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Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

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Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#101

Post by b9a2cab5 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #82
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what your meaning of disruptive is but I would define "ruins the entire ride" as making the entire car smell like urine and feces. I've also gotten on buses where it is plainly apparent someone peed on the bus floor.

I'm sure you can find a few anecdotal counter examples but generally speaking people don't behave that way on the east coast, homeless or not. And when they do it's more likely to be a drunk on game day than a homeless person.

Sounds like I need to move to the East Coast because that's the experience I get half the time I get on a bus or BART in the Bay.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#102

Post by forgotmypw17 »

klyrs wrote: post #67
mulmen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do if someone wants to sleep on the street? Where do you build these dorms? Are there barriers to living in these dorms? Sobriety requirements, job searching, etc? We should definitely try to solve this but I don't think it is simple at all.

> What do you do if someone wants to sleep on the street? This describes an incredibly miniscule number of people. There are a lot of problems with existing shelters (as mentioned quite a few times in thia thread) so currently it's hard to disentangle "wants to sleep on the streets" from "doesn't want the available alternatives." Yeah, there probably are a few folks like this. Having an oversupply of 1% isn't going t…

I would rather sleep outside than in any homeless "shelters" I've been told about by people who have stayed in them.

They're horrible places designed only for one purpose: keeping the undesirables out of the public eye.

It was that way ~100 years ago when Orwell wrote "Down and Out", and very little has changed since then.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#103

Post by yardie »

paxys wrote: post #94
epistasis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data doesn't really seem to support this, and my personal experience doesn't either. Most homeless people in my Californian town were living nearby when they became homeless. And though I didn't go to high school here, friends who did recognize people they grew up among the homeless. There's a far bigger difference between California and its neighbors: housing costs and availability of housing even for those with…

There is never going to be official data on this by design, but there is evidence of it happening all over the country, and "friendly" places like California being on the receiving end of it ( https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-ho... ). Statistical anomalies are a proven way of identifying cheating in a wide variety of scenarios like elections, standardized tests and sports. It isn't conclusive…

There is official data and it's these reunification programs. Plenty of rich cities will give you a bus ticket to live with friends and family. Most of the time it works out. Sometimes it doesn't and that unsheltered person is right back in the same place they left. But the person has to agree to house them before a bus ticket is purchased. They simply don't put them on the bus and let them figure it out.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#104

Post by pseudalopex »

coryrc wrote: post #68
cheriot wrote: post #9

We're a country of 350,000,000 people. Leaving 500,000 outside simply because municipalities don't want them around is inexcusable. Solution in two parts 1. Make it legal to build homes where people live (looking at you California, specifically LA, SF, SV) 2. Build dorm style shelters for anyone that would otherwise sleep outside There's complicating issues like not enough addiction treatment and mental health facili…

#2 people won't let you build shelters where it's affordable to do so. Seattle's homeless shelters should be built outside Moses Lake, not where a studio costs $300k+. For the amount we already spend, every single chronically homeless person could be housed in dorms built out there and pay for the social workers. Since they aren't doing that, it's clear the real motivation is not to help the homeless.

Outside Moses Lake is far outside Seattle's jurisdiction.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#105

Post by forgotmypw17 »

mulmen wrote: post #72
klyrs wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do if someone wants to sleep on the street? This describes an incredibly miniscule number of people. There are a lot of problems with existing shelters (as mentioned quite a few times in thia thread) so currently it's hard to disentangle "wants to sleep on the streets" from "doesn't want the available alternatives." Yeah, there probably are a few folks like this. Having an oversupply of 1% isn't going t…

That doesn’t answer the question. I’m not opposed to building more shelter space. But what do you do with the people who don’t want to stay there? Do you make it non-optional? Do you just accept that there will always be some people living on the street? At what point can a camping ban in public parks be reinstated and enforced? Can it ever be? Should it?

I think that camping should be legitimized and allowed.

For example, I saw in LA camping areas being cleaned by city workers peacefully (with a token police car watching over) and it seemed like a nice middle ground.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#106

Post by cheriot »

boc wrote: post #85
cheriot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a debate that comes up and I'm only familiar with the specifics in San Francisco. I won't claim it's the same anywhere else. The shelters are full so the obvious problem is not people refusing to sleep in them. At the same time, many of the "offers" of going inside are disingenuous. People giving up all of their belongings (specifically tent and camping stove), leaving loved ones, and the promised shelter is…

You're describing SROs and they've been disappearing from cities like SF, despite being a decent option (on paper) for transition housing. Here's a primer: https://thebolditalic.com/life-inside-sf-s-vanishing-single-...

Yes, SROs are great and it's extremely difficult to build new ones even where they're zoning compliant. We need a lot more of them.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#107

Post by spywaregorilla »

woodruffw wrote: post #73
nostrebored wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly spoken like someone who hasn’t been homeless or is close to anyone who has been homeless. A lot of people are severely mentally unwell and do not want shelter. And the complicating factor is the percentage of people like this depends on the city! Eg Utah’s approach to homelessness probably won’t work for Oregon.

I have spent my entire life around the homeless, in a city that has a universal shelter mandate. I’ve also spent the better part of a decade volunteering in food pantries and community kitchens. > A lot of people are severely mentally unwell and do not want shelter. No. What they don’t want is to be corralled like livestock into shared living spaces, with no privacy or protection for their property. That’s not becaus…

> Give mentally ill people the choice of dignity and they will overwhelmingly choose it.

The one's flashing their genitals and screaming at strangers?

The definition of "mentally ill homeless" is surely nuanced and varied, by this archetype is certainly what a lot of people are going to think of when they hear the term. It's hard for me to imagine degradation is relevant to them.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#108

Post by jseliger »

AlexandrB wrote: post #47
jseliger wrote: post #6

There is mostly a housing crisis, with homelessness downstream of housing. I originally left this comment a few months ago, but: CA especially has been underbuilding housing for close to 50 years ( https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ) and now has a severe housing shortage, to the point where a parodic response, like "California will try absolutely anything to reduce homelessness, except build more housing"…

I don't buy it. In Toronto, there are new condo buildings going up seemingly on every block, but there are still 10,000 homeless[1]. The inconvenient truth is that building low-income housing is not very profitable and no entity driven by the profit motive wants to do it. The margins on luxury condos are much better. [1] https://www.fredvictor.org/facts-about-homelessness-in-toron...

See https://fullstackeconomics.com/how-luxury-apartment-building... for the empirical research refuting that point and agreeing with the basic supply-demand issue. The issue in Toronto is not just the anecdotal "new condo buildings" but how much housing Toronto has built per capita for the last several decades, which is almost certainly "too little." See the link in my original post to data from Tokyo, which is one of the few cities to have done housing right.

"Filtering" has always been a housing phenomenon: https://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/ and https://cityobservatory.org/how-luxury-housing-becomes-affor....

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#109

Post by notJim »

paxys wrote: post #22

> There are some exceptions. For one thing, despite being close to California, Nevada and some of the Montana-esque states saw big decreases in certain categories. Someone people would look at this and go wow, Nevada and the rest did a great job providing shelters and help to their homeless. I think a more realistic answer is that they just shipped them to California.

From what I've seen, it's more likely that it's because it's easier and cheaper to building housing in Nevada than in California. The states where homelessness has improved are generally business-friendly and low-regulation states.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#110

Post by woodruffw »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #107
woodruffw wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent my entire life around the homeless, in a city that has a universal shelter mandate. I’ve also spent the better part of a decade volunteering in food pantries and community kitchens. > A lot of people are severely mentally unwell and do not want shelter. No. What they don’t want is to be corralled like livestock into shared living spaces, with no privacy or protection for their property. That’s not becaus…

> Give mentally ill people the choice of dignity and they will overwhelmingly choose it. The one's flashing their genitals and screaming at strangers? The definition of "mentally ill homeless" is surely nuanced and varied, by this archetype is certainly what a lot of people are going to think of when they hear the term. It's hard for me to imagine degradation is relevant to them.

Emphasis on "overwhelmingly." One of the most pernicious problems in homeless advocacy is that the average person only remembers their worst encounters with mentally ill homeless people, not the tens of thousands of people who they've silently passed on the street.
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