5 ms·

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 ab

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.
  - glangdale 8y ago
    Seriously this. What a lot of people don't grasp is that the sort of things that 'housing first' can (fairly expensively) help with are things that are even more expensive if the situations wind up being treated by mechanisms like hospitals, the mental health system or the police or jail/prison systems as crises. Getting people into houses and then helping them clean up their acts, rather than setting a high moral bar (we won't house you until you clean up your alcohol/drug addiction and take treatment for your mental health issues) is just plain good sense.
    - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
      Getting people into houses and then helping them clean up their acts, rather than setting a high moral bar (we won't house you until you clean up your alcohol/drug addiction and take treatment for your mental health issues) is just plain good sense. I've always thought the "clean up then get help" seemed cruel and from a position of ignorance. I couldn't imagine being homeless and having to clean up to get a dry place to sleep or food to eat. Sobriety would just add another layer of misery: Withdrawal from any substance would add even more layers.
conanbatt 8y ago
> free of charge. I think you should understand what this really means. Are you willing to pay 10, 15% extra of your income to sustain 10~25k a month bills for mentally ill people?
- Ericson2314 8y ago
  Yes
  - tjr225 8y ago
    Same here. I would rather that the disproportionately rich pay for it, however.
    - briandear 8y ago
      You would rather someone else pay for your beliefs? The disproportionately rich already pay a disproportionate share of taxes. The top 1% earn 19% of the income but pay 35% of the taxes in the US. I’m not sure that’s fair. Rich people also create the jobs: if they pay more, they have less incentive to invest more which means fewer businesses being funded and fewer jobs.
      - conanbatt 8y ago
        World's tiniest golden violin. I am also against disproportionate taxes on the rich, but lets not start pitying them or assigning value to their well being above societies. Liberty above everything else, and I dont want anyone to suffer any consequence under the veil of "trickle-down econ", which is not what people think it is.
        isoskeles 8y ago
        Nah, I feel for the disproportionately rich. They’re constantly blamed for society’s ills, for the sin of having wealth, to the point where I’m sure something like 15% of the population would be happy with dragging them into the streets and beheading them. I’m tired of hearing about the “disproportionately rich” and the unoriginal idea that their resources are the only solution. It’s tiring to see people continue piling on with that rhetoric.
briandear 8y ago
There are exactly those programs in San Francisco, but, unless you’ve ever dealt with the extremely mentally ill, you would know that they have to ask for the help. 5150s are temporary, so unless the person actually asks for help, there isn’t anything that can be done under current law.

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.
- glangdale 8y ago
  Seriously this. What a lot of people don't grasp is that the sort of things that 'housing first' can (fairly expensively) help with are things that are even more expensive if the situations wind up being treated by mechanisms like hospitals, the mental health system or the police or jail/prison systems as crises. Getting people into houses and then helping them clean up their acts, rather than setting a high moral bar (we won't house you until you clean up your alcohol/drug addiction and take treatment for your mental health issues) is just plain good sense.
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    Getting people into houses and then helping them clean up their acts, rather than setting a high moral bar (we won't house you until you clean up your alcohol/drug addiction and take treatment for your mental health issues) is just plain good sense. I've always thought the "clean up then get help" seemed cruel and from a position of ignorance. I couldn't imagine being homeless and having to clean up to get a dry place to sleep or food to eat. Sobriety would just add another layer of misery: Withdrawal from any substance would add even more layers.

conanbatt 8y ago

> free of charge. I think you should understand what this really means. Are you willing to pay 10, 15% extra of your income to sustain 10~25k a month bills for mentally ill people?

Ericson2314 8y ago
Yes
- tjr225 8y ago
  Same here. I would rather that the disproportionately rich pay for it, however.
  - briandear 8y ago
    You would rather someone else pay for your beliefs? The disproportionately rich already pay a disproportionate share of taxes. The top 1% earn 19% of the income but pay 35% of the taxes in the US. I’m not sure that’s fair. Rich people also create the jobs: if they pay more, they have less incentive to invest more which means fewer businesses being funded and fewer jobs.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      World's tiniest golden violin. I am also against disproportionate taxes on the rich, but lets not start pitying them or assigning value to their well being above societies. Liberty above everything else, and I dont want anyone to suffer any consequence under the veil of "trickle-down econ", which is not what people think it is.
      - isoskeles 8y ago
        Nah, I feel for the disproportionately rich. They’re constantly blamed for society’s ills, for the sin of having wealth, to the point where I’m sure something like 15% of the population would be happy with dragging them into the streets and beheading them. I’m tired of hearing about the “disproportionately rich” and the unoriginal idea that their resources are the only solution. It’s tiring to see people continue piling on with that rhetoric.

briandear 8y ago

There are exactly those programs in San Francisco, but, unless you’ve ever dealt with the extremely mentally ill, you would know that they have to ask for the help. 5150s are temporary, so unless the person actually asks for help, there isn’t anything that can be done under current law.