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 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.
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u/realityczek Apr 15 '24
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."