The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief • Hacker News Board

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#41

Post by FuWeiShi » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #34

rfwhyte wrote: post #22

So much of the discussion around homelessness these days essentially boils down to "How can we move these people to a place where we don't have to look at them" instead of "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place." So many people also try to lay the blame at the feet of the victims here, but drug abuse, mental health problems, etc. are not the cause of homelessness, but rather s…

> "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place." Make cheaper houses. Other areas of the country mass-produces mobile homes, trailer parks, and other low-income options. Sure, you now have "ghettos", but a ghetto is preferable to homelessness. Target $50,000 homes or cheaper, and build lots of them. Yes, $50k. Maybe $20k. These people can't afford too much. Build them close enough t…

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Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#42

Post by blacksmith_tb » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:18 PM UTC

vanusa wrote: post #33

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A program like Habitat For Humanity[1], which does exactly that, would have to scale up enormously to house everyone on the street, but could at least serve as a model. I have volunteered on single-family builds, but for big multi-unit buildings they tend to not use volunteers as they require more actual experience in the building trades (and being bonded and insured I think). 1: https://www.habitat.org/about/faq#hom…

Yeah, there's only so much these people can do on their own. But the point is -- there's no reason not to at least try to take them seriously.

For sure, you'd think even just paying everyone in a camp a small amount of money per bag of trash collected would be a short-term fix (yes, it could be gamed by taking trash from somewhere else, but that'd still be cleaning up town...)

I have wondered if cities couldn't require that surface parking lots reserve a space or two for an RV or tiny house, and the residents could work as watchmen in exchange for living there.

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#43

Post by FuWeiShi » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #39

rfwhyte wrote: post #22

So much of the discussion around homelessness these days essentially boils down to "How can we move these people to a place where we don't have to look at them" instead of "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place." So many people also try to lay the blame at the feet of the victims here, but drug abuse, mental health problems, etc. are not the cause of homelessness, but rather s…

Easy. But you won’t like it. Eliminate minimum wage and most worker protections. Make lawsuits more difficult. Eliminate all non private handouts. Remove most restrictions on housing density. Lower tax rates. Basically be Hong Kong back before China took over. Only the most severe cases will end up on street. Everyone else will have some level of income and housing will be cheap. Private charity can handle the most e…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#44

Post by wahern » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #38

nate_meurer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> drug abuse, mental health problems, etc. are not the cause of homelessness Evidence? I'd be very interested to see the research that supports your assertion that mental health/ substance abuse are not significant primary causal factors to homelessness, but rather merely coincident parallel "symptoms".

Even your crazed schizophrenic wants a home to sleep in. A warm bed during the cold, and a roof to keep out the rain. Its not like crazed schizophrenics are inhuman or whatever. And a home won't solve their mental problems. But getting them off the streets (by finding cheap enough housing for them to afford) solves a lot of other issues. They still have stress, both physical and mental. And that stress could be makin…

> Even your crazed schizophrenic wants a home to sleep in.

Actually, no. Some crazed schizophrenics simply are unable to live in a stable environment without being coerced, precisely because their affliction effects their ability to think and behave in a manner conducive to maintaining their own health and safety. And that's just one end of an entire spectrum of distorted thinking. At the opposite end of that spectrum is... nobody, because nobody is perfectly rational.

This is why we have a horrendous problem now, because too many people approach the issues by imagining themselves in these situations, imposing their own desires and fears. But that's not empathy; that's about as selfish as you can get. Empathy is about imagining yourself as another person, not imagining oneself simply physically swapping circumstances.

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#45

Post by earleybird » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:30 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #27

aerostable_slug wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco's Housing First program has been an expensive failure. The only real beneficiaries were and are the owners of the SROs. My research indicates similar outcomes in some European locales, while Finland appears to be an outlier with markedly better success than, say, Scotland. Providing no-strings-attached housing in the United States appears to do little but get rain off people's heads. That is not really…

Apparently SF housing first program spent between $4-$14 million to spend on temporarily renting out cheap motels. That's supposed to be expensive ? That's pathetic . It'll provide temporary accomodation for a handful of people at most. I understand the political imperative to declare it a failure though. House prices uber alles.

Dead Kennedys?

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#46

Post by diag » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:30 PM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #39

rfwhyte wrote: post #22

So much of the discussion around homelessness these days essentially boils down to "How can we move these people to a place where we don't have to look at them" instead of "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place." So many people also try to lay the blame at the feet of the victims here, but drug abuse, mental health problems, etc. are not the cause of homelessness, but rather s…

Easy. But you won’t like it. Eliminate minimum wage and most worker protections. Make lawsuits more difficult. Eliminate all non private handouts. Remove most restrictions on housing density. Lower tax rates. Basically be Hong Kong back before China took over. Only the most severe cases will end up on street. Everyone else will have some level of income and housing will be cheap. Private charity can handle the most e…

Only the most extreme cases would end up on the street because the rest will die. That's a fundamentally antisocial approach that will lead to people being exploited to death.

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#47

Post by Reichhardt » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

rfwhyte wrote: post #22

So much of the discussion around homelessness these days essentially boils down to "How can we move these people to a place where we don't have to look at them" instead of "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place." So many people also try to lay the blame at the feet of the victims here, but drug abuse, mental health problems, etc. are not the cause of homelessness, but rather s…

> How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place

Pay people to get sterilized. Right now our current welfare system encourages homeless women to have children - since they are immediately granted public housing.

Offering homeless men $5,000 and women $10,000 for vasectomies and tube tying will save a fortune in welfare costs and end the cycle of poverty.

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#48

Post by dragontamer » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

wahern wrote: post #44

dragontamer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even your crazed schizophrenic wants a home to sleep in. A warm bed during the cold, and a roof to keep out the rain. Its not like crazed schizophrenics are inhuman or whatever. And a home won't solve their mental problems. But getting them off the streets (by finding cheap enough housing for them to afford) solves a lot of other issues. They still have stress, both physical and mental. And that stress could be makin…

> Even your crazed schizophrenic wants a home to sleep in. Actually, no. Some crazed schizophrenics simply are unable to live in a stable environment without being coerced, precisely because their affliction effects their ability to think and behave in a manner conducive to maintaining their own health and safety. And that's just one end of an entire spectrum of distorted thinking. At the opposite end of that spectru…

Have you talked to homeless people? A lot of them just don't have enough money to get a house.

Have you ever met a schizophrinic before? Its not like they're off the loony bin / completely off their rocker, its actually pretty similar to QAnon-style conspiracy theorists. They have some delusions and have difficulty accepting which facts are real or not. But that's not enough of a reason to prevent them from holding a stable job or house.

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Have you studied John Forbes Nash Jr.? A celebrated mathematician, the one who discovered "Nash Equalibrium"? He's literally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and never suffered from homelessness.

Its not like "bam, I'm mentally unstable, lol I don't want my house anymore". That's the stuff of crappy Hollywood stories, and has no basis in reality. In most cases, any person, be they crazy / delusional / schizo / mentally sick or normal, will want a warm place to sleep and the rain out of their clothes.

They'll need various amounts of care. Maybe a few drugs is sufficient to hold off their worst symptoms. Maybe socialization / keeping up with friends is what's needed. Hard to say exactly, I'm not a psychologist. But from what I've seen and experienced, mental illness is not an excuse for homelessness. Not at all.

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Homeless people, the ones I meet and interact with, are people who don't have enough money for a home. They've been kicked out of their apartment and don't know what to do.

Maybe they're crazy, maybe they're schizo as well. But even if they are, that doesn't change the fundamental issue (ie: their lack of money, their inability to afford a home right now).

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#49

Post by gruez » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:38 PM UTC

aerostable_slug wrote: post #31

pydry wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently SF housing first program spent between $4-$14 million to spend on temporarily renting out cheap motels. That's supposed to be expensive ? That's pathetic . It'll provide temporary accomodation for a handful of people at most. I understand the political imperative to declare it a failure though. House prices uber alles.

You don't get it — I'm not motivated by property values. I'm motivated by 1.) the massive waste of taxpayer dollars that could go elsewhere, and 2.) my compassion for people who really need help, not just a room. San Francisco spends over $100,000 per homeless individual, per year. It is ridiculous that I kept seeing the same faces doing the same things for years , and of course their population has grown and continu…

>San Francisco spends over $100,000 per homeless individual, per year

AFAIK this statistic is misleading because it takes all the dollars spent fighting homelessness, and divides it by the amount of homeless on the streets. That's fine if you're talking about outreach programs or whatever, but if you also include programs that are actively keeping people off the streets (eg. housing vouchers), then you're undercounting the denominator.

Re: The Oakland homeless problem is beyond belief

#50

Post by gruez » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 8:42 PM UTC

zactato wrote: post #23

GenerocUsername wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite that source? In the past, these types of surveys are filled with methodology errors. A Seattle based survey I see regurgitated often simply asked where their LAST place of residence before becoming homeless was, and it included stays in shelters as residence... So essentially anyone who had been there more than a few months was counted.

This is SF specific, but I bet it holds true for the whole bay area Page 18 https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FINAL-PIT-R...

>>A Seattle based survey I see regurgitated often simply asked where their LAST place of residence before becoming homeless was, and it included stays in shelters as residence... So essentially anyone who had been there more than a few months was counted.

>Page 18 https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FINAL-PIT-R...

that doesn't seem to refute the parent comment at all.