basketball Bill Walton proposes moving homeless away from "civilized taxpayers" to "Sunbreak Ranch"

[haele]

36. This is assuming most homeless aren't also working when they become homeless.

A lot of homeless work.A lot of homeless are elderly on Social Security.
I live in San Diego, and most homeless are camping out near trolley and bus stations stations, which are also areas where they can access free bathrooms. They do that so they can clean up and go work at jobs that pay $16 to $20 an hour, which is still not enough to rent a Studio apartment with basic utilities (water and electric) and maintain some form of transportation.
They can get monthly Compass transit cards at many churches due to being low income. They can typically rent a small storage room for $100 a month and a P.O. box for $100 a year. They have to buy their food ready-to-wear or take-out, so they can't save by cooking and storing food "at home". Hygiene is almost impossible, and they have to do laundry at a coin-op whenever they can gather a few coins, so they start looking disheveled and pretty much unemployable. They can't pay for basic medical and dental care, so they start losing teeth or get sick constantly.
Without a home space where they can at least keep food, utensils, clothes, and maintain hygiene - even if they have no furniture other than cardboard boxes for storage and an air mattress with a sleeping bag and wash their clothes in the shower, they eventually lose even the most menial jobs.
It's a basic fact - working (and retired elderly) homeless can afford the small things, but they can't afford the big basic things like the all-important housing. And if they work shifts or off hours, they're not able to follow "shelter" rules, they're pretty much stuck living rough, hoping they can get to a spot where people will watch after their stuff while the work and the city won't sweep the camp while they're off working.
Watching someone who got priced out of housing slip into a mental health crisis or substance abuse problem within 6 months of living on the streets is not at all unexpected.
A 'village' out by Miramar Marine Corps base doesn't help a lot of the current crop of homeless folk in the long run. It actually hurts those homeless with jobs by pushing them out away from where their jobs are. Maybe it can help those with mental health issues or the elderly if some housing can also be turned into free pensioners housing, but that type of assistance tends to be short term for the "able bodied", who still have problems finding permanent housing for themselves after they graduate from whatever program was pushed on them as part of the price for free housing.
Not to mention it doesn't at all help with the rather large tribes of transients who wander out here seasonally to beg, steal and scam (i.e., Travellers and Rainbows),
Homelessness in working people can be solved only by providing free or subsidized housing specifically for them near transportation and suitable jobs for their talents and capabilities (as in, not just lowest common denominator jobs).

One of the solutions I would like to see is a program where low income workers can rent to own rehabbed and subsidized no-interest added apartments or houses from the city or county in mixed income neighborhoods or complexes that will eventually become theirs after five to ten years, depending on how fast they can pay the basic mortgage.

Haele