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The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

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Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#61

Post by code_duck »

I hang out in an area of Denver where they can’t seem to build $500,000/2,500 a mo. condos fast enough, and a couple blocks full of homeless people sleep 1/4 miles away. A coffee shop I visit at had its portapotties taken over by a homeless band who informed us they were sleeping there and we should donate. Turned out they were also smoking crack. So far it seems the city’s plan is to keep pushing them around the city - Denver is privatizing alleys, for instance. I imagine that at some point the food missions will be moved towards Sun Valley, Valverde, Commerce City, North Aurora or the like.

In Eugene it was a more intense issue. I swear the two cities have equal communities despite the populations differing by an order of magnitude. Bands of homeless people rove the streets with bicycles with trailers, collecting recycling to fund their lives at the insane meth/bicycle thievery park downtown. My girlfriend’s daughter took out the trash and said “there’s a guy in the dumpster”.

Clearly a lot of people need psychological services and job counseling - if they were in homes, they could not sustain them. Given that the US doesn’t even seem to be likely to devote proper care of our aging relatives in residential care over the next 30 years, it seems unlikely.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#62

Post by gnulinux »

rconti wrote: post #45
gnulinux wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF is the worst I've seen in the US (granted, I only lived in SF and Boston). Saying it's "equally bad" is almost funny. In Boston, LA, NYC, homeless problem is almost nowhere near SF.

You're probably not wrong, but there are a lot fewer places for the homeless "problem" to hide in SF than in, say, LA.

That's a fair point.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#63

Post by cwperkins »

exogeny wrote: post #2

I will go to my grave not understanding why this is so complex and difficult for people to understand and politicians to fix. Wages are stagnant, save for a handful of sectors, in which they're growing quickly. Housing prices are rising due to limited supply and backward policies towards new construction. Inequality therefore expands exponentially, creating a city of haves-and-have nots. Either reduce inequality thro…

I know you may not think so, but its important to realize that your response is highly biased. Many people see this differently and personally I think the best solution is for communities to realize this is an issue and volunteer time and money to help solve it. Things like volunteering time to go teach young kids and teens to code, taking a weekend to help with habitat for humanity, at a soup kitchen or helping with a coat drive. I firmly believe it is as big a problem as it is because the average person sees it as an intractable that they cannot solve and in the city its even more pronounced because there's less of a sense of community and more of a sense of fending for oneself. We need LESS red tape to help cities develop affordable housing more quickly, INNOVATION to bring down the cost of housing (think modular housing) and a CAN DO attitude that this is a problem WE CAN fix. As JFK famously said "We choose to ... not because it is easy, but because it is hard." And that's the mentality we need. Tax and re-distribution may be PART of the answer, but not THE answer.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#64

Post by jeffreyrogers »

jbob2000 wrote: post #39
jakelarkin wrote: post #8

"Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the nation, has cut its homeless population in half since 2011, in part by creating more housing for them."

Houston is also in Texas, which has habitable land area greater than most countries. Toronto is kind of stuck at the moment because if we want to build more housing, we have to bulldoze the Oak Ridges Moraine, which we can’t do because it’s critical to our water supply (though conservative governments often try). So our only option, like many cities, is to build up. Which is expensive and requires expensive maintenan…

Houston also doesn't have zoning laws, though having lots of land helps with that.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#65

Post by endtime »

exogeny wrote: post #2

I will go to my grave not understanding why this is so complex and difficult for people to understand and politicians to fix. Wages are stagnant, save for a handful of sectors, in which they're growing quickly. Housing prices are rising due to limited supply and backward policies towards new construction. Inequality therefore expands exponentially, creating a city of haves-and-have nots. Either reduce inequality thro…

Inequality isn't the right measure unless you make some assumptions that have, historically, not held (e.g. fixed total amount of wealth). All you care about is that the poorest people can afford somewhere to live.

Toy example: If everyone can afford a home, and then Jeff Bezos increases his wealth by 1000x, inequality goes up but no one becomes homeless.

I'm not saying wealth inequality is meaningless, but I think making it a primary concern creates an instance of Goodhart's law.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#66

Post by schaefer »

jessedhillon wrote: post #32
DanHulton wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think you're missing a key factor here: politicians require money to be elected. The poor (the folks most affected by these issues) don't have the money to donate. The rich (the ones you propose taxing) do. Thus, the only ones who can get elected are catering to an audience that does not want this problems solved in this way (and indeed, one could argue, does not care to have it solved at all). Until the pr…

I'd estimate the majority of active contributors to HN earn $150k+, putting them squarely in the upper percentiles of income-earners -- and definitely in the would-be-taxed bucket. Yet the sentiment expressed in the original comment is still the dominant mood here and elsewhere. The issue is not as clear-cut as "the poors want redistribution but the rich don't," Mark Benioff publicly threw his support behind the just…

>>I'd estimate the majority of active contributors to HN earn $150-300k

I can't think of any meaningful way to resolve this, but I'm guessing the majority earn less than $150k...

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#67

Post by iamdave »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #46
sharkweek wrote: post #9

Long-time Seattle resident here who volunteered for several years in the homeless community. Homelessness has always been a thing in Seattle, but has definitely become a much larger issue in the past five years. I'll spare my thoughts on any number of reasons as to why we got here as a city, but will say I think we are doing a terrible disservice to actually finding a solution by lumping "anyone who doesn't have a ho…

There's some merit to this but I'd say it's still a little off the mark. Homelessness is a condition, how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing. Dealing with everything else (mental health issues, drug addiction, etc.) can be dealt with separately, and will be vastly easier without having the fundamental problem of homelessness.

how people got there is one thing, the main tools to "fix it" are fairly straightforward: give people housing

The solution sounds straightforward, the path to get there looks like a Gordian knot. How do you pay for it? How do you get that funding source to go along with your plans to pay for it? Etc.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#68

Post by majormajor »

claydavisss wrote: post #48

Better title: Income Inequality Reaches Death Spiral In Democrat-run Cities LA SF NYC Seattle - please dispute my claim with facts... California is ground zero for homelessness in the industrialized world and has a veto-proof Democrat majority

Income equality is more about the top end changing dramatically than the bottom end changing dramatically.

"LA SF NYC are too rich and too business and super-wealthy-friendly" is a very different argument than the one you're making, and yet the only thing you note could support it just as well. So maybe it's more complicated than that.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#69

Post by javagram »

commandlinefan wrote: post #49
exogeny wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, makes sense. Thank you for the reply. Where it's personally frustrating for me: I've sold two companies in my life, and saw my tax rate jump from the lowest to the highest. I'm fine with that. I did well and despite all the work I put in, I recognize the amount of good fortune that was involved - and I'm perfectly happy to give back more because it affects me less, and because it's my fair share. I recognize th…

> I'm perfectly happy to give back more If you really feel that way, charitable organizations can effectively distribute donations far more efficiently and effectively than any government organization has ever been able to. I suspect that if all of the people who say they feel the same way did just voluntarily donate what they considered their own fair share to charity, the homeless crisis would be mostly solved.

When it comes to stuff like housing, government regulations like zoning can stand in the way.

If we had an unfettered market perhaps cheap apartments could be built and given to the homeless by charity. In practice new housing that complies with all zoning codes, labor regulations, etc ends up costing quite a lot.

Government certainly has a role to play here even if it is just changing policies to stop driving up costs. Of course governments also have eminent domain power and other powers that private organizations can’t access.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#70

Post by ghoglan122 »

claydavisss wrote: post #48

Better title: Income Inequality Reaches Death Spiral In Democrat-run Cities LA SF NYC Seattle - please dispute my claim with facts... California is ground zero for homelessness in the industrialized world and has a veto-proof Democrat majority

As if a Republicans-run state would solve the problem. That's a good joke
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