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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

#751

Post by pizzafeelsright »

worik wrote: post #527
ryandrake wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even a lack of homes--its a lack of access to existing homes. There are already ~16 million vacant homes in the USA, a tiny fraction of which could house the homeless if there were political will. We all can say homelessness is a problem, but if you ask these people hoarding vacant homes if they'd be willing to house a homeless person on their property, or if you ask a politician whether they are willing to…

> but if you ask these people hoarding vacant homes if they'd be willing to house a homeless person on their property, I fail to see that "ask" is the correct approach If you own a vacant property where there is homelessness, where does "ask" come in? The appropriate verbs are "tell" or "compell" Private property is not an absolute right

[dead]

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

#752

Post by Nifty3929 »

josho wrote: post #215
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…

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…

Conservatives and Progressives alike (but not all of either) block new housing from being built.

With no data to back it up, I suspect it's really older folks who don't want the housing to be built. And I think the psychology of it might be preserving things the way the are or used to be. I'd be interested to see some data that supports/refutes this speculation.

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

#753

Post by Supermancho »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #448
chagen wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Definitely the result"? I think you might be confusing correlation with causation.

That really isn’t true either. Homelessness doesn’t cause drug abuse, there is plenty of drug abuse among the housed, it isn’t weird that some of them eventually lose their support network. There are definitely economic homeless in Seattle, they just aren’t as visible as the fent addicts.

> Homelessness doesn’t cause drug abuse,

Being homeless sucks. There's a number of reinforcing conditions that convert non-users into users.

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/homeless

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

#754

Post by screye »

bandrami wrote: post #723
fwungy wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot have a welfare state and a liberal immigration policy. Sure, if you do nice things for poor people their lives improve, and so does society, not only because we are kinder, but also because their problems don't become problems for unrelated people. But, if you do nice things for poor people as a government and open the door we have the objective truth that there are billions of poor people in the world who…

Canada has a more comprehensive welfare state than the US and a higher percentage of the population are immigrants than in the US. So there may at some point be a required tradeoff but the US isn't there yet. What Canada doesn't have is a "homelessness-industrial complex" of NGOs and nonprofits that soak up billions of dollars in public money without actually providing significant housing for homeless people: instead…

Canada has exceptional control of its borders thanks to a big USA absorbing low-skill labor shocks. The Canadian immigration system is based on points, which also means that they can easily control what kind of immigrants that are able to move here.

Lastly, Canada has a worse housing crisis than the US right now and its healthcare system woes are well documented. I question your claim of Canada's welfare state stability and its housing affordability.

That being said:

> Canada doesn't have is a "homelessness-industrial complex" of NGOs and nonprofits

You are right on that.

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

#755

Post by jltsiren »

adeon wrote: post #502
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…

Around year 2009-2010, I worked in public sector in Helsinki in the real estate department. I worked the phone handling tenants calling and needing repairs. A large portion of the tenants were people from the homeless program. At the time I did not know this program was unusual. My understanding of how it worked was that if you were functional enough and willing, you could walk into a certain building and they'd get…

> I think California also has a lot more homeless than Finland ever did.

Finland had a massive homelessness problem after WW2. Many homes were destroyed in the war, and many people from lost territories had to be resettled. Most working age men were veterans, and mental issues were common.

The problem persisted even after the "deserving" homeless had been housed due to popular attitudes. Vagrancy laws were still in force, making homelessness effectively a crime if you didn't behave. It wasn't until the 80s that the society started seeing homelessness as a problem that should be solved.

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

#756

Post by screye »

TexanFeller wrote: post #509
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…

> The only real solution is large scale construction of mixed use housing - some social, some affordable, some private. It's a LOT more than making affordable housing available. Most homeless where I am have severe mental health problems, drug addictions, or both. Some are also homeless in large part because of criminal records. Many many difficult social problems to fix before it's just a matter of affordability.

> Most homeless where I am have severe mental health problems, drug addictions, or both

If drug addicts don't have to pay rent, then they do drug addict stuff within the premises of their house. It doesn't solve the mental health crisis, but it does solve tents in public areas.

Secondly, it controls for for gateway drug scenarios. Eventually, a large percent chronically homeless & mentally ill people turn into addicts. But, if they have a roof over they shoulders, they aren't pushed into that life as hard as if they were living in a tent.

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

#757

Post by 0xB31B1B »

kelnos wrote: post #611
adeon wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around year 2009-2010, I worked in public sector in Helsinki in the real estate department. I worked the phone handling tenants calling and needing repairs. A large portion of the tenants were people from the homeless program. At the time I did not know this program was unusual. My understanding of how it worked was that if you were functional enough and willing, you could walk into a certain building and they'd get…

> 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…

RE #2, the main political issue in SF at the moment is that the homeless advocacy non profits want permanent supportive housing as the only solution, they advocate against shelters temporary group and sober housing, and they also advocate against any compulsory programs. To them, the housing provided must be good enough that the meth addicts willingly chose housing over street life. This isn’t workable.

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

#758

Post by johnnyanmac »

nulbyte wrote: post #684
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…

> 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?" Easy fix: Give them a free apartment, too. Let them see what it's like. If they do better there than paying rent or mortgage, great. But I bet they won't last more than a day or two before turning that key back in. They think a free apartment is some great th…

I like the idea, but I don't know if a place like SF has the capacity to test that experiment with, even if they did some lottery system for it.

I'm sure established families wouldn't actually go through with that plan, but they are also older and more likely to vote against those programs. the youth would take the most advantage of it and may even put up with it due to alternatives for housing being 2K/month into their college loans and the idea that it's a temporary discomfort. And we all know that the 18-29 demographic doesn't turnover nearly as much as that 50+ bracket.

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

#759

Post by WalterBright »

acchow wrote: post #714
WalterBright wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Or that government interference:

1. is costly

2. encumbers competition which increases pricing power

In any case, if the government is intervening to reduce pricing power, it clearly is failing spectacularly at that.

Weirdly, the government accused Microsoft of having a monopoly because it gave Explorer away for free. How is that pricing power?

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

#760

Post by seanmcdirmid »

screye wrote: post #756
TexanFeller wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only real solution is large scale construction of mixed use housing - some social, some affordable, some private. It's a LOT more than making affordable housing available. Most homeless where I am have severe mental health problems, drug addictions, or both. Some are also homeless in large part because of criminal records. Many many difficult social problems to fix before it's just a matter of affordability.

> Most homeless where I am have severe mental health problems, drug addictions, or both If drug addicts don't have to pay rent, then they do drug addict stuff within the premises of their house. It doesn't solve the mental health crisis, but it does solve tents in public areas. Secondly, it controls for for gateway drug scenarios. Eventually, a large percent chronically homeless & mentally ill people turn into addict…

A lot of drug addict stuff in their house is not safe for the house. A lot cooking meth RV and tent fires show us that.
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