I have a friend who just moved to SF from a place that doesn’t have the same degree of visible homelessness. I can’t help him decide how he feels about living here, but I also know he’s never spent any time in any N American city. So the only thing I told him was, ‘there will be homeless people, and tents, close to where you’ll live. That’s different from a person having a violent episode, who may or may not be a homeless person.’
He just texted to say he hasn’t had any issues with homeless people, and also gives food if he can. That because of our conversation he can now tell who is having an episode and how to avoid them.
He will probably be in his little upper class suburban tech bubble, but I think I’ll call it a win that he didn’t start out with fear, here.
@skinnylatte that’s always better than demonizing them. I also try to encourage people to see this as a policy failure rather than a personal one. Addiction is a mental health issue and needs to be treated with care. It’s not a personal or moral failing.
@betsyvr Yep. The extent of the policy failure feels hard to articulate succinctly especially to someone with zero context for local or even U.S. politics.
@betsyvr@skinnylatte i think it’s key to keep the “policy failure” part in mind when we talk about substance abuse / dependency issues / addiction tho. i’ve seen ppl talk about it as if it just needs to be treated by medical doctors or psychologists, but how many of us have met or been ppl that ‘beat an addiction’ only to backslide because of economic oppression? like, so many substance use related issues would be resolved if ppl weren’t living in poverty
@tothedaring@betsyvr I’ve love help on how to best articulate this position, which I agree with.
But in the case of this friend I have in mind, who has probably never seen a single person with obvious addiction (drug use is heavily punished where we are from, which has its own.. problems, like capital punishment), I don’t even know where to start.
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