>No, it wasn't clear. I know several Trump voters who either didn't know Project 2025 existed or believed the lies that it was a liberal hoax.

>To anyone paying an ounce of attention, yeah it might have been clear.

Many, many folks were out there long before the election saying (both as promises -- from the Trumpers and warnings -- from pretty much everyone else) that Project 2025 would be the blueprint for a new Trump administration.

That some folks either ignored or disbelieved it doesn't make it "unclear." Rather, it means that a lot of people believed the lies. Which says more about those who believed such lies than it does about everyone else.

And to put a fine point on it, what more could others have done to disabuse those folks of the lies told them by the Trump campaign? Seriously.

>Homeless people have higher rates of substance and mental-health issues, and, unsurprisingly, less access to showers and laundry facilities.

As someone who was homeless (for less than a year, thankfully!), my experience was that many people with nowhere to go (myself included) become incredibly despondent that they have no roof, no shower, no place to keep (let alone wash) their clothes and turn to drugs as a way of (temporarily) ameliorating their suffering.

Those with mental health issues often can't hold a job as they're suffering from debilitating mental illness (duh!) and those with no place to shower or keep clean clothes have a hard time getting, keeping jobs too.

The latter group mostly just needs the opportunity to present themselves for job inquiries bathed, reasonably well rested and in clean clothes.

The former group needs the same plus mental health services including supervision and treatment.

Don't forget that more than half of Americans are an unexpected $600 emergency away from being unable to pay for food, rent, utilities, etc.

But most folks ignore that and instead just want them gone. They don't care where -- in jail -- in another city -- just as long as they don't have to look at them. It's disgusting.

In NYC, private vehicles are responsible for 10x the deaths of humans than crime on the subway.

As such, I'm in much more (10x, in fact) danger from someone driving than I am from a fellow subway rider.

But yeah. The subway is way too dangerous /eyeroll. Please.

>Seems like the most important thing to do is _anything_. The current approach of doing nothing and shaming people who suggest public transport is a poor option because it’s full of druggies doesn’t seem to work.

I don't know, I think it's much worse, in the wealthiest nation that ever existed, to shame those who have no place to live by singling them out for abusive treatment for not leaving the transit system in a (arbitrary) timely fashion.

I'd much rather shame those claiming public transport is a poor option, and even more so those advocating for evicting passengers -- presumably violently -- because they spend "too much" time on public transportation.

Ugh!

>Whenever I hear about this criticism of free public transit I always wonder why the question isn't "how do we keep homeless people from living on our busses" and is instead "why don't these homeless people have some place to live that isn't a bus?"

Exactly. and asking the wrong question is nothing new either. there were plenty of folks wondering aloud about how to "get rid of" the homeless people back in the 1980s in NYC (then the homeless population there was ~50,000).

Usually it was some sort of "arrest/detain them all, then reroute them to shelters." The shelters being places where they can be warehoused and victimized over and over again without disturbing the normies or, heaven forfend, the tourists!

Only once did I see the right question being asked. I've searched and searched but have been unable to find the article online. It's an op-ed piece from the Village Voice, circa 1987 by Nat Hentoff or Dan Ridgeway entitled" What Do Homeless People Want?"

Fortunately the question posed in the title is answered in the very first sentence of the body: "Homes, mostly."

Why is it that we're not asking (or acting upon the obvious answers to) the right questions? That's not really rhetorical, although the answers will likely be pretty ugly.

Here in the US we can* do better, and we should do better. This is not a new issue that requires new solutions. Give homeless people, you know, homes.

But that's evil and wrong and absolutely Stalinism that will end up with tens of millions dead, right? Please.