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I Used to Be Homeless

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Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#271

Post by kakarot »

lliamander wrote: post #264
kakarot wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're telling me that if I was rich I would still have risked my freedom to steal food from the supermarket during the time when I was homeless and extremely sick and unable to work? And conversely, that I should have just starved instead of stealing food in order to maintain my moral standing? That is arguably an illogical position.

Obviously I am saying neither of those things, because I am speaking in generalities (as they apply in the US) and have no knowledge of you in particular.

That's exactly my point. Your absolutisms and generalities discriminate against many individuals.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#272

Post by canhascodez »

twblalock wrote: post #266
canhascodez wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homelessness never existed before government regulations?

> Homelessness never existed before government regulations? The context of the parent comment is high real estate prices in San Francisco, which are caused by government regulations.

They're arguing for the removal of regulations in a general sense, not just specific problematic regulations. The solution being proposed is incorrect, regardless of whether the problem has been correctly identified.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#273

Post by Terr_ »

munificent wrote: post #67
wjossey wrote: post #25

I live in Central LA (near LACMA / La Brea Tar Pits), and share my neighborhood with dozens of homeless. Most of the homeless in my area are what I would deem "regulars", as they tend to sleep / hang out in the same spots day in and day out. I can't tell you how they landed in the situation they are in, but I can safely say that 9/10 appear (and I'm not a doctor, so I can't obviously say for certain) to have at minim…

I live in Seattle where the homelessness problem is particularly acute and I completely agree with you. Our philosophical and moral systems aren't well-equipped to handle drug addiction where a substance changes a person's brain in a way that undermines their autonomy. The line between "harm-reduction" and "enabling" is blurry, as is the line between "personal freedom" and a person's obligation to their community. I…

There are also some significant economic blocs which make money off of various shades of addiction. The most obvious are gambling and substances like alcohol or nicotine, but to a lesser extent there are other cases, like caffeine, scuzzy religious gurus, or gaming companies willing to take outrageous sums of money from "whales".

While the solutions may be complex -- or perhaps merely difficult -- it's exacerbated by those blocs who rely on the status-quo.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#274

Post by DoreenMichele »

Nomentatus wrote: post #270
DoreenMichele wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cool that you do this and I enjoyed reading the comment, but I'm not too keen on the idea of actively encouraging random strangers on the internet to try the same when they clearly are openly hostile. I can readily see that going bad places. When I was on the street, people sometimes treated me like a zoo animal they could gawk at and would waste my time and energy and violate my personal boundaries by peppering…

I take your point, and it's a good one. My counter would be that I would like to encourage the less-narcissistic to be of a little help and make contact, in part because, just as you say, right now those who aren't homeless but are willing to interact with them are not always the best people - they often have selfish or trivial agendas. We need a few more making real contact who don't. You know, actual mature human b…

I guess I would say your first three paragraphs (of the comment in question) were fine, but your closing sentence is of questionable value and veers into territory that concerns me.

/unasked for feedback

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#275

Post by Nomentatus »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #274
Nomentatus wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take your point, and it's a good one. My counter would be that I would like to encourage the less-narcissistic to be of a little help and make contact, in part because, just as you say, right now those who aren't homeless but are willing to interact with them are not always the best people - they often have selfish or trivial agendas. We need a few more making real contact who don't. You know, actual mature human b…

I guess I would say your first three paragraphs (of the comment in question) were fine, but your closing sentence is of questionable value and veers into territory that concerns me. /unasked for feedback

I've no idea how to interpret your remark. It's always up to anyone to freely decide to engage in conversation or to refuse a chance to chat. To accept a hand fixing a bike or to decide instead that it's more likely that the job will get done properly if they do the whole thing themselves. Etc.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#276

Post by gpm »

wolfgang42 wrote: post #195
gpm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By distinguishing between funding to homeless people, and funding to at risk but still homed people? Also by making sure we are counting people correctly (if 10 people are all temporarily homeless at some point during the use of the funding, and then homed, we had 10 homeless people not 0).

So as soon as someone moves from being classified as "homeless" to "homed", you have to shuffle around all the budgets for every service you're providing to them? This seems like a good way to increase bureaucratic overhead and ways for people to fall through the gaps, with the only advantage being neater numbers for bean-counting.

If we are trying to measure how much money we spend per homeless person we have to identify what portion of the money goes to them. That can just be done by measuring instead of budgeting before hand of course...

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#277

Post by jaredklewis »

Nomentatus wrote: post #206
jaredklewis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have friends in Tokyo renting 1 bedrooms in the city center for $500 ~ $900 month. Those buildings were not built as affordable housing. They became affordable housing when other developers built newer, nicer buildings somewhere else in Tokyo. Older buildings had to lower prices to keep tenants coming. Unless there is a literally infinite supply of rich people, I don’t see how increasing supply cannot create more a…

In S.F and Vancouver, the city can't expand in most directions thanks to salt water. Therefore, the old buildings tend to be razed, in order to make room for a new buildings. This is a stark contrast to say, Houston or Calgary.

SF has plenty of room for growth without increasing the land area.

NYC, for example, has population density of 10.4k/sq km versus SF's 6.2k/sq km. Paris has ~20k / sq km.

Tokyo is hard to get a good stat for since Tokyo officially includes a handful of mostly unpopulated islands, but I think if the islands are excluded the density is around 8.5k/sq km.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#278

Post by jaredklewis »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #176
jaredklewis wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re the $500 per month friend; 1 kitchen/dining, bathroom, 1 separate bedroom, no living room. So nothing shared. Not sure the exact square meters, but it is very small. The secret to the cheap price is simple: the building was built in the 1970s (ancient by Tokyo standards). Edit: no need to take my word for it. A quick search on suumo.jp will show the abundance of Tokyo apartments available for under $900 (~¥100k).…

I’ve seen some pretty shabby housing in Japan. Some lacked indoor heating even (well, Japan did invent the kotatsu for a reason). I don’t think it is very comparable to housing in say Sam Francisco. They get affordability through various means that wouldn’t be allowed in the states.

Japan has very high standards for buildings. Their building codes ensure structural integrity during earthquakes, prevent spread of fires, and ban usage of hazardous materials like asbestos. Japan also has environmental building codes that mandate levels of energy efficiency for new buildings. As in the US, they are still relatively new, but have been strengthening over time.

If there really is a law in the US against building homes without central heating, then it is a rather idiotic one.

I lived in a Japanese apartment without central heating. I bought a $75 space heater and was never cold.

The grandparent pointed out that the housing options in SF are luxury condos and $50 tents. Maybe that's because the laws in SF basically prevent developers from building anything in between? "Can't be more than x tall, can't be in these areas, must have x amount of parking, with x kind of heating, x amount of green space, and at least x sq feet per unit, " and on and on. With all those zoning and building regulations, it doesn't really surprise me that the only kind of housing you can reasonably develop and make a profit on is luxury condos.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#279

Post by exolymph »

Nomentatus wrote: post #210
ravenstine wrote: post #38

> Homeless people are not going to kill you I understand a lot of the insight this person has provided us about homelessness, but I beg to differ on this point, and I'm sure it's location dependent. I currently live in Santa Monica, and the vast majority of the homeless here clearly either have substance abuse problems or mental illness(I'm sure it's often both at once). I've had countless instances where a homeless…

There are certainly scary homeless people; psychopathy is one of many reasons one might become homeless. But beware of publication bias - mentally ill homeless people are far more likely to draw your attention than either sane homeless people or someone who screams in their own living room a lot. Your well-housed neighbor isn't necessarily a lot more sane or well-behaved, and certainly not less violent I've read. Dis…

Offering this comment in a here's-information-you-might-not-have sense, not trying to be a pedant: What you mean is "selection bias" or "sampling bias," the general terms, not "publication bias" which is a specific instance of the fallacy.

Re: I Used to Be Homeless

#280

Post by RobertRoberts »

kakarot wrote: post #258
RobertRoberts wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add that sometimes, getting really in trouble is what helps some younger people straighten up in life. It's a disservice to the poor to ignore their crimes against others.

It's a disservice to the poor to allow them to become unfairly entrenched in the legal system. No one is ignoring crimes wholesale. This argument is about which of these "crimes" are legitimate and which aren't.

My mother's family was so poor that they ran out of beans to feed 7 kids one winter. They never stole, hurt anyone or broke any laws.
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