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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)FR
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2 yr. ago

  • Oh I 100% agree - when I finally managed to finish my degree a few years ago, I did my capstone research on suburban/rural homelessness, and I'm now an even bigger proponent of housing-first policies. Supportive housing works better than piecemeal programs, and outcomes are better for sobriety and mental health treatment than they are for programs that require those things as a condition of getting housing.

    Unfortunately, people fucking love to hate the homeless. Everyone wants to put conditions on every scrap you give them because "I worked for what I have, they should have to, too!" There's not a lot of political support to be found for policies that are based on meeting people where they are. Saying we should use housing that's already vacant to help people get off the streets would get you booed right out of the room a lot of the time.

  • No clue - most of that is either a department I'm not in and don't know much about, or it's way over my head. I'm just a mid-level peon. And politicians are the ones who have to give us the tools to actually do our jobs and all of these companies have deep pockets. That's the biggest impediment.

  • I mean, paying to sue a massive company that definitely has more (and probably better) attorneys than we do in order to collect a few thousand dollars more a year in sales tax isn't necessarily the best use of city funds. If we were a bigger city, it would make more sense, but it would take us years just for the taxes to cover what we'd spend in attorneys fees and staff time. I don't like that that's the reality, but I can see why the idea isn't popular.

    Also, the police aren't involved in regulating short-term rentals. I'm no fan of cops, but this is entirely civil and they have no part in this particular issue.

  • Unfortunately, I don't know too much - most of the contact has been initiated by our sales tax staff to whatever department handles tax collection on the company side, but from what they've told me, they just don't get a response. Our municipal code only allows us to go after owners if they fail to get licensed (and even that is a nightmare for us to try to do) but there's nothing about the actual companies.

    It's kind of the wild west at the moment - the problem isn't evenly distributed, so there's not one catch-all solution. One of the mountain towns here said they have 700+ rentals and their official population is only like 500 people. We have <100 in a city of about 40k. It's still a problem here, but nowhere near as bad as ski towns have it. Most of the laws I've seen are aimed at the owners, not at the companies facilitating the rentals, and they range from things designed to just make sure someone's actually inspecting the rentals so no one dies all the way to making it unaffordable to rent multiple properties by charging a fuckton of taxes and fees. I'd kill for something forcing airbnb, vrbo, etc to actually cooperate.

  • My office regulates airbnbs for the city and it's very hard to do anything about it. None of the rental platforms will work with us - we've sent them about a million notices that they're collecting the wrong tax amount and they don't even bother to respond, and they just send a check every quarter but refuse to break it out by address/owner. They won't provide any data on what addresses are being rented, either. Apparently some other cities have successfully sued airbnb, but for a small city with a correspondingly small budget, that's an expense that's hard to justify to taxpayers.

    We have some owners that are great - they get licensed right away, get their inspections done, no problem. Then there are other people who have done things like dig out their crawlspace themselves and turn it into non-conforming bedrooms with no egress windows - no permits or inspections, of course, and an engineer basically said the entire thing was in danger of collapsing any minute. Or the person who had a buddy do a bunch of unlicensed electrical work that was so bad the city couldn't even let the owner stay there until it was fixed. I honestly wouldn't stay in an airbnb now, having seen what I've seen - people will absolutely put renters at risk to make a buck. And we can go after them but only if we know it's happening.

    I'd personally love it if rental platforms were forced to provide owner data to cities/states, and for cities to tax the shit out of rentals that aren't also owner-occupied, but I'm not in charge and the people with money have a vested interest in making sure that doesn't happen. It sucks.

  • That's pretty clearly not what's happening here though - if it's not mental health related, then she's a liar because people have found out that some of her claims were untrue (because, again, she posted her real name). I don't get liar vibes, it really seems like delusions. I'm not trying to beat anyone down, I'm just saying that anyone trying to get a clear answer isn't going to get one.

  • Even if you're not personally experiencing the things pop music is currently about, there's still plenty of really great stuff coming out all the time that you'll miss out on if you stop listening to new things. For example, NPR popped up recently with a Tiny Desk Concert (which feels like a very Old way to find new music in itself) from Chappell Roan, and I would've been missing out big time if I'd skipped it just because she's 15ish years younger than me and in a different phase of her life. A lot of it feels more nostalgic (fucking Casual, man, so many of us have been there) than current to my life, but it's good music. And as a queer woman, gosh it's great to see these queer artists who are able to write their feelings and experiences without having to keep plausible deniability in the lyrics.

  • She's either an incredibly dedicated troll or suffering from mental illness. She's convinced her extended family is stalking her, that Lemmy users are doxxing her (even though she's posted her real name, photos, and a ton of other personal information - apparently clicking her profile is "stalking"), and so on. That's all from the last week of her post history. You're not going to get an answer that makes any sense, unfortunately.

  • Uh, you could literally just go around them and not say anything, or say excuse me or something. Happens all the time, and presumably these walks aren't at 3am, so most people wouldn't even question it. Saying, "I'm not a rapist," is such a weird choice that I'd immediately be on edge.

  • Stand up to other men when they say or do shitty things. My dad was mostly a pretty good feminist and advocate and I know he believed I could do just about anything I set my mind to, but there were times when family members would say some really crappy things and he just kind of stood by for the sake of keeping the peace. I never shut my mouth in those instances, but it would've meant a lot if my dad had spoken up. I'm not saying it has to be a whole fight or anything, but even saying, "Hey, not cool," helps. It shows that your support isn't just lip service.

  • I'll add to what others have said about listening, don't assume she wants you to solve every problem. My dad used to do that and it drove me crazy, especially when he'd point out out like it was so obvious. I often already knew the solution, but sometimes I didn't like it or just wanted to vent before moving forward. I think it's good for most relationships to ask, "do you want advice or is this just to get it off your chest," before responding, not just with daughters, but I've noticed dads are particularly prone to wanting to fix the thing.

  • Yeah, like I'm not even motivated enough to go to the grocery store most of the time, I'm definitely not working up the energy to pick a victim, plan a whole murder, do a whole murder, hide evidence, go home, and then do it all again later. That's basically a second job.

  • First of all, I just checked the Dominos site and that price is a straight up lie even with a coupon. Second, are you really trying to say they make pizza that's any better than frozen? Last time I ate there, it was borderline inedible, and I'm not a snob - I used to happily eat the Totino's party pizzas that are like, $1.25.

  • Pfft, I always buy a frozen pizza specifically because I already know I'm not gonna feel like cooking after grocery shopping because it sucks. I don't even pretend anymore. All that fresh food is for another day.

  • I'm starting to question my life a lot. I've played over 4k hours of BoI since the first version. I remember when people warned about WoW before I really gamed and how people were sinking their whole lives into it and I was like, "wow, can't imagine, that's crazy," and now I'm those people. I should go outside.

  • I know people say it doesn't matter but I'm the same way with Stardew. I ended up downloading a cheat mod that lets you freeze time because I realized it's supposed to be a nice, relaxing game, and I wasn't feeling that way. I don't use the freeze much, but it lets me enjoy the game without stressing.

  • I kind of did the opposite but ended up in the same place - I loved the newer Fallouts so I thought I'd give 2 a shot and combat was just so bad that I couldn't get more than a couple of hours in. I tried it again a couple years later and same thing. I know a lot of people would riot, but I kind of wish they'd remake the exact same story/writing with modernized gameplay so I could experience it.