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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

#251

Post by reillyse »

To my mind this is an example of a failing in the federation system in the USA. First off, I hope we can agree that the homelessness problem in the US is not normal and not something a developed wealthy country should have (just so we are all on the same page).

The problem I see is that no state can unilaterally fix the housing problem because if they do, the unhoused from the other states are incentivized to move to the "fixed" state, overwhelming their resources and efforts. And yet, homelessness seems to be left to the states to solve.

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

#252

Post by EatingWithForks »

hackernewds wrote: post #242
EatingWithForks wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Disallowed him is a neat framing for, he made a hard conscious choice.

Service animals are medical equipment my dude. It would be as immoral as claiming someone can only go to rehab if they give up their insulin or their wheelchair.

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

#253

Post by bombcar »

MentallyRetired wrote: post #208
apsec112 wrote: post #145

There is a very very strong correlation between homelessness in a state and housing prices, far more than any other factor: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Qz9GvoPbnFwGrHHQB/visible-ho...

But not causation. There's also a strong correlation between homeless people and parking garage density. Housing prices are high where there are people. People are homeless where there are people. It comes with the territory. Throw in amazing weather and states bussing their homeless to CA and it becomes a very attractive proposition for someone without a home. If there was a correlation then sending the homeless to…

taps the sign https://xkcd.com/1138/

There are always more homeless people in the city than in tiny rural towns, because the homeless people in the tiny rural towns move toward the city or get chased out.

It's also true that there are numbers of people in those far rural communities that would end up quite homeless if you forced them into the city. Imagine someone on social security living in a dilapidated trailer on some worthless piece of land.

And also homeless people, even the mentally ill and drug addicted are not stupid. They will go where they get the least hassle and the most benefit. And it's widely known that California is the place to be.

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

#254

Post by cool_dude85 »

roenxi wrote: post #93
user- wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Two issues.

First, homeless people tend to be much less likely to have the wherewithal to prove residency, either due to substance problems, difficulty navigating bureaucracy, or just not having the money to chase down paperwork or a safe place to store it. So hurdles like "being local", essentially whatever it means, could prove to be a huge barrier to uptake of your programs.

Second, "solving homelessness" for just one subset of homeless people may not actually provide the benefit you hope for. You might still have tent cities, RV encampments, people using drugs outdoors, etc. Now the people doing that are from just past city limits and entitled to no support.

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

#255

Post by peter422 »

beerpls wrote: post #192
quest88 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok..then what is it caused by? Provide your sources.

It’s a warm climate with large cities which provide sufficient incentive for people to choose to be homeless over other avenues of living Homeless people obviously want to live somewhere like Cali over Canada for the winter. California also provides massive welfare to homeless. They also have a very open arms policy to illegals who are often poor and homeless These aren’t exhaustive reasons why, but it’s a core part…

Your argument is that an immigrant would rather be homeless in the US than housed in their home country?

Almost no data backs that up.

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

#256

Post by jahsome »

Jackpillar wrote: post #241
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…

I mean what did you expect from an article from the Murdoch owned rag of WSJ that is essentially Fox News with a little sheen on it.

Inadequate reporting is not a partisan or ideological issue.

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

#257

Post by Buttons840 »

josho wrote: post #176
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easier said than done. Dig into the data all you want. If you dig deep enough, you'll most likely find what you're looking for... Anything political like this is going to have competing "sources of truth" which are largely funded by Super PACs and essentially just arms of political parties. Either party can "show you the data" now to come to whatever conclusion they want. This is a useful gambit to game all the peopl…

The problem is that some groups have no problem taking facts and distorting them into untruths. We truly are living in an age of alternate facts. I’ve read papers put out by research groups that were easy to debunk. Most people won’t go to that effort and will take the glossy material and legitimate sounding author as being truthful when in fact every conclusion made in the report is a lie.

My family and I were having a chaotic political argument about the policies of a school district 2,000 miles away when I realized we need to focus. We either need to talk about a specific event or general ideas about what should happen. It's very easy to alternate back and forth. If we're talking about specifics, let's look up and read the actual policy of the school district. If we're talking in general, then stop referring to one school district 2,000 miles away as evidence that it's a wide spread trend, and let's see if we can agree, in general, on the way things should be in the abstract.

Which brings me to my point, and my advice. Focus on feelings and abstract beliefs first. Don't talk about (e.g.) the specific spending bill, talk about whether military defense or caring for the poor is more important from a personal and moral perspective. Make it a small conversation, leave the paid-for "facts" out of it. What do you and I believe? Can we find common ground? After we find some common ground on a small scale, maybe we can talk about a larger scale. Maybe then we can look at the facts.

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

#258

Post by ModernMech »

youreincorrect wrote: post #134
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...

Reagan hasn't been governor of California or president of the US for a long time.

That's why it's called a "legacy". It lingers after you've been gone.

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

#259

Post by boucher »

gamblor956 wrote: post #184
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…

Texas and Oklahoma openly bus their homeless to L.A. Rick Perry (former governor of Texas) openly bragged about it during his presidential campaign. An LAT series of articles on homeless populations in Hollywood found that more than 60% of Hollywood's homeless, and more than 80% of the drug-abusing homeless, were not L.A. or even SoCal locals, and had come to L.A. from out-of-state. More than half of the homeless cam…

L.A.H.S.A.’s 2019 homeless count found that 64 percent of the 58,936 Los Angeles County residents experiencing homelessness had lived in the city for more than 10 years. Less than a fifth (18 percent) said they had lived out of state before becoming homeless.

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

#260

Post by hackernewds »

giantg2 wrote: post #193
DoreenMichele wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does California have 50% of the homeless and 12% of the population? It doesn't. It has 25 percent of the nation’s homeless. It has 50 percent of the unsheltered homeless -- i.e. people camped outside. It has so many unsheltered homeless in part because parts of the state are temperate and dry. Much of the time, it's not a hardship to sleep outside in some parts of California.

Similar to what I've seen in HI. I imagine there would be more in HI if it didn't cost an expensive plane ticket.

There are. And they're vastly undercounted. Au contraire, the HI govt often deports the homeless off the island
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