They are actually posting no trespassing signs on bridges around here. I assume that means there are regular police checks. It sucks enough to be homeless in the Midwest in the winter, but it’s becoming both illegal to be homeless and unaffordable to have a place to live. I have no idea what people end up having to do, but I do notice a lot of people walking way down a highway where it will take them a good hour to get to the edge of town early in the morning, presumably to get to some shitty job that pays them minimum wage.
They finally put out the no sleep benches in my city. For a long time it looked like they weren’t going to, and I had some respect for who ever was saying no to them.
Thankfully, there’s way too many low concrete walls in this city for them to be able to do that, but the library (my wife is a library administrator) also lets them stay there all day and even sleep in a chair or sleep outside the library as long as they don’t set up camp. They’re also opening up a new branch in another part of town where they will have a sign-up sheet and one person at a time will have access to a room with a washer, a dryer and a shower. All free. Libraries are amazing in what they do for the poor, let alone the community as a whole… so at least someone is trying to help the desperate people in this town, but it’s not nearly enough and there’s so much fighting against it, even against the library. People came to the board meeting where this got approved from the neighborhood talking about how they had homeless people camping in their backyards (what have they tried actually doing about it if that’s even true) and it would bring even more to the area. And fuck those NIMBY assholes.
That’s really cool of the libraries to do. We have a huge faculty that offers a place to sleep, but it’s more like a gym room with beds and floor space. Lots of fights of course. We also have a bunch of resource companies that will shelter people in halfway homes and all that.
It’s just such a hard thing to battle. Both administrationly and personally.
Luckily I landed in my parents’ home when they passed on, so I had a place to go, but without that I’d be out on the street. In Utah housing and rent prices are unaffordable to almost everyone.
If I were homeless though, one thing for sure, I’d start heading South from here no matter what. Whether I had to hitchhike, ride a train, or steal a bike, I’d head South to Arizona or California or even to Southern Utah because winter here in Salt Lake City is brutal and they don’t even open warming shelters until it falls below 18 degrees (which if has several times already this year).
I would do the same thing. Obviously, some of the homeless here are mentally ill or addicts and they probably aren’t competent enough to follow such a plan, but I seriously doubt all the homeless people I see here fit that category. They stay anyway. Maybe they’re worried if they move, they won’t find another job, as bad as the job they have now is? I really don’t know.
They are actually posting no trespassing signs on bridges around here. I assume that means there are regular police checks. It sucks enough to be homeless in the Midwest in the winter, but it’s becoming both illegal to be homeless and unaffordable to have a place to live. I have no idea what people end up having to do, but I do notice a lot of people walking way down a highway where it will take them a good hour to get to the edge of town early in the morning, presumably to get to some shitty job that pays them minimum wage.
They finally put out the no sleep benches in my city. For a long time it looked like they weren’t going to, and I had some respect for who ever was saying no to them.
Thankfully, there’s way too many low concrete walls in this city for them to be able to do that, but the library (my wife is a library administrator) also lets them stay there all day and even sleep in a chair or sleep outside the library as long as they don’t set up camp. They’re also opening up a new branch in another part of town where they will have a sign-up sheet and one person at a time will have access to a room with a washer, a dryer and a shower. All free. Libraries are amazing in what they do for the poor, let alone the community as a whole… so at least someone is trying to help the desperate people in this town, but it’s not nearly enough and there’s so much fighting against it, even against the library. People came to the board meeting where this got approved from the neighborhood talking about how they had homeless people camping in their backyards (what have they tried actually doing about it if that’s even true) and it would bring even more to the area. And fuck those NIMBY assholes.
That’s really cool of the libraries to do. We have a huge faculty that offers a place to sleep, but it’s more like a gym room with beds and floor space. Lots of fights of course. We also have a bunch of resource companies that will shelter people in halfway homes and all that.
It’s just such a hard thing to battle. Both administrationly and personally.
Luckily I landed in my parents’ home when they passed on, so I had a place to go, but without that I’d be out on the street. In Utah housing and rent prices are unaffordable to almost everyone.
If I were homeless though, one thing for sure, I’d start heading South from here no matter what. Whether I had to hitchhike, ride a train, or steal a bike, I’d head South to Arizona or California or even to Southern Utah because winter here in Salt Lake City is brutal and they don’t even open warming shelters until it falls below 18 degrees (which if has several times already this year).
I would do the same thing. Obviously, some of the homeless here are mentally ill or addicts and they probably aren’t competent enough to follow such a plan, but I seriously doubt all the homeless people I see here fit that category. They stay anyway. Maybe they’re worried if they move, they won’t find another job, as bad as the job they have now is? I really don’t know.