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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

#421

Post by umvi »

fullspectrumdev wrote: post #413

Having lived/spent time in a few places with varying homeless problems and approaches to homelessness, I find it fucking depressing every time I read about how badly - and inefficiently - the US handles it. Probably because I see alarming parallels with my own country. Billions going where, exactly? If the problems growing, and you are just sinking billions into it without making any measurable impact, where the fuck…

> If the problems growing, and you are just sinking billions into it without making any measurable impact, where the fuck is the money going?

A lot of these programs are hard to stop paying into once you start. Say you are a political leader and you try to solve homelessness by pouring $X per year into some new program. 5 years later it's clear the program is not effective. However, if you axe the program, good luck getting re-elected since you've now made it very easy for your opponent to lambaste you ("Hundreds of society's most vulnerable brace themselves as Governor X seeks to axe homeless program").

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

#422

Post by bombcar »

hackernewds wrote: post #245
bombcar wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why should government provide this? It creates a perverse incentive as we observe in modern day SF

Because nobody else can provide it without being sued into oblivion.

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

#423

Post by spydr »

jonny_eh wrote: post #419
fullspectrumdev wrote: post #413

Having lived/spent time in a few places with varying homeless problems and approaches to homelessness, I find it fucking depressing every time I read about how badly - and inefficiently - the US handles it. Probably because I see alarming parallels with my own country. Billions going where, exactly? If the problems growing, and you are just sinking billions into it without making any measurable impact, where the fuck…

> There’s no easy fix for homelessness True, but that's only because there's no easy way to add housing in modern society. Homelessness is caused primarily by a lack of homes.

In Seattle where I live, homeless is definitely the result of drug use

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

#424

Post by yellowapple »

tlogan wrote: post #339
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…

Sadly, I think the problem is much simpler: corruption. Given that California is essentially governed by a single party, it is subject to corruption and inefficiency. Lets take just example from this week: an announcement was made stating that the construction of a tiny house costs $1,600 per square foot [1]. All I can say is this: somebody is pocketing this money. I don't know who, how, or why. Regardless, it's clea…

> Given that California is essentially governed by a single party

Not really, no - unless you mean in the sense that the Republicans and Democrats are controlled opposition for one another, in which case sure, but that's true nationwide.

> All I can say is this: somebody is pocketing this money. I don't know who, how, or why.

Who: landowners.

How: by artificially capping property taxes and pushing the burden onto the working class via income and sales taxes, and then using rent to capture money that should be going to said working class via wages and welfare.

Why: because they have a vested interest in doing so, and have the political influence to make it happen.

Solution: abolish sales/income tax, replace with 100% land value tax, disburse surplus as UBI. Would solve the vast majority of California's socioeconomic problems pretty much overnight.

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

#425

Post by apstls »

jonny_eh wrote: post #419
fullspectrumdev wrote: post #413

Having lived/spent time in a few places with varying homeless problems and approaches to homelessness, I find it fucking depressing every time I read about how badly - and inefficiently - the US handles it. Probably because I see alarming parallels with my own country. Billions going where, exactly? If the problems growing, and you are just sinking billions into it without making any measurable impact, where the fuck…

> There’s no easy fix for homelessness True, but that's only because there's no easy way to add housing in modern society. Homelessness is caused primarily by a lack of homes.

How many homes could $17B make?

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

#426

Post by amadeuspagel »

unity1001 wrote: post #296

And it wont work until California can stop what is called 'The Greyhound Express'. That's what some people in other states call the practice that some states have - offering their homeless a one way ticket to California or jail. They export their problem to California, and they criticize California for it.

If there's any "Greyhound Express" it's going in the other direction: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...

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

#427

Post by xhevahir »

aidenn0 wrote: post #294
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.

I found this chart[1] and I do wonder how Oregon and Washington have such a high unsheltered population; I'm not familiar with the PNW, are parts of the states mild? The rest of that chart is pretty much in line with how I perceive winters to be. 1: https://www.thecentersquare.com/florida/article_67aeebc1-e7b...

West of the Cascades, it's mild. To the east of them the climate is decidedly less mild, though, so I'd be interested to see how the numbers would compare between the two regions.

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

#428

Post by rcme »

jrowen wrote: post #405
rcme wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I think they mean building mass affordable/free new housing rather than using existing stock.

The structures built on land usually depreciate over time. It’s the land value that appreciates. So building new stock would still increase demand for land which would increase prices everywhere.

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

#429

Post by RavlaAlvar »

gre wrote: post #113
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.

Maybe China is on to something. Lifting 800 Million People Out of Poverty – New Report Looks at Lessons from China’s Experience https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/l... 90% of families in China own their own home https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7546956/

Sure. Common Chinese factory workers live in 6-12 people dormitory. Homeless people get evicted from the capital city. Major city have rule in place to prevent non local people buying property, Let’s do that.

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

#430

Post by wil421 »

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…

There’s people on this forum who are homeless and quite popular. This person got quite angry when I asked about force detox. They said they didn’t want to have stipulations put on sober housing and would rather be homeless. My comment was greeted with hostility from many people.
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