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Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

theguardian.com

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Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#101

Post by glangdale »

adventured wrote: post #64
mikemotherwell wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_... - the US has quite low homelessness rates. The problem is the USA is a massive country in area and population. The opportunities vary greatly, as do the resources. REALLY low macro homelessness (think nationally) can still lead to very high rates at a micro level (think Tenderloin). Where can the USA look for similarities? Singapore…

We've found one partial solution to homelessness that works extremely effectively. It was enacted during the George W. Bush Administration, and continued + expanded under the Obama Administration, called the housing first program. We put homeless people into permanent housing, taking care of their shelter needs first, and then focus on treating them for things like addiction. It reduced chronic homelessness by 30% in…

Seriously this. What a lot of people don't grasp is that the sort of things that 'housing first' can (fairly expensively) help with are things that are even more expensive if the situations wind up being treated by mechanisms like hospitals, the mental health system or the police or jail/prison systems as crises.

Getting people into houses and then helping them clean up their acts, rather than setting a high moral bar (we won't house you until you clean up your alcohol/drug addiction and take treatment for your mental health issues) is just plain good sense.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#102

Post by glangdale »

conanbatt wrote: post #67
michaelchisari wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a virtually unlimited stream of drugs coming into this country. There are many people who have mental illness. Anybody with a drug problem should be able to walk into a hospital, say "I'm addicted to X" and get into treatment immediately, free of charge. Anybody with a mental illness should be able to walk into a hospital, say "I can't take care of myself because X keeps happening in my brain" and get into tr…

> free of charge. I think you should understand what this really means. Are you willing to pay 10, 15% extra of your income to sustain 10~25k a month bills for mentally ill people?

I'm guessing that you imagine that otherwise, homeless mentally ill people are a zero cost to society. Like it won't cost anything to put them in a jail or treat them in the ER, right?

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#103

Post by masonic »

habosa wrote: post #31

Since the article starts with someone in SF (although he's leaving), I want to proactively dispel the myth that it's common for homeless people to be dropped into SF by other cities because we have good weather and liberal govt. It may happen sometimes, but a recent survey showed that over 70pct of the homeless people in SF previously had homes in SF [0]. So it's mostly a home grown problem. [0]: http://sfist.com/201…

If you check the links regarding that "poll", they don't even exist (the sfgov ones).

The only such study wasn't even a "study", just a survey with no verification of the responses. And the responses defy reality (e.g. 48% claim to have had permanent SF residence for over 10 years, which is a higher rate than the general self-supporting population).

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#104

Post by masonic »

tomcam wrote: post #62
habosa wrote: post #31

Since the article starts with someone in SF (although he's leaving), I want to proactively dispel the myth that it's common for homeless people to be dropped into SF by other cities because we have good weather and liberal govt. It may happen sometimes, but a recent survey showed that over 70pct of the homeless people in SF previously had homes in SF [0]. So it's mostly a home grown problem. [0]: http://sfist.com/201…

I couldn't find the part about where they had phones. Can you quote it for me so I can search for it?

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/lifeline/

Plans can include mobile data, too. Even those is the USA illegally can qualify.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#105

Post by yayana »

darawk wrote: post #38
yayana wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but this combined with brain drain creates a lot of perverse incentives and drives a further wealth divide. For example, many low tax base areas accumulate a population with more problems that have higher tax rates, insurance rates, etc (and a more strained social net) than a rich city. It is important to make sure rich areas are at least paying some of the costs they create in selectively pushing people out or…

You recognize that given this bus ticket opportunity, the homeless will actually converge on rich coastal cities, right? This problem is actually worse for the rich people that live in places like LA and SF.

The rule of having a place to stay in most of the programs causes the counter examples in the article.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#106

Post by Pica_soO »

have_faith wrote: post #98
marmshallow wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well now it barely seems like we are talking about human people.

How would you prefer that sentence be written?

Not written- more narrated like by national geographic.

"The common hobo travels incredible distance, to avoid the cold and social climate change freezing it to death, escaping the danger like his ancestors before him."

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#107

Post by dantheman »

blondie9x wrote: post #87

Homelessness and lack of sufficient housing supply which drives the affordability problem is a national crisis. We need national solutions. We need to build more transit and more housing near that transit. We need to build denser and more towards the core. We need to not neglect the inner cities. America has the power to build better cities and solve this problem together. Affordability and skyrocketing rent costs wi…

It's not a national problem, in fact it is extremely regional. It has to due with unnecessary restriction on building in those regions -- primarily to benefit current property owners.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#108

Post by maxerickson »

darawk wrote: post #78
adventured wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The unemployment rate only counts people who are 'actively looking' for a new job. People who aren't looking at all don't show up in the statistics. That's entirely incorrect. We track all of these layers in fact. We have the labor force participation rate, which is available further separated out into groups, such as by age or race. We track the employment to population ratio. We have the U3, U5, U6 unemployment s…

> That's entirely incorrect. We track all of these layers in fact. No....it is entirely correct. The unemployment rate that was quoted was exactly as I described. I didn't say the other statistics weren't tracked , I said the statistic quoted above, and the thing commonly referred to as "the unemployment rate" does not count it.

You said "People who aren't looking at all don't show up in the statistics."

Why would a reasonable reader assume that "statistics" means "specifically U3 unemployment"?

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#110

Post by evanlivingston »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #109

How much of homelessness is a result of laws hampering construction, such as zoning laws, building restrictions, rent control, which lead to housing costs significantly higher than what a free market would provide?

I think not a lot.
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