• Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 hours ago

    So-called genius can’t fathom that in many cases the mental illness and drug addiction came from the homelessness.

  • Lenny@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    I have anxiety and likely some deep seated depression that would rise up with a vengeance if I didn’t have a warm home and access to food. I also love drinking wine, and while I do have access to said home and fridge, this wine hobby is cute and socially acceptable.

    Make me homeless and I’d very much represent a mentally ill substance abusing human like Elmo is describing there. They’re not ‘them’; they’re just us in a different reality.

    • MaxPow3r11@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      If Elon suddenly became “homeless” he would have a sign begging for ketamine & screaming “put I never went to therapy on my tombstone”.

  • ugjka@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    They are drug addicts and mentally ill because usa has no safety nets for such people

  • droporain@lemmynsfw.com
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    20 hours ago

    Zero is the amount of drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers that Elon has built. Zero is the amount of mental health facilities.

  • sumguyonline@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    There’s full time employees that are homeless. Go out to a bridge, find a homeless person, ask how many homeless people they know that are working 40hrs a week. An alarming number. Looking forward to the violent end to elon musk. His violent games, have very violent ends.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      As a broad statement it’s dumb, but depending on the city addiction can be a major contribution to the cycle of “homelessness”, especially the more visible populations who have reached peak “fuck it” and have no more cares for societal values or laws… Even if 25% of them are kids, yeah some of those may be hooked on drugs at an early age or be affected by parental/guardian drug abuse.

      But ok then… he’s still a billionaire who could definitely spare a good portion of his wealth to improve both situations (homelessness and addiction) but would rather just leverage it to make more and more wealth while pushing policies that actually make life for the average person worse.

      At the same time, homelessness and addiction are very much NOT just a throw-money-at-it problem and fucking both would require systemic change over time.

      For Elon socially, how much of his wealth is liquid enough to make a difference I don’t know, but I haven’t really heard of him doing ANYTHING particularly altruistic with his money and Id say the changes/logistics required to make this world a better place are probably still a lot more feasible than building a colony on fucking Mars…

        • phx@lemmy.ca
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          1 day ago

          Bought and tanked Twitter and totally wasn’t funded by people who wanted to see it dead.

          Pretty sure that move made him more money than it cost him.

          • dx1@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Facebook (and other “Meta” subsidiaries) censored, reddit censored, TikTok on the chopping block…seems like an effective way around the First Amendment, just hijack social media.

  • wisely@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    Is this older or does his wealth just fluctuate ±100 billion as stocks fluctuate? Recently read he was at 450 billion.

    What’s crazy is losing or gaining 100 billion doesn’t really affect him, he’s still the richest person in the world and it wouldn’t change his life any.

  • Mangoholic@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    The guy who is so addicted with twitter engagement boostingbhis ego he bought it for himself just to go full fascist. Is calling homeless people addicts lol.

  • Piranha Phish@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Even if that is true, does it somehow invalidate the fact that they are also homeless?! Are they less deserving to be out of the elements because they have an addiction?

    That’s what I find so disgusting about this statement. It’s just an excuse and doesn’t address anything at all.

    Using his own “argument”, it would seem to me that a path to less addiction and violence would involve having a place to live and sleep.

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Lots of people feel this way about homelessness and addiction. It’s very easy to dehumanized people. My cousin interrupted me, when I said something about it, and told me “when you have people shooting up outside your house, then you can complain”. As if i couldnt have an opinion until i experience the issue that is homelessness, the war on drugs, and our failure to address mental health issues in this country with my very own eyes. She’s a bit snooty, and she doesn’t even realize it.

      Nevermind that once you become homeless, it becomes much harder to dig yourself out of that hole (probably by design).

      • underisk@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        It’s such a self-centered point of view. They can’t even conceive of themselves ever being in a similar situation so they assume the person inconveniencing them must be fully to blame for their homelessness. Then they can ignore those degenerates without feeling guilty about it.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      1 day ago

      Yeah wonder what could drive someone to addiction and desperation? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm couldn’t be not having a stable food supply and a place to live?

      • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        Yeah the whole correlation causation thing is going to be very mixed up here. Like lets look at it another way:

        Oh no I become disabled > Can’t work anymore shit I got no money > Try to apply for disability benefits oh fuck its a million forms and I need a lawyer oh fuck I’m broke > Crash at friends to apply for disability, first try fails after 1 year (this is pretty standard usually takes 2-3 trys), oh fuck friend kicks me out > go to homeless camp struggling to feed yourself, no time to think about applying for benefits anymore > The pain is too much I don’t have my medicine anymore its fucking freezing oh shit that guys selling drugs > get addicted

        Boom, you’re homeless and addicted. That story could happen to literally anyone without generational wealth and an exceptionally strong support network.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I was homeless for 6 years because billionaires fucked with America’s housing market. I’m not even American.

    I was 15 years old when that happened. My teenage years got robbed by billionaires.

  • Poik@pawb.social
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    1 day ago

    Aside from the fact that having a safe place to live alone helps both mental illness and substance abuse in most individuals, a major cause of homelessness is domestic abuse and being disowned. Having a safe place to live will absolutely help the over a third of domestic abuse victims who become homeless, and would help those who cannot afford to get away from their abusers due to lack of ability to find a safe haven.

    Home the homeless, then we can start working on the harder parts.

  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.netOP
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    2 days ago

    I cannot explain how disgustingly evil it is to witness the suffering of individuals, whether due to substance abuse, illness, or homelessness, and dismiss it as untruthful.

    The numbers to fix homelessness may be controversial, with some sites saying it was 20 billion in 2010 and that’s just to provide vouchers for a year, and some fact checking sites saying it can cost $60 billion in a year.

    The primary concern is the actions of a South African billionaire, whose net worth is $350 billion. Instead of recognizing the complexities of a significant social issue, he appears to dehumanize those affected and assigns blame, rather than offering assistance.

    What a fucking evil take.

    • Limonene@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Those numbers all take into account existing housing assistance programs, which are used by mostly non-homeless people.

      There are 250k homeless people in the US. For $20B, you could spend $80k per each person. Since many of the homeless are families, that’s enough to buy a small house for each family.

      But you still have to keep paying into the existing programs, or more people will become homeless. Compared to a quarter million homeless people, there are 4.5M households using the existing programs.

      • outdated2139@lemmynsfw.com
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        2 days ago

        80k per person gets them a small house? It’d be more than one family to a house and for people without families it would be overcrowded atleast in my area.

        • quixotic120@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          You’re assuming buying a house at consumer prices, not government prices. Government already owns a great deal of land, which is one of the most significant costs. Then it’s a matter of just building a modest home, which absolutely can be done for 80k. It would be very small by american gigantic house standards but it would be an actual house, which is infinitely better than no house

      • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        While the word is “homeless” the problem is generally not just “lacking a home”. It usually stems from things like inability to work due to severe disability or psychiatric illness, unofficial immigrants struggling to find employment, addiction, abandonment from family, not enough money to retire but unable to work etc.

        Like don’t get me wrong giving everyone a home is great. But it won’t magically solve all the problems. And they might not be able to afford maintinance, property tax etc. Also if it’s homelessness due to lack of employment I question whether the 80k home will be anywhere useful for someone to find a job they qualify for, and if it will have any transportation links or anything

  • lemmm5ter@discuss.online
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    1 day ago

    pretty sure you can’t end homelessness with $20b unless we’re talking about absolute homelessness or something…

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      pretty sure you can’t end homelessness with $20b

      The math is straightforward: Cost of a housing unit * number of unhoused people. Even assuming the extraordinarily inflated market rate for housing in 2024, $20B is more than enough to house 650k people.

      Now, will the institutional actors that produced homelessness stop existing? Will we see an end to predatory lenders, robo-signed foreclosures, police harassment and civil asset forfeiture of the working poor, and unregulated real estate scammers targeting our most vulnerable neighbors? Probably not.

      But we wouldn’t have so many billionaires running about squandering our national wealth on vanity projects like Twitter without billions to be fleeced from the public to begin with.

      • IMALlama@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        $20B is more than enough to house 650k people

        I got curious, so I whipped out my phone’s calculator. $20B/650k = $30,800, give or take. I truly don’t know if that’s enough to break the cycle of homelessness, but if it is that seems like a pretty low number. We spend 40x that number on the defense budget, which is totally a jobs program but it seems like fighting homelessness would also ultimately be a jobs program.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    I wonder if they use drugs to cope with the mental illness they got from being forced to live on the streets?

    Naw, that’s pseudoscience. We all know that it’s proven that poverty is a character trait that you actively choose. Not rich? Obviously you don’t want it hard enough. /s