4 ms·

I'm not sure how the homelessness issue in SF has any relationship to housing costs. The root cause was losing a lot of funding for mental health services duri

I'm not sure how the homelessness issue in SF has any relationship to housing costs. The root cause was losing a lot of funding for mental health services during the Gov. Reagan years. But go ahead with your strawman.

davidf18 9y ago
Homelessness comes from high cost of housing. It is emotionally convenient to blame other causes, but there is still mental health support in cities through federally funded community health centers.
- ZanyProgrammer 9y ago
  Housing definitely helps the working class and mentally healthy people who are trying to work themselves out of homelessness. I fail to see how the housing crisis will help severely mentally ill people with addiction issues, schizophrenia, etc. Such people need long term hospitalization. The de-institutionalization of mental health care was exacerbated by, but did not originate with Reagan. Personally I think it has to do with an over correction against the abuses of early/mid 20th century psychiatry, and the mania for freedom from the 60s onward. A lot of mental health professionals, even in liberal west coast cities, sound downright libertarian when describing patient freedom. The freedom to die in prison or on the streets if you ask me.
- ZanyProgrammer 9y ago
  Interestingly the YIMBY scene is dominated by techies in the Bay.
adrianmonk 9y ago
There are basically two types of homeless people. Those who are healthy enough to work but cannot keep up with expenses and those who have serious enough issues that they can't support themselves. The first type can be helped by better job opportunities and cheaper housing. All the cheap housing in the world cannot help the latter group because they can't function in society even if you make it that much easier. We do need a federal (or at least statewide) solution for the latter group, though, because with local control it's too easy to for the "solution" to be giving the homeless person a free bus ticket out of town.
dang 9y ago
> But go ahead with your strawman. This sort of uncivil internet trope breaks the HN guidelines and is the sort of thing commenters here are expected to avoid. It looks like your account has a long history of posting this kind of thing. Would you please only post civilly and substantively from now on? We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14649227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14649227 and marked it off-topic.

davidf18 9y ago

Homelessness comes from high cost of housing. It is emotionally convenient to blame other causes, but there is still mental health support in cities through federally funded community health centers.

ZanyProgrammer 9y ago
Housing definitely helps the working class and mentally healthy people who are trying to work themselves out of homelessness. I fail to see how the housing crisis will help severely mentally ill people with addiction issues, schizophrenia, etc. Such people need long term hospitalization. The de-institutionalization of mental health care was exacerbated by, but did not originate with Reagan. Personally I think it has to do with an over correction against the abuses of early/mid 20th century psychiatry, and the mania for freedom from the 60s onward. A lot of mental health professionals, even in liberal west coast cities, sound downright libertarian when describing patient freedom. The freedom to die in prison or on the streets if you ask me.
ZanyProgrammer 9y ago
Interestingly the YIMBY scene is dominated by techies in the Bay.

adrianmonk 9y ago

There are basically two types of homeless people. Those who are healthy enough to work but cannot keep up with expenses and those who have serious enough issues that they can't support themselves. The first type can be helped by better job opportunities and cheaper housing. All the cheap housing in the world cannot help the latter group because they can't function in society even if you make it that much easier. We do need a federal (or at least statewide) solution for the latter group, though, because with local control it's too easy to for the "solution" to be giving the homeless person a free bus ticket out of town.

dang 9y ago

> But go ahead with your strawman. This sort of uncivil internet trope breaks the HN guidelines and is the sort of thing commenters here are expected to avoid. It looks like your account has a long history of posting this kind of thing. Would you please only post civilly and substantively from now on? We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14649227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14649227 and marked it off-topic.