Poverty, drugs and desperately f*cked up people - the Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue videos

[klang]

wonder if the makers of those vids actually get involved in somehow helping those poor people? eg donating to charities (whatever they earn with their vids), involvement in community groups, drugs services, soup kitchens, etc?
or are the just 'raising awareness' from the safety of their car?
i agree that there are serious consent issues at play.

couldn't watch it all, it's ugly.

 

[hitmouse]

I'm reminded a bit from Only Americans Burn in Hell by Jarett Kobek:

Reader, here is a game you can play.
Go to Google Maps and search for “5th Street & Crocker Los Angeles.”
Go to Street View.
Google will display its most recent invasion of privacy.
If you’re savvy, you’ll be able to figure out how to use the timeline.
If you aren’t, ask a friend.
Go to the earliest image on the timeline, which should be from 2007 AD.
What you will see is an intersection in Skid Row.
While not in the best shape, it is not overrun with human misery.
Now move forward through the timeline.
Watch as the years pass by and watch as the human misery accumulates. Watch as the tents rise up. Watch as the suffering mounts. Watch as the bullshit con of America fails its most vulnerable citizens. Watch as liberal democracy dies.
And, yes, reader, it is sad.
And, yes, it is a shame.
But here we are.
You and me.
Or as they say in Turkish: sen ve ben bebek.
And we’re still doing nothing…
But doing nothing is better than Google, a corporation which has decided that, facing a social cataclysm, the appropriate course of action is to violate the privacy of the homeless and then post the evidence on the Internet.

Cheery bugger, Jarrett Kobek.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Vancouver while not in the US had much the same challenges as the West coast of the US in my experience.

Yes, I remember Hastings and Main. A small strip of dystopia surrounded by opulence.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I'm reminded a bit from Only Americans Burn in Hell by Jarett Kobek:


Cheery bugger, Jarrett Kobek.

He's right, that is grim:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

goo.gl

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

goo.gl

 

[Edie]

Not on the same scale as the OP but some areas in Leeds, when spice was being used at really high levels, scenes of people hanging forward and staggering about or lying comatose among filth and bags in doorways, are seen here too.

Within the last year, people have started begging at traffic lights with McDonald’s cups (I saw this today in Bradford), and homeless tents on roundabouts and on rough ground (even within the city centre) are commonplace.

Mental health patients are discharged to the euphemistic “Housing Options”, which is Leeds City Council housing office where you have to queue during working hours if you are homeless to try and secure emergency accommodation. But of course what it really means is they are being discharged to the streets, and re present intoxicated and/or acutely mentally unwell at ED in an endless cycle.

It’s depressing.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

wonder if the makers of those vids actually get involved in somehow helping those poor people? eg donating to charities (whatever they earn with their vids), involvement in community groups, drugs services, soup kitchens, etc?
or are the just 'raising awareness' from the safety of their car?
i agree that there are serious consent issues at play.

couldn't watch it all, it's ugly.

Some do try to help. Here's an example:




He sometimes goes back and interviews people after they gotten into housing.

And then there's this guy. About 20 years ago he found himself so overstretched that he decided he couldn't afford to live in brick and mortar housing any more. So he bought a box van and moved in. Some of the people he interviews have total incomes of <$1000 a month. In a lot of places that won't even get you an efficiency apartment. He's now advocating for people in similar situations to give up trying to afford the unaffordable and do the same. He's recently set up a charity that buys vans, refurbishes them, and then gives them to people who need housing. Near as I can tell, he's using a combination of his Youtube income and donations to cover the cost.




There are also activists that are using those video to make the lives of homeless folks even more miserable. (May they rot in hell.) I won't post a link to any of that. It seems to run the whole range. As with a lot of things on the internet, you have to be careful of the motive and content.

 

[tonysingh]

Some do try to help. Here's an example:




He sometimes goes back and interviews people after they gotten into housing.

And then there's this guy. About 20 years ago he found himself so overstretched that he decided he couldn't afford to live in brick and mortar housing any more. So he bought a box van and moved in. Some of the people he interviews have total incomes of <$1000 a month. In a lot of places that won't even get you an efficiency apartment. He's now advocating for people in similar situations to give up trying to afford the unaffordable and do the same. He's recently set up a charity that buys vans, refurbishes them, and then gives them to people who need housing. Near as I can tell, he's using a combination of his Youtube income and donations to cover the cost.




There are also activists that are using those video to make the lives of homeless folks even more miserable. (May they rot in hell.) I won't post a link to any of that. It seems to run the whole range. As with a lot of things on the internet, you have to be careful of the motive and content.

Apologies if I've misunderstood but your last paragraph there. Are you saying there are people actively making rough sleepers etc lives worse? I kind of want to be wrong as that level of barbarity is so cunty...

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Apologies if I've misunderstood but your last paragraph there. Are you saying there are people actively making rough sleepers etc lives worse? I kind of want to be wrong as that level of barbarity is so cunty...

Yep. There are people who film these places and try to get people to support harsh polices for "cleaning up the streets." A search of Youtube will bring some of these to light.

 

[tonysingh]

Yep. There are people who film these places and try to get people to support harsh polices for "cleaning up the streets." A search of Youtube will bring some of these to light.

Ffs.

Just when you think humanity can't sink much lower.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

On a more cheery note what can be achieved where there is a will:

Homelessness in Finland affects approximately 5 thousand people.[1] In 2020, the total number of reported homeless people was 4,886.[1]

Finland is the only European Union country where homelessness is currently falling.[2] The country has adopted a Housing First policy, whereby social services assign homeless individuals rental homes first, and issues like mental health and substance abuse are treated second.Since its launch in 2008, the number of homeless people in Finland has decreased by roughly 30%, and the number of long-term homeless people has fallen by more than 35%. "Sleeping rough", the practice of sleeping outside, has been largely eradicated in Helsinki, where only one 50-bed night shelter remains.

The Constitution of Finland mandates that public authorities "promote the right of everyone to housing". In addition, the constitution grants Finnish citizens "the right to receive indispensable subsistence and care", if needed.

Since 2002, the Night of the Homeless event has been hosted throughout the country. The events include demonstrations, food distribution, and movie screenings, among other activities.

Homelessness in Finland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[petee]

Ffs.

Just when you think humanity can't sink much lower.

my local Nextdoor has a handful of these people. "hordes" of "vagrants" "invading", well what do you expect when "stupid people" keep voting for "far-left-wing politicians" and other such language. "just look at these pictures".

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Ffs.

Just when you think humanity can't sink much lower.

I guess you're too young to remember bumfights

 

[Yossarian]

I guess you're too young to remember bumfights

I vaguely remember having heard about "bumfights" at the time - what happened in later years is more uplifting than I expected. The most prominent "bumfighter," a homeless alcoholic man called Rufus Hannah who was paid $10 for doing stunts like running headfirst into metal doors, was offered work doing odd jobs by a businessman who found him digging through a Dumpster for cans on a property complex he owned.

Hannah ended up quitting drinking, working as an assistant property manager, becoming an advocate for homeless rights, remarrying the woman he had two children with before his life fell apart - and getting more than $100,000 in a settlement from the makers of "bumfights."

 

[tonysingh]

I guess you're too young to remember bumfights

I'm a crusty and ancient 42 so from reading that article, Bumfights would have been around but I'm happy to say I was blissfully unaware, at least until now.

 

[Dogsauce]

Ffs.

Just when you think humanity can't sink much lower.

Blaming the poor for being poor has long been the American way. Like here, many falsely believe they live in a meritocracy where hard work gets you to the top.

 

[tonysingh]

Blaming the poor for being poor has long been the American way. Like here, many falsely believe they live in a meritocracy where hard work gets you to the top.

Yeah, i know.

I guess expecting compassion is too much to ask. How we treat those of us who have the least in life is the mark of a societys worth so clearly something is deeply rotten within the Land of the Free, as well as closer to home.

 

[Ming]

Yes, I remember Hastings and Main. A small strip of dystopia surrounded by opulence.

A lot of my patients come from that neck of the woods. Mostly similar histories. Traumatic childhoods, sexual abuse, poly drug use from a young age, foster homes, correctional involvement, disproportionate amount of First Nations. It becomes depressingly familiar.

 

[elbows]

This is a truly shocking video taken along Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia. I thought it was some sort of bleak movie at first.

You've probably seen some bleak movies as a result of Philadelphia, since living there in a similarly bleak time was a massive influence on David Lynch. Not that he is an amazing source of enlightened social commentary and politics, but he had his own way to capture the horror.

Articles like this one give a sense of what I'm on about, including some Lynch quotes that make it easy to think of him as a bit of a dickhead. Although I'm not surprised given his roots and the way an artist can unashamedly love what inspires him, in ways that are indecent if their politics isnt totally sound, if their priorities are so self-centred.

David Lynch in Philly, a City He Feared

Eraserhead can be viewed, in part, as a horrified reaction to a city in the throes of urban crisis. The contrast between Lynch's childhood suburb and declining industrial Philadelphia could hardly have been starker.

www.vice.com

another, exhibiting an unbridled enthusiasm for Eraserhead, wanted Lynch to explicate the inspirations of that eldritch work. “The city of Philadelphia,” Lynch tersely replied.

But Lynch was an art student and did not attempt to analyze or articulate the historic forces engulfing Philly. They certainly made an impression, however. “The fear, insanity, corruption, filth, despair, violence in the air was so beautiful to me,” Lynch told reporters. “It gave me a lot of ideas… and a certain way of seeing things.”

Such articles also fill in some gaps of my feeble understanding of Philadelphias history. Fucking Frank Rizzo for a start!

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Been to places like that, though not as bad, in the US. San Francisco was the most blatant one - gentrified perfection on one street and a block over the majority of people were homeless, addicts, suffering from mental health issues or all three. Was depressing just how clearly delineated the line was too, there was no way to claim ignorance about what was going on or that police - I'm guessing - had a policy of ignoring one side as long as they could keep the other clear. Was disgusting, really. Even in places I've been to with wider spread problems and similarly policed wealthy areas there was at least half a sense the the people who were pushed aside were still part of the city in some sense. They still existed in communities no matter how incapable those communities were of helping them. US though, may as well have walled the place in for all the connection it seemed to have to anyone or anything else.

If you look at the history of some of these neighborhoods, you can see that it was policies deliberately created to separate "undesirable population elements" from the rest of a city that create places like Skid Row. This video explains how Skid Row came about in Los Angeles (ignore the clickbaity first three minutes).




I'm pretty sure I live in a neighborhood that is the subject of some of those policies. My neighborhood has all of the homeless shelters, halfway houses, drug treatment centers, pawn shops, etc., while having no supermarkets, hospitals, or doctor's offices nearby. Any public areas have architecture and benches that encourage you to move on quickly. Luckily we still have access to food, within walking distance, because of number of ethnic markets have moved in to cover the gap.

 

[D'wards]

Anyone remember Bumfights?
What an evil little turnout that was.

Can only wish homelessness and addiction on the makers

 

[IC3D]

Some areas of London looked like that when crack was big 20 years ago.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Anyone remember Bumfights?
What an evil little turnout that was.

Can only wish homelessness and addiction on the makers

Execution more like

 

[Ming]

If you look at the history of some of these neighborhoods, you can see that it was policies deliberately created to separate "undesirable population elements" from the rest of a city that create places like Skid Row. This video explains how Skid Row came about in Los Angeles (ignore the clickbaity first three minutes).




I'm pretty sure I live in a neighborhood that is the subject of some of those policies. My neighborhood has all of the homeless shelters, halfway houses, drug treatment centers, pawn shops, etc., while having no supermarkets, hospitals, or doctor's offices nearby. Any public areas have architecture and benches that encourage you to move on quickly. Luckily we still have access to food, within walking distance, because of number of ethnic markets have moved in to cover the gap.

Yep. And also the way Vancouver moved the marginalized out of the city for the Winter Olympics was shameful.

 

[ska invita]

"tent city" in LA - supposedly 4th largest homeless population in the world (36,000)

 

[pbsmooth]

There's a guy intermittently begging, openly smoking crack or being passed out at some traffic lights in my pocket of SE London.
But the open drug market look of some US cities does seem to be on another level. Maybe we will catch up... :-(

 

[not-bono-ever]

as an aside, US house prices rose by about 20% from june 20 to june 21. Biggest yearly increase in history.

 

[spring-peeper]

as an aside, US house prices rose by about 20% from june 20 to june 21. Biggest yearly increase in history.

I think the main reason for the prices rose so quickly can be traced back to being in lockdown to attempt to curb the virus.
After being lockdown in an apartment, those who could afford it bought homes in the country or suburbs.

This is what caused Canadians purchasing houses well over the asking prices.
The prices are starting to come down again, but I think the prices are still making home ownership a dream.

It's an election time in Canada, and all candidates are showing off their way to make home ownership more affordable.
Their plans also include tackling homelessness.

 

[Humberto]

'Tackling' it means something else to many politicians though.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

as an aside, US house prices rose by about 20% from june 20 to june 21. Biggest yearly increase in history.

I think Spring is right on some of this due to people leaving large cities during the pandemic. Many people found that they didn't need to live where they worked and could telecommute from nearly anywhere with internet access. Rural housing prices have skyrocketed in the last year, if you can find someone willing to sell. It's going to be interesting to see what this does to rural poor homeowners. You used to be able to find a habitable house for $10k and be taxed $250 a year on it. Now that same place is going to be $40K or more, and the taxes will go up accordingly. That's going to really strain some people.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

"tent city" in LA - supposedly 4th largest homeless population in the world (36,000)

Someone needs to give that smarmy narrator a boot to the head.