social networking and it’s offshoots. Now it’s selfies. Just like MTV being the decline live music shows, social media is the decline of people socializing face to face. The internet has made many people so isolated, lonely, insecure and uncultured they watch themselves for entertainment more than they watch TV, let alone live shows.
So where does this leave small touring companies who give their people food, wages, and housing? Without funding for housing and food for their crew and talent, so there are less touring shows and original acts.
The solution to that is straight forward: Get off your f’ing ass and pull out your cheapskate wallet and pay to go to a live show at least once a week and get your social circle to do the same. Much more fun meeting up at a live show than online, plus you create more jobs in arts so artists and crew can get housing. Put your money where it really does something and you get something real back, instead of complaining about homeless and over funding ineffective services.
Image: altweeklies.com
As for bigger companies, such as game producers, that’s a different kettle of fish. Most all startups have what’s called “Burn Budgets”. Which is what it says, money to burn on anything that makes them look good. Not just a few thousand $ here and there, but a few million $, sometimes a few billion, such as Elon Musk. That’s on top of their very healthy marketing and PR budgets and development, staff or anything else. How we tap into these “Burn Budgets” is via Gigslist.info
While Gigslist.info is a tiny network of groups on multiple platforms, now including augmented reality, it’s main focus is researching entertainment companies of all kinds that are hiring and creating more arts, media, and entertainment jobs. The idea to help homeless is straight forward, simple, and doesn’t cost the government anything, except some tax breaks for employers. Homeless non profits and services get a free membership and lists of big entertainment companies, such as games, that they negotiate with for internships with housing for their more able and youth homeless clients. These companies have the money to do it, you can Google how much they get funded… I did ;-) There are too many to list here.
The benefits of this program for the companies are multifold and multitasking. Free press, amazing viral PR, tax breaks, plus internally trained staff who know your way of doing things hands on from beginner and up. On top of that it is cheaper to train, house, feed and pay minimum wage to staff. Staff who are more likely to be loyal, because a job with you is their home and tribe. As opposed to paying $200,000 salaries for coders in the Bay Area who will leave with what they learned with you to start a competing company.
What Gigslist.info proposes is socialist, but in the case of homelessness, socialism is the only thing that really works long term.
Gigslist.info researches and refers jobs, internships, and housing in the arts, media, games, and entertainment industries. It is not a blanket solution for every homeless person, but it will help with solving the cause for some people. It will also help create more jobs with housing by educating big entertainment companies who have the big funding.
Help Gigslist build a new site and app to help folks get job training, careers, and housing, and tools and resource directories to help producers create more jobs in the arts... Go to http://gigslist.info and click Participate.
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