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California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

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Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#21

Post by crooked-v »

atdrummond wrote: post #8

That’s because Cali’s approach is insane. They give you hundreds a month in cash grants (some make $1k a month in SF) and require you to make NO alterations to your lifestyle. I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! I myself lived on the streets for a number of years and have dealt with addiction issues. It is absolutely insane how we’ve stopped treating homeless…

On the other hand, $1K a month in SF won't even get you a bed in a shared room. I mean that literally - I just checked apartments.com and there's exactly one listing out of 5,400 right now that's under $1000 and open to non-students.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#22

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #3

Homelessness is a failure of the Federal government that nobody there is even willing to talk about. This can't be solved at a local or state level in a country with unrestricted freedom of movement.

Let me just quality a bit further: homelessness is a failure of the neoliberal ideology (land free markets/privatization never worked, from the enclosures [1] to modern times, see Georgism for a solution [2]) and further a failure of the metaphysics of meritocracy based in desert-people's belief "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground", which simply isn't the case today, and it certainly won't be the case in a few decades when all the jobs will be gone forever, hopefully.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#23

Post by dgoldstein0 »

senttoschool wrote: post #2

Everyone already knows that the more money California spends on homeless, the more of them will come to California. It's a service. The state/city that provides the best service for homeless people - that's where I will try to go if I don't have a home. Politicians don't seem to understand this. Or maybe they do, but they do the wrong thing in order to drum up politically correct votes. Take San Francisco. It spends…

This ignores the fact that many of the homeless have other problems than just a lack of a roof over their heads. Drug addiction and untreated mental health issues are common (and overlap); domestic violence is another (related) cause for some of the homeless. Many of these issues don't go away by throwing houses at the problem.

Anyhow the main problem with the Idaho idea, beyond the politics/optics: what about getting the homeless into jobs? I don't think Idaho is overflowing with those, and I expect some of the homeless will be better off of employed.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#24

Post by atdrummond »

skrebbel wrote: post #16
atdrummond wrote: post #8

That’s because Cali’s approach is insane. They give you hundreds a month in cash grants (some make $1k a month in SF) and require you to make NO alterations to your lifestyle. I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! I myself lived on the streets for a number of years and have dealt with addiction issues. It is absolutely insane how we’ve stopped treating homeless…

How is giving people money unconditionally not treating them as “humans with potential and aspirations”? I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that adding more rules and conditions and whatnot is better? I don’t have a well-formed opinion here myself, just that most people arguing for treating benefit recipients humanely argue for fewer rules, not more. So I’d like to understand your point better.

I’m not at all against unconditional cash grants. I work for a non-profit that does just that.

What I am against is a totally unstructured program where they hand cash out knowing that 90% of it goes into an open air drug market that they make no attempt to shut down or control.

I’m not arguing for work requirements or time limits. People who are legitimately struggling will fall through the cracks. But I don’t think it is insane or inhumane to require people to work with supportive assistance and be put on a pathway to supportive housing.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#25

Post by thrwawy74 »

atdrummond wrote: post #10
rottencupcakes wrote: post #3

Homelessness is a failure of the Federal government that nobody there is even willing to talk about. This can't be solved at a local or state level in a country with unrestricted freedom of movement.

I don’t think the feds are to blame. SF and similar CA cities have set up a program that encourages people to move there because it makes being “homeless” an actual possible lifestyle choice. Even an enjoyable one.

Hmm. I wonder if you could say "if someone becomes homeless in your locality, your locality has failed them". And then rate localities/states by their net loss of citizens that have fallen "outside society". Then begin incentivizing communities to fix these problems. There's only so much a local community can do with limited funds, but while I'm sure the majority of homeless in California are Californian... I would love other states to take ownership of citizens they export/extrude. :s

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#27

Post by creshal »

jerojero wrote: post #7

It is mentioned in the article about a woman working full time, yet still unable to afford rent. I think a big steps towards resolving homelessness should go in addressing the housing market; which in California is really really bad. This isn't just "build more homes" (which is already an extremely difficult task in the state given the zoning laws) but comprehensive housing policies. Take a look at the way Austria ha…

Austria doesn't have a coordinated federal housing policy either, it's mostly just Vienna that aggressively builds city- or NPO-owned housing (and even there it's "only" about 40-45%¹).

And one important aspect of Vienna's housing policy is that these housing units are generally fairly nice, and offered to everyone at cheap prices, to avoid ghettoisation and have upper middle class families with doctorates live next door to long-term unemployed. I'm not sure how well that'd go with American sensibilities.

¹: https://www.iba-wien.at/iba-wien/iba-wien/soziale-wohnungspo...

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#28

Post by crooked-v »

jerojero wrote: post #7

It is mentioned in the article about a woman working full time, yet still unable to afford rent. I think a big steps towards resolving homelessness should go in addressing the housing market; which in California is really really bad. This isn't just "build more homes" (which is already an extremely difficult task in the state given the zoning laws) but comprehensive housing policies. Take a look at the way Austria ha…

The most frustrating part of that is the absurd number of people who see the obvious problem of wildly expensive and tightly constrained housing supply, complain about it being impossible to buy a home, and then actively refuse to even allow for the possibility that cities may have been under-building for some time.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#29

Post by madsbuch »

realjhol wrote: post #17
skrebbel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is giving people money unconditionally not treating them as “humans with potential and aspirations”? I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that adding more rules and conditions and whatnot is better? I don’t have a well-formed opinion here myself, just that most people arguing for treating benefit recipients humanely argue for fewer rules, not more. So I’d like to understand your point better.

Giving addicts drug money instead of providing for their needs is the peak of inhumanity.

Drug-addicts is something you interpret. It is specified that they are homeless.

Doing this conflation is the worst kind of anti-ethical you can be. Just like assuming other things about whole groups of people.

For this debate, I can really recommend Rutger Bregman and his books. One of his important points about poverty is that people are that: Poor. And that is their problem.

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