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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

#221

Post by bombcar »

aorloff wrote: post #181
abeppu wrote: post #171

What's crazy is that we decide to spend on homelessness in such inefficient ways. A "housing first" strategy would be more humane, and pretty affordable compared to what we're currently doing. This article says $3.7B for an estimated 115k homeless population which yields around $32k per person per year, or $2700 per person per month, and that's only state money. In SF it may be more like $57k/yr, or $4750/mo. At thos…

We are doing exactly what you propose. Many communities have "housing first" homeless strategies. Some people do in fact get off the street. But we also have some "service resistant" homeless populations that do not want to live in your rule-based housing, they want to live without those rules even if it means living on the street.

That second part is a seriously hard problem to deal with because we got rid of institutionalization except in some (very expensive and rare) situations. So we're effectively requiring the prison system to handle things, and only when it becomes too much of a big problem.

I suspect we need something like actual government-owned and managed slums - basically jails you can leave at any time. It would be much worse than "normal housing" but it has to be better than a tent under a bridge.

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

#223

Post by EatingWithForks »

aorloff wrote: post #181
abeppu wrote: post #171

What's crazy is that we decide to spend on homelessness in such inefficient ways. A "housing first" strategy would be more humane, and pretty affordable compared to what we're currently doing. This article says $3.7B for an estimated 115k homeless population which yields around $32k per person per year, or $2700 per person per month, and that's only state money. In SF it may be more like $57k/yr, or $4750/mo. At thos…

We are doing exactly what you propose. Many communities have "housing first" homeless strategies. Some people do in fact get off the street. But we also have some "service resistant" homeless populations that do not want to live in your rule-based housing, they want to live without those rules even if it means living on the street.

Then figure out what rules can and cannot work. I listened to a podcast were a vet's fucking service dog disallowed him from getting into rehab. A service dog!

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

#224

Post by cashsterling »

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…

Demographics of homeless populations is one of those things that is pretty hard to determine conclusively without some serious invasion of privacy and/or violation of rights.

Take in consideration that homeless folks are under no obligation to tell the truth when surveyed or questioned and are generally aware that "migration of homeless into certain areas" is a hot-button issue (these folks are homeless, not stupid)... and we have a recipe for the demographics of homeless populations in these 'desirable' areas being misreported and the percent of out-of-region homeless being under-reported as a rule.

Homeless folks definitely migrate to places that are more tolerant of homelessness and are all around "better" places to be homeless. SF, LA, Seattle, etc. are good places to be homeless. Boulder, CO is a good place to be homeless; they even put folks up in hotels in the winter for free when it is too cold outside.

Some people moved to these regions before being homeless, but they moved here for easy access to drugs and the overall drug climate (often not arrested or prosecuted for possession of hard drugs and pot is legal). This is sort of 'pre-homelessness'... their drug addiction was practically guaranteeing they would become homeless eventually.

BTW: Governments paying to bus their homeless people somewhere else so "it's not their problem" should be illegal unless tacitly agreement upon by the two regional/municipal governments. This practice is disgusting.

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

#225

Post by boucher »

stale2002 wrote: post #104
vmfunction wrote: post #26

with $17B, we can literally 3D print a bunch of micro housing. Seems like money is still wasted in Bureaucrat, red tap and some kind financial fraud.

Well, the issue is also because homelessness isn't caused because people don't have a home. People could move to the midwest and live very cheaply if that were the issue. The true cause of homelessness is mostly mental health issues, at least in these big cities.

This is an often repeated and false claim.

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

#226

Post by sshconnection »

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?

Certain areas are inherently easier to be homeless in, regardless of local programs.

Try sleeping outside for a year in Phoenix or in Minneapolis. Try getting resources in a sprawling suburb without access to a car. It seems clear that SF, with its dense, walkable layout, access to public transit, and year round moderate climate, would be vastly preferable to most areas of the US.

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

#227

Post by NotYourLawyer »

kube-system wrote: post #214
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because obviously Houston has just as big a problem as SF.

Of course, not all cities experience homelessness at the same rate. However, Houston is in the top 25 cities for the total number of homelessness.

Houston is the fourth biggest city in the country. If it’s only in the top 25 for some bad metric, that’s great news.

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

#228

Post by bombcar »

gamblor956 wrote: post #219
aorloff wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are doing exactly what you propose. Many communities have "housing first" homeless strategies. Some people do in fact get off the street. But we also have some "service resistant" homeless populations that do not want to live in your rule-based housing, they want to live without those rules even if it means living on the street.

On this note, LA has hundreds of shelter beds the remain empty every night because they're located in "sober" facilities (meaning that the facilities do not allow alcohol or drug use) and the putative residents would rather be able to drink and use drugs than to have shelter.

There's a "missing middle" that we cannot provide in our current society. Nobody can provide "flop houses" where drugs and alcohol use are ignored unless you're harming someone, so there's nothing between sleeping rough under the bridge and being sober in a shelter.

The liability alone would prevent any non-government agency from doing it, and even the government is scared.

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

#229

Post by sshconnection »

kube-system wrote: post #214
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because obviously Houston has just as big a problem as SF.

Of course, not all cities experience homelessness at the same rate. However, Houston is in the top 25 cities for the total number of homelessness.

In sprawling cities like Houston you can also just not see that area of town. In a dense place like SF, it's harder to avoid.

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

#230

Post by guardiangod »

derefr wrote: post #206
tptacek wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pervasive belief that homeless people in various comfortable climes are migrants from harsher locales, but when you do the research you apparently tend to find that they're overwhelmingly people who had stable living situations in those comfortable locations, and became homeless there: they aren't "imported". So the "warmest place in Canada" thing is unlikely to be meaningful, unless there's some reason a c…

The majority of small towns in northern BC have been gradually depopulating for decades, due to economic pressures similar to those in the Rust Belt of the US. (And plus, it's just damn cold up there, so it's hard to be homeless if you do end up homeless.) Their populations have to be going somewhere . Yes, homeless people don't actually sit on the streets of e.g. Quebec City, begging until they can fund a trip to Va…

>these folks would be much better off moving to another small-ish, lower-cost-of-living, but non-failing town in BC. Prince George, Vernon, Mission, etc.

That's an interesting idea, but the smaller BC towns also have their own homeless issues. I don't think their municipal gov would be open to the province providing relocation resources to these people.

Also East Hastings draws vulnerable in, and has an iron clad grasp on them. These people might not want to move due to friends/nearby support non-profit/substances.

Finally, some of them have drug addictions after they move to Vancouver. There should be resources to help them exit first.

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