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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

#341

Post by kerkeslager »

As far as I can tell, California has spent exactly $0 on homes for the homeless, and therefore has spent exactly $0 trying to solve homelessness. California has spent $17b on theater to make people feel better about doing nothing for the homeless.

Shelters are not homes. If you don't have privacy, a right to who is allowed into the space, the ability to store your possessions, to have pets, etc., you're homeless, and having an indoor bed to sleep on doesn't solve that. HN people who have never experienced housing insecurity in their lives will wax poetic about how many homeless turn down help because they turn down shelters, but this is a totally wrong, ignorant, and compassionless take. Homeless people turn down shelters because for many homeless, shelters aren't help--they're worse than sleeping on the street. Shelters are at best a mild alleviation of suffering for those homeless for whom the tradeoffs of living in a shelter are worth it.

The solution to homelessness is not mental health services: mental health services are totally ineffective when one is suffering the ongoing trauma of homelessness. Mental health services are a much needed measure to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place, but they're utterly ineffective in getting people who are homeless into homes.

The solution to homelessness is homes. Period.

The fact is, if we gave homes to the homeless, it would drive down the prices of housing, and that would hurt the pocketbooks of people with power and money. That's why no money is being invested into solving homelessness. Until we as a society stop blindingly trusting rich people to be benevolent, this problem (and any other problem which rich people benefit from) will not be solved.

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

#342

Post by mbfg »

labcomputer wrote: post #314
russdill wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone wants that solution. No one wants that solution in their neighborhood. Even unsubsidized low cost housing.

> Everyone wants that solution. [Just building more houses] I'm not sure I completely agree with that. Suppose you wanted to build the maximum amount of free housing as quickly as possible. What would you do? You'd pick someplace rural (where land is cheap, and there are fewer people to raise objections), buy a bunch of land and just build the homes (and services needed by the people who would live in them). You woul…

can you point to an example where they built homes and the infrastructure to support those homes where people blocked the project for reasons other than 'not in my neighborhood, or 'not with my tax dollars', but more of what you seem to imply "It's not good enough?"

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

#343

Post by freeone3000 »

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.

Let people have something. Let them have one persistent thing that they care about and care for. It’s a dog.

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

#344

Post by godelski »

josho wrote: post #162
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…

You’ve correctly identified the issues with media today. Rage inducing articles are easier to read and get more views. As soon as you introduce facts then very quickly it becomes a nuanced debate on the issue which is far less interesting because and worth less revenue. We really need some kind of regulations to disincentivize companies from producing drivel and more incentives for well researched material. I don’t k…

Or, hear me out, make similar comments as mine and use your economic leverage. We've been trying to push for regulations and stuff for decades, it hasn't been working. I'm not saying stop, I'm saying that the strategy needs to be rethought.

Here's what I suggest. When you see it, call it out. Doesn't matter if it is WSJ, CNN, Fox, your uncle at Thanksgiving, or whatever. Call out ads masquerading as news. Don't engage with them directly. Don't take a political stance. Reinforce the idea that you don't know shit about what's going on and not nearly enough to formulate a meaningful opinion (opinions always exist but opinions aren't always meaningful or helpful). Be HARDLINE apolitical in this respect. You can have politics about things that you know about, anything less is tribalism.

You're not going to directly topple the structures overnight nor are you going to be able to march into the president's office. But you are a meme, you are a virus. If you infect just two others, the virus spreads. And it spreads fast. This is the power you have at the individual level. You are part of a deeply connected web that people are trying to convince you is worthless. But we're all 6 degrees of freedom, or less, from one another and that's how contagions spread so fast, especially in the modern world. This is how you hit them from the market side. This isn't boycotting in the traditional sense, but it isn't dissimilar. Regulations won't happen without strong public support and MAJOR pressure on politicians, who have consistently shown they do not respect our opinions: because we don't hold them accountable. This is all connected.

Be the meme/virus. Be apolitical. Stop any tribalism. Call out ads. Be a pain, even to your friends, and force themselves to censor themselves around you. Don't force them to have no opinions, just don't let them be tribal and lazy. Force them to have nuance. Either they will have nuance, or they censor. Both are effective.

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

#345

Post by rcme »

kerkeslager wrote: post #341

As far as I can tell, California has spent exactly $0 on homes for the homeless, and therefore has spent exactly $0 trying to solve homelessness. California has spent $17b on theater to make people feel better about doing nothing for the homeless. Shelters are not homes. If you don't have privacy, a right to who is allowed into the space, the ability to store your possessions, to have pets, etc., you're homeless, and…

> The fact is, if we gave homes to the homeless, it would drive down the prices of housing

Giving homes to the homeless would increased demand for housing, which would increase the price of houses, no?

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

#346

Post by George83728 »

guardiangod wrote: post #150
soperj wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detox doesn't really work if they don't want it. The active intervention w/r to homelessness would be to actually house these people. Lots of these people are using drugs to cope with other problems, without dealing with the other issues what are the chances of detox actually being worthwhile?

If you give housing to mentally unstable people, they are just going to trash the place. Vancouver has been building and rebuilding support housing because the units get trashed and literally ripped apart after a week. Vancouver is doing a lot more for homeless people than SF/LA and it is still not working.

The local political / NGO class are corrupt and in bed with the local construction companies. They all live in the same nice gated neighborhoods, go to the same clubs and schools, intermarry each other, etc. And so they all profit from this cycle of developing land on the taxpayers dime then letting it get trashed by the homeless. All the while the homeless continue to terrorize the general public, providing the impetus to keep this grift going.

The general public gets terrorized by the homeless and vote for any politician that offers a solution. The politicians offer 'solutions' that only enrich themselves and their NGO/developer friends (more money for more housing!), while not actually addressing the problem of homeless terrorizing the general public. The homeless just keep doing what they do, enabled by the politicians who seek to keep them locked into their destructive lifestyles while pretending to help. The homeless are given de facto permission to continue harassing regular people in the street, vandalizing and stealing from shops, wander through working class neighborhoods screaming in the middle of the night, etc.) They are permitted to do all of this because it keeps the pressure on the general public to vote for the corrupt politicians who profit from it.

The only way to break this cycle is to clue the public into the dynamic, but most people who figure it out will move away for greener pastures, instead of sticking around and trying to reform local politics.

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

#347

Post by magicalist »

ishjoh wrote: post #263
gamblor956 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I live in a midsize city outside of California that has 3 shelters downtown. 1 shelter dropped the sober requirement trying to house those people. They had to reinstate the rules within 24h because 2 employees had been assaulted, and a serious fight had broken out that required hospital care for both people involved. It is sad state of affairs.

what city?

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

#348

Post by mullingitover »

majormajor wrote: post #313
mullingitover wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people on the internet want housing to be affordable. The majority of people who vote in elections and show up to city council meetings want housing to be an investment that grows in value by 10% annually. Building more houses is a direct threat to that investment. Guess which group wins. (Caveat: California's state legislature is slowly clamping down. Regions which aren't submitting realistic plans t…

> The majority of people who vote in elections and show up to city council meetings want housing to be an investment that grows in value by 10% annually. Building more houses is a direct threat to that investment. Guess which group wins. It isn't purely financial. After all, the most expensive land is in areas with higher population density. You want cheap housing? Go out to where nobody else lives. Tons of it availa…

> So, no, what people who don't want upzoning don't want is change. Change in traffic, change in privacy, change in noise, etc.

These are also great fig leaf talking points when your real reason to oppose new development is financial, but you don't want to sound greedy.

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

#349

Post by renewiltord »

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...

Checks out. Rich places have lots more resources to give to homeless people.

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

#350

Post by kristopolous »

marcusverus wrote: post #305
josho wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think on this issues it’s conservatives that make a solution untenable. Conservatives are going to be against giving out living space. So that kills any housing first policies. The alternative has to be something that a politician can sponsor and be confident that in a few years when they are up for re-election that there won’t be any obvious fraud or abuse. Eg. If their policy is found to have housed a crack den t…

California has a democrat governor, a democrat Lieutenant governor, a state senate that's 80% democrat and a state house that's 75% democrat, and democrat mayors in all major cities. Conservatives are not the problem.

How is policy directed?

I'm in Los Angeles and it's mostly by business and real estate interests.

Republicans, like Rick Caruso, run as Democrats because that's how you get elected here. It's a meaningless label.

They'll do culture war signaling like support for pride month to their Twitter feed but when it comes to actual policy, for instance, the "defunding" of the LAPD which just last month included 780 more police, a new helicopter ... https://knock-la.com/lapd-budget-2023-increase/ an increase of $118,000,000, it's a different story.

On homelessness, actual leftists advocate for strong regulation on housing costs, bans on speculation, criminalization of landlords who do illegal evictions, seizing of idle real estate for redistributive housing, things like that.

You may disagree, but that's what the actual left position is. It's not buying new helicopters for the cops or giving them 100 million to do encampment sweeps where they throw away medication and wheelchairs and then classify it as "homeless abatement".

The policy, in practice, is increased money for police, shelters without storage or mail services, encampment sweeps, and a blind eye to landlord and market forces. In a Venn diagram with most conservative approaches, it's a pretty significant crossover.

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