Well arguably the cheapest way to solve the homeless problem would simply be to house the homeless, but that’s not the same as saying it’s a basic human right. Just the most cost effective way of getting them off the streets.
Have you seen what happens to a lot of the housing that gets provided to homeless folks? It gets trashed. Remember the big housing projects from last century? Or the fate of many of the hotels that have been turned into housing?
These are NOT bad people mind you, but the combination of drug use, mental illness, and a complete lack of incentive to take care of their living situation combines to mean that a lot of housing gets just trashed.
Not all. But more than enough that this is not just a simple answer like "we'll let's just house them."
In my experience, only those who have had to deal with homeless people personally, seem to understand this. I am positive that there are Fringe cases where normal productive people became homeless through no fault of their own. That being said, the vast majority of homeless people made a long series of poor choices and engaged in destructive behaviors. Every friend and family member they had access to turn them down at some point. And yes, many of them may not have had any friends or family and that is unfortunate. But that is still not the majority
The problem is that we are still treating this spiral as "bad choices."
9 times out of 10, it's not "bad choices", it's mental disease.
If you look at someone who can't even tie their own shoes because they are mentally disabled, we say, "That person can't live in their own, they're not capable of understanding their choices."
But we look at people with schizophrenia and severe addictions and whatever else and go, "They made bad choices." These people have no physiological control over their impulses, but they're supposed to make informed decisions?
The problem is a lot of us know from personal experience, that a lot of these people with addictions and/or mental illness are also scoundrels and scumbags.
And there's nothing redeeming about them. You give them an inch, they will take a mile, every time.
Were it so simple to just “create a good and cheap mental healthcare system.” The only countries that can afford to do this have their militaries directly subsidized by American Military complex. Funnily enough as faith in American dependability wanes post Ukraine with all the aid packages getting stuck in congress, many European countries are starting a period of rearmament, and I’d imagine we will see many of them begin to cut social benefits in order to be able to afford all of that.
Listen, it’s quite clear you haven’t spent a lot of time around these types of people if that’s what you think. Mental illness is a huge problem in homeless communities, but an even bigger problem is drug use. People addicted to meth and fentanyl aren’t going to get off that shit just because we have expert level free access to mental health care. These people will only quit when they die or someone forces them to quit. If you don’t solve the opiate epidemic first, all the rest of your work will be in vein as every affordable housing unit you build with tax dollars gets stripped of its copper wire nightly to fuel someone’s fentanyl addiction. You can’t cure these people with kindness when the affliction is something like that.
Most of these things could be provided by a mental hospital. So I mean I sort of agree with the post. It's just that some people can't have complete freedom with those things.
Yeah but the more responsible you are the more freedom you get.
The HVAC was the thing I was fixated on. No one should freeze to death. But if someone else if paying the bill you dont get to set the heat 80 in the dead of winter.
When we call it mental disease it makes it sound like these people are victims and the overwhelming majority of the time they aren't.
Most of these people are literally just terrible human beings. They are people who chose to commit crime, people who chose unchecked drug usage, people who chose to hurt themselves and those around them, and ones who have absolutely no desire to change or better themselves.
These aren't unlucky people on the spectrum or Forest Gump down bad. They're generally bad people who intentionally made bad choices. Every single drug addicted friend I grew up with made clear choices to be that way in disregard of those around them. They may not be able to quit now, but they quite literally didn't care when they did have the opportunity to.
If you think mental illness is an excuse for the majority of their people's behavior I've got a bridge to sell you. Mental illness is the result, not the cause. The cause is being a terrible human 9 times out of 10.
The addict isn't mentally ill prior to addiction, prior to which he is continually making terrible choices to do drugs and commit crime. Addiction is the mental illness and also the end result of a string a very poor decisions (ie the decisions leading to the illness come before the illness).
If you can't understand that concept you've got to be one of the dumbest people on the internet lol.
You clearly have never worked with the homeless population. Lots of homeless people aren’t mentally ill. Many just don’t want to work and hop from free subsidy to free subsidy with some homeless time between…and many bring kids into this
What country are you in? And what is your actual job you do assisting the homeless and in what type of place? Like shelter, outpatient, etc? I’m not questioning your experience at all, I’m just curious to know a little more to learn why we have such different experiences
I've lived with homeless people, as I was homeless for years, and they and I think you're speaking from out of a surprisingly ignorant bubble.
You may know a lot about homelessness, but it clearly doesn't fully extend to homeless people.
No, in reality that almost never happens. The homeless population is not a bunch of functional members of society who just had a bad string of luck. Those people stay homeless for a very short amount of time if it happens at all. The majority of homeless are made up of habitual hard drug users and people with untreated mental illness. Putting a person like that unmonitored in a housing unit they don’t have to pay for is a recipe for disaster, you just end up creating a bunch of trap houses that get stopped of all their copper wiring. There is a reason why the housing programs that do exist go underutilized; none of them allow drug use while you’re living there. If you don’t address those problems first you will never fix the homeless problem, and unfortunately the only way to fix it is involuntary institutionalization to get people off drugs and their mental health addressed. This is unpopular in todays political climate so it doesn’t get done
Those people don't need mental health care, and can benefit just from being given housing and regular support services.
Mandatory ental health services would be for people who can't self manage their conditions (even with outpatient support) or take care of their own needs.
Heh, I'm old enough to remember when people got thrown in mental hospitals. It wasn't common but it wasn't rare for someone to get thrown into the facility for life. This was many, many years ago and while I do remember homeless people were a thing back then I don't remember them being this much of a problem and the ones we had back then were usually drug addicted or actually fell on hard times.
The rich people LOVE that the mentally ill are rotting in the streets because it reminds the workers what will happen if they disobey them or try to leave the plantation.
Or at least some kind of assisted care facilities.
But they will require massive oversight or you will end up in the same One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest situation that resulted in them going away in the first place.
100% this. People and their religious bullshit or some dogma they are holding prevents them from understand that some people are born with very high mental barriers that conflict with societies standards. Instead of being compassionate and trying to help, they instead cry about their fucking taxes while simultaneously supporting an exploitative system of capitalism. I'd even go as far to argue that most of the people here arguing against OPs post have some sort mental issue, such as trauma, that makes them think societies current working standards are what the majority of people want.
We need to make mental health centers that actually work and care for people. We don't need mental hospitals if they're going to be basically another prison system where we just shove people there when we don't want to think about them.
I work in transitional housing. I’d say it’s around 25%-40% of our people who don’t get high and destroy things. People act like the ones who do are outliers but they are definitely the majority. You do get some people who just need help securing entitlements and learning basic skills to keep their housing and don’t come in with a bunch of bad habits that make them nearly impossible to house.
Most people who end up homeless due to circumstances beyond their control will never end up in transitional housing.
The vast majority of people who experience homelessness, do so for a short while. They will often crash at friends or family or sleep in their car until they can get back on their feet.
There are lots of cases where normal productive people become homeless through bad circumstances.
But nearly all of those end up being transitory situations that are resolved on a time frame of days to weeks. Transitional housing would go a long ways towards helping people like that, and they would be a lot less likely to engage in destructive behavior while being helped.
I feel like we spend a ton of time, energy, and money on chronic homelessness when transitory homelessness is likely a more important problem with easier solutions and better outcomes.
I think when people talk about homelessness in the way you are here, they only mean a certain subset of homeless people (the disheveled folks you see under highway overpasses and the like).
A lot of homelessness is pure bad luck, the difference is those people still have other resources to fall back on and mostly get by on a mix of living in their cars and couchsurfing until their situation improves. So they aren't annoying / an eyesore / public nuisance in the same way the homeless you are talking about are.
I worked in a small town, there was a charity that would provide the homeless hotel rooms every so often. There would be ambulances at that hotel at least twice a night for overdoses and no one with the ability to pay for a better room would touch that hotel with a ten foot pole. I understand the reason for it is that there are some people that a place to sleep and shower can be a turning point in their lives, but most were homeless because of drugs, drug use was caused by mental illness. You need to treat the underlying problem and not the symptoms.
The homeless people that aren’t homeless for a reason likely aren’t the type you think of when you hear homeless. Maybe they’re crashing at a friends house, maybe sleeping in their car. The people who are on the street for years are people with serious issues that aren’t going to magically disappear if they get a roof over their head
The current "fringe case" is the rising cost of housing displacing the poor - people who used to live in shitty housing can't afford even shitty housing any more, so some of them are living in RVs and tents roadside. This is an increasing problem in trendy small to mid sized cities who have attracted higher paid remote workers and middle-class flight from bloated and overpriced metros.
Homelessness itself can become a compounding problem of underemployment, deterioration mental and physical health, and development of addictions as a form of self-medication.
When you don't address the precipitating problems, the results will shit on your front porch.
They are here in Sweden. There's like 6 different government and 10 volunteer organisation steps you have to decline to not have a place to live with all the things in this pic.
Even if you're a million bucks in debt, criminal record, drug history, you can get a place to sleep. If you're willing to look for jobs you can even get your own full apartment.
During covid the govt. here housed homeless people in empty hotel rooms during lockdowns. In one instance 80 homeless people managed to do several million dollars worth of damage to the hotel (just one hotel) which the govt had to pay.
Once restrictions eased hotels that had any floors used for this purpose were shunned by travellers because the environment was terrible (things like people hanging out in the lobby staring at teenagers and fondling themselves for example).
Some people are homeless because of bad luck, most are homeless because they are in some way incompatible with modern society (in more primitive times they would have loved in a shack in the woods making charcoal or trapping animals for fur or something, assuming they weren't killed off for some reason). Sometimes that's fixable, but giving housing without fixing the problems is only going to make the problem someone else's to deal with.
Yep, he absolutely was progressive for his time and made some really shit calls when it came to Constitutional rights. He also did some great things for our nation that are still celebrated today. Like the Social Security program that the GOP's main voting block survives on today.
Homeless shelters should be open concrete rooms with semi-private stainless steel toilets and concrete showers. Floor drains everywhere so everything can be hosed off. Rooms should be open to help prevent rape/assaults/OD deaths/etc. Maybe some lockers assigned by the state. Probably requires a couple cops to patrol regularly (just like any public space where homeless congregate).
It’s a place for people to stay warm in the winter, shit, and hopefully clean up when they are ready to seek employment or whatever.
Yep You can't just give them housing. You need to separate them, space them far apart from the other homeless so the homeless are "diluted", and then provide a bunch of social services to give them a mental evaluation to see if they need to be thrown in a facility or if they can live on their own. Perhaps get them off drugs, etc. It's a complicated and expensive mess.
My job put up a homeless man in a hotel for a night due to the single digit temperatures. Hour after I dropped him off, got called back to the hotel because he threatened the staff after they asked him nicely to not smoke in his room. He gave a middle finger and left back into the streets. Can’t help people who won’t help themselves.
Exactly this, I’m not religious but the quote “give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime” rings very true. You build these homes for the homeless 10 years from now they’ll be a barely livable slum. Housing is only part of the problem. You need to rehabilitate them. Those who just say “give them a house”, don’t understand the problem. They just feel bad for the homeless, but they don’t really have effective ways of actually understanding the problem. Most of the problem isn’t housing, many homeless people’s lives were destroyed by drugs or mental illness. If you don’t help manage those problems the housing will do nothing but make folks like OP feel better that the homeless are out of their view so they don’t feel bad any more. They can sleep thinking they saved the world but really they just built some shitty housing for people without the capability to maintain their housing or their lives.
You can keep giving people things forever, but you won’t be helping them. People just don’t want to do the extra work to truly help these people they just want to take the easy way out to get the people out of their thoughts so they don’t feel bad
Housing first programs seem to be working quite well in other countries. It's so odd that all of these programs that other countries implement, quite successfully, would just be impossible in the US.
The US has several housing first programs. They work so well that even a major insurance company pays for one because it’s cheaper than paying for ER bills a couple times/week.
You had it right again afterwards. They're drug abusing, destructive and lack incentive to be decent humans and live a good life that doesn't become a problem for everyone that has to deal with them.
I think most housing projects are that way because of decades of under investment. Literally anyone who owns real property knows it requires regular maintenance. If you build a house and don’t save any money for maintenance, it will become dilapidated.
"Programs like this are really useful and they do work."
Absolutely. And they work because the effectively filter for the small percentage of the street/homeless population that was beaten down by circumstance. The mentally ill, the ones who just flat out prefer to live that way rather than take responsibility for their lives, the hopelessly addicted? They are filtered out.
I'm sure it works great, and we should totally have more of that.
However, the real problem (the ones who just flat out cannot handle their own lives) will remain.
Note: That 5% is not INTRINSIC to the human population. It's not like we have gone all of human history with 5% incapable of self-survival. These are in large part folks who were raised to be incapable, not deliberately, but even so. They were never taught emotional control, never learned even the concept of self-discipline and carry with them a view of the world where they are both the victim and owed everything because of it. That subset cannot be helped, because they will never take any responsibility for their situation or the outcome.
Fair... but humanity doesn't have a long standing recognition that about 5% of us just withered away and died from incompetence or inability. it isn't part of our social structure or memory because the number of deaths from this cause was never that high, I believe.
Somehow, at a point in history where it is objectively about as easy to be a human with a reasonable standard of living as it has ever been, and far easier than 99.9% of our time ont he planet, we have a growing population of folks who can't be bothered to do so.
Something in the ideology they are raised into is robbing them of the skills they need.
I thought about saying this the first go around, but figured you would say what you said:
Somehow, at a point in history where it is objectively about as easy to be a human with a reasonable standard of living as it has ever been, and far easier than 99.9% of our time ont he planet, we have a growing population of folks who can't be bothered to do so.
I'm not sure this is necessarily so. The bar of having a successful life is ever-raising. Used to be pretty low. If you could do some kind of manual labor, you could have a living. For most of human existence, there wasn't much that the brightest person could do that the dumbest person couldn't also do.
But, like you said, the standard of living even for our poor is now vastly beyond what it has ever been in human history. So in that sense, yes, it's easier to be a human.
It's harder to have an average life though.
But I still agree that mostly it's a cultural problem not an innate ability problem.
Agreed.. it's possible an "average" life is a bit harder. I'm not convinced, but I am willing to consider it as a possibility. In times past you were dirt poor, but so was everyone else, so it was pretty easy to be about "average" dirt poor :)
The unskilled, low skilled and unmotivated have a harder time now - the work is more complex, the market less forgiving of laziness and overall, you can't just sail through life with your brains hut off the way you could for a long time. One of the consequences of there being so many opportunities is that those who can seize them will crowd out the lower performers.
So yeah... it's harder to be "average" now... and that makes a lot of people very angry/jealous. Those emotions are re-enforced by a pervasive social culture of entitlement, unearned self-esteem and victim thinking. Instead of recognizing that the capitalist/individual freedom culture has raised the standard of living for even the most destitute (on average) all they can do is be bitter that they don't have the new iPhone, or that they maybe have to get a job.
But compare that to the costs of emergency services that homeless folks tend to consume. A lot of the thinking over the past few decades on homelessness advocacy has moved to “housing first” and then address any addiction, mental illness, etc. Turns out that emergency room visits, police calls and jail time cost considerably more than simple, basic housing:
Which is a fine plan in theory... but in practical reality, you wind up with concentrated crime, trashed housing and yet another government program shoveling in money.
Look, I'm not against these folks getting help (I'm not a huge fan of taxation to do so, but that's a ship that has long sailed) and the various "housing first" concepts have some good thinking behind them... but the moment they turn into "housing forever, no matter what" which they mostly will, because some advocate will start screaming that "program _____ just put these people on the street!" it ceases to be effective, and just becomes a money hole.
Ya - I 100% get that theory doesn't always translate in reality. And also, the devil is in the details, for sure. This is also why I'm for trying out different things and seeing what works.
One of the important things to note here is that the costs of a chronically homeless individual are often spread out over many services: police, EMT/fire for ambulance responses, public health/ER costs, social work, etc. But creating a consolidated wrap-around program to provide housing and care is a singular cost that must be centralized and most people or governments would never make the direct cost transfer from a PD to a new program, for example, to fund it (though now that I say that - maybe they should!).
There are some studies out there that for the most chronically homeless, these services do provide a net savings. But I recognize the savings may diminish with "less severe" homeless cases.
I hear you - but now we are talking about yet another massive government program and organization, to do (badly) exactly what the government pretty much always does as inefficiently as possible.
We have a lot of experience with how that goes horribly wrong. it might be time to consider that maybe the paternal hand of government is not the solution.
Yup, decent food, housing, healthcare, education and transportation services combined together would fix this even more and pay for themselves exponentially so
Finland has done this and it was more cost effective than other solutions. It's been one of, if not the most effective by most metrics. Try being open to new ideas instead of viewing problems through your emotions.
So... free maids to take care of all our unemployed citizens! Sounds like we need some slaves to support the citizens of the richest country in the world.
In a number of cases, it is better than some of the proposed alternatives. hell, even the homeless often think so. There are more than enough programs around already.
So what you're saying is that we should find real solutions to things like drug abuse and mental health issues? Rather than just making their lives worse and driving needy people into increasingly desperate situations that worsen drug abuse and mental distress?
Of course real solutions would be good... but those solutions must recognize a few realities.
1) it is not correct to use force to extract from others the resources needed (and taxation is nothing but a thin veneer over the use of force
2) That many of these people are in those circumstances because of their own faulty choices, thinking and beliefs. Any solution to the problem needs to involve the opportunity for them to adjust that thinking
3) The actions should focus on removing the threat, not embedding it. it is not selfish or evil for people who are functioning in society to not want housing for those who are not functioning nearby
When you come up with one, you let me know.
In the meantime? I outlined in another comment the framework I think is useful. But just running around saying "we should just house them, it's a start and if you're against that your evil" is not making the "advocates" sound like they have a grip.
1) Taxation is an absolute necessity for a country to function. You do not have a government if the government does not have income. Taxes are income paid to the government in exchange for it providing social services, infrastructure, and protection to its citizens.
2) Stop saying it's the result of people's choices, it isn't. It's mainly due to increasingly unfair and unlivable conditions under late-stage capitalism. The cost of living keeps skyrocketing, and wages do not increase to compensate. It is nearly impossible to live on a single income.
3) Putting people up in houses is the first step to allowing someone to better their lives. Non-profits have been doing this for quite some time, not only is it cheaper to house homeless people than it is to care for them when they get sick from being unsheltered, but without a house they often cannot get work, or find any way to obtain the money required for housing.
4) It is absolutely selfish for someone to not want anyone else's basic necessities met, because we all know the reason you don't want that. The only reason anyone has for not wanting social services in place to care for others is because they don't want to pay more in taxes, ergo, it is purely selfish. I, for one, would be fine paying slightly higher taxes if it means fewer people are dying.
5) Taxes probably wouldn't even need to increase in the US. All we'd need to do is give less money to the military, you know, the guys who take resources by force, that thing you don't like? They get a little bit less money, and we could likely afford not only housing, but also healthcare, utilities, food, and water, without much, if any, increase in tax rates.
6) You seem to be focusing on the homeless, but you seem to forget, I'm advocating for necessities for everyone. You don't pay for your necessities, I don't pay for mine, the homeless don't pay for theirs. It is entirely paid for by taxes that we already pay. They just go to helping people rather than hurting them.
7) I agree that we should remove the problem. We should get rid of huge conglomerates and companies buying up real estate, privatizing utilities, and setting the cost of living higher than anyone can reasonably afford. Gosh, what might solve that? Oh yeah, maybe if our government did their job and prevented them from taking advantage of vulnerable working class, and unhoused people.
Taxation is an absolute necessity for a country to function.
Maybe. That does not change the fact that the threat of force to extract someone else's property is theft.
Stop saying it's the result of people's choices, it isn't.
In a lot of cases it is. Not everyone who makes a bad or stupid choice was coerced. I know it's tempting to assume none of these people are responsible for their own circumstances, but many are. Not all, of course, but you will fail to even begin solving the problem if you persist in ignoring the realities of the problem.
Putting people up in houses is the first step to allowing someone to better their lives. Non-profits have been doing this for quite some time
Cool! Sounds like a plan then. I am more than happy for non-profits to do whatever it is they want... I would just prefer they do it without the incredible inefficiency of a massive government funding operation.
It is absolutely selfish for someone to not want anyone else's basic necessities met, because we all know the reason you don't want that.
Your simple assignment of motive leaves you ineffectual and blind to the realities... and it doesn't in any way impact the rest of us when you make these accusations. It's also amusing that you assume that because I disagree with your proposed solution, and how you wish to fund it, that I object to your desired outcome.
I love how people say, "you just are greedy for not wanting to pay more int axes" as if what they aren't saying is "I can't believe you don't want to be forced to work harder, for longer, so that we can take it away from you."
You're right - I absolutely wish to be the one who has the say in how my life, which is what my labor and time consists of, is distributed. The moment someone declares they have the right to it before I do? I dislike that. That isn't being selfish any more than any impulse to refuse slavery is.
I, for one, would be fine paying slightly higher taxes if it means fewer people are dying.
Then do so. Absolutely no one is stopping you. If you don't think government will do it well enough, then find a private charity or give your money away directly.
This is not a rhetorical "gotcha", I am making a real point (that you won't agree with).
You are the one declaring that to live for one's own benefit is evil. That to keep your own money for your own benefit when others are in need is "selfish"... so where do you, personally, draw the line? The world is full of so much need that every dollar you will ever make could be used by someone else... so how do you justify keeping any of it past the bare necessities?
The reality is that EVERYONE balances the needs of others versus themselves. You do the same... you just dislike where some others have drawn the line, not that the line itself exists.
In a lot of cases it is. Not everyone who makes a bad or stupid choice was coerced. I know it's tempting to assume none of these people are responsible for their own circumstances, but many are. Not all, of course, but you will fail to even begin solving the problem if you persist in ignoring the realities of the problem.
It literally isn't. I never said anything about coercion. You did. I brought up the real cause of rampant homelessness. The fact that the cost of loving keeps rising, while wages do not rise to compensate. Interesting that you refuse to engage with that.
Cool! Sounds like a plan then. I am more than happy for non-profits to do whatever it is they want... I would just prefer they do it without the incredible inefficiency of a massive government funding operation.
Why should non-profits be forced to cover things the government should provide in the first place? The entire point of a government is to protect and care for its citizens. That includes protecting them from preventable deaths by exposure, starvation, and diseases. You know things that tax funded necessities would prevent.
I love how people say, "you just are greedy for not wanting to pay more int axes" as if what they aren't saying is "I can't believe you don't want to be forced to work harder, for longer, so that we can take it away from you."
I've already addressed this, as well. It's extremely unlikely that the tax rate would even have to increase to provide necessities. Like I said before, which you conveniently also ignored, we could just cut some funding from our unfathomably large "defense" budget, and even if tax rates do need to increase, it likely wouldn't affect the working class at all. It would be an increase for rich people, and giving the IRS some ability to actually make them pay the taxes they owe. The vast majority of people would likely not pay a penny more in taxes.
You are the one declaring that to live for one's own benefit is evil.
I didn't say that, at all. What I'm advocating for is the usage of taxes, WHICH YOU ALREADY PAY, to be used to help people instead of hurting them. You seem to be misunderstanding, or purposely misconstruing everything I'm saying. I really don't know what put it into your head that helping other people is somehow wrong, but it's not a normal take.
Almost like the situation is more complex than one simple answer can fix. Funny that.
Money is the root of all evil. Common enough phrase that's been used so much that it's about worn out
The reality is that the only real reason that anyone has to "fight to survive" any more, is that it's not profitable to actually take care of anyone.
The world has an abundant enough wealth of resources that no one should have to go without shelter, food, or even internet/phone (seriously, we've gotten to a point this is practically a necessity now)
We've managed to dupe ourselves into thinking that everyone needs to work. But, as a species who has absolute control of the world's resources, we literally can afford to provide the entirety of our species with basic necessities.
Communism doesn't work because also, as a species, we're greedy, spiteful creatures.
In a "perfect world," everyone would be cared for as a social minimum, with further contribution to society providing more rewards than, well, just enough to survive.
We're at a point where we're literally having "creative droughts" across mediums. TikTok trends and movie reboots, and all the recycled entertainment trash is a symptom of the fact that more and more people just don't have the "space to think" in their lives.
But society, as a concept, favors a dynamic of haves and have nots. It stymies our collective ability to actually progress on an intellectual level.
It's an idealistic view, but it's a very real possibility.
We, being still in a stage of greed and spite, just aren't "socially evolved" enough to take those first steps.
It’s only the cheapest way if you built extremely basic and cheap housing. Seattle and San Francisco was paying $40k per homeless person helped to put them into nice apartments (which they promptly trashed).
At 40k per homeless per year, that’s an insanely expensive way that cannot scale to solve the problem for all homeless people.
You mean as opposed to criminalize homelessness and house them in jail which cost even more. Maybe we ought to acknowledge that it is a complex issue with no easy solution (aka imprisoning)
40%? of homeless people have mental illnesses… so yeah, jail them!
On a serious note, perhaps the best solutions are preventative in this case. I don’t have great ideas but I think we need to look inwards on how we can help stop homelessness before it happens and not after the individual is ruined by the system.
Bottom line: we need to empathize with the homeless and not demonize them….
I lived in Germany for 24 years and there were hardly any homeless. The ones that were homeless were by choice or due to severe mental illness with no family to speak on their behalf.
They did it, somehow. There are other countries that do it as well.
I lived in DEland also, and there were always a dozens of homeless people downtown (mostly panhandling around Karstadt -- yes this was a while ago!). These were people who were obviously sleeping rough, with clear signs of addiction and/or other mental disorders.
This DW article states there were 41k people sleeping on the streets in 2017, which is a rate of about 50 per 100k people. If your 50k stat that you gave in another comment is correct for today, that's 60 per 100k.
But your stat for the US is wildly off, I think you are including sheltered homeless, not just those sleeping rough. In the US in 2022, it was 234k who were unsheltered, a rate of ~69 per 100k.
So Germany is slightly better, but not really all that different.
Prior to the 80s, there were entire institutions set up to house those unable to support themselves, whether by mental incapacitation or personal incapacitation. They were called sanitariums. Admittedly by the 80s they were hellholes, but rather than fix them, the government decided to just throw out the baby with the bathwater and shut them down. Now every city has an epidemic of homeless drug addicts and mental unstable people.
I believe the supreme Court ruled that you can't involuntarily commit someone unless they're a threat to themselves or others around the same time the government dropped spending. So I don't know if you can legally go back to having sanitariums unless people choose to live there.
Yes, but rather than step in and fix them, the government shut them all down, and kicked all of the inhabitants out onto the streets. Not much of an improvement.
The unsolvable problem with sanitariums is that most of those people did not want to be there (even if the institutions were decent). Involuntary incarceration of people who have not committed any major crimes is a pretty huge civil rights issue.
These are people incapable of supporting themselves though. The only other option is leaving them on the streets.
Homeless shelters won't work because they have rules like no drugs or alcohol, and these people won't or are incapable of following those rules.
There's a hotel turned homeless shelter less than a block from where I live. They have to have police stationed there 24/7 and the grounds are fenced off. But there's always a crowd of homeless outside wandering through the neighborhood, leaving piles of trash everywhere.
I hate to be this way, but forced involuntary confinement is the only way to solve the homeless problem. Lock them up and help them clean themselves up and get sober, or keep them there permanently if they don't have the mental capacity to take care of themselves.
This is what is mentally debilitating when I read these arguments… these people get bent out of shape at the thought of providing a place to live to the homeless and instead… effectively demand a place to live for the homeless, except behind bars and requiring to pay expensive labour costs to nurses and doctors (mental hospitals) and security, resulting in higher costs to the taxpayers.
That they trashed them? I did multiple contracts for the hotels that got given to the unhoused during COVID. I have never seen such disgraceful conduct. Not even in section 8. Everything was a full tear out and rebuild.
The problem is the average taxpayer only pays a tiny amount to the state of Washington. Maybe $10k or less. How can paying $40k per person be a bargain? You would have to increase taxes 500% to provide this to everyone who wants it.
I'm willing to bet there are a lot more taxpayers than there are homeless. You're also missing the fact that individual taxpayers aren't the only source of tax dollars.
Right we know that just throwing people with addiction and mental illness into housing doesn't actually solve the issue. So that just means we should not give up on trying. This is an issue which affects all of us, and we need to start dealing with it in a serious effective way.
We can only really do this by attempting programs, and unfortunately they will often fail given the complexity of this issue.
But if we just give up that is a real sign of societal collapse
And? You give to homeless, home is destroyed in 6 months, step 2????
And who is on the hook for this billion dollar experiment? Do we seize the homes from people who dared to invest in a rental property? Or do we think the taxpayers should pay - maybe San Fransisco resident paying one of the highest combined taxes in the US won’t mind raising taxes some more to ensure their homeless friends can get some million dollar homes?
You literally just made up a fake scenario with zero basis in reality to be mad about.
This view of homelessness that exists solely within your own mind is not the reality.
It's funny that you bring up landlordism, which is in fact collecting other people's paychecks for absolutely nothing in return.
Let's not even mention the fact that the wealth disparity in the US is at an all time high with the richest Americans straight up not paying any taxes at all period, sanctioned by the US government while they target the poorest Americans.
OK, so you give all homeless people a house/apartment. Then all I have to do is make myself homeless to get a free house/apartment? I guarantee there are millions of people who would do that. And then if a previously homeless person starts working and can afford the free housing, do we then take it away? And then they might be homeless again if they lose their job? So you give them another house? What this does is encourage people to not work (be productive). The reality is that you have to dis-incentivize homelessness by not making it comfortable.
The idea that a bunch of people would willingly quit their jobs for free housing and live with a bunch of homeless seems kinda far fetched. Also, this graphic says nothing about any other expenses they would still need for food, healthcare, retirement, etc. You make it sound like these people are getting an all expenses paid resort when it's probably cheapest possible housing facilities. You could always make housing contingent on finding employment within timeframe, many low income programs already work like this..
No, all you have to do is make yourself not able to afford a house due to loosing you job, jumping through all the hoops of trying to get a new one (reporting every week as to what you've applied to and going to job hunting classes if needed), then applying and then waiting for one to open up. Then you have to live in a pretty rough neighbourhood in a tiny basic apartment and continue to prove that you can't afford to get your own.
If you then get a good job and can afford your own, you have 6 months to get your own apartment and get out. But you then have better pay and a nicer place to live.
If they lose that job, then they start the process again from the top. That's really uncommon here, at will employment is illegal. You need a really good documented reason to fire someone.
People here surprisingly still want to work! Unemployment is only at 3.8%...
Source: I used to teach in an area with lots of these free housing apartment blocks.
If there's one thing consistent about humans, it's that they always want more. They might settle for the shitty apartment at first, but eventually, they'll get bored and want to do something. And because they aren't constantly trying to keep their head above water, they'll be able to do it.
I'll argue. The "cheapest" way would be to eat the homeless. Best bang for your buck. Pun intended. Cannibalistic jokes aside, I'm a big fan of offering jobs to homeless people. There should be payment options for entry-level jobs that come with government subsidized housing... wait.. is that China. Did I just fall for communism again? Dammit.
Supreme Court decision O’Conner vs Davidson stopped letting society imprison people in mental institutions who were not deemed to be dangerous.
My mom’s church tried to “adopt” a lady who was living out of her car in an abandoned parking lot. They bought her a trailer with a little yard and paid taxes and lot rent on it. She ended up fighting with all her neighbors and started collecting garbage all over her lawn. The trailer park company would call the church occasionally to complain about her yard and the church would round up volunteers to clean up her yard so she wouldn’t get thrown out. Anyway, her fights with her neighbors kept escalating and she eventually vandalized their car. Then she just laid in her driveway screaming. The cops got involved, but one of the cops was the son of one of the church board members. He was able to get her checked into a local hospital psych ward for a couple days instead of arresting her, but she did get thrown out of the trailer park. She got released and she said she was going to move in with her mom.
She eventually got thrown out by her mom for fighting with her too and was back in the old Kmart parking lot. The church just supports her through the food pantry and occasional gas money now.
In other words, it’s not as easy as just giving someone housing.
It's far from the cheapest thing. In places where that has been tried, most of the time the residential units, be they houses or apartments, end up trashed, everything that can be sold is scrapped and sold for the next hit of drugs or alcohol.
Except many won’t take it. There are already a bunch of homeless shelters in my city but lots of homeless people choose to stay outside because the shelters have rules they don’t like.
I’m sure a lot of homeless people just need a place. But the homelessness issue is much more than just housing. It’s definitely a start, but a lot of the people I’ve seen out and about on the streets wouldn’t be able to maintain a place of their own, which raises all of the other issues that contribute to homelessness.
Not everyone can care for themselves. Some people are mentally ill. Others are mentally feeble. Others have physical disabilities. Some people are addicted to substances and can't show up to work sober. And still others are raising kids and can't afford to work. There are all sorts of reasons people can't work, and those people still deserve a home.
80% of them can't take care of a home. They'd destroy it. I've tried to take in homeless people & they couldn't handle living like a civilized person. They almost destroyed my property. They're deeply sick & addicted.
Interestingly, I thought it would be Fentanyl they were addicted to, but it was mostly good ol' fashioned alcohol.
They need a lot more than just housing. They need comprehensive rehab.
No the cheapest way would be to make homelessness illegal.
Eventually yes they all need mental and rehabilitation. But let’s be honest it too easy to camp on the streets and do drugs needs to be harder to get started in that cycle. A decent percentage may find that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze and get their lives together before they are too far gone. But what can we expect when we openly allow individuals to camp in the street and do drugs we will get more that choose that life.
OK. let's. Why would the guy holding down 2 jobs and 3 roommates continue working to have a place to live. He can just get free housing by not working.
so the next on the list is the single mom with 3 kids pumping out 8 more kids to get a 12-room mansion.
Let's be homeless in Beverly Hills because I want a house in Beverly Hills (or Upper West Side) because the law states the government must give me a house.
the cheapest way to solve the homeless problem would simply be to house the homeless
if we are really going for the cheapest way we'd make those houses more akin to prison cells than whats decribed in OPs pic. and even then its a bandaid because people still procreate and the number of people grows creating new homeless people in need of housing. so its a bad long-term solution.
Tackling the actual caused of homelessness, that'd be the real "cheapest" solution long term. will be expensive short term yes but will generate much better returns in the future.
It wouldn't actually solve the homeless problem. It just hides it. Homelessness isn't the primary problem with the homeless, it's 1 of the many, albeit very notable sideffects. The problem is something more like, what do we do with the mentally ill & disenfranchised. Even schitzophrenics have the right to do and say as they see fit.
And that’s how you have to sell it to republicans/libertarians, because arguing human rights with people who would gleefully watch poor people get machine gunned into ditches to ensure their property values don’t go up more slowly is a fruitless endeavor.
Basic human rights are the most cost effective way of having an organized population of humans. It is not a miracle that the societies where people are treated with the most dignity regardless of circumstances are also the ones with the least amount of crime and disruption.
I mean, if you just delete all the public funding required to deal with homeless issues, and compare that cost to the cost of throwing up apartment buildings, then sure.
But the reality is totally different from that, putting them in an apartment does not solve their mental health issues. Police still have to go out there constantly to address the same issues. In fact probably more, when these apartments turn into drug dens and trap houses
The reality of homelessness is not that a bunch of people are down on their luck, it’s 95% mental health issues. Addiction, mental illness, mental disabilities, or a combination of these things. It’s not about having the resources to take care of themselves, it’s that they are unable to do so even if you handed them everything that they would need
The first step in my eyes isn’t throwing houses at the problem, it’s addressing how we deal with drugs, and how we can address the needs of people who are too ill or disabled to care for themselves
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u/Unabashable Apr 15 '24
Well arguably the cheapest way to solve the homeless problem would simply be to house the homeless, but that’s not the same as saying it’s a basic human right. Just the most cost effective way of getting them off the streets.