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Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

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Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#21

Post by nradov »

cheriot wrote: post #9

We're a country of 350,000,000 people. Leaving 500,000 outside simply because municipalities don't want them around is inexcusable. Solution in two parts 1. Make it legal to build homes where people live (looking at you California, specifically LA, SF, SV) 2. Build dorm style shelters for anyone that would otherwise sleep outside There's complicating issues like not enough addiction treatment and mental health facili…

We absolutely should build more homeless shelters. However many homeless people refuse to stay in current dorm style shelters because they don't allow drug use, or pets, or the other residents are dangerous.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#22

Post by paxys »

> There are some exceptions. For one thing, despite being close to California, Nevada and some of the Montana-esque states saw big decreases in certain categories.

Someone people would look at this and go wow, Nevada and the rest did a great job providing shelters and help to their homeless.

I think a more realistic answer is that they just shipped them to California.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#23

Post by epistasis »

tonymet wrote: post #12

Another attempt to convince you that your personal observations must be incorrect because someone found a stat from a study somewhere. LA, Portland & SF– are obviously measurably worse over the past decade. Portland is a case of going from beautiful downtown to cesspool in that timeframe. There are a lot of reasons that stats are misleading. Noise in the data, biases, trivial statistics, incorrect measurement, poor g…

You seem to be saying that the data is biased, but your personal anecdata is not.

Do I understand that correctly?

Or is it that when you say "homeless" you only mean the people you see, and not all the rest of the people that would typically fit the description of homeless?

What you see out your window certainly exists, but there is a whole lot of the world that you cannot see from your window. Claiming that your window provides the best view should at least come with some sort of argument about why it's a superior view.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#24

Post by nostrebored »

cheriot wrote: post #9

We're a country of 350,000,000 people. Leaving 500,000 outside simply because municipalities don't want them around is inexcusable. Solution in two parts 1. Make it legal to build homes where people live (looking at you California, specifically LA, SF, SV) 2. Build dorm style shelters for anyone that would otherwise sleep outside There's complicating issues like not enough addiction treatment and mental health facili…

The problem is that people in the U.S. so often only see homelessness through the lens of where they live. Homelessness is a unique problem in each city. For example, the west coast has favorable weather and a history of being a destination for people after they are released from prisons or mental facilities. In cities on the east coast there is more leftist-narrative style homelessness: people who were depending on family and their family died, missing a check and sleeping rough for a bit, etc.

There are also huge problems with treating the many different problems the same way. For example, California would probably benefit a lot more from building a mental health crisis center and Georgia might benefit more from temporary housing that actually gives you your own address (so that you can list it on job applications, cell service, etc).

But in all instances there is typically an oversupply of homeless shelters that people refuse to use (due to restrictions on substance abuse etc.) it’s a tough problem.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#25

Post by AnimalMuppet »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #8
dang wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We're trying for higher-quality discussion, to the extent that that's possible on the internet. This is particularly important when a thread is fresh because threads are so sensitive to initial conditions. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So you'll allow a title that ask a question.. and then someone answers it and you have an issue with their answer? How do you pretend to claim to know that there isn't a homeless criss?

dang does not "pretend to claim to know that there isn't a homeless criss". Don't put words in his mouth; that is very much not cool.

What dang does know is that, by HN standards, chrsig's answer was pretty useless. He's asking chrsig to do better, not to have a different answer.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#26

Post by cheriot »

mulmen wrote: post #17
cheriot wrote: post #9

We're a country of 350,000,000 people. Leaving 500,000 outside simply because municipalities don't want them around is inexcusable. Solution in two parts 1. Make it legal to build homes where people live (looking at you California, specifically LA, SF, SV) 2. Build dorm style shelters for anyone that would otherwise sleep outside There's complicating issues like not enough addiction treatment and mental health facili…

What do you do if someone wants to sleep on the street? Where do you build these dorms? Are there barriers to living in these dorms? Sobriety requirements, job searching, etc? We should definitely try to solve this but I don't think it is simple at all.

> What do you do if someone wants to sleep on the street?

When all of the available shelters are full this is not a relevant question.

> Where do you build these dorms?

Near transit so people that can't afford a car can get around. There's not a shortage of underutilized land in west coast cities.

> Are there barriers to living in these dorms? Sobriety requirements, job searching, etc?

no, none of those situations are improved by leaving someone outside.

> We should definitely try to solve this but I don't think it is simple at all.

There are complex problems in our society, but not having enough bedrooms has a simple solution: build more bedrooms.

Someone is going to have a better chance finding a job if they get a good night sleep and have a place to shower.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#27

Post by aaronbrethorst »

jseliger wrote: post #6

There is mostly a housing crisis, with homelessness downstream of housing. I originally left this comment a few months ago, but: CA especially has been underbuilding housing for close to 50 years ( https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ ) and now has a severe housing shortage, to the point where a parodic response, like "California will try absolutely anything to reduce homelessness, except build more housing"…

Also, being unhoused exacerbates mental illness and substance abuse.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/lack-housing-mental...

https://www.kalw.org/show/crosscurrents/2016-12-07/mental-he...

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#28

Post by whakim »

tonymet wrote: post #12

Another attempt to convince you that your personal observations must be incorrect because someone found a stat from a study somewhere. LA, Portland & SF– are obviously measurably worse over the past decade. Portland is a case of going from beautiful downtown to cesspool in that timeframe. There are a lot of reasons that stats are misleading. Noise in the data, biases, trivial statistics, incorrect measurement, poor g…

Did you even read the article? The last two sentences are: "Still, I think we can see why people in Seattle might feel there’s a crisis. Maybe anecdotal knowledge ain’t so bad."

The whole point of the article is that things vary widely across different locales. In some places homelessness is increasing by a little bit; in other places homelessness is increasing by a lot; in other places it's decreasing. The article also makes the useful point that perceptions of "crisis" are often related to whether unhoused folks are sheltered or unsheltered. We don't hear a lot about the homelessness crisis in New York even though its homelessness rate is statistically the highest in the nation.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#29

Post by rp1 »

This data is interesting because it illustrates how few chronic homeless people there are, and yet people who live in cities with large homeless populations will tell you how disruptive they can be. In NYC, a homeless person getting in your subway car ruins the entire ride. This tiny portion of the population has an outsized impact on everyone else. For this reason, among others, society should find some help for these people.

Re: Breakdown of data on homeless populations across the U.S.

#30

Post by chrsig »

dang wrote: post #3
chrsig wrote: post #2

Yes. Yes there is.

Can you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We're trying for higher-quality discussion, to the extent that that's possible on the internet. This is particularly important when a thread is fresh because threads are so sensitive to initial conditions. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Given that the title was changed after my comment, I'd say that the comment was substantive, and contributed to the conversation.

Questioning that there's a homeless crisis when the data shown in the submission states that there's north of 500,000 homeless in the US is an absurd starting point for a conversation.

That is, _there is no conversation to be had about that question_. And any debate held by HN on that would be astoundingly privileged.

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