Nearly One-Third of Surveyed Homeless Respondents in Eureka Say Street Life Is a Choice
Eureka Police Commander Leonard LaFrance [Screenshot]
Homelessness is an issue that seems intractable and recent surveying done by the Eureka Police Department shows that about one-third of respondents say homelessness is actually a choice.
The dynamics of homelessness in Eureka were explored in a May 19 presentation to the city council. Eureka Police Commander Leonard LaFrance described the data culled from 239 surveys of homeless people done between March 8 and April 4.
One of the findings is that when asked “is your lifestyle a matter of choice,” 29 percent of respondents said it is.
Asked about how that squares with causes related to income, housing, mental health and substance use, LaFrance related his experiences working in the department’s Community Safety Engagement Team (CSET).
“We want to get them inside or wherever, and it’s just like, no, I don’t want that, this is what I want to do right now,” he said. “I’ve been here almost 20 years and there are people that are still on the street, it’s almost 20 years ago and they are still there now, they refuse to take the services and they refuse to change behavior.” LaFrance described the situation as “beyond challenging.”
Housing seems to be the obvious answer to resolving homeless but LaFrance suggested it’s more complex than that. “I think the challenge at any time we start housing folks is, we’ve taken folks that have lived on the streets for sometimes years and we put them inside of four walls and a roof and a floor, and it’s different, it’s not as free,” he said. “And if we don’t provide that wraparound support of case management, our teaching of life skills, mental support, all these different things, it’s going to fail.”
Eureka is unique for having a dedicated mental health clinician, Jacob Rosen, who talked about anosognosia – the lack of awareness of one’s own illnesses and limitations – and how it complicates outreach.
“Even though we’re increasing overall (mental health) clients, the percentage that end up having anosognosia, the symptomatic loss of insight, it has remained the same,” he said. “I think that we have made headway with some clients and then I think we have more clients pop up.”
LaFrance said there’s been progress on getting people with mental health conditions treatment, with a two-thirds drop in the number of “mental health holds.”
Mental illness has conspicuous impacts and although LaFrance said some people on the streets are “heavy hitters,” treatment can work.
“You know, we’re talking 350 calls a year for service and everyone in the city knows them and you drive by and it’s like, where’d this guy go?” he continued. “Well, we got them assistance. And so that one individual that is very, very taxing on the community and themselves, when we get them assistance, I mean, for us, that’s a giant win.”
The surveying also has 26 percent of respondents saying they spent the previous night in a shelter, a 20-point drop from the last time surveying was done, in 2024.
There are also drops in the percentage of respondents saying they slept in encampments or greenbelts while there’s an increase in those saying they slept in doorways, alleys and streets.
“Essentially, they get 86’d from the shelters and then they’re done for until they work it out with the shelter and there’s only so many options,” said Sgt. Brian Ross of CSET.
Sleeping on the street, particularly near free meal facilities, has its advantages.
“They feel safe there … it’s lighted, there’s services there,” said Ross. “They don’t have anywhere else to go so they get up in the morning there and they can get food and they can get services and things like that. When you go out into the bushes on the trail, you’re kind of on your own out there.”
He added his “personal opinion” is that “it seems like the drug use is the issue, if you go (to a shelter), you can’t smoke weed, you can’t use drugs and they can’t live the lifestyle that they want to live when they’re outside of the shelter.”
Mental health and substance use issues are often cited as causes of homelessness.
Forty-seven percent pf respondents said they’ve been diagnosed or treated for mental illnesses and those who said they use meth and fentanyl amounted to 21 percent and 13 percent respectively.
But a majority – 56 percent – said drugs or alcohol have been problematic for them.
Fifty-five percent said they use cannabis with varying degrees of regularity.
The surveying also found that 48 percent of respondents said they have disabilities or chronic health problems, 36 percent said they’ve been arrested or in jail in the past year, some multiple times, and a combined 61 percent said lack of affordable housing and income are their biggest barriers to housing.
Sixty-two percent said they’re dissatisfied with their current lives and 29 percent said they lived in Eureka prior to becoming homeless, which was the highest percentage in that category.
Because the surveying is “self-reported,” its accuracy is approximate.
“Even if we ask have you been treated for or diagnosed with a mental health disorder, if we know they have because of the work we do and they say no, we still report it as no,” LaFrance said. “So there is a margin error in this because it is self-reported.”
A Few Earlier Articles on Homelessness:
- ‘Which Bad Decision Do You Make?’ Greenbelt Sweep in Eureka Displaces Dozens, Removes Tons of Trash
- ‘Where do you want me to go?’ Tents, Trash, and Trauma in Eureka
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. Anosognosia.. Hard to help someone who doesn’t think they need help.
This situation is a dilemma. I want to see people helped, but don’t want to be enabling those just using the system to continue their drug or alcohol habits.
I’ve always said that the Street Life is their choice…
You can pay them to change but you can’t make them live where you want…
61% in the survey said cost of housing is the reason they are on the street. They didn’t choose to not pay $1500 out of their $1200 SSI.
For people who mostly have no income at all, that is very unlikely to be reality. The same people, since ” a majority – 56 percent – said drugs or alcohol have been problematic for them.” Frankly there are about 5000 SSI recipients in Humboldt Co and a very small percentage of those are homeless.
Those folks most likely qualify for subsidized/HUD housing. Their rent will be only $200 and keep the rest.
“The HCV [Housing Choice Voucher program … formerly known as Section 8] waitlist is closed” according to Humboldt Housing Authority. Furthermore, when the waitlist is not closed, “Long waiting periods for public housing units [and vouchers] are common since the demand for housing assistance often exceeds the limited number of available vouchers and the resources available to HUD and the local housing agencies.” I believe accessing these government resources is more challenging than you seem to assume.
You can bathe a pig and pretty him up, but when you’re done, he’s going right back to the muck puddle
Well, as per the title of the article, 1/3 choose it. How about we get 2/3s of that population off the streets? I think that would be a noticeable difference.
Local police and sheriffs should immediately pick up addicts and place them in jail. Incarceration is often the necessary first step to breaking addiction — many people turn their lives around after even a few months behind bars.
For repeat offenders, we should reopen the desert prisons, lock them up, and throw away the key. No more pity parties or leniency. We must remove them from the streets before they continue contaminating our communities, especially our children and young people.
In most cases, these addicts are also the dealers. By locking up the low-level users and threatening them with serious prison time, we can pressure them to snitch on the bigger players — the ones importing and distributing wholesale. This is how you dismantle the network from the bottom up.
Enough is enough.
So we lock up all the addicts (who are also the drug dealers) together. They definitely NEVER will network to plot or assist crime outside jail/prison when they’re released… they wouldn’t leave children to the foster system… they wouldn’t share tips on getting away with crime, or sneak drugs in from the outside… or start gangs… that wouldn’t make any sense at all! /s
He’s right ,those choose to play by thier own rules and not follow the norms of society.they enjoy not having bills,having to check the mail,clean up after themselves,just being a semi productive member of society is to much for them.I have a close family member that chooses this lifestyle , she wants nothing to do with rules ,she makes a mess wherever she goes and just moves and let’s someone else clean up ,then comes back and does it again there or somewhere else.Of corse she doesn’t like living on the streets but she dont like following anybody else’s rules even more.this way she can do whatever she wants like drinking and drugs with no consequences.
I see a whole different reasoning. Then again, I have been there. Have you?
Hmmm… You left a mess for others to clean up ??
Nice.
I don’ know about “John”, but I have. And while I did not make a specific decision to be homeless, I DID make a decision to do drugs that led me to being homeless. So the true percentage of folks homeless by choice is far, far higher than 29%
I have and no one knew I was homeless. I worked 3 jobs and now own my property free and clear. A lot of todays homeless don’t want to work, steal and just want to stay high.
They shit and urinate on the sidewalk in public and get off on it. That speaks volumes
Everybody poops. Gotta go somewhere… that isn’t a choice, it’s a biological requirement and they have no other option. Pooping in public is shameful and not something homeless people “get off on.”
Picking up poop is crappy, I’ve done my share. Not having access to a bathroom when you gotta go is shitty.
Maybe they should just stop eating, then they’d stop pooping, all problems solved! Make that a law, “no eating food if you don’t have a house to poop in!” Not sure that would reduce methamphetamine use, but it could be a good start. /s
The homeless issue, is carefully cultivated by our epstein ruling class.
Wow, where did that come from. Straight out a Compton. last I checked that guy is ruling in hell. Sounds like are jimbo need too stay up on current events. Opening up short term rentals too are home less is a easy solution.
“…epstein ruling class.” Referring to the ppl associated with Epstein, not Epstein himself. Dude our vs are, look in to it.
Oh, “all they need is cheap housing”? That’s cute. What a genius fix from the virtue-signaling crowd. Are you gonna put these low-life drug addicts in your house or on your property and watch their chosen lifestyle destroy your investment? Broken windows from their rage fits, drugs sold out the door at all hours like a fentanyl flea market, holes punched in every wall, and some nodding-out junkie doing the fentanyl fold while the kitchen catches fire because they passed out mid-pipe. Your nice little asset turns into a charred, needle-strewn wreck in months, insurance laughs at you, and property value tanks. But sure, keep preaching “compassion” while hiding in your safe bubble! 😂
And are you gonna move these freaks right into your neighborhood? Let your kids dodge the screaming, pants-dropping zombies on the way to school? Force your elderly neighbors to live terrified of harassment and random violence? Deal with open drug deals, theft, human waste, and criminals using the “housing” as hideouts for rape and molesting? No? Then shut up with the fantasies. These are the same dirtbags who openly choose street life per the Eureka survey, abandon their kids, abuse animals, and poison communities while the Homeless Industrial Complex and fraudsters like Newsom keep the grift flowing.
Cheap housing doesn’t fix degeneracy—it just spreads the hell. Protect the real victims instead of enabling this trash.
Perfectly stated! The entire Ca homeless/junkie crisis is the unintended consequences of toxic empathy.
I left CA where I was born and raised and now live in a red state where we believe in law and order. We have resources for those who are just down on their luck but sobriety is required. Homeless camps don’t exist. Zero panhandlers. Zero shopping carts filled with trash. Our city parks are beautiful! Clean, landscaped, green grass, playground equipment that is well maintained. No tweakers, needles, garbage. My city is twice the size of Eureka. The difference is that we enforce laws. We have help for those in need and if they choose not to accept help then they will have consequences for their law breaking and ordinance violations. We prioritize the safety and quality of life for our tax paying citizens not drug zombies.
OOOOOOOO of course. We need someone who will willingly turn over their property to endure what Arcata Housing Partnership’s housing endured after only a few years. Are you going to pay the owners damages? Are you going to clean the mess? Easy to talk about what others should do when it has no effect on you whatsoever.
No it’s not. What you mean by “homeless issue” is hard to know but likely it is that there are few willing to ruin their own lives to pay for others who are ruining their’s. Blaming others is a big part of anosognosia.
My understanding is that many of the homeless population have mental illness problems and don’t have the capability to function productively in society. This notion that all of them can simply pick themselves up by the bootstraps is naïve at best.
The idea that others can pick them up in the absence of the willingness to change is equally naive.
And much, much more dangerous.
It’s a small percentage of the homeless population that has the ability pick themselves up. If you want to talk about solutions to the problem, considering putting to onus on the homeless to correct it themselves is a waste of time. And suggesting it shows a huge lack of understanding.
Oh, absolutely—spot on! The homeless crisis is carefully cultivated by our Epstein-level ruling class. And nobody embodies that better than fraudsters like Governor Gavin Newsom and his parade of coastal elite cronies. They don’t want to solve it. They need it. They grow it like a prized cash crop. Why fix a golden goose when you can keep it squawking on every street corner for votes, optics, and sweet, sweet taxpayer gravy?
Picture this: These parasitic governors and their buddies depend on a thriving, ever-expanding homeless population because it’s the perfect scam. Look pathetic enough on camera—”Think of the vulnerable!”—while raking in millions. It’s not compassion; it’s a business model. Keep the tents popping up, the needles flowing, and the sob stories endless. Actual solutions? Like locking up the criminals or forcing these drug-addled low-lifes into treatment? Nah, that would be “cruel.” Better to let them choose their “lifestyle” and pretend it’s society’s fault.
Enter the Homeless Industrial Complex—a glorious racket where fraudster NGOs, nonprofits, and consultants feast like ticks on a bloated deer. We’re talking tons of money. Billions in federal grants, state funds, and private donations funneled straight into their pockets. These outfits don’t house people—they manage homelessness. Why actually get someone off the street when you can “study the issue,” hold another “stakeholder meeting,” and blow cash on “outreach coordinators” who hand out more tents and clean needles?
They keep the freak show visible on every corner because visibility = funding. Fewer visible zombies means fewer headlines, fewer grants, and—gasp—maybe they’d have to get real jobs. Instead, they enable the addicts, ignore the victims (those abandoned kids, scared women, molested elderly, abused dogs, and feces-filled creeks), and laugh all the way to the bank. “Housing First!” they chant, while rejecting shelters that ban drugs. Brilliant.
Meanwhile, our tax dollars could actually do something useful: incarceration for the criminals hiding in those camps, or forced treatment for the ones too fried on fentanyl to choose reality. But nooo—that would shrink the herd and dry up the money river. The ruling class and their NGO pets prefer the status quo: a permanent underclass of chosen degeneracy that justifies endless spending and virtue-signaling.
So yeah, it’s cultivated alright. By fraudsters who cry “compassion” while screwing over actual citizens.
.
Time to bulldoze the tents, defund the grift, and make these low-lifes and their enablers face consequences instead of another padded budget.
The pity party is over
You can put a decent sentence together for someone who is totally out to lunch.
Completely out to lunch are the people pushing for legal drugs while insisting that “homeless needle junkies” are just poor souls down on their luck who only need clean needles and a free house.
These addicts aren’t victims — they’re actively spreading drugs, disease, crime, and filth throughout our communities. They drain our first responders, hospitals, and taxpayers dry.
The pity party is over.
It’s time to permanently lock them up. Pull the needle out of your arm and slap the handcuffs on — because compassion without consequences has failed.
“It’s time to permanently lock them up.”
Sounds expensive. Over $100k per head annually until they die.
Everyone uses AI these days, I wouldn’t be so quick to credit Redwood Rumor Mill with that composition… probably using Grok
I mean, I’d guess that most people would consider getting the homeless population in eureka down to 29% of its current level a major win.
Yeah the other 71% would love to do drugs in a free house.
Until the 71% does something about the 29%, not much will change. Complaining will not make things better. It is just noise.
So 30% say they are living the life-style by choice.
That just means that about 60% of the homeless simply don’t have the self awareness to realize that they are also living this lifestyle by choice.
So, the tough question is how do we help the 10% who truly want to change their circumstances without enabling the 90% to continue harming themselves and our society?
IMHO:
Solving the issue is easy.
Part One:
Eureka needs to get some mulching machines.
Clear the ‘green’ belts.
Take a bulldozer and fill in the mosquito producing sludge ponds.
Push the human feces and trash in with the bulldozer and push dirt over it.
Then: Build a road there to relieve congestion on Broadway.
NO COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT THERE.
Eureka doesn’t need another strip mall.
—
Diatribe:
Kinda strange, it is long known that Broadway is a classic ‘Strip Mall’… yet the city er…’planners’ continue to allow development there ?
Latest development is a ‘car wash’.
Go figure.
—
Part One Funding:
I betcha they could do it with one of the green-painting, curb fart-outs, concrete weed planters and solar-powered-bum-crossing… ‘grant moneys’.
Part Two: (Probably needs County Involvement.)
Work camps. Put all the meth/heroin/fentanyl/drunk in there. No drug access.
Couple times in the camp… they would head back to LA and SF.
The problem is done !
Make Eureka a decent place to live again !
>”Make Eureka a decent place to live again !”
Wow… some people don’t like that one.
Probably City Council Members ???
Oh well.
Please keep in mind, “Because the surveying is “self-reported,” its accuracy is approximate.”
Thank you Commander LaFrance for dealing with the complex homeless problem and keeping our city safe.
credit for separating cannabis use from drug use.
Like cannabis is not a drug? His reference is about why people don’t want to go to a shelter and it’s the same for both purposes.
“Cannabis-induced anosognosia refers to a condition where individuals are unaware of their own mental health issues, particularly during episodes of cannabis-induced psychosis. This lack of insight can make it difficult for them to recognize their symptoms or the need for treatment.”
brightquest.com johnnysambassadors.org
Pot has the effect of mellowing out a lot anxiety, not only when it’s pathological but also when it’s heathly and rational to be anxious. Not good for someone already pretty oblivious.
Ibuprofen is a drug, and no one gets excluded from housing for using it. Cannabis has medical use that is recognized by the government and law enforcement, therefore a distinction should be made between legal drugs with medical use such as cannabis, and illicit drugs.
The article refers to anosognosia broadly, not cannabis-induced anosognosia specifically.
And then you have the mayor of the second largest city in the USA, Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, who has an insane idea. She wants to spend millions on meth heads to replace their teeth with implants so they can get jobs.
Just another iteration of STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.
Its almost as common in capitalist USA as propaganda posing as legit news!
HCCF….. Housing,Clean Clothes, Food.
House and treat the 70% that don’t want to be on the street, and the other 30% will practically be a non issue. Far easier to manage. The comment section here continues to be a hive of scum baggery and thinly veiled hatred. Kym, thank you for your work covering the community. Must be a drag to monitor this section.
That said, this headline is really dissapointing. We realize it’s specifically written to drive traffic. The haters start salivating at the notion that homelessness is a “choice”. A proper framing would be something like “Over 60% of persons surveyed desire housing but can’t afford it. Over 40% report having a mental illness”
So, you suggest what? Locking the mentally ill in a cell so their mental illness and/or drug addiction can be treated? Because that is more “proper framing” about choice than some vague idea of treating someone who rejects treatment.
🤫 I didn’t say anything like that and I don’t engage with haters or trolls
No. You just take random pot shots from your bunker without caring about what you hit. The point is that the chronic homeless reject treatment that comes with any restrictions on their activities. So what do you think will make a change in that rejection? You easily assign hate as the motive for anyone who disagrees your assessment of hate but what are your solutions?
Why would you assume treatment would have to be provided in a cell?
That seems rather cruel and unlikely to be successful.
But some mental health issues and drug addictions do require treatment in a humanely run inpatient facility.
I obviously never suggested that it would be successful. I just pointed out the lack of realism in someone’s comment that people who reject treatment- ta da- reject treatment so what do they suggest to replace cooperation? Not unusual to get hateful responses to slick empathy.
SC specifically said “House and treat”, not lock in a cell.
I specifically mentioned inpatient treatment, which means people would not be free to leave (i.e., participation is not optional.)
How are you reading either of our comments as having a lack of realism?
And where did you get the idea that housing and treating, even if on a nonvoluntary basis, would mean that anyone would be locked in a cell?
I’ve worked for inpatient facilities, most notably our one and only local facility, Crestwood Behavioral Health. Only those who are willing to work the program there are successful. All clients at Crestwood are there on involuntary holds and are conserved by their counties and that conservatorship generally continues once they graduate to a lower level of care. And
have to say that a good portion of Crestwood clients return to street drug use. When they do, the cycle begins anew. Change has to come from within. We can lock them up and give them world class treatment and support, but if they don’t want to change it’ll fail.
Nice to hear from the Hive! Please highlight where I said anything like that?
Never said you did. Quite the opposite as I expect you never would. But then also you never have a solution either to people who don’t cooperate. So I suggested that you meant to force cooperation. But you reject that too.
Which leaves the usual oft time tried expenditure of funding that employs social workers who only see one person in a hundred showing up for appointments more than a couple of times.
Hello? Either you wait for the situation to be dire enough that people get scared not to cooperate or you apply what bandaids you can. Your hate of anyone pointing that out fixes nothing either. And magical thinking doesn’t either.
Too bad that idea ignories the reality that what the 70% want is not just to be “off the streets.” They want to continue their drug taking or act against others because of their delusions or not take their trash to the dump or steal what they can’t buy or even sometimes flush a toilet, etc etc etc. They want to do or not do as their impulses tell them. As LaFrance says ” it’s almost 20 years ago and they are still there now, they refuse to take the services and they refuse to change behavior.” ”
The comment section may be a “hive of scum baggery and thinly veiled hatred” but venting against those who know the reality the issue because of a desire that it not be real is also part of the “hive of scum baggery and thinly veiled hatred.” In some cases not even thinly veiled at all.
You are part of the hive. 🪞🐝Congratulations on winning the birth lottery.
As are you. Does this exchange lead to any viable change? I’ll happily give it up as useless if you stop the pigeon hoping hateful rhetoriv.
::sigh:: This goes against my better judgment. You present like a fake account from a troll farm in the Phillipines or the like. But here goes, for you and other bottom fee ders of Humboldt:
”You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna know”
“Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself” lyric is older…
According to this article, 56% said that drugs or alcohol have been problematic for them, meaning they would likely be open to recovery options if such options were available.
Studies have also shown that people with safe and stable housing were more likely to be able to quit drugs and alcohol, and to remain sober.
https://opioidprinciples.jhsph.edu/how-stable-housing-supports-recovery-from-substance-use-disorders/
That’s not true. Recognizing you have a problem is not equivalent to working to fix the problem. Especially since in all the decades of my experience talking to hundreds of homeless and formerly homeless, only one homeless person ever said that their current situation was due to drugs or alcohol. Even if they thought it a problem, they thought it wasn’t “the” problem.. “The” problem was always that they weren’t given a proper chance or someone spoiled their chance. Until they had been sober for a year or more, acknowledging that they would have to give up drugs or alcohol was too scary, required too much commitment. After that point it is easier, it’s a matter of spot fights on relapses.
The only thing that would work is TREATMENT 1ST, Housing 1st examples and failures are easily seen in the housing provided in the Bay Area where entire apartment complexes are destroyed in a few months by “housing 1st”, you can not put addicts in housing and expect them to take care of the place… Geeez
Oh, bravo, you brave street warriors! What a heroic lifestyle choice!
According to that Eureka survey, nearly one-third of these “unhoused” geniuses openly admit street life is a choice. Not bad luck. Not “society’s fault.” Just them picking tents, needles, and public shitting over actual roofs and responsibilities. But don’t worry—the media and their pity-party enablers will twist themselves into pretzels to lie to readers anyway. “It’s complex! Housing is the issue! Think of the trauma!” Yeah, sure. Trauma from all those free services they keep spitting on.53b916
How touching. These low-life drug addicts get endless tears and taxpayer cash while their victims get nothing but lectures about “compassion.” Where’s the sobbing for the kids they abandoned? Too busy chasing the next fentanyl hit to raise their own children, so now those kids rot in broken homes or foster care. But hey, let’s all clutch our pearls for the poor addict “living with addiction” instead of the children they screwed over.
And the women and elderly who can’t walk down the street without some screaming meth zombie harassing them? Or the little kids who have to dodge these freaky dirtbags yelling obscenities and exposing themselves on the way to school? Crickets from the empathy brigade. “But they’re just struggling!” Struggling to ruin everyone else’s safety while the rest of us pay higher taxes for cleanup crews and police overtime.
Oh, and the criminals hiding in those lovely homeless camps? Raping, molesting, and preying on the vulnerable? Just “unfortunate side effects” of the lifestyle, right? The media barely mentions it—wouldn’t want to harsh the compassionate vibe.
Don’t forget the animals these scumbags drag through hell. Starved, beaten, neglected dogs used as begging props in the rain. Real heartwarming stuff. These “street people” can’t even take care of a pet without abusing it, but sure, let’s keep romanticizing their “freedom.”
Then there’s the lovely environmental touches: creeks full of their trash, human feces, and dirty needles. Parks turned into open toilets. They don’t just destroy their own lives—they poison everything around them and laugh while the rest of us deal with the stench.
And the enablers?
The bleeding-heart activists, politicians, and especially the media that lies through their teeth to readers. “Most want housing!” they cry, ignoring that over half admit drugs and alcohol wreck their lives and many refuse shelters because—gasp—they can’t get high there. Commander LaFrance has watched the same faces for 20 years refusing every handout. But no, it’s “anosognosia” (fancy word for “too delusional to know they’re the problem”) and we must keep enabling it.
Grow up, you pathetic low-lifes. Stop choosing degeneracy and then demanding the world accommodate your trash heap existence. And to the pity-party enablers and lying media: shame on you for prioritizing these scumbags over the actual victims—abandoned kids, terrified women and elderly, taxpayers, animals, and clean communities. Your fake compassion is just expensive stupidity. Time to stop the handouts, enforce consequences, and quit pretending this is anything but chosen failure.
Tough love time I agree. But let’s also get the legitimately kind yet mentally confused some help and let’s get them away from the druggies! Many slip into it just because it’s all over their camp and they do not have the good sense to resist…Clean up the drugs already!!
just imagine how many wouldn’t be living on the streets if the City of Eureka staff didn’t push to removal all their affordable housing for self serving reasons. the war against the squires was 100% related to the head of the engineering dept. living across the street on H. and then you have fried chicken and taxpayer funded, bible thumping hospital run rooms for the elite.
War on Squires? That’s cute. His shirking taxes, responsibility and the ten million unresolved code violations and all….but you call it a war. I call it a necessary clean OUT. That guy was a drain on everybody and pocketed all the money.
People need somewhere to go. Regardless of anything else we need to pee and eat and shower and sleep.
There needs to be a parking lot somewhere with porta potties and trash cans where unhoused humans can exist.
Where they can park for the night if they’re lucky enough to have a vehicle. Roll out a sleeping bag if they aren’t.
That would keep crime down in neighborhoods. Make businesses safer.
Yeah, there should be rules and maybe even a small fee to help pay for a security guard or trash pick up. Work out the details.
That means for 2/3 of the people they feel homelessness is not a choice. Focusing on getting the two thirds into housing and back on their feet, means the homeless population will be greatly reduced
These are interesting statistics.
I hope you follow up on this.
Eureka, unlike Minneapolis, has relatively mild weather, year round.
The incidence of finding a frozen body in a winter doorway is probably rare.
There are some, in the condition described above, who do not recognize their own mental illness. They are a category.
But the majority seem to have the wherewithal to know danger and seek shelter when freezing temps occur.
Those who lack the awareness to care for themselves need attention. Ronald Reagan shifted tax dollars to the rich by closing inpatient facilities. Those mental hospitals need to be reopened for that group.
But, as the survey shows, many of these people do not want “homes”. They are content.
This very much harkens back to the 1960’s when hippies confounded the status quo.
Who are the police and social workers trying to please?
It seems more like they want to satisfy the establishment, those of the status quo, rather than the people on the streets.
When the caregivers, the police and social workers, try to convince people to stay in shelters, but the people want to sleep outside, who are the caregivers serving? It seems they want to appease the middle class residents who don’t want to see or associate with the lower classes…
The police have become the establishment of the 60’s. Generations have come and gone. The hippies are now great grandparents. Their children have lost the values they held years ago around “live and let live” . They are now police captains, trying to herd people behind walls so that they can be contained.
Ever since I started visiting Humboldt, and then moved here, the social divergence has always been subtle, though obvious, to the outside viewer.
The old guard, who are descendants of the gold miners and loggers, have rural, puritan ethics and lifestyle. They hold dear the Dairy princess and county fair. If honest, their values align more closely with the MAGA movement and Hollywood cowboys like Ronald Reagan.
This is a vast juxtaposition with the flower children and Back to the Land immigrants from the 1960’s.
The wonderful woman who writes “Pinner” can attest to that.
This difference is glaringly obvious to the sociologist observing this area.
There is an unsteady tolerance for the other side. When residents display the laissez faire lifestyle embodied in the hippies, the loggers get uncomfortable. They seem to be losing their hold on maintaining “their” county .
This law enforcement attempt to corral miscreants into corners unseen, is a mixture of compassion and an attempt to quell the fears of the nuclear families and blue haired grandmothers who want to keep Old Town reminiscent of their 1950’s childhood.
Public areas, not unlike National Park campsites, with bathroom facilities and hired security, could be established within city limits in which those who wish to sleep under the stars are welcome and safe could do so without being harassed by law enforcement.
A free bus, to and from food facilities and social services could be provided.
There is plenty of room for such campground. The homeless seem to organically find them, like behind the mall.
Law enforcement and the county should embrace this reality and organize sanctioned places for campers, rather than reacting when people poop in the bushes and create hygienic problems.
Well said, except you omitted the role of Iran-Contra and the CIA involvement in distribution and consequent drug addiction among the poor in our cities which has spread to poor communities everywhere leading to the unsolvable problem of drug addiction among homeless. And the Opium trade before that which killed way to many musicians and artists.
(said in my own sloppy way. but you get the gist of it.)
That’s open borders for ya
Talking Heads — Stop Making Sense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIV20BH8668
PS Download the DVD iso here: https://archive.org/download/stop-making-sense_202411/Stop%20Making%20Sense.iso
MAGA values align far more closely with traditional family and community values — prioritizing safe streets, real law and order, personal responsibility, and strong families that raise kids in secure neighborhoods.
In contrast, liberal values have gone completely off the rails, championing a failed socialist agenda that fuels the homeless industrial complex. They push for open borders that flood communities with unchecked illegal immigration, open drug use on the streets, open-air sex and public degradation, free needles, free tents, free food, free drugs, and endless taxpayer-funded handouts with zero accountability.
Instead of helping people get clean and rebuild their lives, these policies enable addiction, spread disease, crime, and filth, while protecting criminals over law-abiding citizens. The “compassion” is a lie — it’s a trillion-dollar industry that keeps people trapped in misery while destroying neighborhoods, scaring away businesses, and endangering children.
Enough with the insanity.
Real compassion means enforcing consequences, requiring treatment, and restoring order. Safe communities aren’t built on indulgence — they’re built on rules, accountability, and putting families and citizens first.
Pipe dreams never get the attention they deserve!
pipe bombs are the ugly reality that we refuse to accept that keep blowing up our dreams of a better future
your dreams have too many people taking responsibility for their actions
there is irony in the belief that is illogical given what we refuse to acknowledge
Who are the police and social workers trying to please?
they defend capital investments
they defend the people who have the means
this is the system that has prioritized consolidation over anything else
Anybody with any critical thought can see how this social service arrangement plays out regeneratively in perpetuity
that’s why the system has to withdraw assistance for the able bodied, so they are forced into retail and labor positions instead of polluting the streets that working people pay for.
no more freebie’s for slackers and moochers