Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 560 posts

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#381

Post by dharmon »

mikeyouse wrote: post #278
dharmon wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates also has no educational training in Computer Science / Engineering nor Business, and he's seem to have done pretty well in those areas. :) There's plenty of room to throw rocks at billionaire philanthropists, but Gates is more knowledgeable about the areas in which his foundation operates than the heads of most well-known non-profits and relief organizations.

> Gates is more knowledgeable about the areas in which his foundation operates than the heads of most well-known non-profits and relief organizations. This is laughably absurd. Come on. Edited because I was still thinking about this Who do you think knows more about Malaria, Bill Gates (who is incredibly knowledgeable about Malaria) or Dr. Pedro Alonso who runs the WHO's malaria program? > His professional career beg…

I appreciate you editing to acknowledge that Gates does, in fact, know a _lot_ about these topics (the main point I was trying to address with the parent post).

I was thinking of your example (and others in the WHO) as exceptions when I said "most". I more had in mind people who run organizations like the Red Cross.

Anyways, did not mean to denigrate the non-political / non-figurehead appointments.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#382

Post by fucking_tragedy »

geezerjay wrote: post #352
jasaloo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And famine is just a location issue. the 1980s called, bro-- it wants its shoddy Neoliberal think tank talking points back.

If you have no idea how prevalent mental illness is in homeless people, and also its role as the single most important contributing cause, then you are commenting from a position of ignorance. Instead of devoting effort to virtue signaling you'd do better if you educated yourself on the problem.

If we go by these sources[1][2], homelessness is overwhelmingly an economic issue.

That's not to say mental illness isn't a contributing factor, just that the lynchpin into homelessness stems from economic factors, like insufficient income or lack of affordable housing.

[1] http://homelessresourcenetwork.org/?page_id=1086

[2] https://www.nlchp.org/documents/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#383

Post by WalterSear »

blablabla123 wrote: post #306
ithilglin909 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that both are problems worth solving, but one is pretty obviously a more urgent public health problem, and unfortunately, the more difficult one to solve. When people are talking about Seattle's worsening homeless problem, they're talking about the presence of needles and fecal material on the sidewalks, and being harassed, and sometimes even attacked, by clearly mentally ill people, not about people living i…

Maybe people also get mentally ill from being homeless. Then one gets physically ill from living in a physically hostile environment...

I know I'd use lots of drugs.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#384

Post by WalterSear »

clort wrote: post #256
fjsolwmv wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in a car is homeless.

What is it about the car, that it doesn't actually have living accomodation or that it is not a house and has no address? For example, does living in an RV mean you are homeless?

It's that they don't have a choice.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#385

Post by 8note »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #158

This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion). It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rent…

That misses all the homeless people who are living in their vans

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#386

Post by discordianfish »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #158

This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion). It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rent…

Not to imly anything but why do you think they got addicted / mentally ill and then end up in the streets and not the other way around?

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#387

Post by ithilglin909 »

cortesoft wrote: post #368
ithilglin909 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I have volunteered with a number of organizations that help the homeless in Seattle. I don't know where you're getting 25-30% from, but that doesn't match with my experience -- I'm inclined to believe it's much higher, but it can really depend on what neighborhood you're in.

I am really confused as to how your personal experience would ever be able to figure out the actual percentage of homeless people who suffer from mental illness/drug addiction. No amount of experience would tell you those percentages, because no experience would have you meeting with a uniform sample of the homeless. Your experience is always going to have a huge selection bias. It takes rigorous research, with prope…

I mostly agree. But, surely, you'd agree that personal experience, especially extensive personal experience, might give one an inkling about whether a particular statistic is accurate. I wasn't arguing anything more.

I've looked at a number of studies about this. In general, it's hard to find much agreement between them about actual numbers. I suspect some of that is related to how "homelessness" and "mental illness" or "addiction" are defined by the people doing the studies, but most indicate that some kind of majority are influenced by one or more of those issues.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#388

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

fixermark wrote: post #218

Utilitarian question: Can he do more net good spending $2 billion to help the homeless, or spending an equivalent amount to double the take-home pay of warehouse employees and/or convert the "money towards medical insurance" plan into a company-supplied medical plan? (Follow-up question is "Given he doesn't have plurality control of the stock votes, does he have the authority to do so in a vacuum without getting ejec…

This fund has way more PR value than just paying his workers a decent amount. The latter creates entitlement and expectation which this avoids as well. I personally have a very dim view of these philanthropic efforts.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#389

Post by erikpukinskis »

skrebbel wrote: post #338
mywittyname wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say you paid $1,000,000 for a home that would fetch $200,000 in most other parts of the country. What would you do if someone proposed a law that you figured would half the value of your home? Eat the loss or oppose the law? Property owners in CA are being rational. They don't like the poop, commutes and homelessness. But they aren't willing to take a half-million dollar bath on their real-estate investment.

Sure, but my question was why they control the vote.

If you have $1M for an apartment, you have $1k for a political contribution.

If you can barely afford your $2k rent, you don’t.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#390

Post by jakelazaroff »

corysama wrote: post #370
jakelazaroff wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not presenting a scenario in which one family gains and the other stays the same, you're presenting one in which one family makes more money (gain) while the other makes the same amount of money but is less able to find affordable housing (loss). It's not strictly zero-sum because the gains and losses may not exactly offset each other, but one agent's gains still come at the expense of another.

I don't know what you are advocating. Amazon paid people a lot locally. That's usually considered a nice thing. As a side effect, that inflated prices locally. That's sad. So, to not be shamed by you, they should have been doing ambiguous something all along. What?

I suppose I'm advocating that we structure our society such that one person gaining wealth does not make it more difficult for another to live their life. I'm pointing out that, in a vacuum, this specific scenario:

> One family gets a large raise. Another gets a slightly harder time finding affordable housing.

is something to avoid, not strive for.

Post reply on HN