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

wsj.com

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

#151

Post by pydry »

davidw wrote: post #98
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…

>They want to blame drugs or mental health or something.

Because the actual solutions involve taking a scythe to property prices and rents and thats the last thing investors want.

They, and the media outlets they own, would prefer to see people dying on the street than that, but theyre not comfortable admitting it.

Hence drugs, mental health crisis, yadda yadda anything except real solutions - 20ccs of rent control stat, taxing the hell out of their fattened up property portfolios and an exercise regimen of Singapore style social housing construction.

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

#152

Post by erehweb »

godelski wrote: post #120

This reads as a political ad, not a news story. The ad is good at pulling heart strings and getting people riled up (see comments here) but does not do any actual reporting. How did California spend the money? Were there leaky buckets? How does California have 50% of the homeless and 12% of the population? Are people being bussed in, making this a federal problem? Who's responsible? Don't just tell me the governor, t…

It sounds like you're asking for a whole book. That's valuable, but not every newspaper story can be that in-depth.

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

#153

Post by lr4444lr »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #111
polski-g wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This same nonsense logic would apply to the police, firemen and nurses too. Are the firemen out there discouraging sprinkler systems because they want to keep their jobs? Even if we were looking at this from an utterly cynical, purely financial viewpoint, the people paid to help the homeless are effectively property managers and they benefit from housing the homeless, not letting them sleep on the street.

All those other professions have preventative value. It is wholly desirable for cities to run homeless shelters - the incentives are rightly aligned to make it temporary to keep down costs. Involving private outfits as contractors, just as with private prisons, skews the incentives terribly. (I also have nothing against private healthcare, security, or fire houses as a luxury spend for those who want it.)

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

#154

Post by katbyte »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #144

The number of homeless people in California grew about 50% between 2014 and 2022. The state, which accounts for 12% of the U.S. population, has about half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless, an estimated 115,000 people More stats: It has a quarter of all homeless and a high percentage of the chronically homeless who likely skew those stats pretty badly. My opinion: This is a national issue and California is just th…

That’s about what happens in Canada, Vancouver gets the homeless fromt he entire country, sometimes bussed, but mostly because the climate is hospitable all year round

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

#155

Post by bonestamp2 »

guardiangod wrote: post #109
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…

>It is absolutely insane how we’ve stopped treating homeless people as humans with potential and aspirations and assume that all they can be is a vacuum for drugs and cash. Vancouver has the same approach- warmest place in Canada. When I suggested active intervention (eg. force detox), the activists would accuse me of treating homeless people as sub-humans, that I am being cruel and inhumane and a monster, and that w…

Both of these approaches would work for some people, but neither works for everyone -- it's a very complicated and dynamic problem that has many causes, and many symptoms that are often mistaken for causes.

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

#156

Post by kube-system »

zacharytelschow wrote: post #141
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.

If it's a federal failure why are the homeless highly concentrated in certain areas?

People and resources are concentrated in certain areas

https://xkcd.com/1138/

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

#157

Post by callmeal »

It's a big merry-go-round and someone is clearly making bank.

NY -> Hawaii

https://nypost.com/2019/10/26/nyc-homeless-initiative-sends-...

WY -> UT

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/11/4/23440578/jackson-wyom...

NV -> CA

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/nevada-settles-...

SF -> ??

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/sf-expanding-program-that-ha...

And more recently:

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/15/greg-abbott-texas-ka...

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

#158

Post by mgbmtl »

zumu wrote: post #66

I've decided most homeless social programs are a trap. By locating these programs in the centers of the highest cost of living cities, we can't reasonably expect them to succeed, assuming success is actually getting people housed and back on their feet. We need to encourage people to move some place they have a chance in hell of getting out of poverty. Centering these programs in rich city centers is a failed policy…

In some cases, these are indirect corporate subsidies. After all, who will work in low-paying jobs in SF, if they have to live far far away?

Where could people move that would give them more opportunities? Rural areas often lack the social resources to support people in more precarious situations, and big cities is where the opportunities are.

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

#159

Post by sidewndr46 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #139
Tiktaalik wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even need any sort of novel new technology. We could build housing out of wood just like we have for hundreds of years. The main problem is that new housing is largely banned as established wealth that already have detached homes vote for politicians that promise to not allow any new homes near them.

Pardon my ignorance, but how do you reasonably stop fires in attached wood homes from becoming a huge problem fast?

Fire code and building code, like everywhere else in the US. It isn't like the US has nonstop city wide fires raging on for decades.

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

#160

Post by polalavik »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #18

Half the dysfunction with political efforts to ameliorate homelessness is the toxicity of touching a difficult issue. Homelessness is beyond any one term or individual to solve. Certainly you cannot cure the addictions, disabilities or madness of these unfortunate people overnight. The only solution people would actually like is if the homeless were to disappear.

first sane response - yes its a generational to multi generational problem. We are dealing with the outcome of decisions made long ago. There are now two issues: (1) all the currently homeless (2) the people in the pipeline to be homeless. The people homeless now require a completely different solution than the "pipeline" of people we need to help stay out of homelessness.

Unfortunately, politics is too short sighted to ever solve an issue that will truly take a decade+ of good policy to fix. And, as you mentioned, tackling the now problem is almost too toxic to touch, politically. Rock and a hard place.

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