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California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

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Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#51

Post by zumu »

zhte415 wrote: post #12
senttoschool wrote: post #2

Everyone already knows that the more money California spends on homeless, the more of them will come to California. It's a service. The state/city that provides the best service for homeless people - that's where I will try to go if I don't have a home. Politicians don't seem to understand this. Or maybe they do, but they do the wrong thing in order to drum up politically correct votes. Take San Francisco. It spends…

> Martin cited a study from May 2018 by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which found 75 percent of the people on the street in Los Angeles County had a home in that same county before they lost it. It also showed that 65 percent of the unsheltered homeless had lived in that county for at least 20 years. Only 13 percent were from out of state. Source: https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/jun/28/dispelli…

Those stats are outdated and generally somewhat dubious—what was the methodology here? Nonetheless, it is clear CA generates a lot of homeless. The linked study from 2018 claimed 52,765 homeless in LA county, while the count by the same group performed in 2022 tallied 69,144. Either there's a been a massive influx of people on the streets or their methodology is improving. Perhaps both. Pretty wild to think about.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#52

Post by jxramos »

ugjka wrote: post #15

I heard it is so bad that foreigners regret their vacation trips to California, particularly San Francisco

I've seen street interviews on Youtube or maybe Twitter where they come up to tourists and ask them how they're enjoying their trip and catch any feedback. Sad replies.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#53

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

crooked-v wrote: post #21
atdrummond wrote: post #8

That’s because Cali’s approach is insane. They give you hundreds a month in cash grants (some make $1k a month in SF) and require you to make NO alterations to your lifestyle. I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! I myself lived on the streets for a number of years and have dealt with addiction issues. It is absolutely insane how we’ve stopped treating homeless…

On the other hand, $1K a month in SF won't even get you a bed in a shared room. I mean that literally - I just checked apartments.com and there's exactly one listing out of 5,400 right now that's under $1000 and open to non-students.

Where do you get the idea apartments.com is a source that can inform you about the market price of shared housing?

As a long-time participant in the bay area rental housing market, $1000 is enough to rent a bedroom in many homes, but how would such a listing get onto apartments.com?

If you’re paying more than $1000 to share a bedroom, you’re getting ripped off.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#54

Post by pc_edwin »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #18

Half the dysfunction with political efforts to ameliorate homelessness is the toxicity of touching a difficult issue. Homelessness is beyond any one term or individual to solve. Certainly you cannot cure the addictions, disabilities or madness of these unfortunate people overnight. The only solution people would actually like is if the homeless were to disappear.

I can solve it in under a year.

These are either mentally I'll people or people who refuse to maintain the minimum amount of civility required by modern humanity.

They should either be forcefully institutionalised or forcefully removed with imprisonment for repeat offence.

Public streets are public property, this is no law that allows this sort of lunacy. Everywhere else these ... are atleast thrown away to some dark corner under a bridge or street.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#55

Post by atdrummond »

thrwawy74 wrote: post #25
atdrummond wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the feds are to blame. SF and similar CA cities have set up a program that encourages people to move there because it makes being “homeless” an actual possible lifestyle choice. Even an enjoyable one.

Hmm. I wonder if you could say "if someone becomes homeless in your locality, your locality has failed them". And then rate localities/states by their net loss of citizens that have fallen "outside society". Then begin incentivizing communities to fix these problems. There's only so much a local community can do with limited funds, but while I'm sure the majority of homeless in California are Californian... I would l…

I agree. From my research, Portugal’s drug assistance programmes for the homeless are quite effective.

For those in more of a poverty trap situation, Finland has done quite a good job finding the right set of policies for their country to bring levels down so far that most Americans would consider them to have “solved” homelessness.[1]

https://oecdecoscope.blog/2021/12/13/finlands-zero-homeless-...

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#56

Post by rhaway84773 »

atdrummond wrote: post #10
rottencupcakes wrote: post #3

Homelessness is a failure of the Federal government that nobody there is even willing to talk about. This can't be solved at a local or state level in a country with unrestricted freedom of movement.

I don’t think the feds are to blame. SF and similar CA cities have set up a program that encourages people to move there because it makes being “homeless” an actual possible lifestyle choice. Even an enjoyable one.

The Feds may not be “to blame”. But it’s hard to see how individual states can solve this problem.

Any program by any state that helps the homeless in a country where you legally cannot create state level borders (and with the homeless you can’t establish residency by definition) would immediately draw homeless people across the country, especially since the homeless strategy in many states is to pay for one way bus tickets to a different state, and quickly overwhelm and undermine what could otherwise have been a successful program.

Any successful program must be funded and implemented at the Federal level.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#57

Post by akira2501 »

skrebbel wrote: post #16
atdrummond wrote: post #8

That’s because Cali’s approach is insane. They give you hundreds a month in cash grants (some make $1k a month in SF) and require you to make NO alterations to your lifestyle. I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! I myself lived on the streets for a number of years and have dealt with addiction issues. It is absolutely insane how we’ve stopped treating homeless…

How is giving people money unconditionally not treating them as “humans with potential and aspirations”? I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that adding more rules and conditions and whatnot is better? I don’t have a well-formed opinion here myself, just that most people arguing for treating benefit recipients humanely argue for fewer rules, not more. So I’d like to understand your point better.

> How is giving people money unconditionally not treating them as “humans with potential and aspirations”?

If access to money is not their actual impediment then you may be making their situation worse.

> I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that adding more rules and conditions and whatnot is better?

You are drowning. I throw $1000 at you. Are you saying I should have done more?

> argue for fewer rules

Judging by living in the middle of this policy. The number of homeless has increased and the number of open air drug markets, prostitution, and suicides have increased with them. There is a concerted _lack_ of enforcement of rules. The homeless purchase RVs from scrap yards, move them onto the sides of streets, and live in them.

Zoning and parking laws are ignored. Noise laws are ignored. Drug laws are ignored. There is zero effort to serve this population and get them out of the literal gutter. Pets are a massive problem. Children are living in the middle of this. And our response is just.. "here's $1000 and a legal carte blanche for anything short of murder."

It's not working.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#58

Post by realjhol »

russdill wrote: post #19
pharmakom wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very frustrating to see the right blame the left for the homeless problem when the left are the only ones attempting to do anything about it.

Apparently if someone is hungry and you feed them, or if they are naked and you clothe then it's your own damn fault that people keep showing up.

More like...

- "when I was drug addicted you gave me cash"

- "when I was stealing to fund my addictions, you made shop lifting legal for stolen items amounting to $1000 or less"

- "when I was making violent threats, and assaulting members of the public you let me walk free"

- "when the police tried to intervene you said they were systematically racist against people of color and should be defunded"

- "when I had mental health issues, you closed down all the mental hospitals because you said they were oppressive institutions"

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#59

Post by heavyset_go »

realjhol wrote: post #17
skrebbel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is giving people money unconditionally not treating them as “humans with potential and aspirations”? I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that adding more rules and conditions and whatnot is better? I don’t have a well-formed opinion here myself, just that most people arguing for treating benefit recipients humanely argue for fewer rules, not more. So I’d like to understand your point better.

Giving addicts drug money instead of providing for their needs is the peak of inhumanity.

The majority of homeless people are homeless for economic reasons, like loss of income, cost of living increases, or lack of affordable housing, or changes in co-living situations caused by break-ups/divorce/abuse/loss of partner's income/etc.

Families are the fastest growing homeless demographic.

Re: California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working

#60

Post by herbst »

ugjka wrote: post #15

I heard it is so bad that foreigners regret their vacation trips to California, particularly San Francisco

That's not new tho. The 'romantic' idea of travelling to the us always comes with the ugly taste of open poorness, public drug consumptions and general inhumane behaviour to their homeless and sick.

It's not only SF or Cali that has this image at this point. It's kinda hard to overlook when this simply does not exist where you are from.

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