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I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

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Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#231

Post by camgunz »

edude03 wrote: post #137

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

I'm not sure what your experience is. To your 2nd point, I googled "homelessness studies" and here's some stuff I found:

The bulk of homelessness is a housing problem [0]. Per-capita rates are the highest in the most expensive places to live. This isn't because homeless people migrate to the places w/ the best homelessness programs either: they're largely long-term residents of their cities [1]. Homelessness is increasing because incomes are not keeping up with housing costs [2]. Since 2001 incomes have increased 4%, while rents have increased 19%. While severe illness can lead to homelessness, it also works the other way around [3]. There are many homeless families, often headed by women but many are also "intact" families [4]. People of color are also dramatically overrepresented: Black Americans are 13% of the population but 40% of the homeless [5]. It's hard to imagine Black Americans are 3x more likely to have severe mental illness or addiction problems.

I think it's pretty conclusively a housing cost problem. Maybe not entirely, maybe not everywhere, but it does seem like we'd take care of most of the problem in most places by bringing down housing costs.

(n.b. the NIH book source is from 1988, but I found most of its basic findings were corroborated by more recent sources)

[0]: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218239/#ddd00010:~:tex....

[2]: https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/

[3]: https://community.solutions/research-posts/the-costs-and-har...

[4]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218239/#ddd00010:~:tex...

[5]: https://endhomelessness.org/resources/sharable-graphics/raci...

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#232

Post by smegger001 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #159
edude03 wrote: post #137

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

> 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem There is a well demonstrated and strong correlation between housing costs and homelessness rates. There are absolutely cases where the root cause is pre-existing mental health issues or substance abuse but it is simply not true to say that housing costs are rarely the problem. Further, homelessness can cause substance abuse and mental health issues. So…

For some homeless taking drugs is done to not die of other homelessness associated cause of death. When your on the street with no where safe and warm to sleep at night you may turn to drugs to keep you up and moving so you dont fall asleep and freeze to death or fall asleep and get mugged/raped/stabbed.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#233

Post by mr_toad »

edude03 wrote: post #137

I think anyone who has actually been hands on trying to improve the lives of the unhomed know that 1) it’s a gradient between “I get kicked out of x everyday and go back at night” and “I’m sleeping under a bridge” and 2) rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. Often it’s mental health / substance abuse / lack of a support system. Heck I think there is enough movies/shows about how people fall thr…

It probably doesn’t help that landlords (and sometimes even flatmates) basically want you to get a security clearance, proof that you could afford to buy the house outright, and a commitment to rent for at least a year.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#234

Post by jvanderbot »

queenkjuul wrote: post #168
bmicraft wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it works almost flawlessly everywhere it's been tried. But sure, the US is different, special. That's always the argument, right?

Americans love being exceptional, especially when it excuses their mistreatment of the poor

I don't think it's fair to equate this problem with just "the poor", and it's certainly not fair to equate "the poor" with homeless, mentally ill, drug abusers, or serial offenders. Those are the folks I'm referring to, not "the poor" as a general economic class. That should be obvious.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#235

Post by jvanderbot »

Loughla wrote: post #228
Gareth321 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think mentally ill do not need a place to shower and sleep safely? Giving a locking door to an addict is a death sentence. As countless experiments have proven, unsupervised shelters all over California have been literally destroyed by addicts and the mentally unwell. I'm talking faeces on the walls, blood and urine everywhere, horrific attacks in the units, and eventually the place just gets burnt down. So the…

It's almost like there needs to be something between locking them up against their will, and just ignoring them entirely. Weird.

There is such a gulf between the idealized treatment for an ideal downtrodden patient and the reality of a severely mentally ill person (especially with drugs involved).

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#236

Post by glowiefedposter »

bmicraft wrote: post #120
bmn__ wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, you wanna police speech on HN? What priggishness. smh As long as the gypsies in Slovakia call themselves thus, you have no moral leg to stand on.

> As long as the gypsies in Slovakia call themselves thus As is the case with the n-word. I'm not policing anything (obviously, since I'm not in any position of authority) - I am however pointing it out since I've come across people that truly didn't know.

[dead]

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#237

Post by Hilift »

edude03 wrote: post #206
Hilift wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rarely is it the actual cost of the home that’s the problem. It used to be rare. But LA managed to make $700,000 the minimum cost for housing someone. That is a studio or one bedroom, without laundry. That is why LA City and LA County terminated the current housing organization (LAHSA). LA and San Francisco spent billions and accomplished very little. They probably housed two or three people/households per day. Now…

Now, this is a whole other philosophical debate - but why does anyone need to live in LA? I really doubt that people of sound mind are living their homes willingly to be homeless in LA. Sure - there is the crowd that think LA is where they need to be to make it - and I'm sure more than 0 of them believe in the grind so much that they do decide to be homeless on purpose HOWEVER (with no data to back it up) I'm confide…

The weather is nice, and there are public services. No-one wants to be homeless in Bakersfield. It is expensive for people with money.

Remember that 25% of unauthorized immigrants live in California, mostly in the south. Last year, California made them eligible for Medicaid for health care (MediCal). It probably is attractive that people there can get health care and providers can get reimbursed.

https://www.laalmanac.com/social/so14.php

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#238

Post by sokoloff »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #209

For n decades now (the value of n depends on who you ask) most of the money circulating in the system is money made on money, or in general volatile money. In these setups, scarce resources become useful as a "safety net" in various pockets of the economy. Natural resources come under this category. Land too, comes under this category. Ideally you want the only competition for housing land to be multiple humans wishi…

Six generations ago, over 80% of Americans worked in farming. Owning your family's farmland made sense as a means to even out the land you farmed versus the land you owned. As farming industrialized, became more efficient, and food became readily available with less than 2% of Americans working in farming. In that world, the amount of farmland you needed to personally own to offset the amount you personally farmed was zero.

Will the same happen for housing? Everyone starts out naturally "short" one unit of housing. To gain housing, you can rent or buy it. Buying it puts you "even" in the same way as above: your ownership and your usage is in balance.

I don't see the factor that would cause people to stop wanting personal housing land.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#239

Post by bitlax »

Loughla wrote: post #225
freeone3000 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marijuana usage is now in the mainstream. You might as well ask how to prevent your property from smelling like cigarette smoke.

I can go weeks without smelling cigarettes or seeing someone smoking a cigarette. But every fucking day marijuana. Every public park; marijuana. Sports events; marijuana. Just sitting in traffic; marijuana. Waiting in fucking line at my kids' after-school pickup, marijuana. It's a little ridiculous at this point. I am a huge proponent of legalized marijuana, but for real. The people that do this are ruining it for th…

The commenters here have simply assured me that allowing these people to live near me will expose my young children to marijuana smoke, and that I will not and should not have any recourse. Many of them are marijuana smokers themselves. They have no answers, to the extent they could even see this as a problem at all or understand my very common point of view.

This seems like a no-brainer, and I will continue to vote and advocate against these policies, to the extent that I need to because most of the people I live near agree with me. Thanks all.

Re: I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)

#240

Post by UncleMeat »

bitlax wrote: post #202
UncleMeat wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A substantial reason why these people have substance addictions is because they are homeless and use substances to cope. Reducing the price of rent can prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.

What mechanism of enforcement do I have when this person continues to use substances in their subsidized housing? How do I prevent my young children from smelling this person's marijuana? How do I prevent my young children from interacting with these people when they play outside?

Poor people are people. "My child should never have to interact with a person living in subsidized housing" is a rather remarkable claim.

Is your plan simply to imprison all poor people?

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