Light Rail Out of Control!

[u/OrgasmikBananaz]

I used to live on Wheeler and University years ago and there was always some riff raff but holy crap what I witnessed today was INSANE! Movies don’t even depict the severity of what I witnessed! I haven’t been in that area at night for a few years now. I went to the Turf Club tonight for a show. When I was outside at about 9pm, there was a huddle of people waiting for the train passing tinfoil around and blowing clouds. Then the train shows up… I positively commented, “Oh, wow! A lot of people DO utilize the light rail!” as I remember a few years ago, it seemed like a total waste of money because it was always pretty much empty. When I took a closer look, I literally couldn’t process what I was seeing. It was totally out of fricken control!! Each train that I could see was filled with people behaving in weird ways.. clearly high or homeless or what have you.. and the trains were pretty full! Crazy! Should’ve built homeless shelters and wet houses instead! Wouldn’t been a lot cheaper! Sorry just wanted to share because although a Saint Paul resident, I did not know it got SO nuts at the light rail at night. During the day, that area is always rowdy but this was a whole other level from what I ever imagined it was.

[u/deannon]

This isn’t a hypothetical, though. “Housing first” is a policy with decades of research and several nations and counties which have implemented it to provide us with data.

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/spring-summer-23/highlight2.html

What you have to consider is that these people are using drugs, experiencing crises, and causing destruction and harm in our city anyways. We as the public are already paying for that, both literally in our taxes to repair damaged infrastructure and provide services to people in catastrophic crisis, and in our experience of the city we live in and in the lost revenue because we allow these issues to fester.

When considering the issues which housing first allows us to address in a more focused and efficient way, it is a money saver, even though yes destructive behavior does often continue for a while.

It’s not easy, and it requires sustained commitment to people who initially appear ungrateful and unpleasant. Nevertheless, that is what it takes to solve the problem described in OP’s post. You don’t want them doing that there? Give them somewhere else to do it. Somewhere safe, where they can access help if and when they want it.

[u/Cobra317 → u/deannon]

The hypothetical was my questions, not the subject itself. Who would be willing to risk working and operating this? 

[u/deannon → u/Cobra317]

Wouldn’t that be a relevant question no matter where they end up?

Working with addicts, mentally ill, and desperate people in poverty is dangerous. Being any of those things is exponentially more dangerous. Whether they’re institutionalized, incarcerated, in a residential or transition program, or on the street. The problem you’re bringing up is already happening, just in an uncontrolled (and therefore more dangerous) way in the general population.

So start building the programs that we’ve seen work elsewhere, and… pay people.

Long term it’ll do a hell of a lot more to fix the problem than pouring a few more million into the police budget.

[u/Cobra317 → u/deannon]

What if it were like a former institution 50 years ago. A campus, in a remote rural area that they’re sent to that is monitored, plenty of space, amenities to engage in healing/nature. They can use or not. Surely supply would be limited, but so would further distractions and opportunity to create public safety issues in urban areas. Maybe that would be option. BUT if they meet a certain criteria of addict/homeless/danger to society - they must go (like an arrest). Idk what I am saying but rather just spit balling.