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

Homelessness expert here. This data set is garbage. HUD data only includes those in the federally mandated HMIS (Homeless Information Management System). This data excludes 1) people who don't access services; 2) people who access services from private, non-federally funded programs (like faith-based groups); and 3) typically undercounts those with SUD, mental-health issues, and especially people of color.

A recent BGC study estimates that, in Seattle, for example, HMIS data doesn't include up to 40% of people in encampments.

Garbage In -> Garbage Out. Pretty sweet effort, though. Wish the feds were smart like this.

Where you responded to a claim that a lot of people are severely mentally ill and you said it was a matter of their dignity.

The people with any amount of thought delegated to dignity are not the part of the severely mentally ill being asked about.

> And just like building bigger highways induces demand so will building more shelters in SF.

"Induced demand" is a fallacy. The demand isn't induced, it was there the whole time and being suppressed by high prices (or, in case of highways, congestion). If there is very high demand, the amount of supply needed to satisfy it is equally high, but that is by no means the same as being infinite and impossible to do.

There are also ways to satisfy the demand for "highways" other than building more highways. Like building more housing closer to where jobs are so people don't have to drive such long distances.

Often these alternatives are better, but sometimes they're not. Sometimes your problem is actually that your highway doesn't have enough lanes. This isn't a question you can answer in the general case without looking at the specifics.

> Not sure why we’d aim to building housing for homeless in the most expensive city in the US

Because that's where a lot of the homeless are because they can't afford the price of housing there. There are literally people in San Francisco who are homeless despite having a full-time job.

Also, it's not "housing for the homeless," it's just housing. Build enough and the price comes down. Then people can afford it instead of being homeless. There is obviously also a benefit to be had for the person who isn't homeless but is spending 60% of their income on an apartment the size of a parking space.

I'm not following. Here's the claim, as I interpreted it:

"Many homeless people do not want shelter because they are mentally ill."

Here's how I responded: first, there just aren't that many mentally unwell homeless people in the "naked and screaming" sense. Second, that those who are mentally unwell, to whatever degree, do not accept forms of shelter not because of that illness but because those forms of shelter are, by normal standards, extremely degrading. We would never dream of asking someone who hasn't otherwise been dehumanized to willingly subject themselves to constant surveillance, a living space shared with desperate strangers, and the complete absence of any guarantees around the security of their private property.

Put another way: being homeless doesn't make you lose your sense of dignity. Being mentally ill doesn't either, except in the worse cases. Treating the overwhelming majority like they're criminal timebombs is dehumanizing and just doesn't match the facts on the ground.

So again: what's being missed here? I'm interested in the 99% case, which includes a very large number of mentally ill homeless people. I'm not engaging in the 1% case, because I think it's a frivolous diversion from the needs of a great many suffering people.

> A lot of homeless are mentally ill, drug users and or antisocial.

1. the article data doesn't back that up. it showed most of the growth was not mentally ill drug users.

2. Being homeless might make you mentally ill, drug using anti-social person.