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$750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

latimes.com

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Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#81

Post by __blockcipher__ »

dooopdoop wrote: post #46
nshkr wrote: post #31

As someone who is nearing 2,000 days of two stints of homelessness since 2017, I can offer feedback that such an amount would help to alleviate basic survival pressures. But, money will not solve any root cause issues. I've been unhoused and out of work for so long that any recovery back to a normal life has become exceedingly unlikely. I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, nor do I do illicit drugs nor prescriptions…

[flagged]

> have work very hard to achieve a good standard of living where I don’t rely on others for my needs.

> Seeing as many people have helped you would you mind giving me that money and laptop you were given

One of these things is not like the other

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#82

Post by dang »

dooopdoop wrote: post #46
nshkr wrote: post #31

As someone who is nearing 2,000 days of two stints of homelessness since 2017, I can offer feedback that such an amount would help to alleviate basic survival pressures. But, money will not solve any root cause issues. I've been unhoused and out of work for so long that any recovery back to a normal life has become exceedingly unlikely. I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, nor do I do illicit drugs nor prescriptions…

[flagged]

Please don't cross into personal attack.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#83

Post by 3cats-in-a-coat »

Why ask those people how they ended up this way, and help strategically based on each person's individual needs, while allowing them to feel useful by contributing back to society, when we can just throw money at them. It's easier to throw money at them. I'm sure this will work great, and not become another outlet for corruption.

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#85

Post by pavel_lishin »

hehhehaha wrote: post #28
advael wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, I do. I live within a minute's walk of three separate encampments of homeless people, most of whom seem reasonably sane when I talk to them, and if they have drug problems they certainly aren't more apparent than those of my coworkers on average

I don't believe you for a second because you dont need to sniff out if homeless people are sane. You can just see them shooting up in broad daylight. You can just look on the ground and see syringes ontop of the mountain of trash.

What does that have to do with sanity?

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#86

Post by OkayPhysicist »

Dolototo wrote: post #6

The question is more if your fellow humans appreciates you enough to help you. On the other side even the egoistic view would give homeless people money just to have them of streets.

Failing to appreciate egoistic cooperation is a peculiar mainstay of our culture. Both the fixed ideas of cooperation for the greater good, and radical self-reliance are put on a pedestal, and often pursued to the point of irrationality.

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#87

Post by __blockcipher__ »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #30

"About 2% of the total went to alcohol, cigarettes and drug expenses — the largest portion of which was cigarettes" I'm pretty sure that the average American spends more than 2% of their income on drugs.

I bet that average homeless person does too. 2% seems ridiculously low. $15 a month total on drugs? That only makes sense for someone who does no opioids, no stimulants, and just smokes 1 pack of cigs and has a single beer across an entire month.

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#88

Post by advael »

steveklabnik wrote: post #47
advael wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a feature that lets you disable replies to your comment? I find it hilarious that the person arguing that their egregiously dehumanizing stereotypes of the homeless are simply objective reality rather than biased and that I must be lying has done so if so

> Is there a feature that lets you disable replies to your comment? No, but Hacker News will not show the reply button to a comment made extremely recently, to discourage quick back-and-forths. Looking at the timestamps I suspect that's what you're seeing.

Thanks, good to know

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#89

Post by ryuhhnn »

Georgelemental wrote: post #65
nshkr wrote: post #31

As someone who is nearing 2,000 days of two stints of homelessness since 2017, I can offer feedback that such an amount would help to alleviate basic survival pressures. But, money will not solve any root cause issues. I've been unhoused and out of work for so long that any recovery back to a normal life has become exceedingly unlikely. I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, nor do I do illicit drugs nor prescriptions…

> still being criminally targeted, so I returned the laptop in like new condition to him a week later. (The side reports regarding systemic/criminal abuse against at-risk folks is a separate but related matter.) Many "progressives" like to claim that punishing criminals is counterproductive, and the real solution to address crime is to fix the poverty, the "root cause". In reality, the opposite is true: crime is one…

What do you mean? Crime does not happen in a vacuum. The idea that people steal because it’s fun or commit fraud because they enjoy seeing their victims suffer is not supported by any sort of rigorous sociological or criminological understanding of social deviance. If you want to fix crime, you need to fix the social ills that cause people to turn to crime to begin with. Of course crime prevents people from improving their financial situation, nobody denies that, but the crime itself is not the cause.

Re: $750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people

#90

Post by rahimnathwani »

tgv wrote: post #35
ciguy wrote: post #3

The headline as written should surprise no-one. Anyone receiving free money would probably have their life improved along some dimension, even if it just means they're not doing as many dangerous things to get money to buy more drugs. The implicit assumption seems to be that giving homeless people money to improve their lives is inherently a moral good. Unlike many homeless advocates, I don't think it is a given that…

> taking money by force from productive hardworking people and giving it to mentally ill drug addicts Taxing is not immoral, and it's not just given to mentally ill drug addicts. That's a bad and wrong frame. You almost make it sound like you would cheer when it is given to the mentally ill non-users, or to mentally healthy addicts. But that's not really your point, is it? Just say: "I don't want to pay taxes." The i…

You're attacking a straw man. GP didn't say they didn't want to pay taxes.
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