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The 'Housing First' model was really pushed hard by Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind of guy

by mabbo 10y ago

The 'Housing First' model was really pushed hard by Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind of guy, yet here he was putting money towards what seems like a very left-wing socialist idea. But he, like Lloyd Pendleton in this article, apparently figured out that it saves a lot of money, ideology be damned. Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes.

douche 10y ago
Would that it would be possible for the reverse to happen. Never will left-wing politicians lower tax rates.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jtedward 10y ago
  Obama lowered taxes, in fact no Democratic president has raised taxes during my lifetime (I'm 25). It's pretty strange people always claim this is a thing when it's just flat false.
  - refurb 10y ago
    That's only true if you ignore the ACA taxes.[1] [1]http://www.atr.org/full-list-ACA-tax-hikes-a6996 http://www.atr.org/full-list-ACA-tax-hikes-a6996
  - madenine 10y ago
    probably expecting a lot from username "douche"
    - douche 10y ago
      That's the best you can come up with? Go home and start over
    - linkregister 10y ago
      Maybe douche is just a francophile who appreciates hygiene.
  - crystalmeph 10y ago
    Bill Clinton raised taxes early in his first term, 24 years ago in 1993. "He raised taxes on higher income taxpayers"[0]. Did you mean that no Democratic president raised taxes on your family in your lifetime? [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Cl...
- DougWebb 10y ago
  If you look at federal budgets over the past 40 years [1] (select Presidents Trump through Carter) the only years with a budget surplus were budgets from Bill Clinton. Each year of his term the deficits got smaller, until they became surpluses in the last three years. George W had a (smaller) surplus his first year, but then went back into deficit spending to fund the wars in the Middle East. I'm not sure how the timing works, but that first year surplus might have been due to Clinton too. As I recall, Clinton cooperated with a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress to get the budget in line. Rapid growth in the IT industry helped raise revenues as well. Unfortunately the Republicans turned against him at the end, and completely lost their fiscally-conservative policy standpoint. Deficit spending has just been getting worse and worse since then, regardless of who's been in power. http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/ http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/ [1]
  - CalChris 10y ago
    > As I recall, Clinton cooperated with a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress to get the budget in line. Your memory is very incorrect. In Clinton's Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, he said that he wanted to raise taxes and cut defense spending (aka, right wing welfare). http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 Newt Gingrich then rallied+campaigned against this and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 received zero Republican votes. The fiscal conservatism was all Clinton; but the conservatism was all Republican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_... Gingrich went on to campaign against this in the 1994 midterms. He went on to shut down the government twice to say nothing of the impeachment nonsense while he was cheating on his own wife. Gingrich was booted out by his own majority and was reprimanded by them for his own (lack of) ethics. No, Republicans get zero, nada, no credit for Clinton's budgets and his ensuing surpluses.
ljf 10y ago
Totally this - I read once that is costs around £16000 a year per rough sleeper in central London, through policing, clean up, emergency care, and other costs. And that at the end of the year (if the person hadn't died) they were no less likely to be a rough sleeper than at the start. It just seems crazy that we can't better funnel that money to intervene and support people, to plan on removing that cost over the long term.
- tjpaudio 10y ago
  The general problem isn't convincing people that housing them would be more cost effective, it's that a large portion of the population is worried about incentivizing people to not work. Whether or not that is a valid concern is up for debate, but it's definitely the main driver why programs like this in the US rarely get funded.
  - notatoad 10y ago
    Worrying about incentivizing people not to work is one thing, but i think a larger part of that concern is people worrying that somebody else is getting something for free when they have to pay for it. Free-housing programs are seen as unfair by people who have to pay for their housing. If you take half the $16k that gets spent on policing and cleaning up after a homeless person and spend that on providing housing for them instead, somebody who works a minimum wage full time job and spends the same amount out of their own pocket on housing is going to be rightfully annoyed. Which inevitably brings us around to the basic income debate.
    - EdSharkey 10y ago
      > a larger part of that concern is people worrying that somebody else is getting something for free when they have to pay for it There are plenty of examples of politicians making promises of spending now on others in order to gain cost savings down the road. Obamacare was sold to the all-too-eager masses this way. Especially at the county/local level, such cost savings arguments could be made very effectively if there were convincing numbers to back them up. You could also make arguments that public health and land values could benefit from such spending. I'm basically sold purely on a public health argument. What I take issue with is your abstract line of thinking. First, those who oppose you may not be as shallow (nor ignorant) as you seem to suggest. For example, I would love to see temporary housing, drug treatment, mental health counseling, and job/life-skills counseling to be setup for the homeless. But my local government is so disconnected from reality and are so wholly lacking in priorities that there would never be enough political will to allocate additional budget enough to truly address the problem. So, I oppose you on budget priorities grounds: politicians need to make eliminating homelessness a priority at the expense of some other program - and they could care less about the homeless. The taxes are already too high, and there's a laundry list of bullcrap that the city and county does that could be cut in favor of actually helping those who are in real dire straits. Second, the environment into which the homeless enter is not a vacuum, and at least local to me, the government had a big hand in creating the current homeless crisis we see (legalized building structures for public overnight camping in the streets.) Coupled with our generous social services that keep people alive, our already bad homelessness problem has metastasized into real human tragedy. So, while I am pained to see what's going on here, I am also deeply skeptical that there is enough wisdom in my local officials to deal with this problem when they were fools at the start and caused it to flare so badly. I oppose you in your thinking that government is capable of solving this problem. Third, the opinion that additional public services for the homeless become an incentive to remain homeless is a legitimate one regardless of how crisis/fear-minded you are on the subject. The crux of my argument is that dependency robs people of their liberty. The systems we have today for supporting the homeless create dependency and are unjust for that reason. I am in favor of increasing services, housing, and even outright paying people who are homeless to get them out of their situation -- BUT, to get around the dependency issue, there needs to be mandatory work. We need to create a more comfortable life for these people and provide a real possibility to emerge and be self-sustaining. And, at the same time, it has to be UNcomfortable because we expect work out of them. I oppose pure charity to otherwise able-bodied people if that charity will keep those people in their miserable place. If I were el presidente benevolent dictator, I would make homelessness illegal tomorrow. Along with housing, counseling, and rehab, I would give people who break my law a choice of a few kinds of make-work while they sort their lives out. If they are intractable or fail to show up for their new job, they get sent to the work farm (essentially forced work prison where they get paid real wages) or the military if they are fit enough. For people unable/too sick or those not in their right mind, I would reserve the biggest cash outlays in order to provide comprehensive care for them.
pfarnsworth 10y ago
Canadian conservatives are roughly in line with Democrats in the US. At worst they are slightly to the right of Dems but not by very much.
- maxsilver 10y ago
  This is largely true in the US as well, but our political parties refuse to update their branding.
ergothus 10y ago
> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. I've certainly heard this argument from the (few) libertarian sources that are considering basic income. They are opposed to "entitlement" programs, but see a (theoretically) cheaper entitlement program as better than an expensive one. (Perhaps they also think that a flat-sum basic income is easier to lower or hold flat than a complex web of social programs. Or I may be being cynical) OTOH, it can still be a hard sell to constituents. The US has known for at least a decade that spending more on IRS agents would earn more money than it would cost. No new rules, no new regulations, just enforcement of the rules we have. Seems like an easy decision to me, but few politicians, left or right, want to be caught saying we should have more tax enforcers. Pity.
- MangentBrioche 10y ago
  UBI is being pushed by a subset of the wealthy primarily because it will be a juicy source of rent, in both the economic and colloquial senses. Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing costs absent the sort of regulation that would itself make UBI politically untenable (i.e. because it would not benefit the wealthy.)
  - noonespecial 10y ago
    >Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing cost I think you're wrong about that because UBI frees people to go and live anywhere. They won't be trapped in lousy housing one bus-ride from their McJob anymore. The only way housing would suck up the entire UBI is if everyone were trapped in a California situation where new housing was impossible.
    - NewCathargo 10y ago
      That's the best argument for UBI I've heard yet. It gives people an option to "exit" shitty societies. Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. But if the people in power are willing to take that risk, then it might be a positive thing. One glaring flaw is that humans are a social species and calculate rank and favors and grudges almost autonomously. Receiving your "life" from a government stooge is something of an embarrassment to men who've survived cold winters and starvation and dehydration. We like to be "equal" or "respectful" to a gift giver by having the possibility of giving back an equivalent gift. So in a sense, you have to teach the homeless person abilities which, eventually, allow him/her to reciprocate a gift. Even if the gift was from the government.
Joof 10y ago
Hasn't worked for single payer healthcare yet. Nobody brings up that almost every other country's government pays less than the US.
- ksenzee 10y ago
  a) Lots of people bring that argument up. I hear it all the time. b) There's a difference between "the US pays" and "the US government pays".
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Can you explain b). Doesn't "the US government pays" mean that the US pays, one step later?
    - jpttsn 10y ago
      Yes-ish; but maybe not the other way around.
  - Joof 10y ago
    For b) we get the worst of both worlds. The US government pays one of the highest costs per person AND it costs the individual an exorbitant amount. Without significantly better outcomes.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    The US government pays more for healthcare than average. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-compare-internationally/ http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-com...
- Consultant32452 10y ago
  If you're a wealthy person anywhere in the world and you have a really terrible disease you're probably going to come to the US to get care. Why? Because we have the highest quality healthcare in the world. There's a reason why there was some mild drama over Danny Williams (Premier of Canadian province) hopped the border to have heart surgery in the US. We're the best. What we lack is healthcare access for the poor. Dampening the profitability of health care with single payer will reduce quality and increase access. That's an okay argument to make, just make sure you're stating both sides when you make an argument. Otherwise it's just disingenuous. Also, it's important not to be fooled by some of the comparative health stats. Many of our poor health stats are the more the result of culture than they are a lack of access to health care. Being able to go to the doctor without paying a copay doesn't matter much when you're 100 pounds overweight and don't follow the diabetic diet your doctor laid out for you.
saosebastiao 10y ago
Policy is very regularly unrelated to ideology. I consider myself conservative in ideology, but very rarely agree with the policies of US conservatives, and relatively often agree with policies of US liberals, but I almost never agree on the principal arguments liberals might put forth to justify the policy. For example, I advocate for freedom of immigration and emigration as a matter of freedom of trade. I advocate for a solid (but not lavish) welfare state as a matter of fiscal policy (It's a lot cheaper than prisons). I advocate for a single payer health care system because it reduces regulatory capture and rent seeking. Politics, however, has far more to do with identity than ideology or policy. Finding common ground on contentious issues does not raise money or secure votes. Demonizing and opposing those that don't look, live, or act like you does.
- DonzoS 10y ago
  Well said...
maxxxxx 10y ago
"Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes." You could make the same case for health care. There are plenty of countries that get good quality health care at a much lower cost for the country but somehow in the US it's impossible to learn from that. I always though the US is a pragmatic country but over the last 15 years I have seen an increase in blind ideology. Things get opposed vigorously out of principle.
- Berobero 10y ago
  >> plenty of countries that get good quality health care at a much lower cost for the country "Plenty", as in effectively every other comparable developed country, and "good quality" as in consistently better than the US on virtually every metric. Dan Carlin, the podcaster, devoted his most recent show (http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-314-unhealthy-numbers/ http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-314-unhealthy-...) to this topic; it felt like an impassioned plea directed at his reportedly strong libertarian base of followers.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Probably preaching to the choir, but Carlin's WW1 series is fantastic. Easily the best history of the era I've listened to or read.
- grasshopperpurp 10y ago
  Yes, if US politicians weren't beholden to pharmaceutical and insurance companies, it would already be a reality. It makes sense from either side of the aisle. It just doesn't make sense for the few people who stand to lose billions.
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    I think it goes even deeper. People simply can't comprehend that health care in Germany or France (the countries I know) is fine at lower cost. They can't even consider this.
WillPostForFood 10y ago
Utah's success should be replicated where it makes sense. But just because Utah can reduce chronic homelessness 90% by adding 1,000 beds in a low land value, low labor cost state doesn't mean you can simply transfer the program to San Francisco or San Diego and achieve the same success. One of the achievements of Utah is actually putting together decent living conditions in their homeless housing. I fear California's attempt to replicate at scale this would end up in some Cabrini–Green like nightmare.
- m-j-fox 10y ago
  There's plenty of cheap land and labor 100 miles east of San Francisco. Why don't we build homelessville there?
  - Swizec 10y ago
    Because nobody wants to live there? That's why it's cheap. I fear a lot of SF homeless enjoy being in SF for similar reasons that a lot of the not-homeless do. Can the prospect of free housing in a random area lure them away? Maybe? It's hard to say.
    - everybodyknows 10y ago
      Overheard a homeless guy in Mountain View, think he had a tent in one of the creek beds, saying why he likes it here: - ”it's safe, you don't get robbed". Less risk of violent crime in a prosperous, liberal city like MV, where the police management know they're expected to roll a car for reports of homeless-on-homeless violence, and can easily afford to do so.
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  Like everything to do with housing in CA, this idea is ruined by Prop 13. If San Francisco's property tax collections had been allowed to rise with property taxes, their tax revenue would naturally rise as land values rose and they would be able to afford land no matter how high the land values got. However Prop 13 stops their tax revenue from rising as fast as land values so land becomes increasingly unaffordable to them as land values rise.
edavis 10y ago
> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. I think this is a fine approach for the left to take, as long as the moral foundation is never sacrificed. In other words, it should always be "we should do this because it's the right/moral/dignified thing to do (and if it saves money too, great)" rather than "we should do this because it saves money." Because what if new research comes out saying it _doesn't_ save money? (See https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/02/even-when-it-doesnt-save-money https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/02/even-when-it-doesnt-s... for a more fleshed out version of this argument.)
- dahart 10y ago
  > I think this is a fine approach for the left to take, as long as the moral foundation is never sacrificed This is why we have Republicans in the first place who won't even consider implementing social programs. They believe so strongly in their moral foundation of lower taxes that they refuse to consider the evidence. Being willing to look at the evidence objectively is something everyone needs to get better at, conservatives and liberals alike.
  - jtraffic 10y ago
    Agreed. I also think we need to allow ourselves room to question our moral foundations and make attempts at reconciling them with the foundations of "the other side," whoever that is for each of us.
    - gdwatson 10y ago
      Everyone should read Jonathan Haidt's book The Righeous Mind on the foundations of moral psychology and how they are used by liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. I think it's a great foundation for discussions about this kind of thing, and it makes it easier to understand where the other side is coming from.
- sien 10y ago
  Walter Lippmann famously said that “the goal of politics is not to get people to think alike. The goal of politics is to get people who think differently to act alike”.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Now, how do you get a left-wing politician to agree to some right-wing ideals? I mean, just to be fair, right?
- vinay427 10y ago
  I consider myself on the left, and I would for instance agree to less regulation when it favors increased consumer choice without sacrificing quality of life. There are a few cases of this, but in the end many industries have opted to solely favor profits instead, resulting in regulation that often has bipartisan support.
komali2 10y ago
I thought right-wingers liked raising taxes? See: most American Republican Party tax plans.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
noobermin 10y ago
>Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals[...] Why is this a goal for anyone?
richdougherty 10y ago
> Maybe that's a good example of how to get [people] to agree to [some other people's] ideals: prove that it will [have more benefits than costs]. If only!
snarf21 10y ago
Homelessness is a problem easily solved with political will. It is just like health care, we need to spend on prevention not recovery. There are lots of costs, including things like health care. [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-murray http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-...] The hardest problem is preventing a mass migration of homeless once someone institutes a reasonable program. Additionally it is an issue that people generally don't care about. It doesn't resonate in polling compared to jobs and health care so no one invests any effort.
dikdik 10y ago
> It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind of guy, yet here he was putting money towards what seems like a very left-wing socialist idea. Many Democrats where I live, Southern California, find these ideas quite repugnant. So it's not just the right-wing that needs convincing. In expensive housing markets, people get pretty upset when they see anyone getting something "for free." It's a childish attitude, but it knows no political ideology.
wallace_f 10y ago
This is a great example to support a hope for the day ideology retreats from mainstream consciousness as acceptable thinking. Today, it dominates acceptable thinking about politics. By contrast, science, which relies on testing hypothesis, is a method that has propelled the world forward. Could you imagine if we still thought ideologically about nature--Isaac Newton did, and that's why he spent so much time on his work with alchemy and in the Bible. It's easy for smart people to get caught up in ideology, but it won't bring us closer to solving problems. When Feynman famously defined what science is, he said 'it doesn't matter what university you went to, who your advisors were, how smart you are, or what your last name is, all that matters is if it agrees with nature.' Hopefully more and more will start supporting policies on the basis of evidence that they improve human welfare (i.e. economic, health, education outcomes), rather than if they fit into their ideology.
- meric 10y ago
  And in the absence of evidence not yet collected, place their trust in traditions as those still remain the outcome of thousands of years of natural selection of cultures, as opposed to ditching old ways of doing things for the sake of being old.
ende 10y ago
Maybe if you define 'right wing' and 'left wing' as just being against/for public spending. That's very specific to a very narrow characterizatuon of the American political spectrum, but is hardly appliacable to the political spectrums of nearly every other country.
rukuu001 10y ago
> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. It's not the politicians we need to convince, it's the people who vote for them.

by mabbo 10y ago

douche 10y ago

Would that it would be possible for the reverse to happen. Never will left-wing politicians lower tax rates.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jtedward 10y ago
Obama lowered taxes, in fact no Democratic president has raised taxes during my lifetime (I'm 25). It's pretty strange people always claim this is a thing when it's just flat false.
- refurb 10y ago
  That's only true if you ignore the ACA taxes.[1] [1]http://www.atr.org/full-list-ACA-tax-hikes-a6996 http://www.atr.org/full-list-ACA-tax-hikes-a6996
- madenine 10y ago
  probably expecting a lot from username "douche"
  - douche 10y ago
    That's the best you can come up with? Go home and start over
  - linkregister 10y ago
    Maybe douche is just a francophile who appreciates hygiene.
- crystalmeph 10y ago
  Bill Clinton raised taxes early in his first term, 24 years ago in 1993. "He raised taxes on higher income taxpayers"[0]. Did you mean that no Democratic president raised taxes on your family in your lifetime? [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Cl...
DougWebb 10y ago
If you look at federal budgets over the past 40 years [1] (select Presidents Trump through Carter) the only years with a budget surplus were budgets from Bill Clinton. Each year of his term the deficits got smaller, until they became surpluses in the last three years. George W had a (smaller) surplus his first year, but then went back into deficit spending to fund the wars in the Middle East. I'm not sure how the timing works, but that first year surplus might have been due to Clinton too. As I recall, Clinton cooperated with a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress to get the budget in line. Rapid growth in the IT industry helped raise revenues as well. Unfortunately the Republicans turned against him at the end, and completely lost their fiscally-conservative policy standpoint. Deficit spending has just been getting worse and worse since then, regardless of who's been in power. http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/ http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/ [1]
- CalChris 10y ago
  > As I recall, Clinton cooperated with a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress to get the budget in line. Your memory is very incorrect. In Clinton's Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, he said that he wanted to raise taxes and cut defense spending (aka, right wing welfare). http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 Newt Gingrich then rallied+campaigned against this and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 received zero Republican votes. The fiscal conservatism was all Clinton; but the conservatism was all Republican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_... Gingrich went on to campaign against this in the 1994 midterms. He went on to shut down the government twice to say nothing of the impeachment nonsense while he was cheating on his own wife. Gingrich was booted out by his own majority and was reprimanded by them for his own (lack of) ethics. No, Republicans get zero, nada, no credit for Clinton's budgets and his ensuing surpluses.

ljf 10y ago

Totally this - I read once that is costs around £16000 a year per rough sleeper in central London, through policing, clean up, emergency care, and other costs. And that at the end of the year (if the person hadn't died) they were no less likely to be a rough sleeper than at the start. It just seems crazy that we can't better funnel that money to intervene and support people, to plan on removing that cost over the long term.

tjpaudio 10y ago
The general problem isn't convincing people that housing them would be more cost effective, it's that a large portion of the population is worried about incentivizing people to not work. Whether or not that is a valid concern is up for debate, but it's definitely the main driver why programs like this in the US rarely get funded.
- notatoad 10y ago
  Worrying about incentivizing people not to work is one thing, but i think a larger part of that concern is people worrying that somebody else is getting something for free when they have to pay for it. Free-housing programs are seen as unfair by people who have to pay for their housing. If you take half the $16k that gets spent on policing and cleaning up after a homeless person and spend that on providing housing for them instead, somebody who works a minimum wage full time job and spends the same amount out of their own pocket on housing is going to be rightfully annoyed. Which inevitably brings us around to the basic income debate.
  - EdSharkey 10y ago
    > a larger part of that concern is people worrying that somebody else is getting something for free when they have to pay for it There are plenty of examples of politicians making promises of spending now on others in order to gain cost savings down the road. Obamacare was sold to the all-too-eager masses this way. Especially at the county/local level, such cost savings arguments could be made very effectively if there were convincing numbers to back them up. You could also make arguments that public health and land values could benefit from such spending. I'm basically sold purely on a public health argument. What I take issue with is your abstract line of thinking. First, those who oppose you may not be as shallow (nor ignorant) as you seem to suggest. For example, I would love to see temporary housing, drug treatment, mental health counseling, and job/life-skills counseling to be setup for the homeless. But my local government is so disconnected from reality and are so wholly lacking in priorities that there would never be enough political will to allocate additional budget enough to truly address the problem. So, I oppose you on budget priorities grounds: politicians need to make eliminating homelessness a priority at the expense of some other program - and they could care less about the homeless. The taxes are already too high, and there's a laundry list of bullcrap that the city and county does that could be cut in favor of actually helping those who are in real dire straits. Second, the environment into which the homeless enter is not a vacuum, and at least local to me, the government had a big hand in creating the current homeless crisis we see (legalized building structures for public overnight camping in the streets.) Coupled with our generous social services that keep people alive, our already bad homelessness problem has metastasized into real human tragedy. So, while I am pained to see what's going on here, I am also deeply skeptical that there is enough wisdom in my local officials to deal with this problem when they were fools at the start and caused it to flare so badly. I oppose you in your thinking that government is capable of solving this problem. Third, the opinion that additional public services for the homeless become an incentive to remain homeless is a legitimate one regardless of how crisis/fear-minded you are on the subject. The crux of my argument is that dependency robs people of their liberty. The systems we have today for supporting the homeless create dependency and are unjust for that reason. I am in favor of increasing services, housing, and even outright paying people who are homeless to get them out of their situation -- BUT, to get around the dependency issue, there needs to be mandatory work. We need to create a more comfortable life for these people and provide a real possibility to emerge and be self-sustaining. And, at the same time, it has to be UNcomfortable because we expect work out of them. I oppose pure charity to otherwise able-bodied people if that charity will keep those people in their miserable place. If I were el presidente benevolent dictator, I would make homelessness illegal tomorrow. Along with housing, counseling, and rehab, I would give people who break my law a choice of a few kinds of make-work while they sort their lives out. If they are intractable or fail to show up for their new job, they get sent to the work farm (essentially forced work prison where they get paid real wages) or the military if they are fit enough. For people unable/too sick or those not in their right mind, I would reserve the biggest cash outlays in order to provide comprehensive care for them.

pfarnsworth 10y ago

Canadian conservatives are roughly in line with Democrats in the US. At worst they are slightly to the right of Dems but not by very much.

maxsilver 10y ago
This is largely true in the US as well, but our political parties refuse to update their branding.

ergothus 10y ago

> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. I've certainly heard this argument from the (few) libertarian sources that are considering basic income. They are opposed to "entitlement" programs, but see a (theoretically) cheaper entitlement program as better than an expensive one. (Perhaps they also think that a flat-sum basic income is easier to lower or hold flat than a complex web of social programs. Or I may be being cynical) OTOH, it can still be a hard sell to constituents. The US has known for at least a decade that spending more on IRS agents would earn more money than it would cost. No new rules, no new regulations, just enforcement of the rules we have. Seems like an easy decision to me, but few politicians, left or right, want to be caught saying we should have more tax enforcers. Pity.

MangentBrioche 10y ago
UBI is being pushed by a subset of the wealthy primarily because it will be a juicy source of rent, in both the economic and colloquial senses. Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing costs absent the sort of regulation that would itself make UBI politically untenable (i.e. because it would not benefit the wealthy.)
- noonespecial 10y ago
  >Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing cost I think you're wrong about that because UBI frees people to go and live anywhere. They won't be trapped in lousy housing one bus-ride from their McJob anymore. The only way housing would suck up the entire UBI is if everyone were trapped in a California situation where new housing was impossible.
  - NewCathargo 10y ago
    That's the best argument for UBI I've heard yet. It gives people an option to "exit" shitty societies. Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. But if the people in power are willing to take that risk, then it might be a positive thing. One glaring flaw is that humans are a social species and calculate rank and favors and grudges almost autonomously. Receiving your "life" from a government stooge is something of an embarrassment to men who've survived cold winters and starvation and dehydration. We like to be "equal" or "respectful" to a gift giver by having the possibility of giving back an equivalent gift. So in a sense, you have to teach the homeless person abilities which, eventually, allow him/her to reciprocate a gift. Even if the gift was from the government.

Joof 10y ago

Hasn't worked for single payer healthcare yet. Nobody brings up that almost every other country's government pays less than the US.

ksenzee 10y ago
a) Lots of people bring that argument up. I hear it all the time. b) There's a difference between "the US pays" and "the US government pays".
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Can you explain b). Doesn't "the US government pays" mean that the US pays, one step later?
  - jpttsn 10y ago
    Yes-ish; but maybe not the other way around.
- Joof 10y ago
  For b) we get the worst of both worlds. The US government pays one of the highest costs per person AND it costs the individual an exorbitant amount. Without significantly better outcomes.
- DanBC 10y ago
  The US government pays more for healthcare than average. http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-compare-internationally/ http://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-com...
Consultant32452 10y ago
If you're a wealthy person anywhere in the world and you have a really terrible disease you're probably going to come to the US to get care. Why? Because we have the highest quality healthcare in the world. There's a reason why there was some mild drama over Danny Williams (Premier of Canadian province) hopped the border to have heart surgery in the US. We're the best. What we lack is healthcare access for the poor. Dampening the profitability of health care with single payer will reduce quality and increase access. That's an okay argument to make, just make sure you're stating both sides when you make an argument. Otherwise it's just disingenuous. Also, it's important not to be fooled by some of the comparative health stats. Many of our poor health stats are the more the result of culture than they are a lack of access to health care. Being able to go to the doctor without paying a copay doesn't matter much when you're 100 pounds overweight and don't follow the diabetic diet your doctor laid out for you.

saosebastiao 10y ago

Policy is very regularly unrelated to ideology. I consider myself conservative in ideology, but very rarely agree with the policies of US conservatives, and relatively often agree with policies of US liberals, but I almost never agree on the principal arguments liberals might put forth to justify the policy. For example, I advocate for freedom of immigration and emigration as a matter of freedom of trade. I advocate for a solid (but not lavish) welfare state as a matter of fiscal policy (It's a lot cheaper than prisons). I advocate for a single payer health care system because it reduces regulatory capture and rent seeking. Politics, however, has far more to do with identity than ideology or policy. Finding common ground on contentious issues does not raise money or secure votes. Demonizing and opposing those that don't look, live, or act like you does.

DonzoS 10y ago
Well said...

maxxxxx 10y ago

"Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes." You could make the same case for health care. There are plenty of countries that get good quality health care at a much lower cost for the country but somehow in the US it's impossible to learn from that. I always though the US is a pragmatic country but over the last 15 years I have seen an increase in blind ideology. Things get opposed vigorously out of principle.

Berobero 10y ago
>> plenty of countries that get good quality health care at a much lower cost for the country "Plenty", as in effectively every other comparable developed country, and "good quality" as in consistently better than the US on virtually every metric. Dan Carlin, the podcaster, devoted his most recent show (http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-314-unhealthy-numbers/ http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-314-unhealthy-...) to this topic; it felt like an impassioned plea directed at his reportedly strong libertarian base of followers.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Probably preaching to the choir, but Carlin's WW1 series is fantastic. Easily the best history of the era I've listened to or read.
grasshopperpurp 10y ago
Yes, if US politicians weren't beholden to pharmaceutical and insurance companies, it would already be a reality. It makes sense from either side of the aisle. It just doesn't make sense for the few people who stand to lose billions.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I think it goes even deeper. People simply can't comprehend that health care in Germany or France (the countries I know) is fine at lower cost. They can't even consider this.

WillPostForFood 10y ago

Utah's success should be replicated where it makes sense. But just because Utah can reduce chronic homelessness 90% by adding 1,000 beds in a low land value, low labor cost state doesn't mean you can simply transfer the program to San Francisco or San Diego and achieve the same success. One of the achievements of Utah is actually putting together decent living conditions in their homeless housing. I fear California's attempt to replicate at scale this would end up in some Cabrini–Green like nightmare.

m-j-fox 10y ago
There's plenty of cheap land and labor 100 miles east of San Francisco. Why don't we build homelessville there?
- Swizec 10y ago
  Because nobody wants to live there? That's why it's cheap. I fear a lot of SF homeless enjoy being in SF for similar reasons that a lot of the not-homeless do. Can the prospect of free housing in a random area lure them away? Maybe? It's hard to say.
  - everybodyknows 10y ago
    Overheard a homeless guy in Mountain View, think he had a tent in one of the creek beds, saying why he likes it here: - ”it's safe, you don't get robbed". Less risk of violent crime in a prosperous, liberal city like MV, where the police management know they're expected to roll a car for reports of homeless-on-homeless violence, and can easily afford to do so.
TheCoelacanth 10y ago
Like everything to do with housing in CA, this idea is ruined by Prop 13. If San Francisco's property tax collections had been allowed to rise with property taxes, their tax revenue would naturally rise as land values rose and they would be able to afford land no matter how high the land values got. However Prop 13 stops their tax revenue from rising as fast as land values so land becomes increasingly unaffordable to them as land values rise.

edavis 10y ago

> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. I think this is a fine approach for the left to take, as long as the moral foundation is never sacrificed. In other words, it should always be "we should do this because it's the right/moral/dignified thing to do (and if it saves money too, great)" rather than "we should do this because it saves money." Because what if new research comes out saying it _doesn't_ save money? (See https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/02/even-when-it-doesnt-save-money https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/02/even-when-it-doesnt-s... for a more fleshed out version of this argument.)

dahart 10y ago
> I think this is a fine approach for the left to take, as long as the moral foundation is never sacrificed This is why we have Republicans in the first place who won't even consider implementing social programs. They believe so strongly in their moral foundation of lower taxes that they refuse to consider the evidence. Being willing to look at the evidence objectively is something everyone needs to get better at, conservatives and liberals alike.
- jtraffic 10y ago
  Agreed. I also think we need to allow ourselves room to question our moral foundations and make attempts at reconciling them with the foundations of "the other side," whoever that is for each of us.
  - gdwatson 10y ago
    Everyone should read Jonathan Haidt's book The Righeous Mind on the foundations of moral psychology and how they are used by liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. I think it's a great foundation for discussions about this kind of thing, and it makes it easier to understand where the other side is coming from.
sien 10y ago
Walter Lippmann famously said that “the goal of politics is not to get people to think alike. The goal of politics is to get people who think differently to act alike”.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Now, how do you get a left-wing politician to agree to some right-wing ideals? I mean, just to be fair, right?

vinay427 10y ago
I consider myself on the left, and I would for instance agree to less regulation when it favors increased consumer choice without sacrificing quality of life. There are a few cases of this, but in the end many industries have opted to solely favor profits instead, resulting in regulation that often has bipartisan support.

komali2 10y ago

I thought right-wingers liked raising taxes? See: most American Republican Party tax plans.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

noobermin 10y ago

>Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals[...] Why is this a goal for anyone?

richdougherty 10y ago

> Maybe that's a good example of how to get [people] to agree to [some other people's] ideals: prove that it will [have more benefits than costs]. If only!

snarf21 10y ago

Homelessness is a problem easily solved with political will. It is just like health care, we need to spend on prevention not recovery. There are lots of costs, including things like health care. [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-murray http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-...] The hardest problem is preventing a mass migration of homeless once someone institutes a reasonable program. Additionally it is an issue that people generally don't care about. It doesn't resonate in polling compared to jobs and health care so no one invests any effort.

dikdik 10y ago

> It was weird because he is such a staunch right-wing kind of guy, yet here he was putting money towards what seems like a very left-wing socialist idea. Many Democrats where I live, Southern California, find these ideas quite repugnant. So it's not just the right-wing that needs convincing. In expensive housing markets, people get pretty upset when they see anyone getting something "for free." It's a childish attitude, but it knows no political ideology.

wallace_f 10y ago

This is a great example to support a hope for the day ideology retreats from mainstream consciousness as acceptable thinking. Today, it dominates acceptable thinking about politics. By contrast, science, which relies on testing hypothesis, is a method that has propelled the world forward. Could you imagine if we still thought ideologically about nature--Isaac Newton did, and that's why he spent so much time on his work with alchemy and in the Bible. It's easy for smart people to get caught up in ideology, but it won't bring us closer to solving problems. When Feynman famously defined what science is, he said 'it doesn't matter what university you went to, who your advisors were, how smart you are, or what your last name is, all that matters is if it agrees with nature.' Hopefully more and more will start supporting policies on the basis of evidence that they improve human welfare (i.e. economic, health, education outcomes), rather than if they fit into their ideology.

meric 10y ago
And in the absence of evidence not yet collected, place their trust in traditions as those still remain the outcome of thousands of years of natural selection of cultures, as opposed to ditching old ways of doing things for the sake of being old.

ende 10y ago

Maybe if you define 'right wing' and 'left wing' as just being against/for public spending. That's very specific to a very narrow characterizatuon of the American political spectrum, but is hardly appliacable to the political spectrums of nearly every other country.

rukuu001 10y ago

> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. It's not the politicians we need to convince, it's the people who vote for them.