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

Stop comparing the United States to small European States. The dynamics of low population largely homogeneous States and a completely multicultural State with over three hundred million people are not comparable. The problem and its solutions can not be and will not be the same.

What are those incentives? Asking as someone who never felt any desire to use. (Also never been to SF or US for that matter.)

> almost no incentives not to

Isn’t money a pretty big incentive?

Meanwhile, there are many people in cali that get free housing but are stuck as meth addicts or something because why not? And a lot of people born in cali also lose their housing status. If it was realistic to get housing by simply finding a job and working hard, free housing can be made to work, but that isn't reality unless you make six figures. Look at rental ads in LA, I was shocked to see what is the price of an expensive apartment in most other cities, in LA that gets you a bed, not even a room, just a bed.

1) They're a danger to everyone including other homeless.

2) They have an outsize impact on people's frustration with and perception of homeless people. Walking down the street and worrying about being accosted by the guy yelling at himself is a powerfully bad experience. Walking by a couple guys in tents or sleeping bags may not be everyone's cup of tea but it's not going to emotionally scar anyone.

3) This segment is the hardest for us to confront on a human level, we want to believe in rehabilitation, that we can help, so the resources (shelters/homes) are designed for the most capable of homeless, kind of ignoring the elephant in the room.

4) Have there been mental health hospitals made specifically for the homeless? It seems that the most mentally ill of them basically need intensive care to even have a shot at some degree of rehabilitation.* Unlike a shelter with services this would be involuntary and they would not be able to leave until meeting some criteria. May be a little draconian but it beats constant interactions with police and going in and out of jail.

5) A lot of the "regular" homeless people I encounter don't really seem that interested in working their way towards a job and a house. They seem fairly content with their lifestyle. With the most viscerally troubling aspect of homelessness being mitigated, maybe we can push more toward normalization: sanction the tent city, provide some light services/development, give them a bit of dignity and the peace of mind of not being a criminal. Seems a lot cheaper and more effective than building shelters or houses and relocating etc. People would probably hang out/sleep in the street/sidewalk less, and those that do could be ushered to the acceptable area instead of the farcical "you can't be here...or anywhere, technically, but just move somewhere else for now."

Does this make any sense? Has stuff like this been tried?

* In general I think this is one of the big issues with homelessness - a lot of them need care more than anything else. As in someone literally holding their hand every day, preventing them from regressing to their habits, and (with infinite patience) constantly reassuring and rebuilding their psyche, until their brain is sufficiently rewired (a timespan measured in years). The problem is that the number of people that could use this kind of care is far greater the number of people that are willing/able to provide it, but developing programs around that could be an effective use of the funding.