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Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

theguardian.com

11–20 of 128 posts

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#11
post #9

IMO this is exactly what we ought to do. A big problem for the homeless is that they become poor in a place with no jobs for them, and then they get stuck. There are lots of places with shortages of the kind of labor they can offer, and making travel easier for them is a great thing to help fix that market failure.

[deleted]

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#12
post #9

IMO this is exactly what we ought to do. A big problem for the homeless is that they become poor in a place with no jobs for them, and then they get stuck. There are lots of places with shortages of the kind of labor they can offer, and making travel easier for them is a great thing to help fix that market failure.

With unemployment this low there are plenty of entry level jobs people can get into in every city in the country. I live in Seattle and I see people out begging to give people entry level/beginner jobs by the light rail stations and all around the city, but homelessness is still on the rise. Bussing them elsewhere doesn't help when they still don't have a home, a bathroom/shower, clean clothes, food, etc. Bussing the…

Yes, there are jobs in every city, but in major cities there is difficulty in finding housing and transportation. The cost of living is also high, so it's easy to get into debt. Whereas in smaller cities, it's typically easier to get on your feet because housing is more accessible, transportation is better, and the general CoL is a lot lower.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#13

An interesting, yet depressing story. Quite a nuanced look at a complex issue. The portaits of the homeless people involved helped humanize an otherwise abstract problem. The graphics and web design are very cool, definitely enhancing the story. The Guardian seems to be taking a page from The NY Times recently.

The Guardian has been doing this for many years. I don't know when it started, but there are some examples linked from this overview from 2011.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar/28/data-v...

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#14
I lived in San Francisco from 2011 - 2016 then moved to Pittsburgh, PA for a job opportunity. This past August, I went back to SF for a team building activity and I was blown away by how many fewer homeless people there were on the streets (excluding Tenderloin).

When I lived in SF, there were blocks that I would place money on being a homeless person there, and it seemed like most of them were relocated. Tons of familiar streets in SOMA were at or near zero homeless people. The interesting part is that my co-workers, who never lived in SF, remarked about how many homeless people were still out in the streets. To them, there were tons of homeless people and to me there were hardly any. I was so shocked that I even called one of my friends who is from the Bay Area and asked him what was going on?

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#15
post #9

IMO this is exactly what we ought to do. A big problem for the homeless is that they become poor in a place with no jobs for them, and then they get stuck. There are lots of places with shortages of the kind of labor they can offer, and making travel easier for them is a great thing to help fix that market failure.

That's OK, but it seems reasonable to follow up on whether the bus ticket was useful or not.

Otherwise it's just conveniently moving the problem elsewhere.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#16
this is the Nash Equilibrium type problem that exists with US federalism and extreme poverty. Cities just ship people around hoping to reduce their share of cost, while the homeless just become more physically sick or addicted, and mentally traumatized, so they become more costly to care for in aggregate over a lifetime. Everyone is worse off. It would be so much simpler, cheaper if society just got people back on their feet as quickly as possible with focused care & rapid re-housing.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#17

An interesting, yet depressing story. Quite a nuanced look at a complex issue. The portaits of the homeless people involved helped humanize an otherwise abstract problem. The graphics and web design are very cool, definitely enhancing the story. The Guardian seems to be taking a page from The NY Times recently.

> The graphics and web design are very cool, definitely enhancing the story.

The web design is not intuitive. Why the need to break the browser's most basic functionality of vertical scrolling. The chart "visualizing" the data in 3 stages made me think the page was at the bottom. The animation finished, and then I tried to scroll past, except nothing happened. I had to continue "scrolling" to get the page to not move but have the next stage of animation start. Also, scrolling text over background text just looks confusing

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#19
post #9

IMO this is exactly what we ought to do. A big problem for the homeless is that they become poor in a place with no jobs for them, and then they get stuck. There are lots of places with shortages of the kind of labor they can offer, and making travel easier for them is a great thing to help fix that market failure.

With unemployment this low there are plenty of entry level jobs people can get into in every city in the country. I live in Seattle and I see people out begging to give people entry level/beginner jobs by the light rail stations and all around the city, but homelessness is still on the rise. Bussing them elsewhere doesn't help when they still don't have a home, a bathroom/shower, clean clothes, food, etc. Bussing the…

Having a home is frequently a prerequisite to be able to

A: show up to work on time

B: be groomed

C: establish a pattern of living

It’s hard to go to work not knowing if your car will be towed. Granted, where people COULD afford to live isn’t the city centers, where the services are and where people congregate. And the suburbs don’t want them either. Pretty sad state of affairs - we need to provide a real safety net so people aren’t stuck below the line of employability.

Re: Bussed out: how America moves thousands of homeless people around the country

#20
post #14

I lived in San Francisco from 2011 - 2016 then moved to Pittsburgh, PA for a job opportunity. This past August, I went back to SF for a team building activity and I was blown away by how many fewer homeless people there were on the streets (excluding Tenderloin). When I lived in SF, there were blocks that I would place money on being a homeless person there, and it seemed like most of them were relocated. Tons of fam…

They seem to just be relocating to other parts of the city as formerly homeless-heavy areas like parts of SOMA and the mission "gentrify." I walk through the loin twice a day on my way to my office on market st near the post-apocalyptic parts of SOMA and see a higher concentration of homeless in those areas than I used to. Perhaps you're revisiting the parts they've left or my un-scientific observations are wrong.
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