4 ms·

This is a common enough misrepresentation of the sources of homelessness that it's imperative that you stop spreading it. 71% of San Francisco's homeless used

This is a common enough misrepresentation of the sources of homelessness that it's imperative that you stop spreading it. 71% of San Francisco's homeless used to have homes in the city, it is likely a similar proportion elsewhere. http://sfist.com/2016/02/11/71_of_sf_homeless_once_had_homes_in.php http://sfist.com/2016/02/11/71_of_sf_homeless_once_had_homes...

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
These studies always sound dubious, just like the misrepresentations that you are pointing out. First, they are just surveying a population that is incredibly difficult to survey. Second, they don't look into what they meant by having a home, was it just crashing at a friend's house? Were they ever employed at all in the city? Where were they born, where did they grow up? Cities act as a catchment for the rural areas around them: you can't really be homeless in Ellensburg or Aberdeen or Walla Walla (with no social services), but you can be homeless in Seattle or Spokane. A lot of kids on the street near UW in Seattle (aka ave rats) hail as far away as Montana. When I was working in downtown Seattle, many of the homeless that came around were Native Americans from various regions in the PNW. And ya, people do wind up homeless after they move to the big city, but often for reasons back home (they lost their support network and couldn't stay solvent). Anyways, you can't fix the homeless problem in individual cities without also fixing it in the surrounding regions, or even the nation. People are mobile, they will be attracted to the best deal.
- omegaworks 8y ago
  >These studies always sound dubious, just like the misrepresentations that you are pointing out. So are you suggesting we base our understanding of this problem on anecdotes? The problem I have with that is that the anecdotes that you present are constructed to support the idea that there is nothing to be done, that we must simply accept that homelessness is too big a problem to be solved or even quantified. I refuse to accept that conclusion, and support efforts to understand the problem rationally. http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/San-Francisco-PIT-Executive-Summary-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/San-Francisc...
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I get it, dodgy surveys trump anecdotes. However, these surveys turn in a reality that is so far divorced to what people are experiencing that they are hard to take seriously, check out: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-countys-homeless-are-overwhelmingly-from-here-service-providers-say/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-coun... > The records show that more than 8,000 clients listed their last ZIP code as 98104, which covers Pioneer Square and downtown. That’s about 25 percent of all clients who gave King County ZIP codes. Putnam says clients sometimes list ZIP codes for the shelters where they last stayed or the neighborhood where they’d been seeking services. Ya, the data is really noisy. And do you really think the big cities can solve this problem on their own without regional support? Its like saying they can solve healthcare on their own, or any other country-wide problem.
    - omegaworks 8y ago
      >And do you really think the big cities can solve this problem on their own without regional support? Absolutely agree with you here. I think regional, even national initiatives are the real way to tackle this. Cities, as you correctly point out, bear the brunt of homelessness' impact. I don't think they can solve this alone. There is hope that states can act. California just passed a $4 billion bond for housing veterans[1]. I hope the political will can be carried nationally, but have little faith in the current administration. They've already acted negligently, putting people using the GI housing benefit at risk[2]. I hope they face real blowback from this, but it's only one in a litany of scandals and failures at that level. 1. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Housing_Programs_and_Veterans%27_Loans_Bond_(2018) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Housing_Pr... 2. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/17/668953517/computer-glitch-leaves-thousands-of-veterans-waiting-on-education-housing-paymen https://www.npr.org/2018/11/17/668953517/computer-glitch-lea...
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
It's not a misconception because it happens on a large scale. Note I'm not arguing that it is all homeless or even a majority, but clearly increasing support for the homeless will draw homeless people there from other, less capable areas. Here is a discussion about a church in Amarillo that paid for 1200 one-way bus tickets to get homeless out of their city: https://old.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/5a0pdi/homeless_getting_oneway_bus_tickets_to_austin/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/5a0pdi/homeless_get...

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

These studies always sound dubious, just like the misrepresentations that you are pointing out. First, they are just surveying a population that is incredibly difficult to survey. Second, they don't look into what they meant by having a home, was it just crashing at a friend's house? Were they ever employed at all in the city? Where were they born, where did they grow up? Cities act as a catchment for the rural areas around them: you can't really be homeless in Ellensburg or Aberdeen or Walla Walla (with no social services), but you can be homeless in Seattle or Spokane. A lot of kids on the street near UW in Seattle (aka ave rats) hail as far away as Montana. When I was working in downtown Seattle, many of the homeless that came around were Native Americans from various regions in the PNW. And ya, people do wind up homeless after they move to the big city, but often for reasons back home (they lost their support network and couldn't stay solvent). Anyways, you can't fix the homeless problem in individual cities without also fixing it in the surrounding regions, or even the nation. People are mobile, they will be attracted to the best deal.

omegaworks 8y ago
>These studies always sound dubious, just like the misrepresentations that you are pointing out. So are you suggesting we base our understanding of this problem on anecdotes? The problem I have with that is that the anecdotes that you present are constructed to support the idea that there is nothing to be done, that we must simply accept that homelessness is too big a problem to be solved or even quantified. I refuse to accept that conclusion, and support efforts to understand the problem rationally. http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/San-Francisco-PIT-Executive-Summary-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/San-Francisc...
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I get it, dodgy surveys trump anecdotes. However, these surveys turn in a reality that is so far divorced to what people are experiencing that they are hard to take seriously, check out: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-countys-homeless-are-overwhelmingly-from-here-service-providers-say/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-coun... > The records show that more than 8,000 clients listed their last ZIP code as 98104, which covers Pioneer Square and downtown. That’s about 25 percent of all clients who gave King County ZIP codes. Putnam says clients sometimes list ZIP codes for the shelters where they last stayed or the neighborhood where they’d been seeking services. Ya, the data is really noisy. And do you really think the big cities can solve this problem on their own without regional support? Its like saying they can solve healthcare on their own, or any other country-wide problem.
  - omegaworks 8y ago
    >And do you really think the big cities can solve this problem on their own without regional support? Absolutely agree with you here. I think regional, even national initiatives are the real way to tackle this. Cities, as you correctly point out, bear the brunt of homelessness' impact. I don't think they can solve this alone. There is hope that states can act. California just passed a $4 billion bond for housing veterans[1]. I hope the political will can be carried nationally, but have little faith in the current administration. They've already acted negligently, putting people using the GI housing benefit at risk[2]. I hope they face real blowback from this, but it's only one in a litany of scandals and failures at that level. 1. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Housing_Programs_and_Veterans%27_Loans_Bond_(2018) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Housing_Pr... 2. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/17/668953517/computer-glitch-leaves-thousands-of-veterans-waiting-on-education-housing-paymen https://www.npr.org/2018/11/17/668953517/computer-glitch-lea...

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

It's not a misconception because it happens on a large scale. Note I'm not arguing that it is all homeless or even a majority, but clearly increasing support for the homeless will draw homeless people there from other, less capable areas. Here is a discussion about a church in Amarillo that paid for 1200 one-way bus tickets to get homeless out of their city: https://old.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/5a0pdi/homeless_getting_oneway_bus_tickets_to_austin/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/5a0pdi/homeless_get...