Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 1001 posts

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

#601

Post by travisjungroth »

delusional wrote: post #546
hnarn wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strategy is called “housing first” and has been proven to work in Finland: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... The idea that homeless people need homes to be able to advance further seems to trigger some people — after all, most of us pay for our housing, so why should they get it for free? What people don’t consider is that when “we”, the people with houses, don’t spend our dollars ho…

> What people don’t consider is that when “we”, the people with houses, don’t spend our dollars housing homeless people, we pay sooner or later in other ways whether we want to or not when society around us partly disintegrates and additional effects start stacking up: substance abuse, violent crime, healthcare costs etc. There's a different way to look at it as well. I don't so much pay for housing as I pay for my c…

I think it’s harder for people to see it that way when there’s means testing. Also when you’re at the just-better-than free tier, but paying full price.

I think that’s the nice thing about UBI. It’s a little different to rail against u employed people getting $1,000 a month when you’re also getting $1,000 a month.

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

#602

Post by adriand »

dv_dt wrote: post #492
meowtimemania wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea, but I don't think a homeless person should be entitled to free housing in one of the most expensive real estate areas of the world. Why work full time at mcdonalds to pay rent when you could just be a drug addict with a free house? Maybe we could create free housing communities where real estate is a bit cheaper.

This idea of worrying about who gets what for free before actually solving the problem, is a major blocker in solving the homelessness problem. And not only do the homeless suffer for it, the people who have work or homes in the area suffer for the lack of pragmatism about it.

Let’s also recognize that if you are a home owner and especially if you also have a mortgage, you are already benefiting from massive government subsidies and “handouts”. An enormously valuable one is the exemption for capital gains taxes on primary residences. Or the ability to deduct mortgage interest and property taxes from your taxable income. The list is long and represents huge sums of money.

The amount of tax revenue forgone by the government for the capital gains exemption alone surely dwarfs the money it would take to provide affordable housing for many people. To salt the wound further, these benefits turn home ownership into a lucrative investment vehicle that drives up prices, worsening the crisis!

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

#603

Post by redeeman »

nielsbot wrote: post #491
shepardrtc wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why should they get it for free? They shouldn't get it for free. They should be required to be in recovery programs and have jobs. Create state or federal jobs for them if necessary.

Ok, call it handouts. But if you just care about the budget, providing housing is the cheapest way to solve the problem. Will some people "take advantage" of this arrangement? Sure. Does it matter that much?

yes, it does... otherwise feel free to send me about three fifty :)

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

#604

Post by ramblenode »

meowtimemania wrote: post #511
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've tested housing first programs in SF. https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1659972231328583680?s=20 25% died (overdose on drugs), and 21% returned to the streets. We need to recognize that drug addicts don't make rational decisions for themselves. We shouldn't leave them on the streets to do drugs, we shouldn't give them free housing to do drugs, we should put them in rehab. If they don't want to go to rehab, cha…

Rehab might be one of the least effective solutions of all [0]. If it's inpatient then you are paying for housing anyway, but without any of the benefits of stability that would allow someone to use it as a springboard to get a job.

[0] https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/02/15/opioid-treatment...

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

#605

Post by DoreenMichele »

zizee wrote: post #591
jandrese wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to work around human nature and the whole "why am I paying rent like a sucker when the drug addicts on the street are getting free apartments?" I also think that people who point out that a huge percentage of the people on the street are on drugs, so the drugs are the problem are not entirely correct either. The drug use is a symptom that also exacerbates the problem. One of the big contributing factor…

Are there any good studies into the most prevalent causes of homelessness? I'd be especially interested that are trying to tease apart cause and effect, without the study author trying to prove out their own preconceptions.

Years ago, I took a class on Homelessness and Public Policy. I've spent time homeless and read a lot, etc.

There is a lack of affordable housing in all US states.

It's extremely hard to live without a car in the US and cars are a huge expense, plus our car-centric culture means lack of a car is a barrier to employment, both practically and because people are reluctant to hire you.

Medical expenses can be a factor in the US. Universal health coverage could help.

There's no one cause and the oft cited "addiction and mental health" is largely prejudice. In a nutshell, you wind up homeless when you have too many problems and not enough resources to handle them and the US doesn't provide a robust social safety net.

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

#606

Post by philwelch »

Brainfood wrote: post #515

LA resident since 2015. I have a proposed solution that no one ever seems to bring up on here but I would love to know the HN response to this: If a big essential part of the American Dream is home ownership, and we are short on homes, why do we allow corporations to own them all? How about we have a middle ground or cap on size of corporate entity and # of units or something? Some of the argument seems to be stuck o…

So a lot of corporate-owned housing is only in that state transitionally. If a corporate developer builds a condo building or a suburban subdivision, they own all those homes because they built them, but their intent is to sell those homes and divest themselves from it entirely. When a bank forecloses on a home, they’re in the same situation.

What’s left when you account for all of that is apartment buildings. Individual people can own apartment buildings, but only if they’re significantly wealthy, and even then they’ll want to outsource the actual management of the building. Theoretically you can convert apartment buildings to condo buildings, but there are still a lot of people who want to rent rather than buy at any particular point in time so it might not make sense to do that.

Furthermore, I don’t think theres any corporate conspiracy to turn us all into renters in the first place.

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

#607

Post by atdrummond »

marcellus23 wrote: post #117
atdrummond wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not at all against unconditional cash grants. I work for a non-profit that does just that. What I am against is a totally unstructured program where they hand cash out knowing that 90% of it goes into an open air drug market that they make no attempt to shut down or control. I’m not arguing for work requirements or time limits. People who are legitimately struggling will fall through the cracks. But I don’t think…

> I’m not arguing for work requirements or time limits > I don’t think it is insane or inhumane to require people to work Sorry if I'm missing something, but aren't these directly antithetical?

Why did you cut off the sentence? What I said had nothing to do with employment requirements but about the need for supportive services to enable unhoused persons to achieve the next steps in their path to stability.

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

#608

Post by TexanFeller »

jganetsk wrote: post #587
TexanFeller wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My best friend from high school is homeless right now despite my efforts to help him. My best friend from grade school was homeless in my town for a few years(I wasn't aware at first to help). My wife was a social worker. I've had many interactions, albeit brief, with homeless in my city. I'm not exactly ignorant and I'm not sure the fellow from your article isn't an activist with an agenda. I'm also skeptical of the…

Noah Smith is no activist. He was a professor of finance and a journalist for the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and other reputable outlets. He now writes a very successful Substack.

The linked article says it is "A guest post by Aaron Carr."

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

#609

Post by RhodesianHunter »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #500
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very simple cycle. The state spends money to help the homeless. The broad availability of help for the homeless increases the likelihood that homeless will migrate to and stay in the state. Repeat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/homeless-population.ht ... > As the data shows us, most of the homeless people you pass on the streets every day are in fact Californians. > “This is a local crisis and a homegrown problem,” said Peter Lynn, the executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the agency that conducts the largest homeless census count in the country. > L.A.H.S.A.’s 2019 homeless…

Besides what the other person said, given that California is in fact, the most populous state, it seems obvious to me that what I said can be true while the majority of homeless in the state still originate from the state...

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

#610

Post by matthew9219 »

s1k3s wrote: post #209
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…

Non-american ignorant here. Why don't they just build the houses? 17B sounds like a lot.

They do. The problem is drug addiction. If you give drug addicts free houses, eventually the word gets out, and then even more drug addicts move to your state. Eventually you find yourself like California - spending an immense amount of money of an immense number of drug addicts mixed in with a few people who are down on their luck.
Post reply on HN