I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by jefftk » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #24

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.

I'm really not convinced that high housing costs accurately depict the source of the homelessness problem in CA. If it does, it certainly isn't describing the homeless people I see. Most of the homeless people I see, the ones who are literally pitching tents on the side walks, sleeping on boxes, defecating anywhere and everywhere, passed out on park benches at 3 in the afternoon, are almost certainly not going to be…

The piece mentions Single-Room Occupancies (SROs), which used to be where a lot of people in similar situations would live.

I agree that this doesn't solve the problem for everyone, and there's also a place for publicly funded mental health hospitals. But I also don't think everyone who is currently homeless in CA is in as bad shape as the ones you most notice.

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

#32

Post by michaelmrose » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

tiahura wrote: post #4

When vagrancy was a crime there was much less vagrancy.

Fun fact in the 1700s the British transported large numbers of vagabonds to what would later become the states. This strategy it seems works great when you have somewhere else where you can make the parties assistance someone else's problem. It is inherently harder when the person remains your problem regardless.

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

#33

Post by bpodgursky » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #13

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.

Do you know that it's true that per-capital NE cities invest more into shelters? View from Seattle, an enormous amount of money is spent on homeless outreach and shelters that I have never seen reflected in any other area (other than the Pacific rim).

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

#34

Post by slg » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #24

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.

I'm really not convinced that high housing costs accurately depict the source of the homelessness problem in CA. If it does, it certainly isn't describing the homeless people I see. Most of the homeless people I see, the ones who are literally pitching tents on the side walks, sleeping on boxes, defecating anywhere and everywhere, passed out on park benches at 3 in the afternoon, are almost certainly not going to be…

The investigations and surveys I have seen on the subject suggest that the homeless population you are describing makes up a minority of the overall homeless population. It is something in the range of 30%-50% depending on the source (it is notoriously difficult to get accurate numbers on homeless populations).

Your anecdote is a classic form of bias if you just take a step back and reexamine it. You identify most homeless people as being like that because those are the people you immediately recognize as being homeless. Someone who is homeless purely due to the high cost of housing probably isn't immediately identifiable as homeless on sight.

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

#35

Post by aksss » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #24

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.

I'm really not convinced that high housing costs accurately depict the source of the homelessness problem in CA. If it does, it certainly isn't describing the homeless people I see. Most of the homeless people I see, the ones who are literally pitching tents on the side walks, sleeping on boxes, defecating anywhere and everywhere, passed out on park benches at 3 in the afternoon, are almost certainly not going to be…

High housing costs aren't the totality of what OP is talking about. Zoning laws prohibiting construction of lower cost housing options make alternatives in a given locale unobtainable, regardless of cost. This is done to protect the valuation of SFHs, often enough. Designating districts as 'historic' or zoning shenanigans can do this. It's fundamentally a NIMBY problem, which is very different than the issue of regulatory burden for construction (environmental assessments, permitting, etc.). Both of these factors contribute to the problem though.

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

#36

Post by rubicon33 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

settrans wrote: post #27

rubicon33 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not convinced that high housing costs accurately depict the source of the homelessness problem in CA. If it does, it certainly isn't describing the homeless people I see. Most of the homeless people I see, the ones who are literally pitching tents on the side walks, sleeping on boxes, defecating anywhere and everywhere, passed out on park benches at 3 in the afternoon, are almost certainly not going to be…

California already has a 1% income tax allocated just to mental health, and has collected $7.4 billion so far just from this tax[0]. How is that working? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Mental_Health_Servi...

Our government, either through corruption or incompetence, can somehow manage to spend billions in tax payer dollars with very little to show for it.

When I advocate for something like a mental health program, it assumes a government which is functional enough to actually implement it. What we currently have here in CA couldn't be further from that.

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

#37

Post by ummonk » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #31

rubicon33 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not convinced that high housing costs accurately depict the source of the homelessness problem in CA. If it does, it certainly isn't describing the homeless people I see. Most of the homeless people I see, the ones who are literally pitching tents on the side walks, sleeping on boxes, defecating anywhere and everywhere, passed out on park benches at 3 in the afternoon, are almost certainly not going to be…

The piece mentions Single-Room Occupancies (SROs), which used to be where a lot of people in similar situations would live. I agree that this doesn't solve the problem for everyone, and there's also a place for publicly funded mental health hospitals. But I also don't think everyone who is currently homeless in CA is in as bad shape as the ones you most notice.

"But I also don't think everyone who is currently homeless in CA is in as bad shape as the ones you most notice."

There is a difference between the technically "homeless" and the visibly homeless who camp out on sidewalks etc. which is what most people are talking about when the "homeless problem" is mentioned.

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

#38

Post by LurkingPenguin » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

Schnitz wrote: post #26

> Rather than asking "Who can we blame?" maybe we could start asking "How do we fix it?" Nobody talks about the hard truth: The homeownership rate in California is ~55% and therefore over half of Californians are heavily incentivized to keep the housing crisis going. For existing homeowners this isn't a crisis, it's a free paper money bonanza. Just by living in their houses home "owners" (most are heavily leveraged)…

Nobody talks about the harder truth: even with its exclusionary housing policies, California is increasingly not capable of supporting the population it has.

The 2021 fires and worsening drought conditions are just a taste of things to come.

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

#39

Post by wombatpm » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #19

wombatpm wrote: post #9

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

Minnesota houses it's homeless in the winter. But people do migrate.

Which puts them in the system, and they get the help they need or they rebel and leave- facing the choice of migrate or die. It’s not pretty but it’s the reality, because nature is a harsh teacher.

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

#40

Post by betwixthewires » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

I agree with the premise of the article, that a large proportion of California's homeless move there because it's easier to he homeless for all the reasons listed, but that's about the substance of the article. It blames the problem on detached housing and demands solutions without an inkling of a hint at any.

Our homeless problem is the result of 2 things: a mental health problem and to a much lesser extent the pervasiveness of the speculative real estate market driving up costs (a market largely driven by equity in the California housing market I might mention).

The solution to this problem is not less detached housing, it is more of any housing anywhere that it has been artificially suppressed, and raising interest rates to a market dictated level rather than artificially suppressing them to hold up the house of cards, and more importantly, helping people address their mental health problems.