Earlier quoted context omitted.
You gloss over the treatment of patients at the "mental institutions". It was truly horrendous and deinstitutionalization arose out of that. I don't think anyone would argue that we've arrived at a solution. Also, "the right" today is much changed from the 70s.
"truly horrendous" was worse than dumping them out on the streets? I'd say we've "arrived at a solution" since any attempt to limit the "personal autonomy" of the severely mentally ill gets absolutely nowhere, unless of course they end up in jail as they all to often do. "much changed from the 70s"??? Could you be more specific? Note that I came of age in the '70s so I lived through that and subsequent periods in the…
Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
51–60 of 72 posts
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#52I believe that homelessness is cheaper to solve than to manage.
However, it may be easier to manage (ignore) the problem than to solve.
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
"truly horrendous" was worse than dumping them out on the streets? I'd say we've "arrived at a solution" since any attempt to limit the "personal autonomy" of the severely mentally ill gets absolutely nowhere, unless of course they end up in jail as they all to often do. "much changed from the 70s"??? Could you be more specific? Note that I came of age in the '70s so I lived through that and subsequent periods in the…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment for one.
I repeat with emphasis: was the proper solution to dump all the patients in institutions out on the street?
That "solution" does not automatically follow from the study you cited.
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#54> An efficiency apartment in Denver averages $376 a month, or just over forty-five hundred a year, which means that you can house and care for a chronically homeless person for at most fifteen thousand dollars, or about a third of what he or she would cost on the street. That assumes renters who don't try to destroy the place. However, some renters are considerably more destructive than others. However, the big probl…
Wait, you're taking the example of SF, where you say many homeless people prefer the streets to a shelter, and extrapolating that to conclude that "a large fraction of the relevant population" would prefer the streets to an apartment?
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#55The crux of the matter: The cost of services comes to about ten thousand dollars per homeless client per year. An efficiency apartment in Denver averages $376 a month, or just over forty-five hundred a year, which means that you can house and care for a chronically homeless person for at most fifteen thousand dollars, or about a third of what he or she would cost on the street. I believe similar observations have bee…
It's not as simple as just throwing money at the problem and managing things differently. I've been homeless before and it's not pretty, a lot of the people who I met on the street during that time would not have been able to just take an apartment and that would be their problem solved. They are on the street for a reason and if the reason was purely financial then perhaps the apartment would help, but a lot of the…
> What those people need is real support and care. And an apartment will just isolate them and risks exacerbating the problems for them.
Not to say that I think that giving a homeless person a home will magically solve all his or her problems, but how does giving someone an apartment isolate him or her in a way that being on the street does not? (It's not a snide question; I've never been homeless, and maybe there's a stronger community than I see—but it seems unlikely that that community can provide the real mental and physical care that such an afflicted person would need, and that the people who can provide it find it easier to ignore a dirty person on the street than their next-door neighbours.)
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#56The crux of the matter: The cost of services comes to about ten thousand dollars per homeless client per year. An efficiency apartment in Denver averages $376 a month, or just over forty-five hundred a year, which means that you can house and care for a chronically homeless person for at most fifteen thousand dollars, or about a third of what he or she would cost on the street. I believe similar observations have bee…
It's not as simple as just throwing money at the problem and managing things differently. I've been homeless before and it's not pretty, a lot of the people who I met on the street during that time would not have been able to just take an apartment and that would be their problem solved. They are on the street for a reason and if the reason was purely financial then perhaps the apartment would help, but a lot of the…
Note that the pilot program described in the article included fairly intensive support by a team of social workers. I think Gladwell mentioned one caseworker for every 10 clients?
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not as simple as just throwing money at the problem and managing things differently. I've been homeless before and it's not pretty, a lot of the people who I met on the street during that time would not have been able to just take an apartment and that would be their problem solved. They are on the street for a reason and if the reason was purely financial then perhaps the apartment would help, but a lot of the…
> What those people need is real support and care. And an apartment will just isolate them and risks exacerbating the problems for them. Not to say that I think that giving a homeless person a home will magically solve all his or her problems, but how does giving someone an apartment isolate him or her in a way that being on the street does not? (It's not a snide question; I've never been homeless, and maybe there's…
On the street you're likely to congregate at points where people offer some basic assistance or there is security. This means things like food wagons, shelters, drop-in health centres and places where other homeless hang-out and you can pass a little time.
In those places a lot of voluntary help is given, workers chat to you, sometimes you'll even be given some new clothes, but nearly always you get to interact with others.
I cannot emphasise how hard being homeless and without a network is. You have no-one to talk to ever except for these people who by necessity you come into contact to. I also cannot emphasise just what happens if you have too much time alone and yet live in fear, hunger and with some problem (mental health, an addiction, etc).
Some of the people I knew from the streets wouldn't have survived in a house. They needed their contact as much as they needed their next drink, it was all they had and the only thing that prevented them from losing themselves totally.
The isolation from giving them an apartment is that no-one will visit, and if they do then not enough.
And the problems they'll have are worse and will go to basics such as hygiene. On the streets they never had to clear litter, pick up dirty clothes, and clean their environment... they would just move on if it was bad enough. In a flat most of the people I knew I believe would've just rotted and allowed the space around them to become full of junk and to also rot.
They'd need to be taught how to care for themselves. How to cook safely. How to budget and make money stretch (there is little thought of the future on the street, you spend what you have pretty quick in case you lose it. You wouldn't think of bills and taxes).
And to learn those things you'd need them to have sound mental health, alertness, awareness of their surroundings. You'd need to help them to shake off their addictions, and to respect themselves. You'd likely have to counsell them and provide support for mental health problems.
And if you achieved all of that. Then they would be devastatingly lonely. They won't have what you take for granted, there are no friends for them to call upon, family to visit, money to go sit and bar and chat. They'd be alone and desperately wanting to rid themselves of that loneliness.
In all likelihood they'd go back to the streets where they have contact, interaction and community. Where they didn't have to put in all this effort to care for themselves when apparently that amounts to loneliness and isolation.
It takes far more than a roof to stop someone being homeless. Homelessness is a state that encapsulates far more problems than just the lack of a house. To solve it, you need to address all of those problems and not just the lack of a roof.
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#58Seattle actually put this into practice. The city funds and supports homeless housing for the most expensive homeless in the city. There is no requirement for sobriety. The project is called 1811 Eastlake (http://www.google.com/search?q=1811+eastlake) and it is not without controversy. Studies of the outcomes and cost analysis has been published in JAMA. Here is a summary: http://www.desc.org/documents/DESC_1811_JAMA_info.pdf.
My wife is an ER attending at Harborview, the hospital that sees most of these patients. Anecdotally, she has seen great outcomes out of the project, has toured it and is a big fan.
(Interestingly, Dr. Michael Copass, the patriarch of the Harborview ED and a pioneer in modern medical response calls these individuals "urban nomads")
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the point was that an apartment creates a sense of responsibility and pride in ownership a shelter bed does not. I don't think anyone's saying this is the one true solution, but it makes sense, and perhaps should be given more of a shot than it has been to date.
Have you considered the possibility that many homeless people are specifically uninterested in the responsibility of an apartment? We're not talking about children or immature teenagers here. IMO the bigger risk with homeless people is treating them with condescension, thinking you know best what they should do. Maybe you don't.
Yes, I have, which is why I said it wasn't a magic bullet, but something that should be given more of a shot. If it helps 10% of homeless get off the street, that could be a huge victory in and of itself.
BTW, for someone so attuned to the sensitivity of the homeless to condescension, you seem to have no problem saturating your own speech with it.
Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
#60I believe that homelessness is cheaper to solve than to manage. However, it may be easier to manage (ignore) the problem than to solve.
Yep, that's generally how that kind of problem are solved..Close the eyes on it!