As homelessness overwhelms downtown Phoenix, a small business wonders how long it can hang on

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

***LOOONG article. worth a read. Housing costs rose 80% in Phoenix...evictions flooded the streets with people**

A Sandwich Shop, a Tent City and an American Crisis
As homelessness overwhelms downtown Phoenix, a small business wonders how long it can hang on.

He looked out the window toward Madison Street, which had become the center of one of the largest homeless encampments in the country, with as many as 1,100 people sleeping outdoors. On this February morning, he could see a half-dozen men pressed around a roaring fire. A young woman was lying in the middle of the street, wrapped beneath a canvas advertising banner. A man was weaving down the sidewalk in the direction of Joe’s restaurant with a saw, muttering to himself and then stopping to urinate a dozen feet from Joe’s outdoor tables.

“It’s the usual chaos and suffering,” he told Debbie. “But the restaurant’s still standing.”

That had seemed to them like an open question each morning for the last three years, as an epidemic of unsheltered homelessness began to overwhelm Phoenix and many other major American downtowns. Cities across the West had been transformed by a housing crisis, a mental health crisis and an opioid epidemic, all of which landed at the doorsteps of small businesses already reaching a breaking point because of the pandemic. In Seattle, more than 2,300 businesses had left downtown since the beginning of 2020. A group of fed up small-business owners in Santa Monica, Calif., had hung a banner on the city’s promenade that read: “Santa Monica Is NOT safe. Crime … Depravity … Outdoor mental asylum.” And in Phoenix, where the number of people living on the street had more than tripled since 2016, businesses had begun hiring private security firms to guard their property and lawyers to file a lawsuit against the city for failing to manage “a great humanitarian crisis.”

The Faillaces had signed onto the lawsuit as plaintiffs along with about a dozen other nearby property owners. They also bought an extra mop to clean up the daily flow of human waste, replaced eight shattered windows with plexiglass, installed a wrought-iron fence around their property and continued opening their doors at exactly 8 each morning to greet the first customer of the day.


Joe Faillace unlocking the gate on a fence around the sandwich shop that he and his wife have run for four decades.




Shina Sepulveda at her small plot of sidewalk. Within the encampment, she’s known as Espy Rockefeller.



Kipp Polston waiting for a meal at the encampment.



Joel Coplin lives in a building across from the encampment. He runs an art gallery downstairs and lives with his wife upstairs.



A view of the tents from a window in Joel’s building.



https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/phoenix-businesses-homelessness.html

[KarenS]

1. This is heartbreaking,,,,

so many folks need help.

Collectively we all need to figure it out,,,,

[OldBaldy1701E]

3. There is no profit in helping others without thought of recompense.

Until we remove the greed that dictates our very lives, this is going to stay a problem. Until we stop putting that green piece of paper above human beings, we are going to have this problem. And, those 'band-aid' measures that some want to bring up are just window dressing so that the rich can both feel better and feel outraged that the poors are not out of sight yet.

[KarenS]

5. I agree with you 100%

I am an old lady. My hopes are with the younger generation,,,, they think differently than their elders. We are leaving them huge messes to deal with.

[brooklynite]

11. The counter-culture of the 60s thought differently as well; didn't change things much.

[KarenS]

16. yep. I think too many Boomers sold out.

Seems like greed is very tempting.
But I don't think the next generations have many choices except to face some of these things head-on.
or will it end up like 'Mad Max'?

[Elessar Zappa]

45. I saw an article posted here the other day

that Millennials aren’t getting more conservative as they age unlike previous generations. So there is hope that widespread change could occur in the coming decades.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. I see underutilized human potential . . . where are the job creators?

if you can survive like that, you can do anything

[cstanleytech]

4. Oh, they are creating jobs. Just offshore as they shift them to other countries.

[area51]

30. +1 n/t

[CentralMass]

6. Back in December I read that there were 800 tent encampments in Portland, OR.

There is at least one in just about every neighborhood in the city. Life is becoming a struggle for far too many.

[mn9driver]

7. End stage capitalism isn't pretty.

But it’s important not to make our billionaires feel bad by taxing them too much.

[Magoo48]

21. Yup, when everything is sucked upwards by the morbidly-rich, encouraged by politicians flirting

fascists while in bed with Christian Nationalists, the bottom starves and withers.

The fabric of our social structure is rotten with extraction economics and vulture capitalism. But, as is true with our freedom and our environment, we will not be inconvenienced in order restructure a top heavy social scaffold near collapse.

[rambler_american]

8. This is disgraceful.

In the richest goddamned country in the world how in hell can we let shit like this happen?

[A HERETIC I AM]

22. Because profit trumps the public good, that's why.

Many Americans like to think this is a "Christian Nation" but it is about as far from that as can be.

Why isn't the homeless problem being fixed in this country?

Because there is no money to be made from it.

BTW, there are scores of places like those pictured all over the country. Millions have been priced out of having a decent place to live.

[Delphinus]

32. I know!

It doesn't seem to be getting any better either. We have some unhoused folks camping across the river from where we live and, for a change, the cops have not come in and run them off. So far it's only a small group and perhaps that's the reason why.

[OrlandoDem2]

9. We have homelessness across America at a level I've never seen.

It is only getting worse.

Absolute poverty has decreased across the planet since 1990 but it seems like something is very wrong in America. I can’t pretend to have the answers but I am just sharing what I’ve seen over the years.

[Johnny2X2X]

13. Homelessness was higher in the 00s

It was higher both in raw numbers and as a %, it went down for the 10sc but rose in the 20s so far.

But I think the causes of homelessness are changing from economically depressed causes to outrageous cost of living causes. You’re seeing people who have jobs but become homeless still. Rent is just too darned high in too many places and it puts more people on the edge. One disaster away from the streets.

[Brenda]

10. Can someone provide the workaround link with no paywall? Thx, nt.

[erronis]

18. Here you go

https://archive.ph/IyDNG

[Brenda]

25. Thanks! nt

[KarenS]

19. try this

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/phoenix-businesses-homelessness.html?unlocked_article_code=tQB3C5jlyWir_WJiLJNO1PQ-cERYis3e6GKTC_OLG2Vv-CgDh4OhguL6QcdRQOh_3afKh_p-rcaagT21L9QzQprMIUkM20YN0j0FNmVj8k8e_u9G9FeTfEaPC8xnjFNIWYe-PPfIC8vLs5e_cjzfjctnv4LZzS5FiKh-8ltvSJ1Wn-zBZ04C-4vR50L8mm5AL-nPHszvafkEAh62aO0uZNKCcjO7PD9a1d-p0aSOK_4xzA4Ee9HlokJFjaImnGaD-VrEoXx8zfEF80_lxG6Y6i2JS8BQUpiSVEPkLQ1lg8AVgbFUFt4dujgvd5EC1zzrSXc0kZHktwJqMMGXSjmSMbJT3esM&smid=url-share

[Brenda]

26. Thanks again! nt

[mountain grammy]

12. Life is cheap in America.

There's a book called The Shock Doctrine.. been around since 2007. Explains pretty much everything.

[ratchiweenie]

14. There's a downtown Phoenix? I never seem to figure out where it is.

[KarenS]

24. on mapquest,,,,

Central & Van Buren/Madison/Fillmore area

[ratchiweenie]

39. Oh, thanks.

[AllaN01Bear]

15. the land mafia is totaly out of control. where i live , the county wanted to

buy a old hotel and house homeless , but what a noise and it was turned down. move along , move along, ok where to?

[Delphinus]

33. Exactly.

Where do they go next?

[Turbineguy]

17. When a banker or CEO retires,

I always wonder how many people will become homeless as offset of zero sum capitalism.

[AZLD4Candidate]

20. Arizona is a state that is one step away from criminalizing homelessness

They make the acts homeless people do crimes, but not actual homelessness.

It's like anti-gay laws. You could be gay, but the sex acts gay people did were illegal.

[dembotoz]

23. are we still waiting for compassionate conservatives and a thousand points of light?

aw shit...the only way this will ever get fixed if somebody starts to give a damn
And I guess that means us

If these were earthquake victims we would be all over this...at least for a while....Our humanitarian aspirations for Haiti ended before reconstruction was ever near completion.

If these were stray cats and dogs the line of folks who wanted to help would stretch forever. These are people.
Actual real live living people.

And we need to do more

[mackdaddy]

27. We Can't Make it Here Anymore... From 16 years ago.

Back in the 80s I toured dozens of closed manufacturing plants around central Ohio looking at equipment we might use in our small factory. What used to be tens of thousands of well paying jobs had just been eliminated here and sent overseas.

At the same time there are homeless encampments there are entire neighborhoods that have been left to rot in abandonment.

Our entire economic cycle has been upended and a few billionaires suck all of the capital out of the system instead of having real economic cycles of regular people making enough to afford a real life and home and the money they made was recycled back into the economy. The economic Royalty has bought our political system and been able to rig our economic system. I think we are in the end stages of this though.

[The Jungle 1]

28. Well here is the math...

Help homeless and sick Americans / give out more corporate welfare = x

Solve for x.

[yaesu]

29. Reminds me of the hit song We Built This City by the Republicans

and can be found on the rich tax cuts album.

[Gary 50]

34. Reminds me of "The dirty fuckin hippies were right."

[gulliver]

31. The property owners pay for the neglect by citizens and political leaders

To start to address problems like this we need the compassionate and competent 90% of the country engaged and working together. It's one of the main reasons I'm always saying the angry voices should be listened to just long enough to identify where they come from. That way you know who you should probably ignore.

Cool heads have to prevail to solve problems, even to stem the tide of new problem creation. These homeless folks are the most evident symptoms, but I think most everyone feels the dissatisfaction and frustration symptom.

[Prairie_Seagull]

35. The increase in homlessness has been going on for years now and like all of us-

for me it is heartbreaking. I have thought about it and,, thought about it and,, thought about it. Municipalities try to slap band-aids on it but the wound has gotten festered anyway. I have thought of my own, mentally trying to balance the the needs of the people afflicted the wants of society with the reality of budgets. What I have been able to come up with really are just more band-aids.

Even if the increasingly service oriented economy were booming the problem would persist. It is not just a 'problem' to be solved if you are hungry, sleeping in a tent, wondering where you can go to the bathroom or take a shower.

I have gotten to the point where I have started to look the other way, my spirit has taken a serious and ongoing hit for years and emotionally it has had a cost. What I think about who we collectively are has taken a hit. Present company accepted.

We need to try something bigger, A WPA for homelessness, Something based on practices that have worked around the world. Fuck...Something. We have thrown boxes of band-aids at this and it's time to clean and stitch up the wound.

Before more of us start looking the other way.

[MichMan]

38. Cities could provide tax relief to homeowners that provided space for homeless folks.

Plenty of people have extra bedrooms not being used that could provide shelter, showers and other things to homeless people that we take for granted. There is also a possibility of letting homeless folks pitch tents in people's back yards if space inside the home isn't available.

Those that volunteered would be eligible for property tax reductions.

[pinkstarburst]

42. Would you personally host a homeless person

in your home? Why not do so today? I think we both know the answer. Homelessness is a big problem in my city too and the vast majority of these people suffer from serious mental health and addiction issues. No one is going to willingly invite them into their homes, or backyards, even for a tax break.

[jaxexpat]

36. There is a direct proportion to the number of billionaires and the number of homeless.

Just as there is a direct proportion to the number of gated communities to the number of people in prison.

These are merely observations. I'm not exactly sure what the connection is but I'm very sure that if the top 0.001% was taxed appropriately, the populations of both the homeless and prison inmates would go down.

Perhaps a dash of jail time for those who've grown wealthy on the reckless manufacture and sale of opioids would spice up the karma. Additionally, state governments could consider removing care for the mentally/emotionally disabled from local LEO's and rely on science to take the lead dealing with these burgeoning social problems. Then perhaps sidewalks and downtown neighborhoods everywhere could be freed up for pedestrians' access to businesses. There are also some aspects of city planning, zoning and permitting which could stand a pinch of science, as well, after all, ghettoization and its recently repainted cousin, gentrification, don't spawn in a vacuum. They begin in corporate boardrooms abetted by banks.

It might even relieve some of the goddamned misery all people live with when their fellows give up on them, but first the small number at the top, who call virtually ALL the shots, and a reasonable share of their wealth must be reincorporated into society at large.

[NickB79]

37. I just remarked about a small encampment in St. Paul yesterday

I don't know how people survive living in tents in Minnesota in winter, when it can hit -40F windchill. It's horrific.

[Sky Jewels]

44. That is incomprehensible.

[LeftinOH]

40. There are so many empty shopping malls around the country..

These could be repurposed as transitional housing. Since dead malls aren't government property, there would need to be some public/private partnerships to make this work. I've long felt that still-intact dead malls are a missed opportunity.

[ripcord]

41. California and the large cities in the state are spending a small fortune dealing with homelessness

It would be nice to see results for all that spending at some point.

[Sky Jewels]

43. I wonder how many of the pissed-off small business owners throughout the land

have been voting Republican for decades. Those who did are reaping what they sowed. This hellscape is Reagan's America.