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

How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 285 posts

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#101

Post by Graphon1 »

ekianjo wrote: post #22
ktRolster wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every homeless person is chronically homeless. A lot of homeless people have skills (so don't look down on them), but they're going through a rough time. After a while, they pick themselves up, go into rehab or whatever, and become non-homeless again.

> Not every homeless person is chronically homeless. That's completely biased though. You can only know who is chronically homeless AFTER the fact. So this whole celebration of reducing chronic homelessness is more likely just a PR piece.

> this whole celebration of reducing chronic homelessness is more likely just a PR piece.

No... that's not a fair comment.

We are measuring it. People are constantly going through rough patches and become homeless. In some cases, most cases, they get help "soon" and get into a home. In other cases, they don't. This article is about the latter cases.

Your statement suggests that the efforts to reduce chronic homelessness compete with efforts to help the temporarily homeless. The article doesn't suggest that is the case.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#102

Post by st3v3r »

douche wrote: post #76
st3v3r wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who claims the minimum wage level is absurd has clearly never tried to live on it.

Last i checked they had increased the minimum wage beyond what trained heavy equipment operators were making. That is absurd, no matter how you slice it.

No, it's not. For one, other people having things worse off does not mean that certain people should not be trying to better themselves. For two, if that were true, then the heavy equipment operators should be asking for raises, as they now have the leverage to go to a less demanding job for more pay.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#103

Post by 3JPLW »

hackermailman wrote: post #65

Vancouver tried the same thing. The made a policy of eradicating homelessness by X date and the city bought up SROs to put them in and other housing options. The problem is once the rest of Canada's homeless heard about this they came in droves, often given one way bus tickets by police, so it's impossible to solve chronic homelessness without some kind of national effort. Utah this strategy works because there isn't…

That's precisely what NACo — the National Association of (US) Counties — does. They have initiatives on both data driven justice[1] and housing[2].

1. http://www.naco.org/resources/programs-and-services/data-dri...

2. http://www.naco.org/news/roof-of-their-own

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#104

Post by lostlogin »

danielweber wrote: post #74
ergothus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. I've certainly heard this argument from the (few) libertarian sources that are considering basic income. They are opposed to "entitlement" programs, but see a (theoretically) cheaper entitlement program as better than an expensive one. (Perhaps they also think t…

The politicians likely remember the scandal from the 1980s of Regular Joes being torn apart by aggressive IRS agents. Saying "hiring more IRS agents brings in more money than they cost" is incredibly gauche to anyone who remembers it.

A while back New Zealand ran a successful advertising campaign which invited people to dob in tax dodgers, and told people how.

http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64437383/ird-collects-40...

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#105

Post by grasshopperpurp »

maxxxxx wrote: post #84
mabbo wrote: post #42

The 'Housing First' model was really pushed hard by Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind of guy, yet here he was putting money towards what seems like a very left-wing socialist idea. But he, like Lloyd Pendleton in this article, apparently figured out that it saves a lot of money, ideology be damned. Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing…

"Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes." You could make the same case for health care. There are plenty of countries that get good quality health care at a much lower cost for the country but somehow in the US it's impossible to learn from that. I always though the US is a pragmatic country but over th…

Yes, if US politicians weren't beholden to pharmaceutical and insurance companies, it would already be a reality. It makes sense from either side of the aisle. It just doesn't make sense for the few people who stand to lose billions.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#106

Post by noonespecial »

NewCathargo wrote: post #93
noonespecial wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing cost I think you're wrong about that because UBI frees people to go and live anywhere . They won't be trapped in lousy housing one bus-ride from their McJob anymore. The only way housing would suck up the entire UBI is if everyone were trapped in a California situation where new housing was impossible.

That's the best argument for UBI I've heard yet. It gives people an option to "exit" shitty societies. Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. But if the people in power are willing to take that risk, then it might be a positive thing. One glaring flaw is that humans are a social species and calculate rank and favors and grudges almost autonomously. Receiving…

>Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely.

There's the hardest part about UBI. Its the same thing that makes our welfare systems so awful right now as well.

The terrible fear that if we give people money... they might spend it on stuff we don't think they should.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#107

Post by lostlogin »

Berobero wrote: post #99
maxxxxx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes." You could make the same case for health care. There are plenty of countries that get good quality health care at a much lower cost for the country but somehow in the US it's impossible to learn from that. I always though the US is a pragmatic country but over th…

>> plenty of countries that get good quality health care at a much lower cost for the country "Plenty", as in effectively every other comparable developed country, and "good quality" as in consistently better than the US on virtually every metric. Dan Carlin, the podcaster, devoted his most recent show ( http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-314-unhealthy-... ) to this topic; it felt like an impassioned plea…

Probably preaching to the choir, but Carlin's WW1 series is fantastic. Easily the best history of the era I've listened to or read.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#108

Post by Consultant32452 »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #97
ergothus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But bankrupting your govt because some people aren't paying their share is self-defeating. I'm all for oversight to limit the corruption of power, but trying NOT to give power to anyone will just accept that power falls to those that are ruthless and abusive to take it regardless. In this case, those same Regular Joes are getting the short end of the stick because the govt cuts programs to benefit them because wealth…

". . . but trying NOT to give power to anyone will just accept that power falls to those that are ruthless and abusive to take it regardless." This is the crux, and I've never seen a good Libertarian defense against this. Someone will always fill the power void.

I'm a libertarian that supports unions. If you can get enough of the labor force together to demand higher wages or better benefits, more power to you. I don't think the government should be involved in that. I'm even happy to support socialist style businesses where the workers share ownership. If someone can make that work and be successful/competitive? Awesome. Again, I just don't think the government has any business meddling in it.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#109

Post by tn13 »

ergothus wrote: post #62
mabbo wrote: post #42

The 'Housing First' model was really pushed hard by Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind of guy, yet here he was putting money towards what seems like a very left-wing socialist idea. But he, like Lloyd Pendleton in this article, apparently figured out that it saves a lot of money, ideology be damned. Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing…

> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. I've certainly heard this argument from the (few) libertarian sources that are considering basic income. They are opposed to "entitlement" programs, but see a (theoretically) cheaper entitlement program as better than an expensive one. (Perhaps they also think t…

> . The US has known for at least a decade that spending more on IRS agents would earn more money than it would cost.

Isn't that proven to be a mostly false notion? Lower taxes tend to bring in more revenue and create more employment.

Post reply on HN