Interesting article linking homelessness with meth and fentanyl

[CosmicCowboy]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-homelessness.html

[Ef-man]

Word of caution going out to qchrisy and karrin...

- 25% of homeless people have mental illnesses.
Mental illness is one of the most common causes of homelessness, especially among single people. With a whopping quarter of the homeless population struggling with mental health, there is no doubt that mental illness and homelessness are connected.

- Substance abuse and homeless: 38% alcohol abuse & 26% drug abuse.
Substance abuse, often driven by stress as a result of another condition, is a common occurrence among the homeless in America. Almost 4 out of 10 have alcohol issues, while a quarter of the homeless experience drug abuse. This highlights the lack of specialist support.

https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/homelessness-statistics (https://policyadvice.net/insurance/insights/homelessness-statistics/)

[Winehole23]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-homelessness.htmlwhat struck you as interesting about it?

[Trainwreck2100]

what struck you as interesting about it?

Probably nothing since the article isn't about "homelessness and fentynyl" but how that plus new pure meth has taken a foothold in the drug scene and its effects on society CCs old people Facebook group strikes again

[CosmicCowboy]

Probably nothing since the article isn't about "homelessness and fentynyl" but how that plus new pure meth has taken a foothold in the drug scene and its effects on society CCs old people Facebook group strikes again

I found the frequency of needed Fentanyl use as compared to heroin surprising. I didn't know they had to recharge so often. And it wasn't on facebook. No need to be a prick. If you didn't find it interesting you can go back to the club and talk about the stupid shit that is important to you.

[Monostradamus]

What if a cow took fentanyl?

[CosmicCowboy]

#FreeDerp

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Well, you get added to the clown car. You guys need to take your childish shit back to the club.

[ElNono]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-homelessness.html

Good read. Thanks for sharing.

[spurraider21]

What if a cow took fentanyl?
cows belch methane

they technically dont fart. or have intestines.

[boutons_deux]

An animal tranquilizer is making street drugs even more dangerous


https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/08/05/1114453468/animal-tranquilizer-street-drugs

[boutons_deux]

Capitalists extracting maximum rent causes homelessness

[DeadlyDynasty]

What if a cow took fentanyl?
That would be an amazing steak

[CosmicCowboy]

Capitalists extracting maximum rent causes homelessness
Certainly in some cases but most of the ones I run into downtown are so deep into their drugged state they can't function in normal society, hold a job in order to pay rent etc.

[pgardn]

That would be an amazing steak

No need for that expensive snobby red wine with dinner.

[koriwhat]

The homeless today aren't really those of the past; they're mainly strung out junkies who chose that life instead of being down on their luck like those of the past.

What I saw in Hollywood was insane with the open use of hard drugs, a lady ripping her face off in front of me as blood was gushing out everywhere on Highland Ave., and much more. Here in SATX it's getting pretty bad too but nothing like Hollywood or that shit city north of me ATX.

[Blake]

Oh look who showed up in a meth thread

[Winehole23]

Certainly in some cases but most of the ones I run into downtown are so deep into their drugged state they can't function in normal society, hold a job in order to pay rent etc.the article you posted also pointed out some people get that way because they're homeless. there are a bunch of loopy druggies in the workforce too. more in it than out of it, if I had to guess.

[BD24]

Joey waxing poetic about yesterdays homeless vs todays :lol

“Back in my day homeless we’re respectable people” :lol

[Winehole23]

Karla Finocchio’s slide into homelessness began when she split with her partner of 18 years and temporarily moved in with a cousin.

The 55-year-old planned to use her $800-a-month disability check to get an apartment after back surgery. But she soon was sleeping in her old pickup truck protected by her German shepherd mix Scrappy, unable to afford housing in Phoenix, where median monthly rents (https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-04-07/can-my-rent-increase-los-angeles-evictions-pandemic-moratorium) soared 33% during the COVID-19 pandemic to over $1,220 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to ApartmentList.com.

Finocchio is one face of America’s graying homeless population, a rapidly expanding group of destitute and desperate people 50 and older suddenly without a permanent home after a job loss, divorce, family death or health crisis during the pandemic.

“We’re seeing a huge boom in senior homelessness,” said Kendra Hendry, a caseworker at Arizona’s largest shelter, where older people make up about 30% of the clientele. “These are not necessarily people who have mental illness or substance abuse problems. They are people being pushed into the streets by rising rents.”


“These are old people losing housing,” Dr. Margot Kushel told me. She’s the lead investigator on the study from UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, done at the request of state health officials.

“They basically were ticking along very poor, and sometime after the age of 50 something happened,” Kushel said. That something — divorce, a loved one dying, an illness, even a cutback in hours on the job — sparked a downward spiral and their lives “just blew up,” as Kushel puts it.

Kushel and her team found that nearly half of single adults living on our streets are over the age of 50 (https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-04-26/americas-homeless-getting-older). And 7% of all homeless adults, single or in families, are over 65. And 41% of those older, single Californians had never been homeless — not one day in their lives — before the age of 50.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-04-26/americas-homeless-getting-older

[Winehole23]

Dr. Margot Kushel, a physician who directs the Center for Vulnerable Populations (https://cvp.ucsf.edu/)at UC San Francisco, said her research (https://cvp.ucsf.edu/programs/benioff-homelessness-and-housing-initiative) in Oakland on how homelessness affects health has shown that nearly half of the tens of thousands of older homeless people in the U.S. are on the streets for the first time.

“We are seeing that retirement is no longer the golden dream,” said Kushel. “A lot of the working poor are destined to retire onto the streets.”

That’s especially true of younger baby boomers, now in their late 50s to late 60s, who don’t have pensions or 401(k) accounts. About half of both women and men ages 55 to 66 have no retirement savings, according to the census.

Born between 1946 and 1964, baby boomers now number over 70 million, the census shows. With the oldest boomers in their mid-70s, all will hit age 65 by 2030.

[Winehole23]

the link with poverty is curiously underemphasized in discussions on this board

[Extra Stout]

There is this strain of “liberalism” on the West Coast that thinks the compassionate solution to homelessness is to make homelessness easier rather than to build housing. NIMBYism takes precedence.

And so with the Boise decision saying that governments either have to provide enough beds for the homeless or let them camp somewhere, the people of the western states are choosing to let them camp.

People who want to live the homeless lifestyle (and yes, MANY exist who prefer the absence of responsibility and the freedom to have a drug addiction) flock to the West Coast because they make it so easy to live that way.

And drugs are so cheap now. It’s way easier to live the junkie lifestyle.

[Extra Stout]

Now if what this UCSF researcher is saying is true, that some huge % of the homeless are actually economic homeless who are elderly, then that is a damning condemnation of housing policy out there. The NIMBYs are responsible for endless misery.

However, it does not jibe with what I’ve heard from other homeless advocates. Now, those advocates are from places like New York and Houston that do a vastly better job connecting the economic homeless to services that will get them back into housing.

[Winehole23]

Homeless people lack housing, impoverished people lack money.

Obviously, there are no simple solutions here, but handwaving at drug addiction and those who freely choose to live on the streets isn't any sort of solution at all. It's just handwaving.

[Extra Stout]

Homeless people lack housing, impoverished people lack money.

Obviously, there are no simple solutions here, but handwaving at drug addiction and those who freely choose to live on the streets isn't any sort of solution at all. It's just handwaving.
There are three types of homeless: economic, mentally ill, and drug-addicted. There is overlap, but the categories hold. The first two can and should be helped, and even places in heartless red states figure out how to connect those people to services. If there is a failure to do that on the West Coast, then it’s a condemnation of their so-called liberalism. NIMBYism is a thing out there. So-called “liberals” are throwing a fit in Colorado because Jared Polis stripped away local authority to block new housing.

The third group, the junkies, can only be helped with coercion.

Obviously part of the issue on the West Coast is the insane cost of housing, but it’s not as though housing is cheap in New York or Boston. The difference is political will to do something about it. NIMBYism isn’t as much of a thing back East. Affordable housing is possible.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

the link with poverty is curiously underemphasized in discussions on this board

Homeless are by definition are impoverished and the population level is directly related to socioeconomics.

Most homeless are mentally ill particularly the long term homeless. Heroin addiction in the homeless population is meme at this point.

I am not sure what new information is here except the fentanyl fearmongering.

[leemajors]

I have heard, albeit on a podcast with a convicted dealer, that the Mexican cartels aren't putting fentanyl in anything they bring to the border (which allegedly they don't even bring stuff across anymore since lockdown, it is americans bringing it across entirely). They have also gone so far as to compress all the fentanyl they make into pink tablets so people can tell they have not mixed it with anything, and all the cutting is being done here. You can probably take that with a lot of salt considering the source, but apparently they also forbid the sale of fentanyl in Mexico itself.

[Spurs Homer]

There are three types of homeless: economic, mentally ill, and drug-addicted. There is overlap, but the categories hold. The first two can and should be helped, and even places in heartless red states figure out how to connect those people to services. If there is a failure to do that on the West Coast, then it’s a condemnation of their so-called liberalism. NIMBYism is a thing out there. So-called “liberals” are throwing a fit in Colorado because Jared Polis stripped away local authority to block new housing.

The third group, the junkies, can only be helped with coercion.

Obviously part of the issue on the West Coast is the insane cost of housing, but it’s not as though housing is cheap in New York or Boston. The difference is political will to do something about it. NIMBYism isn’t as much of a thing back East. Affordable housing is possible.


some part of it is just practicality…

i mean, have you ever been stranded outside in horrible weather, like when your a/c breaks down or like when our heating went down due to the genius Texas Governor choosing to enrich his buddies and himself instead of addressing the grid issue AFTER it had been recommended to be addressed during the previous blackouts?

if you have- you KNOW that it is fucking hard to be outside without protection from the elements


this is a big reason why the west coast has a larger share of homeless people- THE WEATHER

i lived there 20 years and if you want me to tell you generally what the weather was like for those 20 years-
here it is:

it was 70 degrees and breezy all day and nights got down to a bone-chilling 55 degrees almost
350 days in the year…

homeless people know this and if you have to risk your life in any city being homeless- it might as well be someplace where the weather wont kill you in the first 6 months of your homeless life.


we used to joke about the weather during the xmas holidays..like…
”man, i sure miss the seasons…it doesnt feel like xmas ..i miss snow….wait- what the fuck am i saying?”

yeah- it is always perfect weather and when there was a little rain- even a little downpour that lasted half an hour, id switch on the evening news and the leading story was

”a storm hit the southland today…”

[RandomGuy]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-homelessness.html

it is a good read.

I know a social worker who deals with this stuff all the time. It may shock you, but we don't have enough of a social safety net to keep people functional when they get on drugs.

Wealth has been so concentrated and wages have been so flat that your average person is a lot closer to homelessness than they used to be. One bad month, an illness etc, and the housing unstable become homeless, and drugs are a way that happens.