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Portland put out portable toilets during the pandemic. They had big signs on them about how toilet access was a human right, or something like that.

One by one, they were all burned down. Homeless people seem to be really good at destroying stuff. My apartment building is taking on new low income tenants and the rate of fires - with sprinkler activation - is boggling. The public park I walk by often is losing a little bit more greenery to homeless fires every few months, but I’m still saddened by the loss of a large, beautiful tree - torched by a camper.

The problem isn’t removing public resources, it’s keeping them in working order against a persistent opponent.

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Seems like the problem is the utter lack of mental health support to me.
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The utter lack of it? There's an entire industrial complex around homeless "support" to do magic tricks on money.

Portland's county allocates $9m annually. LA's county allocates $4b annually. Should it be 2x that? 20x? 200x before any positive change occurs?

"Mental health" is a non-answer designed to shift accountability and agency from individuals into everyone else vis a vis whatever system is expected to provide this vague "support", despite the failed track record of these systems to improve anything but their employees' and contractors' pockets.

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Well it becomes someone else's problem, right? That kind of short-term thinking is in vogue at the moment.
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