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This is Real, That's Not

streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com

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Re: This is Real, That's Not

#341

Post by mbrodersen »

Aunche wrote: post #234
DanBC wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What alternative do they have? If we don't provide adequate public loos, or addiction treatment, or injection rooms, or mental health care, we should expect to experience the problems that are caused.

I don't understand why it's so frowned upon in cities like LA to arrest someone for disposing used needles on the ground, and sending them to jail. I'm not going to pretend that it's doing the homeless any favors. However, the alternative of letting them poison themselves with drugs, and I don't see how that's any more humane. I think the real reason America fails the homeless is not a lack of empathy, but a "it's yo…

It is expensive jailing people. And it just makes the problem worse. Countries around the world (Portugal for example) show how to actually solve the problem. What seems to stop other countries adapting good solutions is a desire by the population to punish and hurt people they don’t like (the homeless).

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#342

Post by mbrodersen »

Aunche wrote: post #234
DanBC wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What alternative do they have? If we don't provide adequate public loos, or addiction treatment, or injection rooms, or mental health care, we should expect to experience the problems that are caused.

I don't understand why it's so frowned upon in cities like LA to arrest someone for disposing used needles on the ground, and sending them to jail. I'm not going to pretend that it's doing the homeless any favors. However, the alternative of letting them poison themselves with drugs, and I don't see how that's any more humane. I think the real reason America fails the homeless is not a lack of empathy, but a "it's yo…

I don’t understand why Americans are so eager to punish and jail people given that it objectively doesn’t fix the problems people think it will fix. My conclusion (having lived, worked and paid taxes in many countries, including the US) is that there is an undercurrent of cruelty in US culture less prevalent in (say) Australia or the UK for example. It is the only explanation I have been able to come up with that matches my experiences having lived, worked and paid taxes in Europe, US and Australia.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#343

Post by mbrodersen »

syshum wrote: post #231
DubiousPusher wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have it over and over and over again that housing first is the approach that works. Yet it is very hard for society to stomach the idea of giving someone a handout "no matter what they have done or will do". I don't know why but this seems to be the primary psychic barrier to doing this thing we know works and which can in some cases even be cheaper than services first aid.

The problem with Housing First, like with any Welfare program, it abuse. Housing First programs are ripe for abuse and are abused. While yes it is cheaper in some ways, the problem is people will be less likely to be creative or lean on personal support networks (i.e couch surfing, live with family, etc) if the government through the taxpayer will just hand you a key to an apartment no questions asked.... There were…

You seem to think that we shouldn’t do X because it is ripe for abuse and are abused. So we shouldn’t do politics then because it is ripe for abuse and are abused (corruption)? And we shouldn’t have CEO’s then because being a CEO is ripe for abuse and are abused? We shouldn’t have corporations in general for the same reason? Or is it only things you don’t like that we shouldn’t do for those reasons?

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#344

Post by scollet »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #212
legulere wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

How well can a person live in Germany for $15,000? A person in the US could live on that much in an apartment with multiple room mates in a city with a low cost of living, but it’s not much of a life. You would be eating Ramen noodle every night (and not the good kind).

I'm actually really skeptical on city affordability. I could barely do this in my home town let alone any city I can think of.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#345

Post by kaitai »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #242
kaitai wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing -- I'm a woman in tech. How am I political? I'm just a sack of cells like you. Are you a political topic? To get back to the parent posters, that's why I keep coming back to HN despite the unfortunately-now-expected friction of, well, comments like the one above me. (And timeeater, to be really clear, I don't care your position on feminism or socialism. The friction is that you label me talking a…

You aren't political, but your identity is, just as everyone else's identity is. Paul Graham's post[1] on identity describes it much better than I could here. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

But this is silly. I was born with what I was born with. Why do I have to think about it? What choice did I have in it? Religion, I can choose. Politics, I can choose. Gender? That's not my choice. To the extent it's my identity, it's forced upon me. Thanks, guys.

In this thread, I'm responding to timeeater's claim that it's censorship, not incivility, that results in banning. As evidence, timeeater says that criticising feminism is 'not allowed' or suppressed. But I would argue that it's not criticism of feminism that gets timeeater in trouble, but instead the tendentious supposition that discussing women at all is "political" (to quote, "But there are political topics on HN all the time (women in tech, worker unions at Amazon, and so on and so on)."). Then timeeater goes on to make some statements about special treatment and special insights. Now that's the rabbithole of wasted pixels that Paul Graham is getting at in his essay -- it's really not germane to the discussion, and it's all bound up in an identity that is indeed chosen.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#346

Post by bsder »

kelnos wrote: post #335
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps those who object have more to lose or have worked harder. Everyone has had different challenges that shape their perspective. We can never assume to understand another person’s motivation or understanding.

We can't, but we can certainly judge that perspective to be counter-productive. I'm concerned about outcomes. Let's stop for a minute and assume that I'm an unfeeling, non-empathetic person who doesn't care about anyone but himself. Even then, I would advocate to allocate more money to homeless services, regardless of how that money is used, because doing so would benefit me: I don't want to see human feces on the si…

> They're making their lives actively worse just to "teach a lesson" to those "undeserving" homeless people.

The last US election showed us that there are a LOT of these kind of people.

Most of them call themselves religious, too.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#347

Post by Aunche »

mbrodersen wrote: post #342
Aunche wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why it's so frowned upon in cities like LA to arrest someone for disposing used needles on the ground, and sending them to jail. I'm not going to pretend that it's doing the homeless any favors. However, the alternative of letting them poison themselves with drugs, and I don't see how that's any more humane. I think the real reason America fails the homeless is not a lack of empathy, but a "it's yo…

I don’t understand why Americans are so eager to punish and jail people given that it objectively doesn’t fix the problems people think it will fix. My conclusion (having lived, worked and paid taxes in many countries, including the US) is that there is an undercurrent of cruelty in US culture less prevalent in (say) Australia or the UK for example. It is the only explanation I have been able to come up with that mat…

I'm not "eager to punish people." Even for a junkie, it's not that hard for them to find a public restroom to shoot up and dispose their needles (at least pre-covid). They will almost certainly choose that if it means they won't get sent to jail. Right now, in LA and SF, certain areas are littered with needles and feces. I'm not blaming the homeless. I'm blaming the woke tech liberals who get offended no matter what how the police interact with the homeless. I seriously doubt that that anyone is allowed to casually shoot up in highly trafficked streets in Sydney or Berlin.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#348

Post by timeeater »

kaitai wrote: post #345
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't political, but your identity is, just as everyone else's identity is. Paul Graham's post[1] on identity describes it much better than I could here. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

But this is silly. I was born with what I was born with. Why do I have to think about it? What choice did I have in it? Religion, I can choose. Politics, I can choose. Gender? That's not my choice. To the extent it's my identity, it's forced upon me. Thanks, guys. In this thread, I'm responding to timeeater's claim that it's censorship, not incivility, that results in banning. As evidence, timeeater says that critici…

You misinterpret my statement, that is all. I mentioned "women in tech" as an example, because those articles are usually political. They tend to be about alleged discrimination and demands for special treatment of women in tech. That is politics (special treatment of a specific group of people is a policy).

If you don't do any of those things, your person is not a political issue.

Also I didn't say you shouldn't be allowed to post political things like "women in tech". Hacker News policy says that, and bans people for commenting on such threads under the pretense of the policy.

Stop misinterpreting my comments.

And nobody is forcing you to use your body for politics. You don't have to identify as a feminist, either. Feminism is not synonymous with women.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#349

Post by timeeater »

tchaffee wrote: post #309
timeeater wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rising rents are not evidence that rising rents are a major cause of homelessness. "what happens when you lose your job, and then lose your apartment as a result?" Then losing your job is the cause, not the rising rents. "So your theory is that rich people hire homeless people off the street to cater to them?" I could imagine many people migrate to those places to try to make their luck, because there are many opport…

> I could imagine many people... Yes, that's the entire problem I've been encouraging you to stop doing. You don't need to imagine. It's an extremely well researched subject. I was sincerely hoping you'd put a little work into the research yourself (like I asked you to) instead of continuing to create mental fantasies about why homelessness might happen. We already know why it happens. Without any cherry picking on m…

On the contrary, YOU should start thinking for yourself.

All the articles you quoted merely repeat the same correlation of high housing prices and unemployment that started all the speculation. They don't give any insights at all, and they don't even mention rising rents as a cause (which was what we are actually discussing). Only the solutionsdfl site mentions "foreclosures" as a reason for more homelessness, without giving any numbers (like what percentage of homelessness is caused by it). And it doesn't say what caused the foreclosures. Does economic success in a region increase the number of foreclosures?

Of course on a simple level, saying "lack of affordable housing" causes homelessness is true. If you could give everybody a free house, there would probably be less homeless people. However, that is also in itself a completely useless realization, as housing is not free and space is limited.

And, more specifically, it was not what we were discussing. We were discussing the claim that rising economic success of a region caused rising homelessness there, by driving existing renters out of their homes. None of your articles provide any information regarding that claim.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#350

Post by mbrodersen »

Aunche wrote: post #347
mbrodersen wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why Americans are so eager to punish and jail people given that it objectively doesn’t fix the problems people think it will fix. My conclusion (having lived, worked and paid taxes in many countries, including the US) is that there is an undercurrent of cruelty in US culture less prevalent in (say) Australia or the UK for example. It is the only explanation I have been able to come up with that mat…

I'm not "eager to punish people." Even for a junkie, it's not that hard for them to find a public restroom to shoot up and dispose their needles (at least pre-covid). They will almost certainly choose that if it means they won't get sent to jail. Right now, in LA and SF, certain areas are littered with needles and feces. I'm not blaming the homeless. I'm blaming the woke tech liberals who get offended no matter what…

It apparently cost between $30k and $60k to house a single prisoner in the US. So you have a choice: you can spend those $30k to $60k putting a homeless person in prison (not solving the problem), or spend the same money fixing the actual problem (treating it for what it is: a mental/health issue) or perhaps spend the money cleaning up the streets and provide places for people to use drugs safely. America so far has always chosen the least effective, most cruel way to pretend to solve the problem.
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