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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

#61

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jerojero wrote: post #7

It is mentioned in the article about a woman working full time, yet still unable to afford rent. I think a big steps towards resolving homelessness should go in addressing the housing market; which in California is really really bad. This isn't just "build more homes" (which is already an extremely difficult task in the state given the zoning laws) but comprehensive housing policies. Take a look at the way Austria ha…

There's multiple issues and there's no easy fix, but here's some points from a laypersons' point of view.

Construction of new houses (up to modern standards) has not kept up with population growth. Population growth has been higher than birth rate due to migration; I wouldn't be surprised if in 10, 50, 100 years, historians will look back on this period and call it a mass migration event due to climate change, war, economic whatnots, etc.

The market / the economic powers that be overcorrected after the 2008 crash, causing interest rates to be really low for a long time. This caused both high end investors and relative laypeople to invest, amongst other things in housing. Some people were able to buy a second, third, whatever house and rent it out, and with private rent, the amount they can charge was pretty much unlimited. That removed houses from the market, and made it so people couldn't afford to buy a house or build up any kind of posessions - if you own a house, the building is yours to keep, and the mortgage payments pay off the loan, if you rent it, that money is just gone, you don't build up anything.

Minimum wage hasn't gone up, wages have not kept up, and employers have been getting away with tightening the thumbscrews on their staff for a long time now. With that in mind, minimum wage is a patch; if people are paid minimum wage, their employer would pay them less if they were legally allowed to.

Inflation. That won't get better, with energy crises, climate change causing crop failures, etc etc etc. Speaking of climate change, it will cause both water shortages (also due to overconsumption, e.g. through irrigation) and consequent mass migrations; people can't live where there's no water.

There's probably a lot more, but you get the idea. Shit sucks and there's no quick fix.

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

#62

Post by madsbuch »

atdrummond wrote: post #37
madsbuch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug-addicts is something you interpret. It is specified that they are homeless. Doing this conflation is the worst kind of anti-ethical you can be. Just like assuming other things about whole groups of people. For this debate, I can really recommend Rutger Bregman and his books. One of his important points about poverty is that people are that: Poor. And that is their problem.

My problem when I was homeless wasn’t that I was poor. My problem was that I would never be able to manage assets properly until I get my mental house in order and started prioritizing things properly. There are plenty of homeless people who are in a poverty trap, as you describe, but I think it oversimplifies the situation to argue the arrow of causality only goes one direction for all homeless people.

Bregman I am referring is Dutch, I am Danish. Two countries where you'd have to look really hard to find homeless people.

I think over-complication is the issue in the states, which in turn makes a lot of these grants go to heads thinking about the issues rather than the actual issues.

I also think it is important to attribute issues where they are due: Mental issues is not a housing problem, it is a health care issue. Not being able to manage money is not a housing problem, it is a primary school problem. Etc.

With all respect for your previous life, it does sound like you needed some quality health care more than a parental system that handed out food stamps (in fear that the money otherwise would have gone to drugs).

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

#63

Post by dalbasal »

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.

Agreed.

And the resolution has been terrible. Politicians (and voters) pick a position. They act on it, or don't. But, nothing is ever planned executed at a scale where it is expected to solve or make a visible dent in the problem as a whole.

So maybe your "position" is "housing first." It's popular, backed by academia, and it goes ahead.

At this point, resource efficiency, overall scale of impact and such don't matter. The action is "housing first" or it's "community centred" or "drug-free," "Jesus saves" or whatever... and that's enough. Ideology>efficacy when you don't expect to get anywhere anyway.

These big, ideologically charged, "toxic" issues are such that no one expects to "solve" them. So, they act at the operational level spending whatever resources they have without real strategics. Strategy becomes replaced with abstractions.

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

#64

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #36
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me just quality a bit further: homelessness is a failure of the neoliberal ideology (land free markets/privatization never worked, from the enclosures [1] to modern times, see Georgism for a solution [2]) and further a failure of the metaphysics of meritocracy based in desert-people's belief "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground", which simply isn't the case today, and i…

Homelessness has been on the downtrend for quite a few decades in the US. There is 0 countries in this world who have solved homelessness by the way. I don't think you're correct.

Not sure how much of a downtrend, seems rather stable [1]. There are also 0 countries that implement Georgist policies and most of the countries in the world are directly neoliberal or neoliberal-bent, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia [2], and friends included.

Perhaps I am not correct, but what do you think will happen in a few years when we will have a 100 GB neural model able to drive any car in any environment, effectively obliterating 200+ million jobs worldwide? Fairly certain, if we keep the same policies and the same belief-system, homelessness will trend rather high.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-...

[2] 2018, Abdullah Al-Beraidi, "The Trap of Neoliberalism for Gulf Cooperation Council Countries", https://online.ucpress.edu/caa/article-abstract/11/4/63/2579... PDF: https://caus.org.lb/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-Trap-of-N...

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

#66

Post by zumu »

I've decided most homeless social programs are a trap. By locating these programs in the centers of the highest cost of living cities, we can't reasonably expect them to succeed, assuming success is actually getting people housed and back on their feet. We need to encourage people to move some place they have a chance in hell of getting out of poverty.

Centering these programs in rich city centers is a failed policy and needs to be scrapped.

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

#67

Post by realjhol »

mschuster91 wrote: post #47
realjhol wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left's idea or "doing something about it" is making the problem worse not better. It would be better to do nothing than actively facilitate and incentivize homelessness and drug addiction with cash payments.

> The left's idea or "doing something about it" is making the problem worse not better. It would be better to do nothing than actively facilitate and incentivize homelessness and drug addiction with cash payments. It at least keeps people alive. The problem is that the causes of homelessness are not addressed at all - there is nowhere near enough affordable housing stock.

> It at least keeps people alive.

It may well keep people alive - in a way, but it's no solution if it creates a mass of people who are destroying themselves and the city community.

It's still death - just in slow motion.

> The problem is that the causes of homelessness are not addressed at all - there is nowhere near enough affordable housing stock.

Yes, and that's not going to change, so alternative solutions are required.

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

#68

Post by alpineidyll3 »

pc_edwin wrote: post #54
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…

In a way we don't disagree. I think citizens would be quite happy with a solution which makes the homeless invisible by sequestering them. Its probably also the best for the health of these people. But remember how we got here. Reagan shut down the asylums because they were expensive, messy and "inhumane". 20 years after reinstitutionalizing we will lament the cost of sedation and imprisonment.

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

#70

Post by roenxi »

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.

Why? Is it illegal to discriminate based on place of birth?

It seems like it'd be politically palatable to allow places to run homeless programs that are only available to locals. There isn't a downside for anyone.

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