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but homelessness is not caused by high house prices. I have had an actual college class on homelessness and public policy. There is no single cause of homeless

by Mz 9y ago

but homelessness is not caused by high house prices. I have had an actual college class on homelessness and public policy. There is no single cause of homelessness, but sky high housing costs definitely contribute to homelessness. There has been a serious and growing lack of affordable housing in the U.S. going back decades, about 80% of SROs were torn down in the 60s and 70s at a time when they weren't really needed for demographic reasons but they were never replaced, and average housing size has more than doubled while average number of occupants has dropped. Meanwhile, homelessness has been on the rise nationwide for years. No, high housing costs do not single handedly and directly cause homelessness. But that's because there is no single cause of homelessness. But high housing costs are absolutely a contributing factor. Your dystopian solution of basically imprisoning the poor is outlandish.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Your dystopian solution of basically imprisoning the poor is outlandish. There's a Star Trek episode that explores this idea. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District It's difficult to think of ways of combating homelessness. To get them on their feet, you might need to redefine what a job is. A normal job requires some common elements: a shower, the ability to be there on a regular schedule, some productive task to do. But homeless people don't really have the ability to do any of those, except perhaps show up during regular hours. It's hard to shake the feeling that the only solution is to give them money, and that most of them will just spend it on drugs or alcohol. But that's too heartless of an outlook. Some people who fall into homelessness are just like you or me. When your family connections fail and you have a debilitating illness, homelessness tends to result. And those kinds of people could be pulled out, if only we could figure out how. There are homeless people that are essentially unsalvageable, though, and it's hard to know what to do with them. No family, no home, but most critically no willingness to help themselves even when given a small opportunity. But they still have friends, and if we focus on helping their friends out of homelessness, they might want to follow.
- Mz 9y ago
  Just because you can't imagine a solution does not mean there is none. Steve Jobs was homeless for a time. Richard Stallman was sometimes 'between apartments' while working on his open source stuff and had trouble getting a voter registration card because of it until some big publication listed his maker space as his address and then the registrar of voters was finally willing to accept that answer. I am homeless and have had a class on homelessness and these are two of my websites: http://whathelpsthehomeless.blogspot.com/ http://whathelpsthehomeless.blogspot.com/ http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/ http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/ I also started a Reddit recently called Housing Works and I have various related little blogs, like Project SRO. I am still kind of throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks, but the San Diego Homeless Survival Guide is a thing I started for myself in order to keep track of useful info I needed while homeless in downtown San Diego and I abandoned it after I left downtown. It was not updated at all for six months and then I realized it had organic traffic. It has the most organic traffic of any site I run because there is need for the info. A lot of people who have spent time homeless are ashamed of that fact and don't volunteer that information normally. Even those who are not ashamed and not actively hiding it, well, you don't know just from looking at someone that they used to be homeless. Lots of people do get off the street. It is not a permanent situation for everyone. However, homelessness has been on the rise nationwide for some years now and it does concern me that there are larger forces at play here that are causing it to be more of an uphill battle than it used to be.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Certainly. I only meant to add to the conversation. Your endeavors seem promising.
    - Mz 9y ago
      I realize it is complicated and has many moving parts. Perhaps it would help to think of it this way: We don't actually need comprehensive solutions like so many people are looking for. We just need a thread to pull to start unraveling it and begin to shrink the problem. And because there are many moving parts, there are many threads to pull. People can work on various parts of it, to good effect. Best.
xxSparkleSxx 9y ago
>average housing size has more than doubled while average number of occupants has dropped I've read this many times, bigger houses have contributed a great deal to rising housing costs. But do we have any data on the cost of materials and labor now vs. then as well as the cost of land and regulations now vs. then? I've always had an inkling that materials/labor costs haven't actually risen that much even as houses grew larger.
- Mz 9y ago
  In addition to being larger, houses today are more lavish. In the 1950s, houses were around 1200 square feet, they had a kitchen and a bathroom but did not necessarily have a washer and dryer or air conditioner. They certainly did not have a microwave and probably did not have a dishwasher. They tended to have less insulation, less electrical wiring, etc. Yes, there is data on such things. There are a number of reasons that housing has gone up in cost, but size inflation is absolutely a contributing factor.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The appliances you're describing are a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each. Maybe we could expect the full package to contribute $30k, or even $50k, of increased costs. This could explain a jump from $200k to $250k. Not from $50k to $200k.
    - Mz 9y ago
      Average housing size has also more than doubled, plus there is inflation. Average new housing is above 2400 sq ft, nearly 2500, iirc.
rsj_hn 9y ago
It's nice that you've took an actual college class on homelessness. I've logged about 10 years in volunteering for programs to feed the homeless, and have shared my home with homeless people for almost 7 years (until I stopped). I've talked to many, many homeless people and every single one of them could have stayed in a shelter but chose not to because of the restrictions on personal freedom. Every single one had some sort of serious mental issue, often compounded by physical disabilities, and was simply unable to care for themselves. Every single one had serious attitude problems to where they basically gave up on trying to make it in this society. Here, I am talking about the chronic homeless, which are the root of the problem. Not families that may need to sleep in the car because they are in between housing or people crashing on couches while they straighten themselves out. I mean people with tents. The one person I knew the longest was basically camping out around Palo Alto. The reason why you don't see so many homeless in the suburbs is because the Police are fairly effective at driving them out with beatdowns and destroying their property. This is the reality of not forcing them into group living situations -- let them live on the streets creating a lot of quality of life issues or have an unspoken policy of police brutality. So I would say that what we have now is dystopian. The last homeless man I let live with me I ended up asking to leave, because he was unable to keep steady work. I just asked him to do something, anything -- it didn't have to be full time -- and he could keep the money himself. But he was able bodied and needed to work. I drove him to his job. At the end of the day, he was pretty blunt in telling me that at his age -- he was in his 50s -- he couldn't stand doing menial work and being ordered around by some kid. For him, it was either a high paying job or camping out. So I finally asked him to leave and he's been camping out (assuming he's still alive at this point -- it's been a while). I think it's cute you took a college class and now understand the issue. But housing costs have nothing to do it. You can today find a place to live in the U.S. for a few hundred a month. No, not in San Francisco or Manhattan or Monaco, but most of the country is incredibly cheap. Look at rent prices in the middle of the country. For example, in Phoenix, real rental costs have not increased for 30 years. They've been basically flat. But in Phoenix, the homeless don't have the same access to city services as in San Francisco, or NYC.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  FYI, Mz also claims a certain level of direct and personal experience with the problem. You might focus more on what you're sure you know, and not what you think someone else does, doesn't, or ought.
analyst74 9y ago
> Your dystopian solution of basically imprisoning the poor is outlandish. I actually think his solution makes sense. For the really impoverished people who are willing and capable to work their way up, this would be exactly what they want; for those who really don't want a roof over their heads, they should really be put into some sort of institution with restricted freedom and mental illness help. If we have $300mil budget to help 10 thousand homeless, that's $30k per person, enough to support a decent standards of living in a cheap part of the country.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gtr 9y ago
  They tried that in Victorian England (workhouses) and we no quite rightly regard it as utterly barbaric.
  - rsj_hn 9y ago
    Workhouses were for debtors who could not repay debts. That's a very different situation from say, Reagan kicking the mentally ill out of institutions and onto the streets of our cities.
- rsj_hn 9y ago
  It's only 2000 chronic homeless in San Francisco. It's crazy how such a small number of people can make a such a huge impact on the city. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-new-count-shows-homeless-people-spreading-11223996.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-new-count-shows-h...

by Mz 9y ago

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Your dystopian solution of basically imprisoning the poor is outlandish. There's a Star Trek episode that explores this idea. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District It's difficult to think of ways of combating homelessness. To get them on their feet, you might need to redefine what a job is. A normal job requires some common elements: a shower, the ability to be there on a regular schedule, some productive task to do. But homeless people don't really have the ability to do any of those, except perhaps show up during regular hours. It's hard to shake the feeling that the only solution is to give them money, and that most of them will just spend it on drugs or alcohol. But that's too heartless of an outlook. Some people who fall into homelessness are just like you or me. When your family connections fail and you have a debilitating illness, homelessness tends to result. And those kinds of people could be pulled out, if only we could figure out how. There are homeless people that are essentially unsalvageable, though, and it's hard to know what to do with them. No family, no home, but most critically no willingness to help themselves even when given a small opportunity. But they still have friends, and if we focus on helping their friends out of homelessness, they might want to follow.

Mz 9y ago
Just because you can't imagine a solution does not mean there is none. Steve Jobs was homeless for a time. Richard Stallman was sometimes 'between apartments' while working on his open source stuff and had trouble getting a voter registration card because of it until some big publication listed his maker space as his address and then the registrar of voters was finally willing to accept that answer. I am homeless and have had a class on homelessness and these are two of my websites: http://whathelpsthehomeless.blogspot.com/ http://whathelpsthehomeless.blogspot.com/ http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/ http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/ I also started a Reddit recently called Housing Works and I have various related little blogs, like Project SRO. I am still kind of throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks, but the San Diego Homeless Survival Guide is a thing I started for myself in order to keep track of useful info I needed while homeless in downtown San Diego and I abandoned it after I left downtown. It was not updated at all for six months and then I realized it had organic traffic. It has the most organic traffic of any site I run because there is need for the info. A lot of people who have spent time homeless are ashamed of that fact and don't volunteer that information normally. Even those who are not ashamed and not actively hiding it, well, you don't know just from looking at someone that they used to be homeless. Lots of people do get off the street. It is not a permanent situation for everyone. However, homelessness has been on the rise nationwide for some years now and it does concern me that there are larger forces at play here that are causing it to be more of an uphill battle than it used to be.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Certainly. I only meant to add to the conversation. Your endeavors seem promising.
  - Mz 9y ago
    I realize it is complicated and has many moving parts. Perhaps it would help to think of it this way: We don't actually need comprehensive solutions like so many people are looking for. We just need a thread to pull to start unraveling it and begin to shrink the problem. And because there are many moving parts, there are many threads to pull. People can work on various parts of it, to good effect. Best.

xxSparkleSxx 9y ago

>average housing size has more than doubled while average number of occupants has dropped I've read this many times, bigger houses have contributed a great deal to rising housing costs. But do we have any data on the cost of materials and labor now vs. then as well as the cost of land and regulations now vs. then? I've always had an inkling that materials/labor costs haven't actually risen that much even as houses grew larger.

Mz 9y ago
In addition to being larger, houses today are more lavish. In the 1950s, houses were around 1200 square feet, they had a kitchen and a bathroom but did not necessarily have a washer and dryer or air conditioner. They certainly did not have a microwave and probably did not have a dishwasher. They tended to have less insulation, less electrical wiring, etc. Yes, there is data on such things. There are a number of reasons that housing has gone up in cost, but size inflation is absolutely a contributing factor.
- closeparen 9y ago
  The appliances you're describing are a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each. Maybe we could expect the full package to contribute $30k, or even $50k, of increased costs. This could explain a jump from $200k to $250k. Not from $50k to $200k.
  - Mz 9y ago
    Average housing size has also more than doubled, plus there is inflation. Average new housing is above 2400 sq ft, nearly 2500, iirc.

rsj_hn 9y ago

It's nice that you've took an actual college class on homelessness. I've logged about 10 years in volunteering for programs to feed the homeless, and have shared my home with homeless people for almost 7 years (until I stopped). I've talked to many, many homeless people and every single one of them could have stayed in a shelter but chose not to because of the restrictions on personal freedom. Every single one had some sort of serious mental issue, often compounded by physical disabilities, and was simply unable to care for themselves. Every single one had serious attitude problems to where they basically gave up on trying to make it in this society. Here, I am talking about the chronic homeless, which are the root of the problem. Not families that may need to sleep in the car because they are in between housing or people crashing on couches while they straighten themselves out. I mean people with tents. The one person I knew the longest was basically camping out around Palo Alto. The reason why you don't see so many homeless in the suburbs is because the Police are fairly effective at driving them out with beatdowns and destroying their property. This is the reality of not forcing them into group living situations -- let them live on the streets creating a lot of quality of life issues or have an unspoken policy of police brutality. So I would say that what we have now is dystopian. The last homeless man I let live with me I ended up asking to leave, because he was unable to keep steady work. I just asked him to do something, anything -- it didn't have to be full time -- and he could keep the money himself. But he was able bodied and needed to work. I drove him to his job. At the end of the day, he was pretty blunt in telling me that at his age -- he was in his 50s -- he couldn't stand doing menial work and being ordered around by some kid. For him, it was either a high paying job or camping out. So I finally asked him to leave and he's been camping out (assuming he's still alive at this point -- it's been a while). I think it's cute you took a college class and now understand the issue. But housing costs have nothing to do it. You can today find a place to live in the U.S. for a few hundred a month. No, not in San Francisco or Manhattan or Monaco, but most of the country is incredibly cheap. Look at rent prices in the middle of the country. For example, in Phoenix, real rental costs have not increased for 30 years. They've been basically flat. But in Phoenix, the homeless don't have the same access to city services as in San Francisco, or NYC.

dredmorbius 9y ago
FYI, Mz also claims a certain level of direct and personal experience with the problem. You might focus more on what you're sure you know, and not what you think someone else does, doesn't, or ought.

analyst74 9y ago

> Your dystopian solution of basically imprisoning the poor is outlandish. I actually think his solution makes sense. For the really impoverished people who are willing and capable to work their way up, this would be exactly what they want; for those who really don't want a roof over their heads, they should really be put into some sort of institution with restricted freedom and mental illness help. If we have $300mil budget to help 10 thousand homeless, that's $30k per person, enough to support a decent standards of living in a cheap part of the country.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gtr 9y ago
They tried that in Victorian England (workhouses) and we no quite rightly regard it as utterly barbaric.
- rsj_hn 9y ago
  Workhouses were for debtors who could not repay debts. That's a very different situation from say, Reagan kicking the mentally ill out of institutions and onto the streets of our cities.
rsj_hn 9y ago
It's only 2000 chronic homeless in San Francisco. It's crazy how such a small number of people can make a such a huge impact on the city. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-new-count-shows-homeless-people-spreading-11223996.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-new-count-shows-h...