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

I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

truthonthestreets.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#61

Post by davidw »

pdonis wrote: post #36
Ajay-p wrote: post #19

I don't agree with this author at all. Housing First has proven to be very successful when implemented on the local and state level.[0] This author seems to be taking a strange economic view that just because it has worked doesn't it mean it will continue to work, or work on a national level. I hate to say it but he sounds very bitter and thinks this is just throwing good money after bad. IMO if it gets people off th…

> Housing First has proven to be very successful when implemented on the local and state level Your reference talks about one state (Utah). Even if Housing First was successful there, that doesn't mean it was successful anywhere else. Also, the definition of "success" in the article you reference is that a person gets into housing provided by Housing First. But the article under discussion in this thread is not sayin…

Houston has also had good results with something that looks like Housing First:

https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-houston-ho...

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#62

Post by _mxdo »

shuntress wrote: post #57
_mxdo wrote: post #18

All of the land is 100% owned, even the land that nobody ever uses. Nobody can use it - zoned off. There are no spots left to find and build a house somewhere. You're also not allowed to set up in a city - that's homelessness. You're not even allowed to plant seeds of food, that's illegal. The only way you are allowed to have a roof over your head or have food is when you pay someone for it, and it's all 100% already…

I'm having a hard time following this. It is definitely not illegal to plant seeds.

It is absolutely illegal to plant food on random land. Even on your own land, there is a strict limit to what you can grow, and how much of it.

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#63

Post by davidw »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #48
davidw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion of 'highly mobile homeless people' is not born out by the actual statistics: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/california...

Yes, you're absolutely right. It's why there are equal numbers of homeless people in Minneapolis and Los Angeles in December.

The big statistic is right there at the beginning of the article I shared:

> The overwhelming majority of homeless people surveyed were locals, not migrants from far away: 90 percent lost their last housing in California, and 75 percent lost it in the same county where they were experiencing homelessness. Of the 10 percent who came from elsewhere, 30 percent were born in California. Most of the others had familial or employment ties, or had previously lived in the state.

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#64

Post by freedomben »

jppope wrote: post #31
Ajay-p wrote: post #19

I don't agree with this author at all. Housing First has proven to be very successful when implemented on the local and state level.[0] This author seems to be taking a strange economic view that just because it has worked doesn't it mean it will continue to work, or work on a national level. I hate to say it but he sounds very bitter and thinks this is just throwing good money after bad. IMO if it gets people off th…

Can you provide any data on California? It may just be the skeptic in me but using Utah, with its large Mormon population and climate, feels like an exception not a rule. I'm aware that New York City has done some good work, but that predates Housing First if I'm not mistaken.

Salt Lake City does have a high Mormon population, but Mormon's are actually a minority there (by population, not by power aka government office holding). Outside the city there are a lot more of course, but the city itself is a lot more diverse than most people think.

I think it's a useful comparison and resource for approaching California's situation.

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#65

Post by [deleted] »

major505 wrote: post #34
acover wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing costs have sky rocketed and vacancy rates for rentals are often under 1%. A 1 bedroom apartment often costs more than minimum wage earns. How is this not a failure of housing policy? The home owning majority have voted for restricted supply.

See SF for example. The city where the council fights against zoning laws that allows the building of high rises. In the meantime the population complains about having to fight with meth addicts in the streets while active voting this this council members.

[deleted]

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#66

Post by fragmede »

[deleted] wrote: post #65
major505 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See SF for example. The city where the council fights against zoning laws that allows the building of high rises. In the meantime the population complains about having to fight with meth addicts in the streets while active voting this this council members.

[deleted]

Are there really "so many earthquakes"? There's the occasional magnitude 3 or 4 earthquake, and everyone rushes to social media to report they felt it, but the last meaningful one in my mind was the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#67

Post by soupfordummies »

LindeBuzoGray wrote: post #37
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #4

As I've said before, there is a counter-intuitive meta-problem with homelessness. Fixing homelessness doesn't require love, or honesty, or any other virtue. Like most problems, it requires money. But no matter how much money is allocated to fix the problem of homelessness, fixing it attracts more homeless. Their feet aren't nailed to the ground on the other side of the continent... if they hear of a magical place tha…

> But no matter how much money is allocated to fix the problem of homelessness, fixing it attracts more homeless. Their feet aren't nailed to the ground on the other side of the continent... if they hear of a magical place that solves homelessness, they go there. The federal reserve is meeting today and tomorrow. They usually say implicitly (although sometimes explicitly) what an Australian real estate mogul recently…

Who's the real estate mogul?

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#68

Post by jonhohle »

davidw wrote: post #27

This guy came to my city over the summer, and he seems like he's got his own grift in terms of telling conservative politicians what they want to hear about homelessness and getting paid for it. He mentions Obama and "Housing First", but it goes back further, to GWB, and was actually fairly successful: https://www.cnn.com/2013/04/29/opinion/frum-less-homelessnes... Some people clearly need more than just a roof over…

Great, so it’s (possibly) a housing cost problem. There are now more per-capita housing units in the US than at any time in the past 20 years (and likely ever). In the past four years, the US population grew 4M, and housing units grew 5M. There is currently 0.433 housing units per capita, more than enough to house every average household in the US.

Those aren’t new units in SF or NY, so why do people stay homeless in those locations rather than move to lower cost of living area of the country? How do those cities think they can get someone from having no income or resources to being able to afford $2-3K rents? If it really is primarily housing affordability, is it not reasonable to tell people they can’t afford to live in that city? I don’t live in SF, even though my previous job was there, because cost of living and quality of life would have been worse than my current situation.

I completely understand that increased housing cost is a driver of acute homelessness. I personally don’t subscribe to the idea that it is responsible for chronic homelessness. I also think the link’s analysis of policy is flawed. Benefit to rent ratio is not a granular enough measure. There are certainly some benefits that contribute more/less than others, the requirements to receive benefits, etc.

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#69

Post by davidw »

jonhohle wrote: post #68
davidw wrote: post #27

This guy came to my city over the summer, and he seems like he's got his own grift in terms of telling conservative politicians what they want to hear about homelessness and getting paid for it. He mentions Obama and "Housing First", but it goes back further, to GWB, and was actually fairly successful: https://www.cnn.com/2013/04/29/opinion/frum-less-homelessnes... Some people clearly need more than just a roof over…

Great, so it’s (possibly) a housing cost problem. There are now more per-capita housing units in the US than at any time in the past 20 years (and likely ever). In the past four years, the US population grew 4M, and housing units grew 5M. There is currently 0.433 housing units per capita, more than enough to house every average household in the US. Those aren’t new units in SF or NY, so why do people stay homeless in…

You're very much correct that there are a lot of details when you start getting into chronic homelessness. It's a complex issue.

The link is mostly about the high level correlation, and is not trying to say "just give everyone housing and presto, problem solved".

SF and NY have been really bad at providing enough housing, and part of fixing the problem is building more.

Re: I call it the Homeless Industrial Complex

#70

Post by elcano »

This is not possible. No other country have implemented a program against homeless that works, and those who tried in the past have given up because it's an impossible problem to solve. Ohh wait. Finland Housing First program have been running since 2008?

How do they can? Maybe there are other factors, like a better economy and support systems that generate less homeless people, maybe? Or maybe most homeless people die in the cold and are lost in the snow forever?

https://www.themandarin.com.au/205500-finland-ends-homelessn...

Post reply on HN