I echo others' sentiments here, that these problems will not be fixed unless people from all sides stop trying to 'win' on ideological grounds, stop trying to gaslight each other, stop trying to demonize, and simply evaluate the situation for what it really is. This requires making hard decisions, selecting the right incentives/disincentives, accepting that no solution is perfect, and instituting transparent well-audited policies that serve the interests of local constituents.
Here are some of my thoughts regarding this topic:
- No one is entitled to live wherever they want, doing whatever job they want, at whatever pay they are able to demand. Different places carry different degrees of desirability, and the resulting demand for locations means that prices will be different for different locales. People need to show some personal responsibility and choose locations, jobs, etc. that are feasible. Choosing to move to a location in a line of work that is not compensated enough is going against the incentive structure built into our market dynamics - namely that a reduced supply of labor for some job will result in wages for that job increasing.
- Long-time residents of an area may find it unfair that they are being displaced by newcomers or a sudden boom or other changes that push prices upward and beyond their reach. Those cities could consider establishing policies for subsidized rent for those long-time residents below some income level. That is, not rent control that impacts individual landlords but subsidizing the cost of housing for long-time residents (e.g. 5+ years) across the entire city's tax base. I keep saying "long-time" residents because there has to be a disincentive for someone moving to expensive locales and using the safety net/goodwill of the public as a means to enable an otherwise irresponsible move. For example, those moving to Seattle or SF in the 2010s have no excuse for expecting anything other than an expensive life, and need to carefully evaluate if they can make it there.
- Cities could assist residents in finding viable jobs and locations to live in if they can't make it locally. They could even help pay for it. For example, it is possible there are people that are homeless in some expensive city and could make it elsewhere, but don't have the funds necessary to get over the hump of moving. Cities could pay for them to move and get settled. In the Seattle area, we spend over $1B a year on homelessness (https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2017/11/16/price-of...), which comes out to $83K/year/homeless person (since there are 12000 homeless persons in the area). For $25K we could move someone to a more affordable middle-America location, pay for a year of their housing, and potentially even their food/utility costs during that time. Perhaps we could go a step further and match them to jobs. The flip side is that those people need to accept that they may not do a job they want to do. Sometimes you need to suck it up and do something you might consider menial or unmatched to your skills or unmatched to your passions - but that's just life and everyone has to make tradeoffs. And as with my other idea, such services have to only be available to long-time residents so as to not induce free-riders.
- Not all homeless people are 'bad'. Some are well-meaning people down on their luck job-wise. Some are long-time residents who have been priced out or displaced from their locale. Some may have encountered some one-off hardship. Either way, we need cities to meaningfully identify these various cohorts precisely, so taxpayers can selectively provide support to those who deserve it. The mechanisms used for such identification need to be trustworthy. As an example of an untrustworthy process, in Seattle the city uses self-reported answers from homeless people to claim that most are from here. But most video interviews you see on TV (or anecdotally, when I've spoke to homeless people myself) indicate they are not actually from here. Those point-in-time surveys are facilitated by homeless activists, who are likely coaching people towards certain answers, which is why the only viable answer is to rely on positive identification for claims about local residency.
- Homeless folks need to accept services. Refusing services (whether by way of housing or for addiction treatment) is a non-starter. The law-abiding tax-paying residents who support a city don't have an obligation to forfeit their public spaces to transients, permanent nomads, or addicts.
- Cities need to enforce laws. They can't look the other way when property crime is committed, or when littering takes place, and so on. Or worse, they can't selectively apply laws differently to different people (see http://mynorthwest.com/1046331/construction-worker-rv-ticket... for an example). People pay taxes and elect local governments to serve their interests and support their quality of life. The trend of urban transient campers usurping public spaces is unacceptable - people work hard to make it in expensive places to enjoy those amenities, after all.
These are just some off the cuff ideas - I'm sure there is room for improving them and I'm sure there are other good ideas as well. But I do think the current direction of many of these cities - which is basically spend more and show no result for it - is the wrong answer.
