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

1. I know most aren't. Part of what I'm getting at is having different strategies for different segments of the homeless population with different needs. This idea would target that small number of the most...disruptive? of them (I'm really trying to use terminology that isn't offensive or dismissive, maybe you can help me out?), in a way that would be beneficial to everyone. I know that there is very little chance for most of them to be fixed. It's a bit like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where many of them become lifers. But I truly believe this is better for everyone than having them just out on the street because there's no program or solution catered to them.

I'm not sure what you mean w.r.t the "including other homeless" comment. What I'm trying to say is that this small but highly visible population creates problems for the rest. I work next to a dining room and food pantry, and the majority of people that use those services and inhabit the area do so in a generally civil fashion. I would assume that they don't appreciate the few that cause a ruckus any more than anyone else, probably less even, for drawing unwanted attention and making things harder for them.

2. I'm just talking about solutions. The reality is that a lot of people are scared of and angry about homeless people, and develop a callous "just get them out of my neighborhood" attitude. My thought is that this is driven more by extreme encounters with the small number of outliers than truly having a problem with someone just trying to find a place to sleep.

"Talking to them in a way they don't like" is a huge understatement indicative the denial I was talking about where we don't want to confront the fact that there are some seriously damaged individuals. Almost daily I hear someone violently screaming deranged things and they're usually talking to themselves although actual altercations do happen as well. The other day a woman was blocking the road and taking her shirt off. When I lived in the Tenderloin on many days there was a guy outside a bahn mi shop that loudly said "HI. HI. HI." all day. Yes these people are badly traumatized and it's awful but is it really more humane to just leave them there traumatizing everyone else (again, including other homeless people) than to collect them and move them to a care facility? It was perhaps a mistake to call them dangerous, they're mostly not going to attack you or anything, but they exhibit erratic behavior like running out into a busy street.

3. The elephant in the room is that neither shelters nor homes are going to provide relief to the worst off. There are different types of homeless people with different needs, there is no one-size-fits-all.

4. I mean, we do have prisons, and while there is much to debate about whether we are using them properly, do you accept that it is a valid concept and some people should be jailed? Or would you abolish them altogether (honest question, I can see arguments for the latter)? What about people being committed to psyche wards? It's basically that. Again, the idea is not to just round up anyone on the street as the primary solution to homelessness, but to target the few individuals that have virtually no hope of benefitting from other solutions. The status quo here is that police come by and do their thing, either leaving without changing anything or pointlessly taking them to jail for a few days.

I imagine it would work similarly to every other type of rehab facility. What you described seems pretty accurate. Do all alcoholics, criminals, or schizophrenics come out of rehab magically completely fixed? No. Fixing people is hard, sometimes nigh impossible. Does that mean we should just not try? Just leave them on the street instead? Or build them a nice house and move them into it and hope it all works out?

5. I think homes should be made available to them. I just think there are other strategies that could be effective as well. You're laser focused on the one true and only solution that's perfect for every homeless person, simply place them in a home, boom, problem solved. I think there are a lot of people that would benefit from homeless encampments being made legal and more integrated with city services so they don't feel like criminals that can be fucked with at any moment. Maybe some lockers get installed. There are ways to help them out that don't require big capital projects and the challenge of displacing them and getting it to stick. Some of them do actually have a sense of community and home in an encampment even if it's not perfect.

6. The funds are a concern because the article was about a large amount of funds essentially being squandered, leading to the question of how they might be better used.

We’ve been relying on supply and demand economic signals to decide who gets to live where they want. I don’t see a huge problem with that, there are plenty of de-populating areas in the Deep South and Midwest that could use more people.

You want to live housed in LA? Then pay the living in LA tax. At least you can crash with your parents if you are local. But the greyhound bus terminal has tons of people just showing up everyday who think they can make it but haven’t thought things through very well.

Houston has plenty of jobs and a bit cheaper rent. But many unhoused are unable to afford housing anywhere so it’s not useful to talk about just moving them to where rents are cheaper. They also lose the social services that rich cities can afford via their tax base. You would have to be deft to not move to California (or another rich city with mild weather) if you were homeless, I totally would do it so can empathize at least.

> Nothing obvious or even true about it. Using the word obvious just hides the fact it isn’t.

If you don't believe in the existence of incentives then unfortunately there's not enough shared reality for us to have a discussion.

> the homeless will go to some other place where they can live a better drugs and camping lifestyle

They should just drive in their cars to those cheaper places, true