California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working • Hacker News Board

Post by AgentOrange1234 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 11:34 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #859

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Saying the issue is lack of homes implies these people could actually pay for a place to stay.” Or we could just… choose to house people, regardless of their ability to pay?

> Or we could just… choose to house people, regardless of their ability to pay? That solves absolutely nothing. I refer you to the $17B we spent in CA on this problem. The fundamental issues are mental health and addiction. All you achieve is making the problem invisible so everyone can feel like they did something. When, in reality, the root causes are not addressed at all. It is critical to understand that our laws…

Even if you think the root cause is always mental health or addiction (which is reductive victim blaming but I digress), what do you think is more likely to help someone recover: having them live on the streets feeling like worthless shit, or providing them the stability of a home?

The war on drugs has been an abject failure. Escalating it to killing people seems utterly barbaric. Legalizing, regulating, decriminalizing, and focusing on rehabilitation and harm reduction is the best course we have.