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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

#31

Post by realjhol »

pharmakom wrote: post #9
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…

Very frustrating to see the right blame the left for the homeless problem when the left are the only ones attempting to do anything about it.

The left's idea or "doing something about it" is making the problem worse not better. It would be better to do nothing than actively facilitate and incentivize homelessness and drug addiction with cash payments.

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

#32

Post by nathanyukai »

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.

Because they are not going to spend it on things that's going to help them improve skills and finding jobs, they'll stuck as homeless forever.

Like when world bank lend money to country that are bankrupted, they ask them to take the money for reform and try to improve their economy, same should happen here.

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

#33

Post by crooked-v »

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…

Does that free apartment in Idaho also come with food, drug treatment, social services, and at least the remote possibility of actually getting a job, all in Idaho?

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

#34

Post by atdrummond »

zhte415 wrote: post #20
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…

> I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! Source? Because this seems to be banded around in comments without anyone sourcing. I dropped this actual source [1] in another comment, that measures 13% of unsheltered homeless as coming from out of state for LA. [1] https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/jun/28/dispelling-my...

I didn’t state any numbers. I don’t know. All I have is anecdotes from myself and others who work in this space.

That said, you don’t think even 1 in 9 people being out of staters puts pressure on programs? That as more people see how you can migrate and live far more easily than in Midwestern/East Coast cities, that those numbers won’t increase? That there isn’t a negative psychic impact to homeless people who are actually trying to get out of the system having to live around many others who are content to collect their scrip?

I’m skeptical the number is that low but even if it is, I don’t think it is the non-issue you think it is. I think it reveals quite a lot about the preferences of the homeless who both originate from within, and outside, California.

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

#35

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.

Maybe money isn't the right thing - it may reduce crime, but won't fix issues. But there's plenty of successful programs where they give drugs or substitutes to prevent withdrawal to addicts for free, no questions asked, no judgment. Or places to safely use, where privacy, health care and clean needles are available.

But the subject isn't addicts, it's homeless people. Not all homeless people are addicts, and not all addicts are homeless.

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

#36

Post by latency-guy2 »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #22
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 i…

Homelessness has been on the downtrend for quite a few decades in the US. There is 0 countries in this world who have solved homelessness by the way.

I don't think you're correct.

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

#37

Post by atdrummond »

madsbuch wrote: post #29
realjhol wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My problem when I was homeless wasn’t that I was poor. My problem was that I would never be able to manage assets properly until I get my mental house in order and started prioritizing things properly.

There are plenty of homeless people who are in a poverty trap, as you describe, but I think it oversimplifies the situation to argue the arrow of causality only goes one direction for all homeless people.

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

#39

Post by mschuster91 »

atdrummond wrote: post #34
zhte415 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! Source? Because this seems to be banded around in comments without anyone sourcing. I dropped this actual source [1] in another comment, that measures 13% of unsheltered homeless as coming from out of state for LA. [1] https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/jun/28/dispelling-my...

I didn’t state any numbers. I don’t know. All I have is anecdotes from myself and others who work in this space. That said, you don’t think even 1 in 9 people being out of staters puts pressure on programs? That as more people see how you can migrate and live far more easily than in Midwestern/East Coast cities, that those numbers won’t increase? That there isn’t a negative psychic impact to homeless people who are a…

Homeless people will always gravitate towards where sleeping rough is easier - no one wants to risk freezing to death.

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

#40

Post by laurels-marts »

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…

This is not surprising at all. Currently it’s all about affirmation and validation and being your true authentic self. Suggesting alterations to lifestyles implies that some lifestyles might be inferior to others. Would this implication end at drug use or could it be extended to other areas of life as well? When you extrapolate this a bit further you could quickly get yourself labeled closed-minded and a bigot. Therefore just throwing cash non-judgmentally at these problems and hoping the issues go away is the only path forward for many.. alternatives would be too uncomfortable to stomach.
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