Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk • Hacker News Board

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#331

Post by watertom » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:08 AM UTC

legitster wrote: post #109

This is becoming such a frustrating issue. As an advocate of public spaces and parks, it's kind of heartbreaking that maybe 1/3 of public spaces in our town are no longer usable for all - they have more or less become private spaces for the homeless. I don't have much respect for communities that solve the issue by just "kicking them out" and passing the problem onto others, but it is almost becoming unacceptably com…

hmmm, maybe it's just me but your tone seems thoughtfully heartless.

You are heartbroken that public spaces can't be used by all, but you aren't heartbroken that so many people have no other options other than to live in those spaces.

Your compassionate solution is to bring back slums, flop houses, and chicken wire hotels (I actually had to look that up), so that you can get back to using your precious public spaces free of those less fortunate.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#332

Post by nybble41 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:09 AM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #158

simonsarris wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First please note that America has fewer homeless people than many European nations or Canada. Per 10K: Germany......79 UK...........46 Sweden.......36 Canada.......36 Netherlands..23 France.......21 USA..........17 (via Wikipedia, stats for differing years unfortunately but gives a sense of magnitude) It's mostly that the US homeless population concentrates in very few areas. > How do you reconcile that with the fac…

"I have friends who have tried to hire homeless for help with moving because her movers did not show up." That....sounds terrible.

It sounds risky but what's so terrible about offering paying work to people who appear to need it? It's not like they were compelled to accept.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#333

Post by slg » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:10 AM UTC

nybble41 wrote: post #325

slg wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rise of homelessness is almost equal to the decline of single occupancy housing (flophouses, chicken wire hotels, etc). This has specifically been a huge problem in cities with expensive real estate like Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is why the free market approach to fixing the housing crisis doesn't work. The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable ho…

> The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing. It doesn't make sense, period. The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources. You want to ensure that everyone has a home, fine, I agree that…

>The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources.

No one is saying these need to be city owned properties. The market is making the profit optimizing decision. Regulation can but restrictions on developers and force them to build affordable housing that would still be profitable just not the absolutely most profitable option. It is the same concept as the minimum wage. Sometimes we need to make rules so capitalism doesn't prioritize profit over societal good.

>You'd be doing those in need of such housing a favor by relocating them to less expensive areas on the outskirts of the city

There are no affordable outskirts for a city like Los Angeles. The SRO housing in neighborhoods like Skid Row were some of the only places in the region that a person on minimum wage could afford to live alone. Forcing those people to move hours away from where they work is not "doing those in need of such housing a favor".

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#334

Post by LevGoldstein » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

watertom wrote: post #331

legitster wrote: post #109

This is becoming such a frustrating issue. As an advocate of public spaces and parks, it's kind of heartbreaking that maybe 1/3 of public spaces in our town are no longer usable for all - they have more or less become private spaces for the homeless. I don't have much respect for communities that solve the issue by just "kicking them out" and passing the problem onto others, but it is almost becoming unacceptably com…

hmmm, maybe it's just me but your tone seems thoughtfully heartless. You are heartbroken that public spaces can't be used by all, but you aren't heartbroken that so many people have no other options other than to live in those spaces. Your compassionate solution is to bring back slums, flop houses, and chicken wire hotels (I actually had to look that up), so that you can get back to using your precious public spaces…

I'm sure he's open to hearing your ethical, compassionate, and politically viable alternate proposal. Go ahead and post it.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#335

Post by slg » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

davidf18 wrote: post #322

slg wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rise of homelessness is almost equal to the decline of single occupancy housing (flophouses, chicken wire hotels, etc). This has specifically been a huge problem in cities with expensive real estate like Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is why the free market approach to fixing the housing crisis doesn't work. The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable ho…

The free market approach would work but the real-estate markets are not free markets: There is rent-seeking zoning density restrictions that make the land artificially scarce. Reverse the zoning density restrictions and this will be a return to eliminating the market failure in real-estate.

Allowing more denser zoning would help, but it doesn't fix the problem I mentioned. As I said, new construction is often replacing higher density affordable housing with lower density luxury housing. This is motivated by profit and not zoning.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#336

Post by bsder » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:12 AM UTC

nanidin wrote: post #326

bsder wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect what's happening here is that you two are conflating different groups. If you include the invisible homeless in the group, you can probably say that the majority of the homeless don't have mental health issues. It takes functional mental skill to not be a visible homeless person. The highly visible homeless probably have significant mental health issues. Mental health issues have a nasty way of completely d…

I like the reach for Amdahl's Law, but it's about how fast you can speed something up by doing it in parallel, isn't it? What's to say someone else can't be eliminating the other classes of homelessness in parallel, making the problem effectively embarrassingly parallelizable?

> What's to say someone else can't be eliminating the other classes of homelessness in parallel

You both can and must address everything in parallel to actually dent the "homeless problem".

That's the point.

Let's say there are 5 primary classes of homeless. Even if you take one of them and reduce it to zero (and you will never accomplish this)--you're still left with 80% of the problem.

Only now the people approving the checks are angry because the "homeless problem" doesn't really look any better.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#337

Post by michaelt » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:17 AM UTC

xnyan wrote: post #252

foxpurple wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the city should provide enough homeless shelters for everyone and then just make homelessness illegal. So if you are found sleeping in a tent you get referred to the nearest shelter and if you refuse you get arrested. We can not allow homelessness to exist because it makes public spaces unsafe like you mention. Homeless shelters can also help by making it hard for them to continue their drug addictions.

Even in the best case, homeless shelters have serious downsides (to put it mildly) that you may not have considered. -Have a pet? Not coming with you. A stint at the pound, likely followed by euthanization due to overcrowding. -How about a family? If you can even get into a shelter, odds are it's going to be male or women and children. -Shelters are often unsafe and filled with people who have untreated problems. Vio…

> Shelters are often unsafe and filled with people who have untreated problems. Violence is a real risk.

I've always found it a bit ironic when people intending to advocate for better treatment of the homeless proclaim that homeless shelters are havens of violence, full of dangerous people with drug and mental health problems.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#338

Post by foxpurple » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:27 AM UTC

danans wrote: post #235

foxpurple wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the city should provide enough homeless shelters for everyone and then just make homelessness illegal. So if you are found sleeping in a tent you get referred to the nearest shelter and if you refuse you get arrested. We can not allow homelessness to exist because it makes public spaces unsafe like you mention. Homeless shelters can also help by making it hard for them to continue their drug addictions.

> Homeless shelters can also help by making it hard for them to continue their drug addictions. They do, and this is sometimes why homeless people avoid the shelters. You cannot hold someone in a shelter against their will.

That’s why my suggestion is to offer them the choice to willingly use a shelter or go to jail. Homelessness and drug abuse can not be allowed to exist to keep public spaces safe.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#339

Post by daenz » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:32 AM UTC

xnyan wrote: post #213

daenz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to get a lot of replies indicating that the problem belongs squarely on society's shoulders (healthcare, capitalism, drugs). One cause that you will probably not see highlighted is the devaluation of autonomy and personal responsibility, and it's absolutely devastating effect on the human spirit to progress.

> One cause that you will probably not see highlighted is the devaluation of autonomy and personal responsibility Besides the fact that not everyone agrees with this argument, it's not highlighted because it's not useful. Let's say your right, the reason people sleep under a highway underpass is because they have not taken so called "personal responsibility" for their situation. Done. What's the plan now? Extending v…

>What's the plan now?

If anyone had a good solution to the homeless problem, there wouldn't be a homeless problem. I'm not claiming to have a good solution either, but I do know that I see a culture that essentially says: "You're a drug addict, you can't help your situation, it's addiction's fault." Or "You're bipolar, you can't help your situation, it's our healthcare system's fault." Or "You lost your job, you can't help your situation, it's capitalism's fault." We're so focused on blaming externalities 100% that we are not helping enable people to solve their problems (to the extent that they can).

All that isn't to say that I don't believe society can and should help the homeless, but we can do so without saying "nothing that has happened to you is your responsibility."

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#340

Post by nybble41 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 12:36 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #333

nybble41 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing. It doesn't make sense, period. The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources. You want to ensure that everyone has a home, fine, I agree that…

>The market is making the ration decision. The city could always buy the expensive real estate and turn it into slums—sorry, "affordable housing"—but this is clearly not a reasonable allocation of limited resources. No one is saying these need to be city owned properties. The market is making the profit optimizing decision. Regulation can but restrictions on developers and force them to build affordable housing that…

> No one is saying these need to be city owned properties. … Regulation can but restrictions on developers and force them to build affordable housing that would still be profitable just not the absolutely most profitable option.

That's just the city seizing developers' property for public use without compensation. Buying the property would give the city moral authority to decide how it's used, while also accurately tracking the cost of the city's policies as opposed to burying that cost in regulations.

> It is the same concept as the minimum wage.

This is not winning you any points. I'm opposed to that too. You're not changing the actual minimum wage, which is always zero unless you're also guaranteeing everyone a job regardless of willingness to do useful work (which would make this more of a UBI than a minimum wage). You're just ensuring that anyone who can't produce enough value to be worth paying your minimum wage becomes unemployable.

> There are no affordable outskirts for a city like Los Angeles.

Then maybe we need to consider that not everyone needs to live (or work) in Los Angeles. If your LA job doesn't pay enough to afford unsubsidized housing in LA then you're basically working for free, at best. Housing is not the primary issue here; what you need is a different job in a more affordable city. I'm not a fan of just handing someone a one-way bus fare and sending them off to be someone else's problem, but if you add job placement and housing in the new location to the package I think it becomes a workable option.