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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

#91

Post by pc_edwin »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #68
pc_edwin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can solve it in under a year. These are either mentally I'll people or people who refuse to maintain the minimum amount of civility required by modern humanity. They should either be forcefully institutionalised or forcefully removed with imprisonment for repeat offence. Public streets are public property, this is no law that allows this sort of lunacy. Everywhere else these ... are atleast thrown away to some dark…

In a way we don't disagree. I think citizens would be quite happy with a solution which makes the homeless invisible by sequestering them. Its probably also the best for the health of these people. But remember how we got here. Reagan shut down the asylums because they were expensive, messy and "inhumane". 20 years after reinstitutionalizing we will lament the cost of sedation and imprisonment.

California spent $4 billion a year on homelessness. Thats roughly $35,000 per homeless person (115,000).

IMO it shouldn't even that much to institutionalise/imprison/forcefully remove these people but even if it did cost as much or more, it would still be worth it.

Imagine what would clean safe streets do for these cities, it would create such a huge rebound!

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

#92

Post by pc_edwin »

drewcoo wrote: post #88
pc_edwin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can solve it in under a year. These are either mentally I'll people or people who refuse to maintain the minimum amount of civility required by modern humanity. They should either be forcefully institutionalised or forcefully removed with imprisonment for repeat offence. Public streets are public property, this is no law that allows this sort of lunacy. Everywhere else these ... are atleast thrown away to some dark…

I hope there's also room in those institutions to try to reform sociopaths with draconian ideas about social problems. If not, I want to play Judge Dredd this time!

I don't get how these ideas are draconian.

Forget the fact that its whats the most liberal countries do, what else do you propose?

Whats draconian is the current state of affairs. Letting these people rot and devolve further whilst ravaging our cities, nobody wins here.

These people need help and those who don't need help are knowingly causing public harm. Public harm as in harming the public in the public spaces where the public pays ungodly amounts of taxes to keep them safe.

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

#93

Post by roenxi »

user- wrote: post #80
roenxi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Is it illegal to discriminate based on place of birth? It seems like it'd be politically palatable to allow places to run homeless programs that are only available to locals. There isn't a downside for anyone.

Is this a real question? How will you define a local? What happens if someone lives in a town for 10 years then loses their home. What if theyre not a local but they are a minor? Or if they are an immigrant?

Quite serious. It isn't like free movement stops people from implementing a local plan against homelessness.

> How will you define a local? What happens if someone lives in a town for 10 years then loses their home. What if theyre not a local but they are a minor? Or if they are an immigrant?

I'm not sure what point you're wanting to make here, but yes. If a group of locals wants to solve homelessness in their area they will need to decide on answers to those questions. Frankly they aren't hard questions. Born in a geographic area or owned a home for 5+ years, yes, no, yes if they owned a home locally.

How do define who gets to be a citizen for a federal response to homelessness? It faces exactly the same problems. America can't afford to provide welfare for all of Asia.

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

atdrummond wrote: post #48
devoutsalsa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of this? Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America https://shelterforce.org/2004/05/01/reagans-legacy-homelessn...

Yes. States aren’t powerless to implement mental health requirements and programmes though. It is a cop-out to suggest that states and cities don’t use the full breadth of their legislative powers because the federal government made a bad policy decision over 4 decades ago.

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by jxramos »

polski-g wrote: post #89
jxramos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard it called the homelessness industrial complex, that was from some City Journal article someone posted to HN some years back that introduced me to that publication. It was a shocking thing to contemplate but yah with that sum of money what exactly do we have to show for it?

If you're being paid by the government to manage homeless people, your incentive is to keep them homeless. Else your contact would end.

yah, and I can see this being true of any effort to remove something negative from society. What do you do next when satisfactorily eliminate it and how do you test when that negative thing has not sufficiently retreated for a given effort. How do you differentiate spinning wheels when someone doesn't want to advance and is intentionally idling burning the hours and when the problem is just downright difficult.

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

#96

Post by russdill »

senttoschool wrote: post #81
realjhol wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like... - "when I was drug addicted you gave me cash" - "when I was stealing to fund my addictions, you made shop lifting legal for stolen items amounting to $1000 or less" - "when I was making violent threats, and assaulting members of the public you let me walk free" - "when the police tried to intervene you said they were systematically racist against people of color and should be defunded" - "when I had ment…

That's right. That's the hell hole San Francisco created. The city officials thought the tech tax money would never run out. Let's do extremely expensive feel-good, politically correct stuff to make people think we have a good heart.

What percentage is the budget do you imagine is being spent on homelessness?

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

#98

Post by davidw »

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…

High level, statistically speaking, there's a lot of evidence that homelessness correlates with housing prices. What's remarkable is how mad people get about the pretty self-explanatory notion that as a thing increases in costs, fewer people can afford it. They want to blame drugs or mental health or something. And while those do play a part for many people, the price of housing is what looms over it all:

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...

Spending money to try and do something about homelessness at the same time the housing market is like a big factory that produces more homelessness via rising prices... I won't say it's useless, because it does help some people, but it's a losing fight. The housing market is bigger than the amount of assistance that can be brought to bear.

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

heavyset_go wrote: post #59
realjhol wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The majority of homeless people are homeless for economic reasons, like loss of income, cost of living increases, or lack of affordable housing, or changes in co-living situations caused by break-ups/divorce/abuse/loss of partner's income/etc. Families are the fastest growing homeless demographic.

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by Fauntleroy »

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.

I can see that you're not in California, so I feel like I should reiterate that drugs are a massive problem among our homeless population here. It is something that needs consideration when trying to help them. The main problem with just giving people $1,000/mo is that it is nowhere near enough to get off the street, but more than enough to continue fueling a drug problem.
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