What's new

Panhandling Challenge

Yes and that we are failing as a society to help so many people in a city. There are over a thousand homeless people in that area.

That's a staggering amount, they reckon there is around 1300 people sleeping rough in Melbourne's CBD but we're a city of 4.7 million people, as a point of comparison what is the population of Salt Lake?
 
That's a staggering amount, they reckon there is around 1300 people sleeping rough in Melbourne's CBD but we're a city of 4.7 million people, as a point of comparison what is the population of Salt Lake?

Inside SLC boundaries is only 200K. But the city boundaries are pretty arbitrary. If you include the whole Salt Lake county it's like 1.1 million. If you include neighboring Utah and Davis counties it's like 2 million.
 
Yes and that we are failing as a society to help so many people in a city. There are over a thousand homeless people in that area.

Wow, I had no idea it was that bad. Whatever happened to the "give them a home" program that made national news a couple of years ago?
 
Wow, I had no idea it was that bad. Whatever happened to the "give them a home" program that made national news a couple of years ago?

Do you know what a magnet is? Dumbest think you can do is advertise how good you are to homeless. Even hippy *** San Francisco an all of California liberals learnt this lesson first think they did after that Colbert episode is order a bunch of Amtrax an Greyhound tickets.

What we need to do in damage control mode is talk up other states that are better then us an ship these bums there. I hear Texas has the best program.
 
Inside SLC boundaries is only 200K. But the city boundaries are pretty arbitrary. If you include the whole Salt Lake county it's like 1.1 million. If you include neighboring Utah and Davis counties it's like 2 million.

From one end of the suburbs to the other its about 130km, so its a fairly huge sprawl but its also continuous. I would think within the next 25 years most of Melbourne satellite cities will be absorbed into the general suburban sprawl. Still most of the visible homelessness is in the city/inner city (say within 5km of the CBD) mostly due to the availability of services.
 
Wow, I had no idea it was that bad. Whatever happened to the "give them a home" program that made national news a couple of years ago?
They are still doing that and still expanding that program of giving away apartments.

They claimed to have almost eliminated all chronic homelessness in SLC. I very much doubt that claim but the way they defined chronic homelessness was with silly parameters. They claimed it was just short term or temporary homeless people left. But I'm not sure why you separate out those groups to make claims. It was just too get publicity.

I think all the programs just bring more homeless people to SLC. It's definitely getting worse.

It is cheaper to give someone an apartment than to give them a bed and services at a homeless shelter. But that doesn't factor in that it will draw more people here.

We are about to go from 1100 beds that are filled with many left out every night to 600 beds and spread out. The plan is to give more apartments away and spread out the homeless to control them more. I'm very doubtful it will work.

SLC has one of the worst homeless situations in the USA. Which correlates with one of the worst drug problems in the US. We have so many people addicted to pain pills that have turned to heroine.

Even at the twilight concert this week I found 10 needless on the ground that security had to clean up. That is after they tried to clean it up and the event had started with thousands of people walking around and probably stepping on the needles.

Stop treating addicts like criminals and get them help. Stop taking care of other states and cities homeless problems. SLC can't take care of that much unfortunately. SLC needs to make other cities in Utah take care of their own. We need health Care for homeless. We need mental health Care for them.
 
I know some need help. I don't think handing them a buck or two as you pass by is the way to help, at all.

I think giving to panhandlers is done more for the benefit of the giver to alleviate their sense of guilt or to make them feel like they are good person when doing that has nothing to do at all with being a good person.

I think panhandlers make spaces seem more hostile to women and children and even just a man walking by himself. They are taking those public spaces away from their intended use and turning them into panhandling spaces. I haven't seen it much in Salt Lake but in other parts of the country I have seen very aggressive panhandling. That can be downright scary for anyone, like you've got to pay the toll to walk past or you'll be verbally and possibly physically assaulted.

The more panhandling works as a way to get money the more you will see people panhandling, the more the premium spots will be contended over, the more aggressive the panhandling will become. If profitable enough you'll see people doing it as a profession over working a low paying job. But it'll also be something your average junkie will be more prone to spending time doing. This might be someone who lives with people who support them insofar as giving them a place to live, but panhandling is how they get their drug money, how they connect with other junkies.

Then there's just the fact that I don't think a string of cars needs to miss their turn signal getting off the freeway because someone wants to give a person a couple bucks while we all wait.

To me the bottom line is that if panhandling didn't work (no one ever gave to panhandlers) then the people doing it now who are truly in need would turn to other forms of assistance. And if we supported those other forms of assistance instead of giving to panhandlers we'd have a safer more effective form of care. People wouldn't be standing on the corners of our off-ramps. People wouldn't be harassing us as we walk through high foot traffic areas.

By giving to panhandlers you are contributing to a problem and not helping to solve homelessness or poverty at all, not even really helping to provide comfort for the homeless and needy in any meaningful way. You're just paying for your daily "I'm a good person" fix and hooking an alcoholic or junkie up with part of their next fix.


Wow! This is a damn good post!
 
There was a panhandler outside of a Panda Express one night and my dad bought the dude a 3 entree and a drink plus tried to give him a $20...dude broke down and cried and said he hadn't had a real meal in 4 days and refused to take my dad's money because he said was going to spend it on drugs and didn't want to disrespect my dad who fed him. **** was a surreal moment.

There was another time my dad bought a guy some food and the guy had the balls to tell my dad he needed money not food and my dad nearly killed the guy lol
Awesome say thanks to your dad

Sent from my Z981 using JazzFanz mobile app
 
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/...d-robbed-in-taylorsville-after-refusing-cash/

A 31-year-old man was in critical condition Thursday after being stabbed and robbed in a Taylorsville Burger King parking lot.
In what seemed possibly to be a case of aggressive panhandling gone over the top, the 22-year-old suspect had just ordered food -- chicken nuggets and fries -- from the drive-up window of the restaurant at 3975 W. 4700 South after approaching other customers in their cars begging for food money.
Just after midnight, the suspect next began approaching parked cars, and apparently became enraged when the victim refused to give him cash. The suspect stabbed the 31-year-old man in the head; the victim managed to bite his assailant on the arm before he ran from the scene with the man’s cellphone and wallet.
 
Inside SLC boundaries is only 200K. But the city boundaries are pretty arbitrary. If you include the whole Salt Lake county it's like 1.1 million. If you include neighboring Utah and Davis counties it's like 2 million.

You really have to use the CSA population (2.3 million) when talking about SLC'S homeless because surrounding counties and cities have done such a poor job of providing emergency homeless services that they are exporting their homeless to SLC. IIRC very few of the people who end up at the road home were Salt Lake City residents when they became homeless. This needs to change. A city that is less than 10% of the population can not properly manage 90% of the homeless population. I think as a large city we can afford and should take on an increased burden but we can't take everyone's homeless. Cities like Provo, WVC, Sandy, Lehi etc need to step up to the plate if we are ever going to address this problem.

Edit: props to Midvale for doing their part with a 300 bed family shelter. Now we need an additional 500-600 beds in 2-3(150-250 beds a piece) shelters scattered around Utah county.
 
On second thought that will never happen. The flak the Draper mayor got this year proves it.

We need a statewide independent homeless services administration. The head should be appointed by the governor. Mayors of cities that currently have a shelter should appoint board members.
 
You really have to use the CSA population (2.3 million) when talking about SLC'S homeless because surrounding counties and cities have done such a poor job of providing emergency homeless services that they are exporting their homeless to SLC. IIRC very few of the people who end up at the road home were Salt Lake City residents when they became homeless. This needs to change. A city that is less than 10% of the population can not properly manage 90% of the homeless population. I think as a large city we can afford and should take on an increased burden but we can't take everyone's homeless. Cities like Provo, WVC, Sandy, Lehi etc need to step up to the plate if we are ever going to address this problem.

Edit: props to Midvale for doing their part with a 300 bed family shelter. Now we need an additional 500-600 beds in 2-3(150-250 beds a piece) shelters scattered around Utah county.

Agreed. It probably needs to be at a statewide level, though, rather than just relying on the other cities to step it up.
 
On second thought that will never happen. The flak the Draper mayor got this year proves it.

We need a statewide independent homeless services administration. The head should be appointed by the governor. Mayors of cities that currently have a shelter should appoint board members.

Good idea. (I posted my previous comment before reading this.)
 
So [MENTION=4984]Bulletproof[/MENTION] did this challenge ever happen? What were the results? Is it just buried in the thread somewhere?
 
So [MENTION=4984]Bulletproof[/MENTION] did this challenge ever happen? What were the results? Is it just buried in the thread somewhere?

She hasn't gotten back to me. Said she was moving at the end of July and would contact me at the beginning of August. If I had to place a bet I'd say she backs out.
 
She hasn't gotten back to me. Said she was moving at the end of July and would contact me at the beginning of August. If I had to place a bet I'd say she backs out.

You should follow through on your own. Get someone to video it covertly. Might be interesting to see.
 
You really have to use the CSA population (2.3 million) when talking about SLC'S homeless because surrounding counties and cities have done such a poor job of providing emergency homeless services that they are exporting their homeless to SLC. IIRC very few of the people who end up at the road home were Salt Lake City residents when they became homeless. This needs to change. A city that is less than 10% of the population can not properly manage 90% of the homeless population. I think as a large city we can afford and should take on an increased burden but we can't take everyone's homeless. Cities like Provo, WVC, Sandy, Lehi etc need to step up to the plate if we are ever going to address this problem.

Edit: props to Midvale for doing their part with a 300 bed family shelter. Now we need an additional 500-600 beds in 2-3(150-250 beds a piece) shelters scattered around Utah county.

This big city plight fallacy, poor pitty us argument is the dumbest line of reasoning to support a breakup of the problem area. Big cities carrying a load of the burden is part of the economic equation across the country. They're also the hubs providing the drug trade with enough volume to exist and thus attracting homeless and thus funding to deal with it.
 
So she never responded. Figured it was just BS. I was 100% down for this.

I might do my own thing here, but motivation for this is low right now. Maybe spring...

She had her fun calling me out, I guess.
 
Back
Top