Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage • Hacker News Board

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#61

Post by mmphosis » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 7:18 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #44

petercooper wrote: post #3

The 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…

Here in the UK the welfare budget is nearly 6x the defense budget. Healthcare is around 3x. We're talking serious money here. Probably we spend as much on welfare and healthcare as the US spends on the military. And the results speak for themselves: chucking money at it is not the solution. Often in London a homeless person will ask for money to stay in a shelter overnight, but the shelters are free, funded by the lo…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_budget

    190 social protection
    105 health
    ---
    295 total health & social
     38 defence
    ===
    519 total

population 62,041,708

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

    678 social security
    676 medicare & medicaid
    ---
   1354 total health & social
    782 defense
   ====
   3518 total

population 309,921,000

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#62

Post by petercooper » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 7:59 PM UTC

mmphosis wrote: post #61

gaius wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the UK the welfare budget is nearly 6x the defense budget. Healthcare is around 3x. We're talking serious money here. Probably we spend as much on welfare and healthcare as the US spends on the military. And the results speak for themselves: chucking money at it is not the solution. Often in London a homeless person will ask for money to stay in a shelter overnight, but the shelters are free, funded by the lo…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_budget 190 social protection 105 health --- 295 total health & social 38 defence === 519 total population 62,041,708 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget 678 social security 676 medicare & medicaid --- 1354 total health & social 782 defense ==== 3518 total population 309,921,000

I had a look at similar numbers a few years back to back up a debate I was having and was surprised. The UK and US spend in the same order of magnitude per capita on public healthcare.

Sadly, though, this isn't good. The US's healthcare budget covers a minority of the population whereas the UK's covers almost everyone. The only reason the US's budget is inflated is due to the extreme inefficiencies and price gouging that are rampant in the US healthcare market.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#63

Post by DaniFong » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 8:08 PM UTC

gyardley wrote: post #40

commanda wrote: post #6

"Power-law solutions have little appeal to the right, because they involve special treatment for people who do not deserve special treatment; and they have little appeal to the left, because their emphasis on efficiency over fairness suggests the cold number-crunching of Chicago-school cost-benefit analysis." This is exactly why programs like these won't take off. It's hard to present this kind of complex analysis of…

Power-law solutions have little appeal to the right, because they involve special treatment for people who do not deserve special treatment; and they have little appeal to the left, because their emphasis on efficiency over fairness suggests the cold number-crunching of Chicago-school cost-benefit analysis. What a bizarre thing for Gladwell to write. He's inexplicably generalized from one particular power-law solutio…

Malcolm Gladwell isn't alone in suggesting that the solutions to power-law type problems, which usually require focussing on small parts of the problem rather than making sweeping changes, are unpalatable to government. Jane Jacobs, in the Economy of Cities, suggests the same thing. However, she suggests it's due to the desire of government people to want to cause change rapidly: sweeping changes provide this promise in a way that spot changes might not.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#64

Post by danielsoneg » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 8:45 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #57

JadeNB wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Great response. I think you're touching on a lot of the more fundamental problems in any approach to helping the homeless.

You mentioned contact and community a few times there - do you think that dealing with full homeless communities, or at least a subset of 5 to 10 people, would be more successful than trying to deal with individuals? Do you think that choosing a group of four homeless folks and moving them into either a single apartment or neighboring apartments would wind up having a greater chance of success? Or do you think that would perpetuate social norms that are nonconducive to more survivable lifestyles?

Take this as a component of any particular aid approach, by the way - there are no silver bullets and a lack of a roof is often a symptom of many other problems that can't be solved by craigslist's housing section.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#65

Post by joe_the_user » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 10:30 PM UTC

What I would ask about these "power law" situations: Do we have any idea what moves someone from bad cop to really bad cop or homeless to homeless-and-totally-down-and-out?

While only a small number reach the "really bad" level, it seems plausible that there's a larger population who could move into that level if the competition or bad examples or whatever other restraining factors were removed?

Sure, only a tiny minority is flagrantly offending at a given point but if one doesn't understand how this minority arises, one doesn't really understand the situation.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#66

Post by jerf » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 11:06 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #57

JadeNB wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

We need a word different than "homeless", really. You say: "Homelessness is a state that encapsulates far more problems than just the lack of a house." But the word itself dates from a time when many people truly were simply homeless, and the concept itself of course predates English. Historically speaking (going back a ways, but covering a lot of centuries) one popular way to homelessness was simply to become a widow and lose your husband. (Which is why the Old Testament goes on at length about taking care of widows; it's not about having emotional compassion for one who lost their spouse, though that won't hurt, it's about supporting someone who now has no economic income.) Civilization has not always been as wealthy as it is now; someone says "homeless" and the very word itself invites them to think the old, simple case, not the modern complicated stuff you talk about.

Today we've pretty much solved the basic home problem in the civilized world. Perhaps not 100%, but nothing is ever solved 100%. What's left are the hard cases, which is what you are describing. Our cultural attitudes haven't updated for this fact, and so when people hear about the homelessness problem they naturally think the problem is simply... homelessness. Unfortunately it's a harder problem than that, and we make it even harder by misunderstanding it.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#67

Post by Mz » Sat, Aug 07, 2010, 11:42 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #66

buro9 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We need a word different than "homeless", really. You say: "Homelessness is a state that encapsulates far more problems than just the lack of a house." But the word itself dates from a time when many people truly were simply homeless , and the concept itself of course predates English. Historically speaking (going back a ways, but covering a lot of centuries) one popular way to homelessness was simply to become a wid…

We need a word different than "homeless", really.

Today we've pretty much solved the basic home problem in the civilized world.

----------------

Some data on American housing and such, that may not be 100% accurate but should paint a general picture:

Around 60 years ago, the average new home was about 1200 sq ft and housed a family of 5 (2 parents, 3 kids). Today, it is over 2000 sq ft and houses a family of 3 (2 parents, 1 kid). This difference and other factors has helped create a widening gap between the haves and have-nots: Those who can afford a new home live like kings. Those who can't may be perpetually one paycheck away from homelessness. Most of the financing instruments we have are aimed at single family suburban homes designed to meet the needs of a 1950's-style nuclear family. Meanwhile, our demographics have changed and very few people fit that bill. The housing industry has been terribly slow to adapt to the changing needs of our changing demographics.

Also, historically, it was more common to live with extended family. This was more manageable back when more than half the American population lived and worked on a farm. You could always put someone to work on the farm to help cover the cost of feeding and housing them. But a more city-centric lifestyle means that if you have no job, you typically aren't viewed as a contributing member of the household and it is much harder for people to extend generosity in that regard unless they are truly wealthy. We also had more SRO housing and boarding houses -- just the sort of supportive environment that the Murray's of the world seem to need. This was part and parcel of the culture and was not considered some kind of "special service" for problem individuals who couldn't adapt. It was also cheaper than a stand-alone apartment. Apartments designed for a nuclear family or houses designed for a nuclear family make up the majority of housing stock in the US and it is financially out of reach for many single individuals. College students often get multiple roommates to make it work but it really isn't designed to work for them. The Murray's of the world lack the ability to force the current housing situation to serve them adequately and mostly don't have other options which did exist not that many decades ago.

I have a lot more thoughts and information on the subject but I don't care to beat it to death. The current housing situation really is a factor in why homelessness has been on the rise in recent years. Yes, it is one of many. But I don't think it can be lightly dismissed.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#68

Post by jbz » Sun, Aug 08, 2010, 12:46 AM UTC

anamax wrote: post #46

> 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…

Did you read the article in full? I know its a rude question to ask but it really seems like you didnt because youre falling prey to exactly the type of thinking it highlights as the problem. The solution doesnt "feel" right, and we humans are without peer in justifying our discomfort avoidance in cloaks of righteousness, truth, etc. That the correct solution just happens to coincide with the solution that avoids self-doubting discomfort is serendipity. Even this serendipity is so rarely noticed, let alone questioned, doesn't this seem odd?

Take for instance healthcare, its spiraling costs. A doctor ordering what some would call excessive tests for a patient is doing the right thing. It is better to be safe than sorry after all. The trial lawyers, insurance companies, government handouts and so on are the reason its skyrocketing.

What about the human fault of judging ones own immoral actions and impropriety on a relative scale of those around us? What about compounding that by generally giving everyone an "i am a good person" foundational belief. To examine it with no intention of challenging it will cause most people to feel a tangible unease because they're treading on some dangerous ground, a sense of fear that its best not to mess around in this place in case you break something accidentally. Each human with an intact "i am good" core applies goodness to all their actions by default, meaning if a person is not truly judging their motives or reasoning they are deemed to be "good" actions with pure motives because they are good and nothing specifically shows they're doing "bad" right that moment.

When the city with one of the fastest rising health costs in the US was examined it was found that the rising costs had a partner along for the trip, medical procedures and tests were rising as well. The doctors were doing nothing illegal, and obviously none of them thought they were doing anything wrong. So why the rise? It was just doctors increasingly exploring that grey area that doesn't challenge your central belief of your own goodness. Patient complains of headaches, and worries about something they read online about brain tumors, the doctor thinks its unlikely but its better safe than sorry, and imagine if he does have a brain tumor not only would i have missed it i might be sued too. Repeat this process over and over and goalposts move, more behavior is acceptable such as "ok so maybe she didnt need hip replacement surgery right now, but she definitely would have needed it soon, and im a far cry from Doctor EvilCompetitor, i cant believe he talked that poor shmuck into allowing brain surgery!".

Consider the complicated medical conditions that homeless contract on the streets with illness on top of illness requiring weeklong ICU visits, it becomes drastically reduced if a person is living in a home. A single avoided hospital visit of that kind alone can justify the free apartment for year or two or three.

Im trying to find that article again, will post link when i find it.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#69

Post by jerf » Sun, Aug 08, 2010, 1:39 AM UTC

Mz wrote: post #67

jerf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a word different than "homeless", really. You say: "Homelessness is a state that encapsulates far more problems than just the lack of a house." But the word itself dates from a time when many people truly were simply homeless , and the concept itself of course predates English. Historically speaking (going back a ways, but covering a lot of centuries) one popular way to homelessness was simply to become a wid…

We need a word different than "homeless", really. Today we've pretty much solved the basic home problem in the civilized world. ---------------- Some data on American housing and such, that may not be 100% accurate but should paint a general picture: Around 60 years ago, the average new home was about 1200 sq ft and housed a family of 5 (2 parents, 3 kids). Today, it is over 2000 sq ft and houses a family of 3 (2 par…

When I say the literal homelessness problem is mostly solved, I don't mean that everybody gets what they want. I mean that anybody with the basic ability to work, who is not insane, who is not for some reason simply unable to function in what we are pleased to call civilization for whatever reason, is able in a first-world country to put a roof over their head, even if that means accepting charity, or government handouts, or taking a roommate or three, or quite possibly moving away from where you are to go somewhere else and do some combination of the above. The current economic issues do make that challenging at this exact instant but on the scale of time I'm considering it's still just a blip. And the trend line remains clear; for instance, I'm pretty much ready to call this a Depression, yet it is of a different character than the previous ones, no soup lines, and there are many and good reasons for that, mostly revolving around the generally higher level of wealth the whole society has, even if you feel poor right now.

It is very tempting, whenever considering progress, to look ahead at how much work remains to be done, all the more tempting because it is a valid viewpoint, after all. But I think it is also helpful to honestly consider how far we have come, too, without constantly self-flagellating about the fact we haven't gotten to perfection yet. The problems you describe are not of the same order of magnitude of the problems that buro9 described.

Re: Million-Dollar Murray: Homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage

#70

Post by Mz » Sun, Aug 08, 2010, 2:01 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #69

Mz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a word different than "homeless", really. Today we've pretty much solved the basic home problem in the civilized world. ---------------- Some data on American housing and such, that may not be 100% accurate but should paint a general picture: Around 60 years ago, the average new home was about 1200 sq ft and housed a family of 5 (2 parents, 3 kids). Today, it is over 2000 sq ft and houses a family of 3 (2 par…

When I say the literal homelessness problem is mostly solved, I don't mean that everybody gets what they want. I mean that anybody with the basic ability to work, who is not insane, who is not for some reason simply unable to function in what we are pleased to call civilization for whatever reason, is able in a first-world country to put a roof over their head, even if that means accepting charity, or government hand…

But I think it is also helpful to honestly consider how far we have come, too, without constantly self-flagellating about the fact we haven't gotten to perfection yet. The problems you describe are not of the same order of magnitude of the problems that buro9 described.

I had a class on homelessness and did volunteer work in a homeless shelter and I have lived with the kind of stubborn personal problems that typically lead to homelessness. I am well aware of the personal factors involved. I don't think it is self-flagellation to realistically assess the impact the current housing situation has on the availability of suitable, affordable housing and how that relates to increased homelessness in recent years.