how prevalent is the phenomena of states 'offloading' the homeless to California? With free movement between states, I can understand the rationale of unscrupulous political leaders to encourage relocation rather than solve the problem locally. Is this considered an acceptable theory?
It's probably also much better to be homeless in California than somewhere that experiences harsh winters.
Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
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Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#12how prevalent is the phenomena of states 'offloading' the homeless to California? With free movement between states, I can understand the rationale of unscrupulous political leaders to encourage relocation rather than solve the problem locally. Is this considered an acceptable theory?
Edit:
The number is 8% out of state: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28974050
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#13how prevalent is the phenomena of states 'offloading' the homeless to California? With free movement between states, I can understand the rationale of unscrupulous political leaders to encourage relocation rather than solve the problem locally. Is this considered an acceptable theory?
It's probably also much better to be homeless in California than somewhere that experiences harsh winters.
Seattle and Portland and Vancouver CA are all overran by the homeless. None of these cities are fun to be in during the winter.
Hell, SF bay area most likely has fewer visibly homeless per capita than the other listed cities.
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's probably also much better to be homeless in California than somewhere that experiences harsh winters.
Than why the frick is the whole PNW experiencing this problem. Seattle and Portland and Vancouver CA are all overran by the homeless. None of these cities are fun to be in during the winter. Hell, SF bay area most likely has fewer visibly homeless per capita than the other listed cities.
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#15how prevalent is the phenomena of states 'offloading' the homeless to California? With free movement between states, I can understand the rationale of unscrupulous political leaders to encourage relocation rather than solve the problem locally. Is this considered an acceptable theory?
-California is a desirable place to live, with the main limiting factor being cost of real estate
-People who are already in tenuous living situations move to California because "Its not meaningfully more expensive to couch surf/share an apartment with 10 people near a beach than what I'm doing here in X current location" (this is why surveys asking people if they were homeless before moving to California are hard to rely on - they probably weren't, but that still doesn't mean they weren't destined to become homeless by moving to CA, a place they can't afford)
-The above draw is compounded by California's extremely deep and varied drug market (LA/SF are the epicenter of wealthy working professionals with hard drug habits, which then subsidizes poorer drug users)
-Eventually, the tenuous living situation becomes no living situation and the person ends up on the streets
-The person, now in homelessness (and potentially drug addiction) realizes their life won't get better by moving back to where they were from, so they stay (especially since they would receive so many more services in CA than their original location)
Any of the "Other location buses the homeless to CA" is mostly political theater relative to the scale of what happens above.
Welcome to the New Hotel California where the only solution is to dramatically reduce real estate costs in California (good luck there) or build enough public housing that is marginally better than the above 'tenuous living arrangements' (this is why certain people call for more SRO-style housing)
The song is a bit more depressing in that lens
EDIT: This is not to say that native Californians don't become homeless. Just that when people are from elsewhere, they usually weren't homeless before moving to CA.
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#16how prevalent is the phenomena of states 'offloading' the homeless to California? With free movement between states, I can understand the rationale of unscrupulous political leaders to encourage relocation rather than solve the problem locally. Is this considered an acceptable theory?
The homeless “migrate” to California on their own accord. I know this from back in 2008 when thousands of homeless would migrate from colder parts of the country into Southern California for the winter.
And of course they'll stay in California. The transit systems often have no enforcement at all and allow them to freely get around cities. There are already services for large homeless populations. The police don't generally do more than say "go away". They probably know somebody in the community who is already here. And the people who live there are unfortunately so used to the stuation it's unlikely anything impactful will ever actually be done about it.
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#17how prevalent is the phenomena of states 'offloading' the homeless to California? With free movement between states, I can understand the rationale of unscrupulous political leaders to encourage relocation rather than solve the problem locally. Is this considered an acceptable theory?
What actually tends to happen is the following: -California is a desirable place to live, with the main limiting factor being cost of real estate -People who are already in tenuous living situations move to California because "Its not meaningfully more expensive to couch surf/share an apartment with 10 people near a beach than what I'm doing here in X current location" (this is why surveys asking people if they were…
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nevada did this to California a couple years ago actually [0][1]. That said, a number of major em cities such as New York do offer homeless people the choice to accept a lump sum and a ticket to the city of their choice IN RETURN for them being ineligible to homeless services in the source city [2][3]. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mental-patients/san-f... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-p…
Wow. Thank you very much for the links, I guess I was completely misinformed with regards to this already being a policy for some local governments.
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19960322&slug...
Atlanta also dealt with homelessness by criminalizing it and putting folks in jail:
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/01/us/as-olympics-approach-h...
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#19how prevalent is the phenomena of states 'offloading' the homeless to California? With free movement between states, I can understand the rationale of unscrupulous political leaders to encourage relocation rather than solve the problem locally. Is this considered an acceptable theory?
I mean a similar meme exists too with Vancouver being assumed to be a "dumping ground" for Canada's homeless too, but when you look at the data that the homeless count polling accumulates, where they ask the homeless all sorts of questions, the trends aren't really apparent. I presume the same for California.
It's less that homeless people are moving to places, and more that people are constantly moving to places, and then becoming homeless.
California is one of the economic drivers of the United States. People are moving there all the time. Of course we'd expect economically marginal people to try to move to improve their situation, just as we'd expect a young tech worker to move to California for the same.
Thinking about it the other way, if someone was poor with zero opportunities in some rural town with no jobs would it make any sense to stay there instead of moving to a larger city with more job potential? Of course not.
On occasion you hear some story about some small town mayor busing some homeless person out of their town to the big city, but on closer inspection seems often the case that there's a fair circumstance here of helping someone that can't afford travel get in contact with a relative.
Re: Homelessness has risen 70% in California’s capital.Inside the staggering emerg
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's probably also much better to be homeless in California than somewhere that experiences harsh winters.
Indeed, being homeless in Minnesota in the winter is a death sentence.