Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 325 posts

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#11

Post by alisonkisk »

eplanit wrote: post #6
mullingitover wrote: post #3

This is a thinly sourced blog post that seems like pure flamebait and not really relevant for HN.

The government website stats support the claim: ~29% of the entire US homeless population is in California, which is disproportional when compared to other state population densities.[1] That said, the piece doesn't offer much constructive advice on how to fix it. Californians have been witnessing the very real, large increase in tent cities, addicts, feces, ... for years now, but so far they still vote for the same…

The callous disregard for human life exhibited in this post is sickening.

My office has a janitorial staff. Why don't public spaces?

Too many people in public parks? Claw back more public park space, maybe from the automobile lanes and parks that infest our cities and spew far more stinky poison than people living rough.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#12

Post by jefftk »

"Dumping ground" implies other places did this to CA, which isn't substantiated by the article. As it says, the vast majority of CA homeless are from within the state.

In the cities of CA, as in other rich cities, homelessness and high housing prices come from the same problem: prohibitive regulations on housing construction.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#13

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

wombatpm wrote: post #9

Lived in Chicago and Minneapolis. Hard winters naturally reduce the homeless. They either migrate, get jobs or die

This is unnecessarily darwinian in its conception. It also ignores that the major NE cities invest more into building shelters because they decided people freezing to death on the sidewalk was unacceptable.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#14

Post by jrochkind1 »

eplanit wrote: post #6
mullingitover wrote: post #3

This is a thinly sourced blog post that seems like pure flamebait and not really relevant for HN.

The government website stats support the claim: ~29% of the entire US homeless population is in California, which is disproportional when compared to other state population densities.[1] That said, the piece doesn't offer much constructive advice on how to fix it. Californians have been witnessing the very real, large increase in tent cities, addicts, feces, ... for years now, but so far they still vote for the same…

Assuming those statistics are trustworthy (which I don't necessarily, homeless people are notoriously undercounted by the census for instance and may be unevenly counted in different places), maybe more people become homeless in CA. I guess I'd want to know what % of the homeless population were recent transplants to CA vs what % of CA residents in general are recent transplants. Also, if they are homeless and recent transplants to CA, were they homeless before they moved to CA? Before assuming lots of homeless people are moving to CA more research required than that single number.

And then even if so... so what? I assume the point is doing something about people who have no homes, like reducing the number of people who have no homes. Perhaps we'd also want to know why they are moving to CA to begin with. Perhaps we'd say CA should get federal funding to deal with it's disproportional homeless problem, and then figure out the best use of that funding. I dunno.

Like, is the point something other than blaming homeless people for being homeless, or punishing people for being homeless, or make people's lives harder when they are homeless -- cause, what does that do, what's the point of that you think?

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#15

Post by LurkingPenguin »

alisonkisk wrote: post #10
mullingitover wrote: post #3

This is a thinly sourced blog post that seems like pure flamebait and not really relevant for HN.

The author and submitter has >35000 karma on HN. The blog post has more linked sources than most content marketing spam that appears on HN from page. There are already several comments on the post by HN users that are repeating statements from the post. This suggests it is HN material.

This is an unconvincing example of appeal to (internet) accomplishment.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#16

Post by refulgentis »

This is a common myth and a misunderstanding I understand, I thought the same myself a decade ago. It looks like this thread is going nowhere good, so I'll just throw this over the fence quick and run away: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/homeless-population.ht...

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#17

Post by s5300 »

alisonkisk wrote: post #11
eplanit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government website stats support the claim: ~29% of the entire US homeless population is in California, which is disproportional when compared to other state population densities.[1] That said, the piece doesn't offer much constructive advice on how to fix it. Californians have been witnessing the very real, large increase in tent cities, addicts, feces, ... for years now, but so far they still vote for the same…

The callous disregard for human life exhibited in this post is sickening. My office has a janitorial staff. Why don't public spaces? Too many people in public parks? Claw back more public park space, maybe from the automobile lanes and parks that infest our cities and spew far more stinky poison than people living rough.

A fair amount of those who frequent this site are purely concerned with how to squeeze the most profit out of the most people possible, no matter the collateral damage that may come from those goals.

I'm not sure how you could be surprised.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#20

Post by s5300 »

jefftk wrote: post #12

"Dumping ground" implies other places did this to CA, which isn't substantiated by the article. As it says, the vast majority of CA homeless are from within the state. In the cities of CA, as in other rich cities, homelessness and high housing prices come from the same problem: prohibitive regulations on housing construction.

There is some undeniable truth to this video though.

https://youtu.be/6EHPt8eoSJI

Post reply on HN