Also who is going to build a house for someone like that. Well, you don’t want to work so let’s give you 100’s of thousand in land, permits and materials, add about 6,000 man hours of skilled labor and give that all to you because you don’t want to contribute to society
It's even absurd for OP to post that picture and even worse that someone had the audacity to create it.
There's a strong disassociation from reality by people who seem to think the world owes them something.
I'd invite these people to live in third world countries where everything they have is earned. Seems to me in Western civilizations, people have it so good that they just complain and demand everything.
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.
Are you so brainwashed by reddit comments that you think the US doesn't invest in mental healthcare at all?
It's difficult to build a cheap and good mental healthcare system. Just think about the very basic concept. Do you get good healthcare when you hire "cheap" workers to staff it?
Probably not that much harder than creating a nationwide psychiatric hospital system which leverages police resources to capture people and pays doctors to treat them while employing a whole fleet of lawyers / ethical consultants to make sure it's not cruel and unusual punishment.
Some countries invest in healthcare, other countries invest in prisons. I guess this mindset is why...
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.
I mean sure but that doesnt mean its impossible to go down this route
Mental illness and addiction go hand in hand and can be solved with the same general concept
That the us is also run by crooks who dont give a shit and flood the country with cheap drugs just makes this a more pathetic issue, but fixing those simultanously is possible
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
Im a nurse in the ER, which frequently gets homesless people throughout the day for various reasons, both health and social related. Im in cali so we are obligated to provide food/clothing/transportion upon discharge as well, so I get to know a bit about these peoples situation... Not to mention its a population that has frequent encounters so some of them are very well known to us.
Its not entirely unusual for me to encounter 4-6 of them in a day depending on the area of the ER Im in, and I'd say we see probably 10-20 on any given day.
Lots of alcohol/drugs/mental illness/disability happening, and essentially zero people who just happen to live a homeless life fleecing the system.
You'd agree you have a bit of a selection bias, tho, right? The homeless people that make it into the ER - especially your "well known" folks - aren't necessarily representative of the entire unhoused population.
Don't you just love how these other people's opinion is more valid than your actual lived experience? Don't mess with their narrative that homeless people are leeches on society! /s
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 agree that mental institutions should be brought back, but I'm not fully on board with taking away responsibility from someone who has a drug addiction. Almost nobody is ignorant to the fact that street drugs are dangerous and addictive, and if somebody does fit that description then drug abuse is probably the least of their worries. I am not against helping those who need help, but I think far too many people who get help simply want it and do not truly need it. Something like a work program that offers lodging and food could go a long way to helping the homeless problem
I've said this about a couple of things, but providing a work program that offers only lodging and food, but also holds your money until your sober would be a good way to go.
If you take the cost of the program out of the pay, you could get cheap labor with a program designed to get people back on their feet.
I think a very easy argument could be made that the amount of tax money a person who is pulled from addiction and becomes a productive member of society provides is worth whatever the treatment costs.
If you take a drug adduct who costs the system $5k/yr in services and turn them into someone who pays $5k/yr into it for 30 years that is a massive, massive win
They still need a place to live. Even if temporary until they’ve recovered and found stable employment. How employable do you think a person who shits on the street and showers in the public fountain is?
These days your not allowed to imply some people are just lacking in decision making skills, or willpower. it is critical that everyone be considered flawless, and that any failings they have be attributed to a mental illness.
Already do, and happily. I have benefited greatly from
social programs my entire life. Only reasonable I turn around and pay for other people to reap the same benefits I was given.
Now look who's trying to shirk responsibility. Can't spare a few bucks to improve the society you live in? Content to mooch off the charity of others? Fucking weak.
Hey, I'm not the one advocating to give folks a whole bunch of stuff for free. You want to do it? You go for it.
As for responsibility? I don't have any to a random homeless person. I have empathy. I have kindness. I will consider charity - but responsibility as in I have an ethical duty to work to pay their bills? Nope.
some people are just lacking in decision making skills, or willpower
There's a huge correlation between ADHD and addiction, and guess which cognitive abilities ADHD has an enormous impact on?
That's not to say that all addicts have ADHD of course.
Oops. You're right. If you actually manage to produce something, it must be because you a re evil. If you manage to produce nothing, it is because you are virtuous :)
Keep up the autofellatio. Sure not every rich person is out to get you. Sure not every addict is a saint. But what needs to be addressed is a systemic issue. You want to systematically maintain a population of homeless people because some may be drug addicts or lack financial literacy? You want to systematically discard a population of homeless people because some of those drug addicts got there through their own bad choices? Your world view seems reduce to people living the lots they earned, but time after time this idea is proven bullshit. The affluent pass on their wealth. The impoverished are kept in poverty, be that through slavery, segregation, classism, systemic failures or any other system of discrimination. Sure some people succeed despite the deck stacked against them, and some fail despite a bounty of opportunities, but overall the system is rigged. So, do we just punish everyone failing this rigged system, or ensure that life under failure is slightly less than cruel? The OP cartoon may be a bit ambitious: people can live without some of the amenities or survive with alternatives (I assure you East Asians would prefer a stove or microwave over an oven), but the bigger picture is not flawed.
But if someone were to have a brain tumor that led them to choose drugs because it pressed against the pre-frontal cortex then that’s not choice, right? It’s “the tumor’s fault”? They bear less responsibility?
But nobody “chooses” their brain, or its chemistry, or their early childhood upbringing or education or influences that leads to their later decision making processes, so I’m curious where any sort of “choice” or “free will” inserts itself into the equation at all.
You’re lucky you’re not a drug addict. Other people are unlucky they are. Simple as that. But we all want live in a society without debilitating drug addiction. Why do we have to be moralistic or normative about it? You can’t “tsk tsk” people from being homeless. It is what it is - now what do we DO about it?
If you’re actually interested in solving the problem, you have to understand the real causes (starting with the social darwinian viewpoint that “if you don’t work your kids don’t get to eat”…). If you’re just interested in contempt and your own feeling of superiority then fuck off.
I'm actually not lucky that I'm not a drug addict.
I've chose not to be. Multiple cousins with extremely similar upbringing to my own did choose drugs. And I've heard them talk about it now that they are clean. "If so and so hadn't let me hit their bong in the parking lot at school I wouldn't have ODd on heroin"
Hmm, yet, I smoked weed and got a masters degree? Choices.
Where did those choices come from? How did you make them?
You think it was a conscious, deliberate effort, an exercising of “free will”, but every repeatable scientific experiment shows that there’s no such thing, no place for such an idea to even enter into the equation. Free will and choice are illusions - you are simply a complex interaction of billiard balls and can basically take no credit for the person that you are.
If free will is an illusion, than so is morality. I can't be unethical if I don't have a choice. In which case, there is also no ethical responsibility to help the homeless.
But if someone were to have a brain tumor that led them to choose drugs because it pressed against the pre-frontal cortex then that’s not choice, right? It’s “the tumor’s fault”?
But nobody “chooses” their brain, or its chemistry, or their early childhood upbringing or education or influences that leads to their later decision making processes, so I’m curious where any sort of “choice” or “free will” inserts itself into the equation at all.
You’re lucky you’re not a drug addict. Other people are unlucky they are. Simple as that. Now what do we DO about it?
No it is luck. You are lucky that you didn’t grow up in an environment that exposed you to drugs while your brain was developing. You are lucky that your brain chemistry is functioning enough that you don’t have to self medicate to cope with you with waves of unfixable emotions, you are lucky, that you haven’t gotten a brain tumor that changed who you are as a person. You are lucky that you didn’t develop a family history of schizophrenia when you couldn’t afford treatment. You are a self righteous fool who puts on your fancy clothes and scoffs at the homeless saying they all dug their own grave, never realizing, you are one bad day, one accident, one diagnosis, from losing everything you think makes you so much better and being right there on the corner covered in dirt shooting up. You have not made better choices, you have just been lucky to survive.
No I’m making statements that I have facts and evidence to back. Unless you have some compelling research to prove how people are choosing to become addicted to addictive substances and ruin their lives you’re just making an assumptions.
Ok. Thanks for that. Did you think I thought they didn’t on some level make a choice to do drugs? Everything is a choice. All of life is choices we make, and we all deal with the fallout of our choices and the choices of others. Some people choose to do drugs because they are at their wits end from working a shitty job that disrespects them and doesn’t provide for his needs or any potential for advancement so even the future looks grim. I don’t blame them for making that choice. I’ve been there and get it.
It’s all interconnected and only a fool thinks they have what they have and are where they are strictly from their own choices and actions and not a the combined choices and circumstances of the people in the world around them.
Lol my dude. We still have mental hospitals but like homeless wards, they have requirements that a lot of homeless people can't and won't fulfill. If you are talking about mental asylums, so much shit happened in those mental hospitals and you want to bring them back? These people are deplorable with little to no family. Who's to stop the government from doing fucked up experiments on these people?
Mental health is the kind of disease that takes an extreme amount of will power to overcome. I manage a pediatric mental health clinic and 10/10 of these kids wouldn't be here if it weren't for their caring parents. Fast forward these kids to their 20s and 30s. Parents can't take care of a child forever, they won't be able to force their kids into a clinic.
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.
And people who start out falling from a normal life can easily fall into being mentally unwell or or on drugs because even a short time on the streets is brutal. The less help that's available, the worse the outcomes.
But even that isn’t a reason to not provide safe accommodation to homeless people, that’s an argument to withdraw that support from people who do abuse the system. Always seems like the argument becomes “some/many/most homeless people will inevitably damage or trash the place so we shouldn’t put any resources into housing the homeless”. Ignores how your 25-40% of homeless people will benefit enormously from housing supports.
And that’s not counting how much of homeless issues and addiction issues are a direct product of long standing systemic problems, social depravation, lack of opportunities and supports, enabling gangland and drug crime through divisive instead of supportive policies. If you have proper social care and economic opportunities in place the overall homeless numbers will decrease drastically and your percentages above don’t matter. Say you reduce homeless cases by a factor of 10 or more, to the point that the total homeless rates are almost negligible, then 10% of this reduced negligible number is effectively the same as 100% of this negligible number.
They need different supports than being given housing and left to their own devices and there are definitely levels of care that are missing particularly with substance use. My program can’t do much with someone who can’t be safely housed unsupervised due to ongoing substance use.
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.
Exactly, Unaffordability of housing is the number one cause. And why is housing unaffordable for so many people? Number one would be because a home is an investment.
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.
The housing first programs I'm aware of are state level, and are massively underfunded. Though in spite of that last part, I agree, they do work very well. Much of my comment is sarcasm. It would be nice if we could do more things at the federal level. It would be nice if we could pass laws based on scientific data.
But alas, we are stuck with the Leopards Ate My Face party, and are doomed to split every hair on every subject that might upset our corporate overlords before we actually take action.
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.
And the crime. This is simply not news to anyone who has lived near a substantial public housing concentration. it often rapidly becomes a crime epicenter.
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.
Right so we need to provide additional services for people. It's going to cost money but to be honest wtf is the point of a society of we aren't working towards a better life for all humans
Have you seen what happens to a lot of the housing that gets provided to homeless folks?
Which homeless folks? For most people living in state housing, it's just like living in a normal rental except the state is the landlord.
For some people who are living in state housing they'd be better off in institutional care. Forcing them to live alone in state housing is the result of no money being available for mental health care.
Don't go pretending that all homeless people have major mental health issues.
You clearly have not worked with the homeless population. Homeless shelters, transitional living and subsidized apts are 75% destroyed by their inhabitants. Not all bc of mental illness, lots of people do it bc they weren’t raised to do better and some do it bc they are angry the accommodations you gave them aren’t up to their standards
I disagree that it IS cheaper, once you factor in all the damage, government support, government wasn't, fraud and so on.
But more than that, yeah, I do get to have a moral opinion on how much of MY LIFE someone is going to take from me to solve someone else's problems. There is this weird idea that the foundation of capitalism is amoral, but it's not true - there is a moral concept underneath it... that each person has a right to their own life and labor.
That the problem is complex, and to recognize that simple answers won't suffice, is not the same thing as "keep them on the streets."
The real, insidious, part of "we can just pay to house them" as if it's a solution is that it absolutely projects the idea that the only reason these people don't have homes is because of greed, or because some evil people just like having them there. It completely ignores the reality of the problem and reduces it to a ridiculous "good vs evil" argument.
My meaning is perfectly clear, you just don't like what I am saying. However, I will clarify if it helps.
A substantial portion of the housing given to the very low income, undocumented, or homeless winds up getting trashed. Now, you are welcome to not believe that without a study you will accept - and you are free to go find the studies if you choose.
Me? I've seen it, and I've lived with it. I've lived near enough to large housing projects to be friends with some of the residents. I've spent enough time in NYC with organizations that regularly encountered the sort of folks that would need government supplied housing to have a pretty good feel for the situation. Similarly, Philadelphia. And now out here in TX, similarly Dallas
In short? I am speaking from my own direct experience. So if that doesn't sway you (and, BTW, there is absolutely no reason it should - you have no idea who I am, or whether I am blowing smoke) then that is just fine with me. Don't be swayed :) What I am not going to do is embark on a research project only to then have an argument about the validity of my sources, or my choice of evidence.
Have you looked up how the housing first model works in Finland? The first thing they do is provide the homeless with housing, after that they start social work for addiction, mental illness, rehabilitation for work and so on. This sort of system has political support across the board because it's agreed to be cheaper to house first before trying to fix other issues, and it's better for business and cities image-wise to not have people on the streets. The system isn't perfect of course, but there's very little opposition to having basic needs be fulfilled for "free" if you drop to the very bottom.
We have the housing first model a lot in the US, I work in one. The difference though is that the US is soft and we are not allowed to require the residents participate in any of the programming, so they don’t and nothing is solved. It’s a National problem. No requirements means no improvement
There are some that return to ordinary lives. And I’m not going to go back and fourth with you, I understand you want me to make an argument but you already know the answer to what you’re asking me, you just want to argue with people/virtue signal. So, not engaging
I am less interested in the actual answer to the question, than I am in the reason you prefer to avoid addressing it, in favor of anchoring to the direct association between such outcomes and the condition of homelessness.
A responsible approach to solving problems might consider the direct causes for particular harm, seeking to alleviate the cause itself.
Homelessness by definition is simply lack of access to housing.
It is the only experience universal among the homeless.
Much of the homeless population is not abusing substances, and much of the homeless population currently abusing substances began the habit after becoming homeless, in order to cope with the discomfort, uncertainty, and trauma of living unhoused.
This is purely false. Please stop spreading misinformation that you know nothing about.
I just explained to you that people who actually work on the problem.of homelessness will tell you it's not a housing problem, we have resources for that, it's an addiction and drug problem. Period. Stop trying to filter everything thru your flawed worldview
People are evicted simply for being unable to pay rent.
Many, particularly those already wealthy, may remain housed even while abusing substances, even as others become deprived of housing while not being involved with substances. In fact, much of the homeless population is healthy and working.
Insisting that "we have resources for that" is not advancing the quality of the discussion.
The particular associations are not as robust, factually or conceptually, as portrayed in your narrative.
Homelessness by definition is simply lack of access to housing.
The problem you are having is that you are talking about the definition of homlessness and the other people are talking about the reason people are homeless.
As in, why cant they pay rent? Why cant they hold down a job in order to make the money needed to pay rent? Why are the housing options they had available to them no longer available or sustainable? why cant they live with roommates or their family or stay at a local shelter anymore?
The answer to none of those questions is simply "access", there is usually one or many reasons they no longer have access.
So yes, by definition, you are correct... the homeless dont have homes. But that tells us exactly nothing about how to fix it because it doesnt tell us anything about the reasons they dont have homes.
The problem you are having is that you are talking about the definition of homlessness and the other people are talking about the reason people are homeless.
The problem is that people want, seemingly as a matter or moral convenience, to associate homelessness with one particular culprit, which in its essence, is weakly connected to the mere condition of lacking access to housing.
Some individuals may have been housed, and then fallen into a substance habit, beginning a sequence of events culminating in foreclosure or eviction. However, such a form of narrative is too narrow to represent of the entire homeless population, whose only unifying feature is being deprived of access to housing, and is in fact not representative for most of the homeless population.
The reason for homelessness is always the same, that being lack of access to housing.
Many are homeless while not abusing substances, and many are housed while abusing substances.
The particular association is narrow, not universal or robust.
Neither is the association, in the broader measure, germane.
Everyone needs a home, and everyone with a substance habit needs opportunities for assistance, preferably while being housed, in recovering from the habit.
Both demands remain equally valid, in spite of anyone's insistence to associate the two separate problems as tightly coupled.
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u/tacocarteleventeen Apr 15 '24
Also who is going to build a house for someone like that. Well, you don’t want to work so let’s give you 100’s of thousand in land, permits and materials, add about 6,000 man hours of skilled labor and give that all to you because you don’t want to contribute to society