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

Post by anamax » Sun, Aug 08, 2010, 4:40 AM UTC

andrewvc wrote: post #59

barrkel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If it helps 10% of homeless get off the street, that could be a huge victory in and of itself.

Or, it could be a huge disaster. It depends on the costs.

> Yes, I have, which is why I said it wasn't a magic bullet, but something that should be given more of a shot.

Feel free. As the article points out, the experiment doesn't cost much, so you can do it and tell us how it went. It's What? You're not willing to spend your money to prove your arguments? Then why should I spend mine? (And yes, I pay a lot more than $400/month in taxes.)

Post by anamax » Sun, Aug 08, 2010, 4:50 AM UTC

jbz wrote: post #68

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 sel…

> Did you read the article in full?

My point is that the article doesn't contain all relevant data.

> A doctor ordering what some would call excessive tests for a patient is doing the right thing.

May be doing the right thing. Some people think that my life is worth $X. Who's to say that they're correct?

> 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.

Assumes behavior not in evidence. Homeless in SF have "not street" options that they refuse. What makes you think that they'll take different options AND that their risks will chance correspondingly.

I note that lots of folks with homes manage to get "street illnesses" so it's not true that homes solve disease. There's a decent correlation for current "homed" populations, but that doesn't tell us what would happen if we "homed" other populations.

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

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