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I'm absolutely baffled as to why we still have ANY homeless people in any first world country. The cost to get them all into housing is barely a rounding error

I'm absolutely baffled as to why we still have ANY homeless people in any first world country. The cost to get them all into housing is barely a rounding error against most countries annual tax revenue numbers. The US, for instance, takes in about $2.6T/year, there are about 500K homeless people. Even at a cost of $1000 per month per person to provide each one shelter we are talking $6B, or 0.23% of the annual tax revenue, or just 1% of our annual military spending. And mind you $1000 per person per month is on the high side.

alphonsegaston 9y ago
Because the dominant ideology in America (grotesquely) equates Capitalism with justice. The poor and the weak must suffer and die to prove the rightness of Capitalism’s ordering principles. And to stand as an object lesson to anyone who might think about veering to far outside these boundaries. Rationality doesn’t even begin to enter into the equation in the way you describe. It’s about reinforcing a system of human sacrifice as insane and archaic millennia as old pagan traditions for the sake of preserving this order.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Brussels is not in America, though.
  - alphonsegaston 9y ago
    I was referring to the parent’s example and most of Europe adheres to an only moderated form of this ideology anyway. Germany especially.
vertex-four 9y ago
The answer is simple - benefits systems. They're almost universally designed to avoid providing help to anybody, and any help they do provide is usually tied to requirements of the person receiving them. There is no system for giving houses to the homeless without forcing them to get off drugs/alcohol, seek employment, etc etc, which many of these people are unable to do (and yet don't qualify for disability benefits because somebody in an office with a mandate to deny a certain amount of people benefits has decided they're fit for work). They also often have extreme difficulty cooperating with social programs, where they still exist (again, they've been receiving heavy cuts over time). So from society's perspective, we've done all we can to help - providing people with a roof over their head in return for nothing is something so far from any system we currently have that it's unthinkable.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
I spent 5.7 years homeless. I have also had a college class on homelessness. This is not a problem readily solved by throwing money at it. This is a people problem and it is quite complex. Most people on the street have very serious, intractable personal problems, such as medical issues, mental health issues, addiction and/or various barriers to employment. I have read articles where they put a homeless person in housing and the individual set it on fire. You don't solve such problems by just sticking them in housing. We don't have a slam dunk guaranteed solution for addiction. Even when someone very much wants off the drugs, they don't always succeed because we don't really know how to fix it. A lot of medical and mental health issues are similarly intractable. One thing that would help: more market based low cost housing. Another thing that would help: more flexible earning opportunities for people with barriers to regular employment. Pursuing a flexible earned income via the internet was one piece of the puzzle for getting myself back into housing. I am trying to design a program to help other people who need flexible earning opportunities access the same, whether they are currently homeless or simply at risk (however, I am in the US, not Europe). I also am doing research to try to come up with some solutions for providing market based low cost housing in the US. Those things won't solve homelessness, but I think they can make a meaningful dent. I don't like the trends we are seeing and I don't think we should simply accept them. But it is, in fact, a challenging problem space, not mere lack of willingness to throw money at the problem.
dekhn 9y ago
When I lived in SF (for a decade) I took the metro system. Since the metro in SF (MUNI) is very slow, I spent a lot of time hanging out at bus stops. I got to talking to a fair number of homeless people. Many, perhaps most of the homeless people I met in SF are homeless by choice. They don't call it homeless BTW. Most of them were happy and proud of their tents in Golden Gate Park. The one message I heard over and over again was that these people self-selected out of the housing pool- the reasons I heard most often was, they just got in fights when they lived with people, and found it was easier to live alone, outside, in SF, than it was to try to get housing.
hyperman1 9y ago
An important group of homeless people in Brussels are illegal immigrants. * A lot have gone trough the immigration legal system, where not an acceptable candidate to become inhabitant, and have been ordered to leave, but they never did. The police doesnt enforce these orders, so they can basically just stay and disappear from the radar * Or they never tried the immigration system. They hope to pass to another country and consider themselves here temporary, even if they can be here for years. The welfare state doesn't take care of them because they don't legally exist. Their only option is to call police, so they will be treated like the criminals they are from a legal point of view. The best an official can do is ignore them to spare them this.

alphonsegaston 9y ago

Because the dominant ideology in America (grotesquely) equates Capitalism with justice. The poor and the weak must suffer and die to prove the rightness of Capitalism’s ordering principles. And to stand as an object lesson to anyone who might think about veering to far outside these boundaries. Rationality doesn’t even begin to enter into the equation in the way you describe. It’s about reinforcing a system of human sacrifice as insane and archaic millennia as old pagan traditions for the sake of preserving this order.

icebraining 9y ago
Brussels is not in America, though.
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  I was referring to the parent’s example and most of Europe adheres to an only moderated form of this ideology anyway. Germany especially.

vertex-four 9y ago

The answer is simple - benefits systems. They're almost universally designed to avoid providing help to anybody, and any help they do provide is usually tied to requirements of the person receiving them. There is no system for giving houses to the homeless without forcing them to get off drugs/alcohol, seek employment, etc etc, which many of these people are unable to do (and yet don't qualify for disability benefits because somebody in an office with a mandate to deny a certain amount of people benefits has decided they're fit for work). They also often have extreme difficulty cooperating with social programs, where they still exist (again, they've been receiving heavy cuts over time). So from society's perspective, we've done all we can to help - providing people with a roof over their head in return for nothing is something so far from any system we currently have that it's unthinkable.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

I spent 5.7 years homeless. I have also had a college class on homelessness. This is not a problem readily solved by throwing money at it. This is a people problem and it is quite complex. Most people on the street have very serious, intractable personal problems, such as medical issues, mental health issues, addiction and/or various barriers to employment. I have read articles where they put a homeless person in housing and the individual set it on fire. You don't solve such problems by just sticking them in housing. We don't have a slam dunk guaranteed solution for addiction. Even when someone very much wants off the drugs, they don't always succeed because we don't really know how to fix it. A lot of medical and mental health issues are similarly intractable. One thing that would help: more market based low cost housing. Another thing that would help: more flexible earning opportunities for people with barriers to regular employment. Pursuing a flexible earned income via the internet was one piece of the puzzle for getting myself back into housing. I am trying to design a program to help other people who need flexible earning opportunities access the same, whether they are currently homeless or simply at risk (however, I am in the US, not Europe). I also am doing research to try to come up with some solutions for providing market based low cost housing in the US. Those things won't solve homelessness, but I think they can make a meaningful dent. I don't like the trends we are seeing and I don't think we should simply accept them. But it is, in fact, a challenging problem space, not mere lack of willingness to throw money at the problem.

dekhn 9y ago

When I lived in SF (for a decade) I took the metro system. Since the metro in SF (MUNI) is very slow, I spent a lot of time hanging out at bus stops. I got to talking to a fair number of homeless people. Many, perhaps most of the homeless people I met in SF are homeless by choice. They don't call it homeless BTW. Most of them were happy and proud of their tents in Golden Gate Park. The one message I heard over and over again was that these people self-selected out of the housing pool- the reasons I heard most often was, they just got in fights when they lived with people, and found it was easier to live alone, outside, in SF, than it was to try to get housing.

hyperman1 9y ago

An important group of homeless people in Brussels are illegal immigrants. * A lot have gone trough the immigration legal system, where not an acceptable candidate to become inhabitant, and have been ordered to leave, but they never did. The police doesnt enforce these orders, so they can basically just stay and disappear from the radar * Or they never tried the immigration system. They hope to pass to another country and consider themselves here temporary, even if they can be here for years. The welfare state doesn't take care of them because they don't legally exist. Their only option is to call police, so they will be treated like the criminals they are from a legal point of view. The best an official can do is ignore them to spare them this.