As we’ve mentioned, hotel prices have cratered. As a result, drug dealers, prostitutes, and other ne’er-do-wells see these rock-bottom prices as a great opportunity to use hotels as the base of operations for their businesses. Many druggies who need a place to crash during a high are also tempted by the low prices.
If this wasn’t enough, many cities are now paying to put up homeless people in hotels during the pandemic. It would be great if they stayed inside, which is the whole point. However, many of these people are not self-quarantining. Instead, they are getting into trouble.
The problem extends beyond housing the homeless. They still need money for food, and some are trying to score drugs. Others just have side hustles. They want to save money so that they won’t be homeless forever.
Although it is great to give the homeless a place to quarantine, they simply don’t have the resources to just stay inside hotel rooms for weeks. They certainly don’t have the distractions available to them that most of us have, except for TVs in their rooms.
To make matters worse, many homeless people have mental illnesses. Just giving them homes without providing the help they need may reveal or even cause larger issues.
