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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

#711

Post by tiahura »

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.

Lax law enforcement. When we used to have vagrancy laws homelessness had a way of working itself out.

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

#712

Post by jahewson »

zhte415 wrote: post #20
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…

> I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! Source? Because this seems to be banded around in comments without anyone sourcing. I dropped this actual source [1] in another comment, that measures 13% of unsheltered homeless as coming from out of state for LA. [1] https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/jun/28/dispelling-my...

This is politics masquerading as facts.

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

#713

Post by da39a3ee »

nwienert wrote: post #72
zhte415 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! Source? Because this seems to be banded around in comments without anyone sourcing. I dropped this actual source [1] in another comment, that measures 13% of unsheltered homeless as coming from out of state for LA. [1] https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/jun/28/dispelling-my...

On my street in the Mission there were mostly illegal immigrants living on the sidewalk in tents, they told me as much.

Even supposing that is true, which seems very unlikely, it is clearly untrue of the SF homeless population in general and of the East Bay homeless population.

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

#714

Post by acchow »

WalterBright wrote: post #664
acchow wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages do increase, but then it's all spent on housing. And lately, also spent on healthcare.

The incredible cost increases for healthcare started in 1968 with government interference in it. The more interference, the more it costs. The same effect happens with every industry the government massively interferes with. For example, education, and real estate. Look what happens in industries that experience very low levels of government interference, like software. Costs trend to zero.

This demonstrates that the government will intervene in industries that have too much pricing power, right? Since the people demand help from their political representatives?

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

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Post by reillyse »

shuckles wrote: post #403
abeppu wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a binary. SF gets described as 'housing first', but it certainly does not act like it. In SF, we actually have unspent funds from our 2018 "Prop C" ballot initiative which dedicated funding to specific categories, the largest of which was for permanent housing. I.e. there has been money available for 5 years for permanent housing, but the city is not willing to buy available units -- it will only consider de…

Most of the $5k/tent was in the services required for a high-needs population. As someone who has been impacted by a building set on fire by a meth addicted neighbor, simply placing high needs homeless people who often have serious mental health or drug abuse issues, in apartments isn't the end of the story. In many cases, it makes the lives of other residents of the building worse, as evidenced by the issues (includ…

You seem to be conflating drug use with homelessness. Lots of unhoused people are not on drugs and lots (the vast, vast majority) of drug users have homes.

I think conflating the two is not productive.

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

#716

Post by mytake »

dbcurtis wrote: post #666
kelnos wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wondered a lot why California seems to be failing at the homeless problem. My take on it (after living in SF for many years): 1. Many homeless people do have mental illnesses and/or drug addiction problems (for some, this is the result of their homelessness, for others it's in part the cause). California is very much against involuntarily putting people in psychiatric hospitals or drug treatment programs. This is…

> Many homeless people do have mental illnesses and/or drug addiction problems (for some, this is the result of their homelessness, for others it's in part the cause). California is very much against involuntarily putting people in psychiatric hospitals or drug treatment programs. This largely due to backlash over abuses from decades ago, where people were put into horrible conditions in mental institutions. This. I…

I would assume it is because providing compassion would win over protecting taxpayer from abuse everytime. Providing compassion is taxpayer money. Preventing abuse is self motivated. Also If giver is 100% compassionate no one would dare complain even if they are against it. If 1 abuser is denied due to abuse the whole govt will get blamed for not being compassionate enough without rock solid lawyer/political level proof

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

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Post by Brainfood »

philwelch wrote: post #606
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. Indivi…

I don’t get into a lot of conspiracy theory scenarios. I also don’t think it’s even much of a conspiracy - when the recession hits and people can’t afford housing they default on mortgages. Corporations buy them and turn back into renters. I’ve seen stats that say that happened to 5% of the population during the last 10-15 years.

Also there’s stuff like this:

Over Two Thirds of All Los Angeles Rentals Are Now Owned by Speculative Investment Vehicles https://knock-la.com/los-angeles-rental-speculation-4022d16a...

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

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Post by a_wild_dandan »

TehShrike wrote: post #582
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…

My understanding is that most houses in the US are owned by the people who live in them.

Moreover, it's irrelevant. Demand vastly overshadows supply, hence the insane prices. That's it. There isn't remotely enough of a basic human need. Everything else is window dressing until we address that fundamental, econ. 101 problem.

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

#719

Post by killdozer »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #529
hotpotamus wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What jobs do you imagine these people will be compelled to do?

Most homeless people are just normal people who dont have a home. They can pick up garbage or dig ditches or plant trees at the very least. Plenty of menial labor that needs to be done.

These are people not a free source of labor.

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

#720

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

aeternum wrote: post #683
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…

The way 'housing first' has been implemented in SF is terrible. It is operated as a lottery helping a very tiny percentage of the homeless with a house/apt worth $1mil+. Those numbers will never solve the problem. If I saw a reasonable housing first program where it actually provides cost-efficient housing for all that need it, I'd be a strong proponent. The current system is not that, it's incredibly unfair, a tax-p…

It's unfortunate that some of the smallest, most expensive, most mismanaged and ideological 7x7 mile real estate in the US is being used as the dumpster for humans in need of serious medical attention and societal support.

SF can barely build a public toilet without it turning into a taxpayer trough feeding frenzy, so expecting it to be the Mecca of the homeless, the addicted and the downtrodden is comedic at best, and tragic at worst. Even if someone were to get back on their feet from addiction, SF is the last place where they would want to try to live, given the astronomical cost of everything, unless they're going to suddenly become senior ML engineers who can afford a downpayment on a $1M 500sqft cockroach shoebox.

Most people with regular jobs can't afford to live in SF... think school teachers driving in every morning from Sacramento, and that's without fighting every day against a crippling meth addiction.

There's practically infinite room in Bakersfield, Stockton, Lancaster, Fresno, housing is more affordable, the local governance more amenable, the cost of living night and day, but nobody in policy will ever be able to pull that off, so we'll be stuck with the current status quo that nobody is happy with.

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