6 ms·

My takeaway from this is that homeless shelters don't do enough to support employment of the homeless, and that a minimum wage job is not sufficient to get you

My takeaway from this is that homeless shelters don't do enough to support employment of the homeless, and that a minimum wage job is not sufficient to get you off the street. Conversations I've had with homeless people seem to corroborate this.

alexandrerond 11y ago
My takeaway is that Amazon doesn't give a shit about homeless people issues and is just looking for seasonal cheap labor.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jonesb6 11y ago
  Their a corporation of course they don't care about the issues. My guess is that it cost Amazon more money (opportunity cost had they hired a more fit individual) and that they were actually looking for cheap PR not cheap labor. However Amazon doesn't give a fuck about their minimum-wage employees anywhere, especially in their warehouses.
- axlprose 11y ago
  I always wonder why people want everything helpful to be the result of some purely altruistic action, when there's at least as much help to be gained from mutually beneficial partnerships. Symbiotic relationships not only require less friction to implement, but they're also a lot more sustainable in the long run, since both parties get something out of it as opposed to just one. Yes, amazon obviously benefits from having a larger labor pool to chose from when hiring the poor, but why is this a bad thing? If you had the opportunity to go make Warren Buffett an extra $1 Billion, but you'd only get a 1% cut of it, would you say that's a bad deal? I would hope not, because 1% of $1,000,000,000 is still $10 Million. You'd have to be either crazy or filthy rich already to turn that down just because it'd make a wealthy person wealthier. A seasonal amazon warehouse job might not be the most luxurious, but it still has an unusually low barrier to entry, and is likely to be sustainable for amazon to provide it regularly. Even most of the wealthiest billionaires had to start out by doing annoying grunt-work at some point in their careers.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
samstave 11y ago
I did the math previously on the numbers that SF put out on the homless support they pay out per homeless person; $25k per year / homeless... yet the services are abysmal! One of the things I've long thought would be three areas to address homelessness; 1. create "hygiene trucks" - they are semi trailers that are mobile that would provide showers, bathrooms, 'scrubs' style basic clothing. 2. container based micro housing, divide the containers into ~3 rooms. 3. "standard pantry" -- give them a basic standard pantry which has the ingredients or basic meals (a step up from MREs) 4. basic min-wage jobs with initiatives like this with Amazon where the co gets a tax break - but must provide basic skills like cleaning, organizing etc. Then -- FOCUS ON MENTAL HEALTH Mental health degenerates REALLY fast for those that dont have the above basics. NO PETS.
- dpark 11y ago
  > 1. create "hygiene trucks" - they are semi trailers that are mobile that would provide showers, bathrooms, 'scrubs' style basic clothing. How is this better than a permanent facility? It's got to be way more expensive to build this into a truck. > 2. container based micro housing, divide the containers into ~3 rooms. Containers are not an affordable way to build housing. Shipping containers converted into housing is a fetish for rich people with architects. > FOCUS ON MENTAL HEALTH Yep. Mental health problems are highly correlated with homelessness. Everything from depression to schizophrenia to substance abuse. Often multiple issues combined. > NO PETS. This eliminates a huge number of homeless. Many homeless desperately cling to their pets because they have no one else.
  - placeybordeaux 11y ago
    You might get beyond not in my backyard with a truck.
    - dpark 11y ago
      Maybe, but if you can build container housing in someone's backyard, I'm pretty sure you can get a washroom in there, too.
Outdoorsman 11y ago
Most of the homeless shelters I'm personally familiar with (have volunteered at) are not-for-profit...they have limited funding, manpower, and facilities... On a really good day everyone gets fed, clothed, bathed and has a climate-controlled place to spend the night...most of the time its a stiff challenge to provide those basics..the wherewithal required to offer extras like counseling, job coaching, or to accommodate individual patron's schedules (coming and going--a security issue) is just not there the majority of the time...
- derefr 11y ago
  I wonder if the debt-counselling advice of "tackle the worst debt first and pay it off entirely before touching your other debts" has an equivalent here? Maybe instead of sheltering and feeding 20 people, they could shelter, feed, and empower 5, enough to get those people out of the system and make room for the next 5. In the end, with several such facilities operating this way, available care slots would actually increase.
  - pyre 11y ago
    > they could shelter, feed, and empower 5, enough to get those people out of the system and make room for the next 5 What do you do about the 15 that you left on the street in the middle of winter, and it's -40 out? Will they get by until you're ready for them? What other prioritization will you be doing? Maybe you'll also prioritize the most hireable candidates to the top of the list to be re-groomed for the workforce. What about those that find themselves in a less hireable state? How far down the list are they, and how long do they have to wait to be helped? What about the people that are homeless due to untreated mental health conditions? Do you just ignore them for now? Are they the "class" of homeless that gets helped last?
    - derefr 11y ago
      Actually, going by the analogy, you'd do precisely the opposite: solve the most intractable cases first, because they're the ones that would be soaking up the most of your long-term resources. Like Murray[1]. [1] http://gladwell.com/million-dollar-murray/ http://gladwell.com/million-dollar-murray/

alexandrerond 11y ago

My takeaway is that Amazon doesn't give a shit about homeless people issues and is just looking for seasonal cheap labor.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jonesb6 11y ago
Their a corporation of course they don't care about the issues. My guess is that it cost Amazon more money (opportunity cost had they hired a more fit individual) and that they were actually looking for cheap PR not cheap labor. However Amazon doesn't give a fuck about their minimum-wage employees anywhere, especially in their warehouses.
axlprose 11y ago
I always wonder why people want everything helpful to be the result of some purely altruistic action, when there's at least as much help to be gained from mutually beneficial partnerships. Symbiotic relationships not only require less friction to implement, but they're also a lot more sustainable in the long run, since both parties get something out of it as opposed to just one. Yes, amazon obviously benefits from having a larger labor pool to chose from when hiring the poor, but why is this a bad thing? If you had the opportunity to go make Warren Buffett an extra $1 Billion, but you'd only get a 1% cut of it, would you say that's a bad deal? I would hope not, because 1% of $1,000,000,000 is still $10 Million. You'd have to be either crazy or filthy rich already to turn that down just because it'd make a wealthy person wealthier. A seasonal amazon warehouse job might not be the most luxurious, but it still has an unusually low barrier to entry, and is likely to be sustainable for amazon to provide it regularly. Even most of the wealthiest billionaires had to start out by doing annoying grunt-work at some point in their careers.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

samstave 11y ago

I did the math previously on the numbers that SF put out on the homless support they pay out per homeless person; $25k per year / homeless... yet the services are abysmal! One of the things I've long thought would be three areas to address homelessness; 1. create "hygiene trucks" - they are semi trailers that are mobile that would provide showers, bathrooms, 'scrubs' style basic clothing. 2. container based micro housing, divide the containers into ~3 rooms. 3. "standard pantry" -- give them a basic standard pantry which has the ingredients or basic meals (a step up from MREs) 4. basic min-wage jobs with initiatives like this with Amazon where the co gets a tax break - but must provide basic skills like cleaning, organizing etc. Then -- FOCUS ON MENTAL HEALTH Mental health degenerates REALLY fast for those that dont have the above basics. NO PETS.

dpark 11y ago
> 1. create "hygiene trucks" - they are semi trailers that are mobile that would provide showers, bathrooms, 'scrubs' style basic clothing. How is this better than a permanent facility? It's got to be way more expensive to build this into a truck. > 2. container based micro housing, divide the containers into ~3 rooms. Containers are not an affordable way to build housing. Shipping containers converted into housing is a fetish for rich people with architects. > FOCUS ON MENTAL HEALTH Yep. Mental health problems are highly correlated with homelessness. Everything from depression to schizophrenia to substance abuse. Often multiple issues combined. > NO PETS. This eliminates a huge number of homeless. Many homeless desperately cling to their pets because they have no one else.
- placeybordeaux 11y ago
  You might get beyond not in my backyard with a truck.
  - dpark 11y ago
    Maybe, but if you can build container housing in someone's backyard, I'm pretty sure you can get a washroom in there, too.

Outdoorsman 11y ago

Most of the homeless shelters I'm personally familiar with (have volunteered at) are not-for-profit...they have limited funding, manpower, and facilities... On a really good day everyone gets fed, clothed, bathed and has a climate-controlled place to spend the night...most of the time its a stiff challenge to provide those basics..the wherewithal required to offer extras like counseling, job coaching, or to accommodate individual patron's schedules (coming and going--a security issue) is just not there the majority of the time...

derefr 11y ago
I wonder if the debt-counselling advice of "tackle the worst debt first and pay it off entirely before touching your other debts" has an equivalent here? Maybe instead of sheltering and feeding 20 people, they could shelter, feed, and empower 5, enough to get those people out of the system and make room for the next 5. In the end, with several such facilities operating this way, available care slots would actually increase.
- pyre 11y ago
  > they could shelter, feed, and empower 5, enough to get those people out of the system and make room for the next 5 What do you do about the 15 that you left on the street in the middle of winter, and it's -40 out? Will they get by until you're ready for them? What other prioritization will you be doing? Maybe you'll also prioritize the most hireable candidates to the top of the list to be re-groomed for the workforce. What about those that find themselves in a less hireable state? How far down the list are they, and how long do they have to wait to be helped? What about the people that are homeless due to untreated mental health conditions? Do you just ignore them for now? Are they the "class" of homeless that gets helped last?
  - derefr 11y ago
    Actually, going by the analogy, you'd do precisely the opposite: solve the most intractable cases first, because they're the ones that would be soaking up the most of your long-term resources. Like Murray[1]. [1] http://gladwell.com/million-dollar-murray/ http://gladwell.com/million-dollar-murray/