The point is, human problems are often intractable until the humans in question are treated with some dignity. And it's hard to treat someone with dignity when you are unable to look them in the eye.
Some would characterize the resources devoted to services for the most vulnerable among us as kindness and decency expressed. Which suggests that a progressive, sensitive solution started decades ago. What's the next step?
Kind motivation can be expressed fiercely (as in "tough love"), and conversely, many seemingly-kind actions sprout from an unwholesome place. So I can't tell you what "kind behavior" looks like.
The progressive solutions you see today are the natural result of blossoming intent. _First_ we start learning to see black people, gay people, women, etc. as equal to ourselves, and then our actions, behaviors, and ultimately policies reflect that choice. We're headed in the right direction.
When a behavior is only _ostensibly_ kind -- like when I'm trying to shovel dirty people away under the guise of helping them -- at best I prolong the real problem, and at worst I get an atrocity.
So I cannot give you an actual solution to the homelessness problem, other than to say: motivation matters a lot more than we tech types often consider.
OK. Focused. Right here with you.
> The progressive solutions you see today are the natural result of blossoming intent.
The progressive solutions I see today look like kindness and decency unmoored from any notion of efficiency. There's no concern for what actually advances the goals we purport to care about with kindness and decency. There's just actions that leave us feeling that we've seen the homeless as equal people and thought kind things about them and expressed this with large dollops of cash and social tolerance.
Given that this has been going on for decades, I harbor a seed of doubt that this blossoming intent is going to manifest as effective policy in the near future. I find myself thinking that warm fuzzies are great, but helping people is better.
> When a behavior is only _ostensibly_ kind -- like when I'm trying to shovel dirty people away under the guise of helping them -- at best I prolong the real problem, and at worst I get an atrocity.
Prolonging the problem, solving the problem, and causing atrocities are all things that can result from actions. They are things that can result from actions rooted in cruelty and from actions rooted in kindness alike. Mao starved millions of people while genuinely trying to help them.
Thank you for trying. You have helped me understand why SF's policies are so completely broken - they're created and executed by people whose only real measurement is purity of motivation and for whom actually helping people is largely irrelevant.
