r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Garey_Coleman • 9d ago

Where are the homeless supposed to go?

Cities have been cracking down on homeless people so they can’t have encampments or stay on sidewalks. At the same time usually the shelters are full. So those who are unable to get into a shelter, where are they supposed to go?

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u/Jennysnumber_8675309 9d ago

It is an interesting take to say that mentally ill people don't belong in a facility receiving treatment and that they are better off on the street fending for themselves. Understandably there have been times in our history where the institutional model was a failed one, but the current "just leave them alone and let the congregate anywhere" model seems quite cruel. Especially in colder climates. This topic needs some real examination...not just feel good "leave them alone" platitudes.

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u/jmnugent 9d ago edited 9d ago

As an older person, the biggest problem I see in society is we just keep sort of “round robin’ing” around different solutions, none of which are very humane or effectively implemented. By the time a generation passes, we start over again on the same list of failed ideas. Nobody seems to want to prioritize this problem and apply effective solutions.

EDIT.. you see this same kind of problem in businesses that have high employee turnover. They just kind of keep stumbling over the same ideas circularly without really making much headway.

When I do problem-solving,. I try to remember there's ultimately 3 ways I can do it:

  • solve the problem just for myself.

  • solve the problem for me and those around me.

  • solve the problem for me, those around me,. and those who come along in time after me.

Effective and long term solutions,. should be intuitive (or properly documented) in such a way that someone 5, 10, 20 or 30 years from now can look at it and easily see,. "Ah,. I see why they did that in the way they did it"

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u/Jabroniville2 9d ago

What screwups do you see in businesses with high turnover?

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u/jmnugent 8d ago

There's just less team cohesion. If you have a lot of "institutional knowledge" walking out the door,. the people who are left (and or new people you hire).. may not know "how the business works" or why you do certain things in certain ways. If you've ever worked on a team that has high cohesion and is a group of people who have worked together for 5, 10, 15 years.. they know each other really well and communication and collaboration is almost effortless. In new teams, you dont' really have that.

I'm seeing this a lot in my new job (and I"ve been here 2 years now).. where I'll get assigned some ticket or task and I'll start searching around or asking around to other people .. and I'd say 50% to 75% of people I ask (internally) have no idea what I'm even asking about. A big chunk of a lot of what I do,. seems to be "figure it out on your own because nobody knows". Sometimes I'll be in meetings where we discuss some idea or goal .. and the meeting ends with a bunch of ToDo's that are not much more than "lets gather more info and meet again in 2 weeks".

This on top of the fact that technology changes so fast,.. even if I do figure something out, sometimes 6months down the road that technology has changed, so what I learned (and whatever documentation I wrote) is now obsolete and has to be ripped out and redone.

I keep joking (but not really joking) that "I wish there was at least 1 to 2 years where NOTHING CHANGED.".. so I could catch a breath and catch up.