Living on the street in Bozeman Montana.

[Mountain trapper]

Housing shortages are generally the results of something, not the problem. Generally the problem is building restrictions & building codes. For example, they will have large areas that apartment buildings can not be built in. Apartments can house a lot more people in a smaller area. Add to that insanely over complicated building codes that drive the cost of building anything thru the roof.

An example that comes to mind was Elon Musk. He came to Austin & built a plant there & from start to finish took about 18 months. He said that had he wanted to build it in CA he couldn't have even gotten the paperwork done to build in 18 months.

We complain about housing shortages while at the same time our local governments are causing housing shortages.

The real problem in most places is the high cost of land. It isn't cost effective to build a bunch of cheap homes for "poor" people. And who wants to live around cheap government subsided housing or apartment buildings? They just tear them up and they look like crap. I don't want them around where I live.

 

[UserNameTaken]

We don't have any so called homeless around here. There isn't enough free stuff or handouts for them. We do get a few squatters living on the National Forest, but they get run off pretty quickly. A couple weeks ago I called the Forest Service cop about someone squatting a couple miles from our place. They aren't there any more. There's a 14 day camping limit on the NF just for this reason.

Yeah, but like in NoAZ there are several Natl forests near each other, so the people (nomads) just move every two weeks. When I was a kid there were no time limits, though if you were living/squatting on public land and causing a nusiance they'd move you along. Our camp was spotless, by a stream. Like I said, they left us alone. A Ranger stopped by a couple of times to see if we were ok. You had to hike in a couple hundred feet from where we parked and cross the stream on a bridge we built - which though rebuilt, was still there last time I was there two years ago. (Nobody ever messed with the cars or camp. I wouldn't do it today though.) It was a different time. Now it seems people don't care and trash places - and not just the homeless.

Also, I'm not a homeless advocate, or supporter of abusing the system, though I guess I did to a small extent as far as living off the fat of the land a bit. But I think we need a more humane approach besides criminalizing and jailing human beings for being poor or ill or on drugs. That is patently wrong IMO.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Yeah, but like in NoAZ there are several Natl forests near each other, so the people (nomads) just move every two weeks. When I was a kid there were no time limits, though if you were living/squatting on public land and causing a nusiance they'd move you along. Our camp was spotless, by a stream. Like I said, they left us alone. A Ranger stopped by a couple of times to see if we were ok. You had to hike in a couple hundred feet from where we parked and cross the stream on a bridge we built - which though rebuilt, was still there last time I was there two years ago. (Nobody ever messed with the cars or camp. I wouldn't do it today though.) It was a different time. Now it seems people don't care and trash places - and not just the homeless.

Also, I'm not a homeless advocate, or supporter of abusing the system, though I guess I did to a small extent as far as living off the fat of the land a bit. But I think we need a more humane approach besides criminalizing and jailing human beings for being poor or ill or on drugs. That is patently wrong IMO.

Even with a 14 day camping limit nobody will say much if the camping area is kept clean. The problem around here is people from the cities bring their huge travel trailers up and leave them for weeks and even months sometimes. The one that I called on recently, and had ran off had crossed a beautiful meadow and left ruts, and tore the area up with their effen ATV's in the soft ground. Also it was in an area that's restricted to vehicle travel, for this very reason.

 

[UserNameTaken]

Even with a 14 day camping limit nobody will say much if the camping area is kept clean. The problem around here is people from the cities bring their huge travel trailers up and leave them for weeks and even months sometimes. The one that I called on recently, and had ran off had crossed a beautiful meadow and left ruts, and tore the area up with their effen ATV's in the soft ground. Also it was in an area that's restricted to vehicle travel, for this very reason.

Yeah, that's a problem around Flagstaff. Weekenders from Phoenix leave trailers on like Wednesday to hold dispersed campsites for weekends, or move them around like a summer vacation home. They are cracking down on it though. (Just when I was thinking of joining the crowd...)

I think alot is presentation. Someone with a 4x4 dually and a $250k 5th wheeler in an orderly camp will be looked at differently than someone in a '78 Mininie Winnie with boxes of trash, two old cars, a 275 gal water tote and a BBQ scattered around.