HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

I'm sure private prisons have an obvious profit motive and pointing that out is very important.

But the question remains, what the hell do you do when there's literal zombies roaming the streets in America? That is not hyperbole.

> KENSINGTON AVE PHILADELPHIA AT NIGHT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOBoDT-3oM0

> Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, What happened today, Aug, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y&t=57s

>The Oakland, California Homeless Problem is Beyond Belief https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRWmKh13b50

> WALKING THROUGH LOS ANGELES UNBELIEVABLE OUT OF CONTROL HOMELESS SLUM | HOMELESS CRISIS IN AMERICA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WVDieQ8MsI&t=9s

> ZOMBIELAND TENT CITY METHADONE MILE BOSTON MASS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCgNaITiCXY

There's hundreds of videos like that on YouTube from many areas. It's easy to ignore when it's not near you.

Would you feel safe having this in your neighborhood? Would you be ok with your loved one taking a wrong turn somewhere and being stuck alone in any of these places? I'm not saying I love cops hassling homeless people for bullshit reasons, but there are some really out of control areas. How do you even start to deal with this?

⬐ salt-thrower

Public funding for healthcare, including mental health and rehab, would be a good start. Where do these people go even if they want help for their issues? Therapy and rehab cost tens of thousands of dollars. And throwing them in prison is just an “out of sight, out of mind” solution. Good luck getting a job and straightening your life out with prison time on your record.

You shouldn’t criminalize homelessness unless you’re also offering an alternative that actually helps people. But America will never do that, instead we just punch down and make an example out of the lowest among us instead of trying large scale solutions. There are localized nonprofits to help with this sort of thing, but they’re underfunded and limited in scope.

⬐ logicalmonster

> Where do these people go even if they want help for their issues?

The crux of the problem, as I see it, is that in many cases the mental-illness/addiction is too strong and these people vehemently reject actual help even when freely offered.

I'm not advocating "criminalizing homelessness", but am simply pointing out that in practice, "criminalizing homelessness" might be the only workable solution to starting to get these people actual help. Many of these people will reject all actual help unless forced to go through some kind of drug treatment or mental health program.

⬐ salt-thrower

Is being imprisoned an effective addiction treatment or therapy program? Would the threat of prison manage to turn people away from heroin or schizophrenia?

There is no publicly funded drug treatment or mental health program to send them to. Prison is just a temporary lockup before they’re returned to the same environment they came from. Where are you proposing we send them?

FWIW, I think we’re saying close to the same thing. I’m fine with disallowing people from openly camping in cities, but only if there’s a massive safety net to send them to that will actually help. Currently the anti-homeless sentiment is just being ginned up by corporate prisons who want more money. That’s clearly not a real solution.

⬐ undersuit

>How do you even start to deal with this?

You propose imprisoning them? I'd legalize drugs, the prohibition is just contributing to the conditions you're complaining about.

⬐ superultra

> literal zombies

Probably the first step is not dehumanizing them into monsters. They are literally not "literal zombies."

The core problem is that we care more about not seeing or knowing about the problem than we do actually solving the problem.

⬐ logicalmonster

It feels like a "Peak Reddit" moment when somebody cares more about the label used than the actual problem.

The point of that harsh label isn't to mock anybody, but to try and get normal people aware of this problem. Most average people are not aware of shocking scenes like that existing in America.

⬐ Thlom

Seems like a massive mental health and substance abuse issue combined with a cut-throat economy and lacking social safety net.

⬐ pydry

I remember seeing favelas in Brazil next door to ultraluxury apartments 10 years ago thinking that this is probably what the future of the US was going to be like if wealth inequality steadily kept climbing.

And here it is.

r > g in the flesh - the other side of "the magic of compounding".

⬐ onecommentman

If you define “next door” by time to reach, then NYC had that contrast ever since the street car/subway was available. Extreme wealth, spend a nickel (or walk a block) and then see wretched poverty. So nothing really new…it was/is the reality of Manhattan since the late 1800s.

And the future of “the US” is actually your projected future for a fairly tiny geographic region of densely urban US, something the other 95+% of Americans look at with a combination of bemusement and amazement. It’s been a few decades since those dense urban areas have been considered any sort of default desired social or cultural target for most Americans or American culture as a whole. It was different 70 years ago…

⬐ Proven

None

⬐ nine_k

I'd say that many of the homeless are homeless because they could not live in the society. This is why they ran out of money and housing, not the other way around.

What could help them is psychological / psychiatric treatment, rehabilitation from addictions, and offering some better prospects in life than to get wasted every day. This is not a (purely) money distribution problem.

⬐ scollet

> they could not live in the society

The society is broken then. When are people going to reconcile this?

⬐ nisegami

Coming from someone who relates a lot to the idea, but manifests it in vastly different ways, I'm not convinced that society needs to be "for" everyone. Some people just can't exist within it.

⬐ more_corn

What about the doctors he talked to who just moved to Oakland and are saving up to get an apartment? What about people making $11/hr serving coffee and can’t get more than 20hrs wk because the boss doesn’t want to pay benefits? Or the school teacher making $42k/yr? If rent is $3k/mo a lot of people get squeezed out.

Sure there are people who can’t cope and can’t function, but we regularly pay people far less than it costs to live, and that is the leading cause of homelessness. And even the people with fragile mental health or substance addiction are far more likely to overcome those issues if they have housing stability.(see the housing first initiative in Utah for evidence)

What’s the answer I hear you asking? Build. More. Housing. Housing prices in the Bay Area go up 15% a year. More people move here than we build housing by a factor of 3. Pop quiz from Econ 101. What happens when demand grows at 3x the rate supply does? Since we’re not stinkin commies we probably don’t want to say people aren’t allowed to move here, so the supply side of the equation is all we have to work with.

Many cities have figured this out. Pick the most successful one and copy it. Take a look at Vienna for starters. I leave that research as a task for the reader (it’ll be fun trust me)

Without drastic intervention on the housing supply side the problem will continue to get worse as we continue to squeeze the most vulnerable people out the bottom of the housing market.

⬐ pleb_nz

"This is not a (purely) money distribution problem."

Agreed, it's a much deeper issue in modern society.

But treatments like those you mention are not a complete solution. They're a sticking plaster on a wet wound.

Society will need to change at it's core and the issues show worse in places where the biggest changes are needed.

⬐ pydry

American investors who swing liberal try very hard to deal with the cognitive dissonance of "I'm a good person who cares about homeless people" and "I want my portfolio to really excel".

The two are not compatible, though.

This is very much reflected in American investor owned media (all media, pretty much).

This is, realistically, why Americans perceive the cause and effect of homelessness and poor mental health to be reversed.

The reality is seen in Finland where homelessness was completely solved just by adopting a "house people first" policy.

This policy is at the same time going to keep a lid on house prices, rental income and REITS in your portfolio. Hence why it's politically impossible in America and why we strangely keep hearing from Very Smart Talking Heads on TV that 200% rent increases actually have very little to do with those homeless camps.

⬐ thatguy0900

You see the same with a lot of rich conservatives and Jesus' statements on whether rich people can go to heaven. A lot of mental gymnastics. Rich people want to feel like good people, even if it's nearly impossible to actually square that circle.

⬐ aerostable_slug

San Francisco's Housing First program has been an expensive failure. The only real beneficiaries were and are the owners of the SROs. My research indicates similar outcomes in some European locales, while Finland appears to be an outlier with markedly better success than, say, Scotland.

Providing no-strings-attached housing in the United States appears to do little but get rain off people's heads. That is not really solving the problem — having lived near some of these projects, the street people continue being street people (substance abuse, crime, etc.) but now they can go inside when it rains or the SF Sheriffs show up to recover fugitives. They largely do not progress after getting the keys to the SRO room. That does not strike me as a 'win'.

⬐ pydry

Apparently SF housing first program spent between $4-$14 million to spend on temporarily renting out cheap motels.

That's supposed to be expensive? That's pathetic. It'll provide temporary accomodation for a handful of people at most.

I understand the political imperative to declare it a failure though. House prices uber alles.

⬐ earleybird

Dead Kennedys?

⬐ aerostable_slug

You don't get it — I'm not motivated by property values. I'm motivated by 1.) the massive waste of taxpayer dollars that could go elsewhere, and 2.) my compassion for people who really need help, not just a room.

San Francisco spends over $100,000 per homeless individual, per year. It is ridiculous that I kept seeing the same faces doing the same things for years, and of course their population has grown and continues to grow. Throwing money at the problem doesn't work in the United States. The continued advocacy for these programs seems to be rooted in either progressive wishful thinking or simple graft (there's a lot of money changing hands).

⬐ nate_meurer

Have you read anything about Denver's housing-first program? I haven't taken the time to read up on it, but the popular narrative around here is that it's been successful enough to be worth expanding.

⬐ aerostable_slug

I haven't seen enough data yet, at least not from sources that aren't obviously predisposed to bias one outcome or another.

That said, I imagine there would be some significant differences simply due to the weather. Also, the metrics for "success" sometimes seem questionable. Example: percentage of residents still in the same residence a year later. Aren't we trying to help them progress out of the lot they're in and towards returning to a productive member of society? Stagnating in a room just means they're dying slower, not becoming better.

What I've seen firsthand is 'street people' moving from a tent or the like into an SRO, but continuing with their addictions, criminal behavior (often to sustain said addictions), etc. I've even seen people whom I know have a room in an SRO on 6th street (SF) produce bodily waste in an alley because they didn't feel like going back inside. I would think a better metric would be the percentage who move from a housing-first program into transitional housing, or rehab, or find employment, or some other indicia we're doing something other than giving them a roof and calling it a day.

⬐ gruez

>San Francisco spends over $100,000 per homeless individual, per year

AFAIK this statistic is misleading because it takes all the dollars spent fighting homelessness, and divides it by the amount of homeless on the streets. That's fine if you're talking about outreach programs or whatever, but if you also include programs that are actively keeping people off the streets (eg. housing vouchers), then you're undercounting the denominator.

⬐ FooBarBizBazz

I think a lot of people have never actually had to care for a person with serious mental illness, and are naive about what it entails.

⬐ yehudalouis

I remember going out to Oakland for work and having to step over the bodies of people who were passed out from taking drugs (heroin and/or alcohol, I presume?).

Let me repeat that: I had to navigate the sidewalk by stepping over the bodies of human beings scattered on the ground to get to work.

⬐ cityzen

Head down to LA where you can navigate around human poop on the walk of fame. America is a wild place.

⬐ adamrezich

California is a wild place, and by no means representative of the rest of the country.

⬐ lukewoods300

Yeah it's the best part

⬐ more_corn

It is the best part, it is the worst part. This is terrifying.

⬐ jyounker

California is an example of what happens you cap property tax rate increases.

⬐ tabtab

The burden is falling on fair-weather states as the down-and-out from cold states find their way to coastal states to avoid freezing to death. There are plenty of empty houses in the rust belt. We need to find a way to get the homeless into those.

⬐ onecommentman

The lived experience of the Okies in California in the 1930s might be worth investigating before developing any grand schemes restricting internal migration.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-10-18-me-622-st...

https://www.sidmartinbio.org/how-were-the-okies-treated-when...

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-bumblockade/

Does the Pacific Coast want to reinstitute “bum blockades”?

Past Pacific Coast strategies for managing the unwanted included offering a reward for scalps of the unwanted, like the State of California had implemented for First Nations peoples in the 1850s…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2008/8/14/567667/-

The Pacific Coast States in the US era have made some really bad missteps in addressing problems like this over the years. May just be a case of taking the “good” (weather) with the “bad” US citizens (that just aren’t as socially or economically desirable). The homeless/van life are living a lifestyle that, for hundreds of years prior to the Anglos/RR, was perfectly acceptable in that/your part of the country. Not an easy problem to address.

⬐ scotuswroteus

Most Bay Area homeless are from the Bay Area originally

⬐ GenerocUsername

Can you cite that source?

In the past, these types of surveys are filled with methodology errors.

A Seattle based survey I see regurgitated often simply asked where their LAST place of residence before becoming homeless was, and it included stays in shelters as residence... So essentially anyone who had been there more than a few months was counted.

⬐ zactato

This is SF specific, but I bet it holds true for the whole bay area Page 18 https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FINAL-PIT-R...

⬐ gruez

>>A Seattle based survey I see regurgitated often simply asked where their LAST place of residence before becoming homeless was, and it included stays in shelters as residence... So essentially anyone who had been there more than a few months was counted.

>Page 18 https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FINAL-PIT-R...

that doesn't seem to refute the parent comment at all.

⬐ 29824665

>We need to find a way to get the homeless into those.

This is a logical conclusion, but one that isn't compatible with one of the fundamental tenants of US culture: liberty. You could offer a free house to a homeless person in the Rust Belt, and even pay them to live there, but would they want that? We will not force the homeless from where they want to be.

As well, such a solution would end up raising the ire of homeowners, who see costal homeless as strictly Not Their Problem. Especially costal homeless who are Black and Latino.

⬐ pknomad

Not necessarily disagreeing with you but homelessness issue won't be solved by simply moving people into rust belt. Even if people were to be moved... how would we fix the issue that caused them to become homeless (and helpless)?

Part of the reason why homelessness is so visible in places like Oakland because the governing body in cali cities tend to decriminalize homelessness. I've also known homeless in east coast go down to the southern states during the winter... only to come back up north during the summer.

We also need to consider the fact that homelessness is multi-facted. There are folks who are employed but still gets classified as homeless due to high CoL.

⬐ tabtab

> Part of the reason why homelessness is so visible in places like Oakland because the governing body in cali cities tend to decriminalize homelessness.

That's what Jesus would do. The evangelicals seem to skip reading the full New Testament, as they arrest and harass homeless for being homeless.

⬐ kylehotchkiss

The rust belt solved their problems with homelessness by simply giving them a bus ticket to wherever else they wanted to go https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...

⬐ fearfulofview4

None

⬐ robotnixon

What cities with relocation programs in that article are in the rust belt?

⬐ vanusa

I can definitely go with this "pay them to build and manage their own homes" idea. As long as what they build is up to code.

⬐ blacksmith_tb

A program like Habitat For Humanity[1], which does exactly that, would have to scale up enormously to house everyone on the street, but could at least serve as a model. I have volunteered on single-family builds, but for big multi-unit buildings they tend to not use volunteers as they require more actual experience in the building trades (and being bonded and insured I think).

1: https://www.habitat.org/about/faq#homeownership

⬐ vanusa

Yeah, there's only so much these people can do on their own. But the point is -- there's no reason not to at least try to take them seriously.

⬐ blacksmith_tb

For sure, you'd think even just paying everyone in a camp a small amount of money per bag of trash collected would be a short-term fix (yes, it could be gamed by taking trash from somewhere else, but that'd still be cleaning up town...)

I have wondered if cities couldn't require that surface parking lots reserve a space or two for an RV or tiny house, and the residents could work as watchmen in exchange for living there.

⬐ blacksmith_tb

I see I am reinventing the wheel[1], at least for the trash pickup.

1: https://komonews.com/news/local/tacoma-launches-program-to-p...

⬐ ROTMetro

None

⬐ fearfulofview4

None

⬐ rfwhyte

So much of the discussion around homelessness these days essentially boils down to "How can we move these people to a place where we don't have to look at them" instead of "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place."

So many people also try to lay the blame at the feet of the victims here, but drug abuse, mental health problems, etc. are not the cause of homelessness, but rather symptoms of a broader societal pathology of which homelessness is just another symptom.

As long as things keep going the way they're going, where wealth and power are increasingly concentrating in fewer and fewer hands, we're just going to see more and more homelessness, especially with the financialization of housing that's current ongoing at a disturbing and accelerating rate.

⬐ nate_meurer

> drug abuse, mental health problems, etc. are not the cause of homelessness

Evidence? I'd be very interested to see the research that supports your assertion that mental health/ substance abuse are not significant primary causal factors to homelessness, but rather merely coincident parallel "symptoms".

⬐ jseliger

They are a cause, but they're exacerbated by high housing prices that are in turn caused by land restrictions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29193206

⬐ themacguffinman

https://www.bbrfoundation.org/blog/homelessness-and-mental-i...

> Most researchers agree that the connection between homelessness and mental illness is a complicated, two-way relationship. An individual’s mental illness may lead to cognitive and behavioral problems that make it difficult to earn a stable income or to carry out daily activities in ways that encourage stable housing. Several studies have shown, however, that individuals with mental illnesses often find themselves homeless primarily as the result of poverty and a lack of low-income housing.

That was a summary article that lists some sources at the bottom.

Aside from the research, it makes intuitive sense to me as well. Even high severity mental illness is not exclusive or close to exclusive to homeless populations. For every mental illness you find in a homeless person, you can usually find a non-homeless person who has managed it with social support and/or medication. It doesn't make sense to portray homelessness as a causal outcome of mental illness that won't be affected by social & economic policy.

⬐ dragontamer

Even your crazed schizophrenic wants a home to sleep in. A warm bed during the cold, and a roof to keep out the rain.

Its not like crazed schizophrenics are inhuman or whatever. And a home won't solve their mental problems. But getting them off the streets (by finding cheap enough housing for them to afford) solves a lot of other issues.

They still have stress, both physical and mental. And that stress could be making it harder for them to deal with their mental issues.

Depending on the state of their delusion, it might be possible for them to hold a job as well. Maybe you need some social-workers checking in on them depending on how bad the mental illness is, but even schizophrenics are still able to make meaningful contributions to society in the right environment (ex: John Forbes Nash Jr.).

--------

The goal isn't to solve mental diseases, but to build environments where people inflicted with those mental diseases can still be of net-benefit to society.

We all can agree that a __HOMELESS__ crazed schizophrinic is worse than a crazed schizophrinic, right? Solving the homeless problem is a step in the right direction, even if the delusions are unsolvable.

And again: plenty of schizophrinics are high-functioning enough to check into the doctor, mental care, social workers, etc. etc. They can act independently, hold jobs and benefit society. That's probably one of the worst diseases to have but even then its not a hopeless situation.

⬐ wahern

> Even your crazed schizophrenic wants a home to sleep in.

Actually, no. Some crazed schizophrenics simply are unable to live in a stable environment without being coerced, precisely because their affliction effects their ability to think and behave in a manner conducive to maintaining their own health and safety. And that's just one end of an entire spectrum of distorted thinking. At the opposite end of that spectrum is... nobody, because nobody is perfectly rational.

This is why we have a horrendous problem now, because too many people approach the issues by imagining themselves in these situations, imposing their own desires and fears. But that's not empathy; that's about as selfish as you can get. Empathy is about imagining yourself as another person, not imagining oneself simply physically swapping circumstances.

⬐ dragontamer

Have you talked to homeless people? A lot of them just don't have enough money to get a house.

Have you ever met a schizophrinic before? Its not like they're off the loony bin / completely off their rocker, its actually pretty similar to QAnon-style conspiracy theorists. They have some delusions and have difficulty accepting which facts are real or not. But that's not enough of a reason to prevent them from holding a stable job or house.

-----

Have you studied John Forbes Nash Jr.? A celebrated mathematician, the one who discovered "Nash Equalibrium"? He's literally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and never suffered from homelessness.

Its not like "bam, I'm mentally unstable, lol I don't want my house anymore". That's the stuff of crappy Hollywood stories, and has no basis in reality. In most cases, any person, be they crazy / delusional / schizo / mentally sick or normal, will want a warm place to sleep and the rain out of their clothes.

They'll need various amounts of care. Maybe a few drugs is sufficient to hold off their worst symptoms. Maybe socialization / keeping up with friends is what's needed. Hard to say exactly, I'm not a psychologist. But from what I've seen and experienced, mental illness is not an excuse for homelessness. Not at all.

-----

Homeless people, the ones I meet and interact with, are people who don't have enough money for a home. They've been kicked out of their apartment and don't know what to do.

Maybe they're crazy, maybe they're schizo as well. But even if they are, that doesn't change the fundamental issue (ie: their lack of money, their inability to afford a home right now).

⬐ wahern

> Have you talked to homeless people?

Yes. And as a child I experienced homelessness on multiple occasions, though for all my mother's failings (alcoholism, poor choices in relationships) we never had to sleep rough. And in those types of social circles you also tend to meet all kinds of people, including people who regularly experienced homelessness (some occasionally by choice, if you call choosing alcohol or drugs over shelter a choice).

> Have you ever met a schizophrinic before?

Yes. Many times. Homeless and otherwise. And on several occasions as an adult I've endeavored to get to know them, if we crossed paths regularly. And also I've lived with adults who struggled with bipolar disorder. Indeed, one of the periods of homelessness was when my step father, lost in the bowels of severe depression, overdosed and killed himself. Not long afterward, I came home from school to the scene of the sheriff helping to toss all our belongings onto the curb.

One thing you learn growing up in circumstances that I did (and also something every decent economist would be quick to tell you) is that people say one thing but do another. (This is true of everybody, but even more so with people suffering from mental disorders.) Empathy to me means learning how to listen to people by watching what they actually do, not merely what they say. It was a skill I had to learn early on in order to make sense of my world. Learning how to "decode" adults kept me out of alot of trouble, yet also prevented me from becoming a resentful and angry person, something that happens to some people who grew up the way I did. We all struggle, some of us more than others; and specifically we struggle with competing and conflicting desires. But a just world doesn't require giving people a free pass to engage in anti-social behavior simply because they struggle and suffer. That's the sort of logic only the privileged could fashion.

No god or philosopher ever promised that figuring out how to thread the needle of treating people compassionately and humanely while maintaining a healthy social order would be easy or quick. We can't wait to "fix" social inequity or cure mental illness simply because we're too squeamish to recognize the truth of the human condition: that agency and rationality are largely fictitious, at least most of the time. Few people choose to be homeless in the normal meaning of the word. But the flip side to that coin is that exiting such circumstances (and the circumstances that led there) isn't a simple choice either. The choices that matter, good and bad, are made at moments often far removed from their consequences. For this reason, all people need to be incentivized (some more than others) to make the healthier choices. (For people who grew up in healthy homes and under secure financial conditions, these incentives are quietly inculcated as preferences.) Call it paternalism or condescension, but it's true all the same. Our society's obsession with individualism is at the root of many of our social pathologies. The very thing that induces economic inequality (individualism) is the same thing that makes us too squeamish to coerce people to obey the most basic and (for all but the most ideological) sane social norms. In both cases we simply throw our hands up because we're too wedded to the notion of individualism and "freedom".

⬐ dragontamer

Be that as it may, the median home in Oakland is $749,000.

That's far in excess of what an average person can be able to afford, let alone someone who is struggling with mental illness.

---------

That's why I'm saying the first step here is to make $50,000-ish housing units as a first step. It doesn't matter if they're low-end high-density condos or trailer parks, you need something cheap to solve the problem of homelessness.

The lack of money + the expensive houses cause homelessness directly. The issue of mental health is a diversion. Mental health complicates things but its certainly not the end-all / be-all of this situation. Its not even the most important issue.

Oakland's problem is fundamentally the the number of housing units available. If you don't have enough homes at low enough prices, homelessness will come around. You don't need to be mentally sick to become unable to live in a $749,000 home.

-------

This is a city completely devoid of low-income housing units (ie: trailer parks). Is it really that big of a surprise that people can't afford a home to degrees far greater than other cities?

I've seen autistic people, schizophrinic people, and bipolar individuals hold their own homes and be productive members of society. Mental health is no "excuse" for becoming homeless. I've also seen perfectly rational, 100% healthy people lose their homes and become homeless.

⬐ wahern

We absolutely need to build more subsidized housing. And I support those policies, including many of the perennial bond measures. I do so out of earnestness and the hope that the next bond measure will placate the various NIMBY factions on the Board of Supervisors. They disappoint every time, but failure would only truly come when I and others like me give up on sincere attempts at compromise.

But we (San Francisco, Oakland, etc) can't build ourselves out of the homeless problem. Our problems and their causes are multifaceted. In 2004 Mayor Newsom committed San Francisco to that very solution with a 10-year plan, and by 2014 it had acquired or built a long-term residence for every chronically homeless person in 2004. Approximately 3,000 units for 3,000 people. See https://sfmayor.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents... Chronic homelessness was near a nadir. However, over the next several years homelessness exploded even though in terms of economic inhospitableness nothing had appreciably changed since 2014.

As a child we moved all over the place, town to town, state to state, chasing better jobs and cheaper living, with varying degrees of success. Poor people, even with empty pockets, are resourceful and somehow manage to get around. Some are better at it than others. This phenomenon is especially stark in accounts of genocide, where some people are seemingly unable to fathom relocating even when they have the economic and physical means and despite knowing their death is imminent. But the operative word is some; some can't, but some can. (Neither the poor nor even the homeless are a homogenous group, and much is lost in our--including my own--reductive aggregations.) It would be patently inhumane and unreasonable to pick any homeless person on the street and demand that they move away. On the other hand, policies that assume as a general matter that the poor or homeless can't, won't, or shouldn't relocate in search of better opportunities or conditions are sorely misguided, not to mention doomed to failure when adhered to at such a local level.

Moreover, from a purely accounting perspective, neither San Francisco nor Oakland have the resources to mitigate all the economic pressures for housing. For definitions of "affordable" bandied about by many on the far left, if you crunch the numbers (e.g. $500k per unit, which is somewhat conservative) San Francisco would need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build enough subsidized housing, and that's if the situation remained static. That's not remotely realistic even though the City of San Francisco already enjoys the highest revenue per capita of any major American city. To think Oakland, a far less wealthy city, could merely build its way out of the current problem using public funds and without displacing anybody is even less realistic, to say the least.

⬐ dragontamer

When the price of housing goes up, homelessness goes up.

Now we have a multifaceted problem for sure. The people who own homes don't want their homes losing value. We need to build new homes without destroying the value of the older homes.

_THAT_ is the problem. A neighborhood that currently is filled with $700k to $2mm homes attracts a certain clientele. Filling it up with a trailer park is going to be rejected by the local boards / NIMBYism.

For good measure. I personally wouldn't want my $1mm investment to go down the drain to fix the housing issue.

--------------

But that doesn't change the fundamental problem at play here. The price of current homes is too high, and that's largely because the bay area doesn't have enough homes. Either now, nor being built.

> To think Oakland, a far less wealthy city, could merely build its way out of the current problem using public funds and without displacing anybody is even less realistic, to say the least.

A trailer park is cheap as hell. The issue isn't about building it. Its about the NIMBYism revolving around home prices, and how that kind of addition would lower the value of properties.

I'm not demonizing NIMBYism. I understand it. But you gotta understand that political issue as well to see how it affects the greater region.

⬐ nate_meurer

> A trailer park is cheap as hell.

So you keep saying. Care to put some numbers to that? Try ballparking the per-unit cost of land, improvements, and construction for what is essentially single-family development in and around the bay area. Then let us know who's going to pay for it.

> But that doesn't change the fundamental problem at play here. The price of current homes is too high

Literally not a single person here would disagree with that. You're not saying anything new or revelatory. You think you have some kind of nuanced perspective, but you're just repeating what everyone else has said here for years; runaway housing inflation, nimbyism, etc. Yes, true, very good.

I don't think anyone who believes the solution to homelessness involves building "cheap as hell" trailer parks in the most expensive areas of the country can have thought about this too deeply.

⬐ dragontamer

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Oakland/7305-Saroni-Dr-94611/home/...

$90,000 for the lot. Place maybe 2 or 3 trailer-homes onto the property + a driveway to access the trailer-homes. Maybe $300k for 3 family units.

The issue isn't the price of land or the price of trailer-homes ($20,000 per trailer home). Its the NIMBYism, the neighbors who will run you out of the neighborhood for bringing down the value of their homes.

⬐ nate_meurer

It seems apparent that your experience with this subject is dwarfed by wahern's. It's funny how you just papered over their entire response to you with "be that as it may".

Couple of questions for you, since you seem to be expert on refractory homelessness:

- How do you propose to prevent severely mentally ill and drug addicted people from destroying the $50,000 homes they're allowed to live in free of charge?

- Are you aware of the strict screening and eligibility requirements that homeless applicants undergo to qualify for existing housing-first programs? Why do you suppose things are done this way? Are you familiar with the cost of maintaining the housing in these programs, even with the strict screening in place? What solutions do you propose for many homeless folks who don't pass these screenings? Or for the many others who do pass initially, but relapse into the addictions, illnesses, and crimes that brought them here to begin with, and bring those problems into the communities you've put them in?

- Exactly how do we go about building your $50,000 dwellings near any big city in California, let alone the bay area? Detailed steps, please. Keep in mind that your super affordable housing must actually be in these cities, enough to provide even remotely affordable intensive mental health and addiction treatment services and high frequency wellness and maintenance checkups that these folks will require, often indefinitely. So... where will the land come from? What's your budget for that land, and for the necessary improvements like grading, sewer, water, and electric? What is your budget for condemning or buying out existing housing in the most expensive cities in the country?

⬐ exolymph

> "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place."

This is impossible. Scarcity is not a solved problem, but on top of that, some people choose to be homeless. That their choice seems miserable and irrational doesn't make it less of a choice — people choose all sorts of unpleasant things.

Example: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/rescuing-jessica-s...

(If addiction in particular didn't involve a component of choice, nobody would be able to choose to escape, with or without help, and thankfully some people do.)

⬐ Reichhardt

> How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place

Pay people to get sterilized. Right now our current welfare system encourages homeless women to have children - since they are immediately granted public housing.

Offering homeless men $5,000 and women $10,000 for vasectomies and tube tying will save a fortune in welfare costs and end the cycle of poverty.

⬐ themacguffinman

I doubt you'll see any significant long term reduction in homelessness or poverty with such a program because there's little to no evidence that indicates that biology is a major cause. Some of the strongest predictors of homeless rates in US cities are availability of low income housing and of mental health care [1].

There is some evidence that homelessness & poverty increases the likelihood that the next generation is homeless/poor but that would be a secondary factor. The moral & political cost of a forced sterilization program is indescribably immense in the West and would need to promise similarly immense outcomes which are nowhere to be seen.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/800641

⬐ xkbarkar

This comment has to be one of the most vile things I have read in a long time. Even surpasses the hermaincain and coronavirus subreddits in horrific commentary. You think homeless people only come from other homeless people? Even if this is just a bot or troll account. If anyone reading this actually has this thoughtprocess as a solution. Please, volounteer. Soup kitchen for example. The homeless are not a substandard human race meant to be exterminated. Has the dehumanization of unvaccinated westerners started to set this kind commenters of commenters to think they are mainstream enough to actually post things like this?

This would have been unheard of in 2019.

You DO NOT under any circumstances enforce invoulontary medical procedures on a living human being. EVER!!!! No exceptions. What the hell are we becoming?

⬐ marcusverus

If the parent comment had advocated for the terrible things you’ve railed against, your comment would make a lot of sense.

⬐ Reichhardt

We are forcing experimental mRNA vaccines on billions of people, for no gain (explicitly in the case of those who already have natural immunity) - primarily for the profits of big pharma.

Many people voluntarily seek out birth control. Its difficult for homeless people to manage that long-term. Vasagel is also a solution for homeless men. Long-term implants can be used for women.

⬐ thatguy0900

"You DO NOT under any circumstances enforce invoulontary medical procedures on a living human being. EVER!!!! No exceptions. What the hell are we becoming?"

Well, in fairness, paying people to do it is hardly involuntary.

⬐ treeman79

Easy. But you won’t like it.

Eliminate minimum wage and most worker protections. Make lawsuits more difficult. Eliminate all non private handouts. Remove most restrictions on housing density. Lower tax rates.

Basically be Hong Kong back before China took over.

Only the most severe cases will end up on street.

Everyone else will have some level of income and housing will be cheap.

Private charity can handle the most extreme cases.

⬐ FuWeiShi

None

⬐ diag

Only the most extreme cases would end up on the street because the rest will die. That's a fundamentally antisocial approach that will lead to people being exploited to death.

⬐ dragontamer

> "How do we build a society where homelessness doesn't happen in the first place."

Make cheaper houses.

Other areas of the country mass-produces mobile homes, trailer parks, and other low-income options. Sure, you now have "ghettos", but a ghetto is preferable to homelessness.

Target $50,000 homes or cheaper, and build lots of them. Yes, $50k. Maybe $20k. These people can't afford too much. Build them close enough to areas where the homeless can find jobs, and enough public transit options to support them so that they can do useful work as well.

------

"Ghettos" are unavoidable, and much preferred over homelessness. The next step is how to improve the lives of people in Ghettos (ex: the low-education, high-crime, poor justice), but you must start with shelter before you can make progress.

⬐ FuWeiShi

None

⬐ zeruch

""Ghettos" are unavoidable, and much preferred over homelessness."

The former doesn't have to be endemic, and not the default option for the latter.