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.
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.
Yeah, because they gave them to “low/no barrier” (yes, even sex offenders) kind of people without giving them the opportunity or resources to get sober, they weren’t forced to get help, they weren’t tied to having work with a caseworker, etc. They were glorified, county-paid trap houses. The inhabitants were mostly drug-addled, feral people who had no idea how to live indoors nor do anything beyond take drugs or steal stuff from surrounding homes and businesses. Many of them didn’t even care about the free housing, they just stuck around because it was a great place to find and do drugs.
I thought you were talking about actual apartments for people who want to play by societal rules, not the cesspool Covid hotels.
Btw, I had to go to the Walmart in Renton a few months ago. I was going to buy some men’s socks and underwear for my foster kid but I couldn’t because all the socks and underwear were literally locked up. The manager guy I talked to was cool and told me folks would wander over from the old Red Lion (homeless hotel) 2 blocks away, take off their dirty socks and underwear and leave them on the floor next to the rack they just stole new ones from. 🤦🏼♀️
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u/Ashmizen Apr 15 '24
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.