This point is worth reiterating. Homelessness can be solved by providing housing. Yes, homelessness is a complex multi-faceted problem, but the first order solution to the problem is to provide housing.
Homelessness is a problem with huge externalities to society. Put another way, homelessness is an enormously expensive solution to the problem of providing space for humans to live.
Some homeless people aren't capable of the maintenance of a home due to mental or physical issues.
Some homeless people refuse to accept help for mental issues for fear of being trapped in a psych ward.
Simply put, you need to split homelessness into temporary and chronic populations. For the temporary group, homelessness is the problem. For the chronic group, it is a symptom. Treating the symptom will not have a long-term impact on much of the population.
Source: conversations with a social worker friend who spent years working with the homeless population in our metro area.
You've got a good point. These leaves are really starting to pile up, and the snow will be upon us soon. I think I'll just say fuck it and sleep under a bridge, and leave the grounds keeping to the parks department.
You did set up a straw man solely to get knocked down, right? In actuality, the idea of giving "housing to everyone" doesn't mean an idyllic single family stick-and-drywall dwelling with a yard, but rather something communal - like a less-populous more-dignified shelter with a modicum of persistent personal space. The maintenance would be institutional, and come out of the same operating budget as administration, utilities, etc.
I feel like most of the "some homeless just want to be homeless" argument revolves around baking in assumptions that public housing should come with a bunch of strings attached, to make the residents' lives "better". In your comment, this is the responsibility for maintenance or mental health treatment. Such conditions are what turns people off, not some intrinsic love for sleeping rough.
Sometimes mental issues are purely genetic but often they can also arise from or be exacerbated by trauma. And homelessness sure is traumatic.
Most homeless people do not have a severe mental illness (around 70%) [1]. For most homeless people, it's primarily an issue of housing affordability. The solution is to reduce the cost of housing.
For the people who need more support -- due to mental illness or otherwise -- the affordable, effective solution is permanent supportive housing [2].
[1] https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/evidence-and-researc...
[2] https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/proven-solutions/
“70% were receiving mental health treatment or had in the past.” "An April 2016 survey of New York City’s homeless population reported that unsheltered homeless individuals were most likely to be severely mentally ill single males." Something like 1 in 5 of the homeless in San Francisco have a traumatic brain injury.
None of these people are going to be fixed with mere "housing".
Even worse, putting these people who desperately need medical treatment in "mere housing" is very likely to cause the "mere housing" program to fail when it could have succeeded. The homeless who need "mere housing" don't want to be near the homeless who need "significant medical treatment" any more than anybody else does.
Homelessness has an "Amdahl's Law" nature to it. You have to separate out the different types of homelessness and apply the correct solution. And you will only gain the improvement for the group you "solved".
Consequently, you can solve 20% of the homeless problem and people will still say you "failed" because 80% of the homeless are still in their vision.
What ends up happening is they generally just destroy the living space in a variety of ways.
It's because the majority of homelessness is an issue of mental health. In the USA, there are pretty much zero mental health resources for people in poverty.
Citation very much needed here. This certainly does happen. But, I don’t believe this the general (i.e. typical) outcome. From what I understand talking to acquaintances who work in this area, wrecking the place is not the typical outcome. And property damage is generally cheaper to address than the constant provision of emergency services.
I agree that mental health (and substance use) are major factors in homelessness, but those issues are more or less impossible to address when people are living on the street with no permanent address and no place to keep e.g. a cell phone without it being stolen.
This has gone badly. The property sees intense vandalism and destruction, the neighbors are afraid for their safety, and the whole thing is an amazingly expensive boondoggle.
[0]: https://www.foxnews.com/us/austin-hotel-purchased-homeless-s...
[1]: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2022/05/16/austin-homel...
1) Austin buys the property
2) Begins renovations on vacant premises
3) Vandalism takes place
---------------
4) The conversion is complete
5) Property officially offered to homeless residents
Steps 4 and 5 haven't happened yet. So homeless people who "generally just destroy the living space" isn't a good fit for what's going on. This is simply a situation of an unsecured construction site that has attracted squatters and vandals.
This isn't true or at least it doesn't start that way. What people don't understand is that there isn't a single homeless population. You have people who are temporarily homeless and people who are chronically homeless. The temporarily homeless are people who lost jobs, fell on hard times, etc etc. The simplest solution for them is yes to give them housing. The chronically homeless is where things get more complicated and those are the people who typically need mental health and abuse services. The simplest and most efficient thing we can do is help the temporarily homeless and prevent them from becoming chronically homeless.
I’ll take tautological statements for $200 please Alex
Also your sweeping statement about the destruction of their living space smells to high heaven prejudiced thinking based on myth or hearsay rather than actual data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/opinion/democrats-blue-st...
But yeah let us blame Google.
They used to be called asylums, and the problem is what to do if the homeless person refuses to go. I wonder why you don't hear about homelessness in totalitarian states...
Because vagrancy is punishable by prison time there.
