7 ms·

this is the Nash Equilibrium type problem that exists with US federalism and extreme poverty. Cities just ship people around hoping to reduce their share of cos

this is the Nash Equilibrium type problem that exists with US federalism and extreme poverty. Cities just ship people around hoping to reduce their share of cost, while the homeless just become more physically sick or addicted, and mentally traumatized, so they become more costly to care for in aggregate over a lifetime. Everyone is worse off. It would be so much simpler, cheaper if society just got people back on their feet as quickly as possible with focused care & rapid re-housing.

microcolonel 8y ago
There would need to be some form of accountability, and some sort of standard way of "getting people back on their feet". Neither exists, so it still doesn't make much sense for any municipality to pay into fixing people's lives in other locales.
PhantomGremlin 8y ago
It would be so much simpler, cheaper if society just got people back on their feet as quickly as possible with focused care & rapid re-housing. I think everyone can agree that it would greatly benefit society to get "people back on their feet". But how? There's a virtually unlimited stream of drugs coming into this country. There are many people who have mental illness. In many places, The Rent Is Too Damn High. IMO solving this problem is by no means "simple". How expensive is it to do "focused care"? Has it been tried, and what's its track record?
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  From what I understand there have been several successful pilot projects that are variously shut down or are considered inappropriate for other cities (politically unpopular). Utah just straight up housed people to great success. NYC has a massive homeless population but they also put a ton of money into housing their homeless- also to fairly decent success. For drug addiction, there have been successful needle providing clinics in Canada and America currently has methodone clinics to great success. There are various police programs just for connecting homeless people to resources to get clean and start working, and otherwise providing them what they need to survive until they’re ready, and we know these have had success also. None of them are politically popular and there’s a lot of opposition to implementing any of them.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    Utah’s program of housing the chronically homeless has a lot of misunderstandings. Mainly about that it serves the chronically homeless, which are a minority among the homeless. https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865678779/Is-Utah-still-a-model-for-solving-chronic-homelessness.html https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865678779/Is-Utah-still-...
- michaelchisari 8y ago
  There's a virtually unlimited stream of drugs coming into this country. There are many people who have mental illness. Anybody with a drug problem should be able to walk into a hospital, say "I'm addicted to X" and get into treatment immediately, free of charge. Anybody with a mental illness should be able to walk into a hospital, say "I can't take care of myself because X keeps happening in my brain" and get into treatment immediately, free of charge. If you've ever tried to help someone get clean or get mental health inpatient care in the U.S., you can completely understand how people end up on the streets who could otherwise be productive members of society.
  - mikemotherwell 8y ago
    If you look at this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_... - the US has quite low homelessness rates. The problem is the USA is a massive country in area and population. The opportunities vary greatly, as do the resources. REALLY low macro homelessness (think nationally) can still lead to very high rates at a micro level (think Tenderloin). Where can the USA look for similarities? Singapore is one city state, as is Hong Kong. Australia's cities are 600 miles apart. The EU has a language issue moving from city to city, despite London to Paris being 1/10th as far than SF is to NYC. The USA is pretty unique here. The one similar country is China. The GDP per capita by Chinese prefecture makes the US look positively egalitarian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prefecture-level_cities_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prefecture-level_citie... China solves their issues by essentially banning movement between areas. The US could never solve their issues that way, for a variety of reasons. So I'm not sure what the solution is to micro level high homelessness, but macro level low homelessness.
    - adventured 8y ago
      We've found one partial solution to homelessness that works extremely effectively. It was enacted during the George W. Bush Administration, and continued + expanded under the Obama Administration, called the housing first program. We put homeless people into permanent housing, taking care of their shelter needs first, and then focus on treating them for things like addiction. It reduced chronic homelessness by 30% in just three years 2005-2007. We added to it with the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, as part of the stimulus program in 2009. It helped a million homeless people in two years. That the US homelessness rate looks relatively good now, owes a lot to this chain of programs.
- rectang 8y ago
  The intractable problem is that helping the homeless is seen as moral hazard by a large segment of the American populace. Our programs are incoherent because some want to provide assistance and others to withhold it.
- jakelarkin 8y ago
  we've rebuilt like 15 countries (after bombing them) in the past ... somehow its totally impossible to temporarily house a fractional percentage of people in our country and make sure they get a job or their meds instead of addicted to heroin theres so many bs political excuses; bad zoning, bad building regulation, bad union rules, bad health regulations, bad drug laws, civil legal liability, cost of Rx drugs ... as if government doesnt have have power to fix those things. it's a feigned helplessness because the poor inherently have no political leverage/value to those in power.
- SturgeonsLaw 8y ago
  Great strides in helping the homeless can be achieved by giving them housing. It almost sounds like a tautology, and it triggers outrage in certain segments of the population, but once people have that stable foundation they can then work towards rebuilding their life.
- lsc 8y ago
  >IMO solving this problem is by no means "simple". I think providing people housing is simple. It's just expensive.
briandear 8y ago
With the hundreds of millions SF spends on the homeless, it could be fair to say that a large number of homeless don’t want “care” or “re-housing.” The city spends more and more and it doesn’t make a dent in the numbers. An objective observer might suggest that the more you subsidize something, the more of it you get. Compared to most places, it’s easier to be homeless in San Francisco, which could create a disincentive for the homeless to care about getting off the street.
- jakelarkin 8y ago
  i agree SF needs less coddling and way stronger sticks (at least for the young & able-bodied), but fundamentally theres no where for these people to go to try to get it together. cost of housing way above welfare/SSID in a 50 mile radius. there's zero net shelter space. because the political incentives on the west coast (nimby, mellow weather, already high taxes) are to not bother to build them. theres also not enough jail space or PD headcount, so dealers, petty burglars just cycle in and out without consequence. its a vicious cycle of extreme poverty that starts and ends with a corrupt, poorly run local government
Abutere 8y ago
I feel that a large percentage of the perpetually homeless, not those who were living paycheck to paycheck and ended up homeless for a few months, have such severe mental illness that they simply can't get "back on their feet". Usually schizophrenia or narcotics addiction. I'd be curious to see if their illness caused the homelessness or they developed it from the trauma of living on the street.

microcolonel 8y ago

There would need to be some form of accountability, and some sort of standard way of "getting people back on their feet". Neither exists, so it still doesn't make much sense for any municipality to pay into fixing people's lives in other locales.

PhantomGremlin 8y ago

It would be so much simpler, cheaper if society just got people back on their feet as quickly as possible with focused care & rapid re-housing. I think everyone can agree that it would greatly benefit society to get "people back on their feet". But how? There's a virtually unlimited stream of drugs coming into this country. There are many people who have mental illness. In many places, The Rent Is Too Damn High. IMO solving this problem is by no means "simple". How expensive is it to do "focused care"? Has it been tried, and what's its track record?

SolaceQuantum 8y ago
From what I understand there have been several successful pilot projects that are variously shut down or are considered inappropriate for other cities (politically unpopular). Utah just straight up housed people to great success. NYC has a massive homeless population but they also put a ton of money into housing their homeless- also to fairly decent success. For drug addiction, there have been successful needle providing clinics in Canada and America currently has methodone clinics to great success. There are various police programs just for connecting homeless people to resources to get clean and start working, and otherwise providing them what they need to survive until they’re ready, and we know these have had success also. None of them are politically popular and there’s a lot of opposition to implementing any of them.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Utah’s program of housing the chronically homeless has a lot of misunderstandings. Mainly about that it serves the chronically homeless, which are a minority among the homeless. https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865678779/Is-Utah-still-a-model-for-solving-chronic-homelessness.html https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865678779/Is-Utah-still-...
michaelchisari 8y ago
There's a virtually unlimited stream of drugs coming into this country. There are many people who have mental illness. Anybody with a drug problem should be able to walk into a hospital, say "I'm addicted to X" and get into treatment immediately, free of charge. Anybody with a mental illness should be able to walk into a hospital, say "I can't take care of myself because X keeps happening in my brain" and get into treatment immediately, free of charge. If you've ever tried to help someone get clean or get mental health inpatient care in the U.S., you can completely understand how people end up on the streets who could otherwise be productive members of society.
- mikemotherwell 8y ago
  If you look at this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_... - the US has quite low homelessness rates. The problem is the USA is a massive country in area and population. The opportunities vary greatly, as do the resources. REALLY low macro homelessness (think nationally) can still lead to very high rates at a micro level (think Tenderloin). Where can the USA look for similarities? Singapore is one city state, as is Hong Kong. Australia's cities are 600 miles apart. The EU has a language issue moving from city to city, despite London to Paris being 1/10th as far than SF is to NYC. The USA is pretty unique here. The one similar country is China. The GDP per capita by Chinese prefecture makes the US look positively egalitarian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prefecture-level_cities_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prefecture-level_citie... China solves their issues by essentially banning movement between areas. The US could never solve their issues that way, for a variety of reasons. So I'm not sure what the solution is to micro level high homelessness, but macro level low homelessness.
  - adventured 8y ago
    We've found one partial solution to homelessness that works extremely effectively. It was enacted during the George W. Bush Administration, and continued + expanded under the Obama Administration, called the housing first program. We put homeless people into permanent housing, taking care of their shelter needs first, and then focus on treating them for things like addiction. It reduced chronic homelessness by 30% in just three years 2005-2007. We added to it with the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, as part of the stimulus program in 2009. It helped a million homeless people in two years. That the US homelessness rate looks relatively good now, owes a lot to this chain of programs.
rectang 8y ago
The intractable problem is that helping the homeless is seen as moral hazard by a large segment of the American populace. Our programs are incoherent because some want to provide assistance and others to withhold it.
jakelarkin 8y ago
we've rebuilt like 15 countries (after bombing them) in the past ... somehow its totally impossible to temporarily house a fractional percentage of people in our country and make sure they get a job or their meds instead of addicted to heroin theres so many bs political excuses; bad zoning, bad building regulation, bad union rules, bad health regulations, bad drug laws, civil legal liability, cost of Rx drugs ... as if government doesnt have have power to fix those things. it's a feigned helplessness because the poor inherently have no political leverage/value to those in power.
SturgeonsLaw 8y ago
Great strides in helping the homeless can be achieved by giving them housing. It almost sounds like a tautology, and it triggers outrage in certain segments of the population, but once people have that stable foundation they can then work towards rebuilding their life.
lsc 8y ago
>IMO solving this problem is by no means "simple". I think providing people housing is simple. It's just expensive.

briandear 8y ago

With the hundreds of millions SF spends on the homeless, it could be fair to say that a large number of homeless don’t want “care” or “re-housing.” The city spends more and more and it doesn’t make a dent in the numbers. An objective observer might suggest that the more you subsidize something, the more of it you get. Compared to most places, it’s easier to be homeless in San Francisco, which could create a disincentive for the homeless to care about getting off the street.

jakelarkin 8y ago
i agree SF needs less coddling and way stronger sticks (at least for the young & able-bodied), but fundamentally theres no where for these people to go to try to get it together. cost of housing way above welfare/SSID in a 50 mile radius. there's zero net shelter space. because the political incentives on the west coast (nimby, mellow weather, already high taxes) are to not bother to build them. theres also not enough jail space or PD headcount, so dealers, petty burglars just cycle in and out without consequence. its a vicious cycle of extreme poverty that starts and ends with a corrupt, poorly run local government

Abutere 8y ago

I feel that a large percentage of the perpetually homeless, not those who were living paycheck to paycheck and ended up homeless for a few months, have such severe mental illness that they simply can't get "back on their feet". Usually schizophrenia or narcotics addiction. I'd be curious to see if their illness caused the homelessness or they developed it from the trauma of living on the street.