Provide Housing

The state of Oregon decriminalized possession of small quantities of most recreational drugs, including meth, a few years ago with the "promise" that funds saved would be directed to mental health support. So far the results have been nothing short of disastrous. Police stopped responding to any reported drug activity and the promised mental health services have - predictably - failed to materialize. Add to that the pandemic and economic crises, on top of a lack of affordable housing, and we have tents, campers and RVs everywhere - including my own street. I'd love to lock them all up. And no, I'm not a Trumper, far far to the other side.

Imagine a country where people have reasonable access to affordable housing as an alternative to being sent to prison.

Prisons are very expensive to operate. In the USA, corporations bring in over $10 billion of revenue.

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/correctional-facilities-industry/#:~:text=Correctional%20Facilities%20in%20the%20US...

Motels are much less expensive to operate. Decent, basic housing where people take care of themselves even less so.

I’m not talking about building big, high rise social housing warehouses that concentrate disadvantaged people into dysfunctional dystopias. I’m talking about requiring developers to to “mix in” non-market-price housing into every development.

When I was growing up, communities had mixtures of family income levels. Now it seems that there are rich communities and poor communities. In rich communities, the substance use goes on behind closed doors with high priced liquors and sanitary drugs and “Betty Ford clinics”. In poor communities it is cheap booze and dirty needles and going to jail. And the poor get blamed.

I used to work in a correctional and later in a forensic psychiatric facility. Locking people up only enrols them in a “university of crime” where they become more educated into the ways of crime.