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Ditto Chicago. The fact that every homeless person in the country does not save up the $50-$100 (less than a week's work in a major city) in bus fare and make a

Ditto Chicago. The fact that every homeless person in the country does not save up the $50-$100 (less than a week's work in a major city) in bus fare and make a beeline for Miami or San Francisco has some scary implications about the depths of the problem and/or their ability to make some simple improvements in their situation.

suninwinter 16y ago
Not all homeless people are hobos. Many of them probably have roots in the cities where they live.
- seabee 16y ago
  I expect the same reasons apply to people who live comfortably (or at least have a roof over their heads) and choose/refuse to take that high-earning job on the other side of the country.
- techiferous 16y ago
  True. I was talking to a homeless guy in Boston and asked him about moving down south. He said his aging parents were in Boston as well as his therapist.
thaumaturgy 16y ago
> ...or their ability to make some simple improvements in their situation. I think it's almost impossible to understand if you've never been completely destitute, but, ironically, for most people as their situation worsens their ability to cope becomes overwhelmed and their ability to make rational decisions disappears. This is probably the number one problem of poverty, and it applies to the poor and homeless in developed countries, as well as to the populations of completely broken nations. For example, as they become poorer and poorer, many people become more and more irrationally attached to their "stuff" and refuse to part with it, even if leaving it behind and moving on would dramatically improve their situation. They become extremely reluctant to try anything new. I think their psychology is such that they've been overwhelmed by the failures of everything they have tried, and they don't feel like they can handle a whole new failure; they seem more comfortable repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Malnutrition and stress also do a really nice job of exacerbating any latent mental issues they have, and those won't go away after a year of comfort, which frustrates those people that would try to help them. So, I don't know what the answer to all that is, but I am convinced that the earlier it is addressed, the better, and that it's unreasonable to expect most people to resolve their own situation.
- wallflower 16y ago
  Old but good HN discussion on homelessness http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116079 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116079 > 2) The existence of the minimum wage hurts the homeless. The people I worked with were incapable of producing $6 an hour of value for an employer. If there was no minimum wage, they could work $2 an hour of value and then gradually work their way up.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    It wouldn't work though. Employers would take advantage of the situation, market rates would drop to the point where the homeless person would no longer be able to create $2 of value per hour either...
    - jerf 16y ago
      I don't think the supply of human time is that large that the market would adjust that significantly to a lower minimum wage. Lowering the minimum wage would generally raise supply of human time, yes, which drops the price, but the additional human time is by the terms of this discussion already relatively low-grade stuff. $2/hr of value is a low bar. Anyone who can't do that can't be saved by any job. Based on previous discussions, that statement covers a lot of homeless people anyhow. ISTM that the ones who would be helped by lower minimum wage are high schoolers and younger workers trying to get their first part time jobs, not the homeless.
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        Minimum wage was created specifically to stop abuse of large numbers of people. I don't think it is realistic to expect that dropping the minimum wage will have just a beneficial effect on the few homeless people that we're talking about, it will have a huge impact on everybody that now earns minimum wage (and you'd be surprised how many people earn 'just' the minimum wage). Employers as a rule extract a multiple of value from their employees time, not just a little bit over. You could make the opposite argument: raise the minimum wage to $30 per hour. Suddenly all the homeless people are worth $7 per hour at a minimum. Free markets are rarely really free, there usually is someone that benefits from the market being free, and in the case of employer employee relationships there always is someone to be found that will do the job for less. That's why we have minimum wage.

suninwinter 16y ago

Not all homeless people are hobos. Many of them probably have roots in the cities where they live.

seabee 16y ago
I expect the same reasons apply to people who live comfortably (or at least have a roof over their heads) and choose/refuse to take that high-earning job on the other side of the country.
techiferous 16y ago
True. I was talking to a homeless guy in Boston and asked him about moving down south. He said his aging parents were in Boston as well as his therapist.

thaumaturgy 16y ago

> ...or their ability to make some simple improvements in their situation. I think it's almost impossible to understand if you've never been completely destitute, but, ironically, for most people as their situation worsens their ability to cope becomes overwhelmed and their ability to make rational decisions disappears. This is probably the number one problem of poverty, and it applies to the poor and homeless in developed countries, as well as to the populations of completely broken nations. For example, as they become poorer and poorer, many people become more and more irrationally attached to their "stuff" and refuse to part with it, even if leaving it behind and moving on would dramatically improve their situation. They become extremely reluctant to try anything new. I think their psychology is such that they've been overwhelmed by the failures of everything they have tried, and they don't feel like they can handle a whole new failure; they seem more comfortable repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Malnutrition and stress also do a really nice job of exacerbating any latent mental issues they have, and those won't go away after a year of comfort, which frustrates those people that would try to help them. So, I don't know what the answer to all that is, but I am convinced that the earlier it is addressed, the better, and that it's unreasonable to expect most people to resolve their own situation.

wallflower 16y ago
Old but good HN discussion on homelessness http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116079 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=116079 > 2) The existence of the minimum wage hurts the homeless. The people I worked with were incapable of producing $6 an hour of value for an employer. If there was no minimum wage, they could work $2 an hour of value and then gradually work their way up.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  It wouldn't work though. Employers would take advantage of the situation, market rates would drop to the point where the homeless person would no longer be able to create $2 of value per hour either...
  - jerf 16y ago
    I don't think the supply of human time is that large that the market would adjust that significantly to a lower minimum wage. Lowering the minimum wage would generally raise supply of human time, yes, which drops the price, but the additional human time is by the terms of this discussion already relatively low-grade stuff. $2/hr of value is a low bar. Anyone who can't do that can't be saved by any job. Based on previous discussions, that statement covers a lot of homeless people anyhow. ISTM that the ones who would be helped by lower minimum wage are high schoolers and younger workers trying to get their first part time jobs, not the homeless.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Minimum wage was created specifically to stop abuse of large numbers of people. I don't think it is realistic to expect that dropping the minimum wage will have just a beneficial effect on the few homeless people that we're talking about, it will have a huge impact on everybody that now earns minimum wage (and you'd be surprised how many people earn 'just' the minimum wage). Employers as a rule extract a multiple of value from their employees time, not just a little bit over. You could make the opposite argument: raise the minimum wage to $30 per hour. Suddenly all the homeless people are worth $7 per hour at a minimum. Free markets are rarely really free, there usually is someone that benefits from the market being free, and in the case of employer employee relationships there always is someone to be found that will do the job for less. That's why we have minimum wage.