4 ms·

Other countries, those with a somewhat decent social safety net, do not have such a big problem with homelessness. Particularly not with homeless people making

Other countries, those with a somewhat decent social safety net, do not have such a big problem with homelessness. Particularly not with homeless people making public libraries unusable for the general public.

gridlockd 7y ago
Is that really so? Homelessness rates in the US are below those in Sweden, Germany, France, Great Britain and Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...
- mikemotherwell 7y ago
  This is 100% true, but I wonder if the right level of abstraction for the 3rd largest country by population and 4th largest by area. The USA undeniably has a low macro rates of homelessness overall, but I wonder if it has high micro levels of homelessness, e.g. Sydney seems to have lower rates of homelessness than San Francisco or Seattle, even though Australia has a higher homelessness rate than the USA overall. I wonder as I can't find any data that uses the same measurements across cities and countries and is easy to compare. On numbers, Seattle has 12,000 homeless according to wikipedia, and I can't find similar numbers for Sydney. Given Sydney is about 15% larger than greater Seattle, it would need to be closer to 14,000 to be the same. I doubt Sydney has that many Homeless, but with no data I guess it may. I could be completely off base here, but I do think the USA has some really concentrated pockets of homelessness, and that skews people's views, in both directions, based on personal experience.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    The question is, does homelessness become more of a problem if it is "more concentrated"? I would argue that for the homeless individual, it actually doesn't. It's in fact probably better to be homeless in a place that is already accustomed to homeless people. Of course for the perception of a non-homeless person, the problem will appear more drastic with a higher concentration.
- thomasz 7y ago
  That list is a great example on how you have to treat wikipedia with a healthy dose of scepticism. It's original research of the worst case: A list of figures from different decades(!), extracted from random news sites, without any trace of even trying to explain that there is no globally accepted definition of homelessness and that those numbers likely measure very different phenomena. Furthermore, most of these figures includes people that are insufficiently housed like on a friends couch, in a windowless room, in temporary shelters and such, and do not tell you much about the population of people "on the streets".
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    Fair enough, but you literally gave zero evidence for your claim that "Other countries, those with a somewhat decent social safety net, do not have such a big problem with homelessness". You should at least consider the possibility that what you said isn't really true and just fits your preconceived notion of a heartless US society versus a supposedly more social environment in Europe.
    - thomasz 7y ago
      Heartlessness isn’t a factor here. At least individually I’d say that people over here are way more indifferent towards the homeless. There is very little enthusiasm in terms of volunteering and such.
      - mter 7y ago
        Where is over here? The US leads the world in volunteering. https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO4.1-Participation-voluntary-work.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO4.1-Participation-voluntar... You can also look at BLS info: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/volun.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/volun.pdf Most cities have programs with volunteering with the homeless, just visit a nearby church and ask. Clothes, food and resumes are pretty popular things to help with.
        thomasz 7y ago

gridlockd 7y ago

Is that really so? Homelessness rates in the US are below those in Sweden, Germany, France, Great Britain and Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...

mikemotherwell 7y ago
This is 100% true, but I wonder if the right level of abstraction for the 3rd largest country by population and 4th largest by area. The USA undeniably has a low macro rates of homelessness overall, but I wonder if it has high micro levels of homelessness, e.g. Sydney seems to have lower rates of homelessness than San Francisco or Seattle, even though Australia has a higher homelessness rate than the USA overall. I wonder as I can't find any data that uses the same measurements across cities and countries and is easy to compare. On numbers, Seattle has 12,000 homeless according to wikipedia, and I can't find similar numbers for Sydney. Given Sydney is about 15% larger than greater Seattle, it would need to be closer to 14,000 to be the same. I doubt Sydney has that many Homeless, but with no data I guess it may. I could be completely off base here, but I do think the USA has some really concentrated pockets of homelessness, and that skews people's views, in both directions, based on personal experience.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  The question is, does homelessness become more of a problem if it is "more concentrated"? I would argue that for the homeless individual, it actually doesn't. It's in fact probably better to be homeless in a place that is already accustomed to homeless people. Of course for the perception of a non-homeless person, the problem will appear more drastic with a higher concentration.
thomasz 7y ago
That list is a great example on how you have to treat wikipedia with a healthy dose of scepticism. It's original research of the worst case: A list of figures from different decades(!), extracted from random news sites, without any trace of even trying to explain that there is no globally accepted definition of homelessness and that those numbers likely measure very different phenomena. Furthermore, most of these figures includes people that are insufficiently housed like on a friends couch, in a windowless room, in temporary shelters and such, and do not tell you much about the population of people "on the streets".
- gridlockd 7y ago
  Fair enough, but you literally gave zero evidence for your claim that "Other countries, those with a somewhat decent social safety net, do not have such a big problem with homelessness". You should at least consider the possibility that what you said isn't really true and just fits your preconceived notion of a heartless US society versus a supposedly more social environment in Europe.
  - thomasz 7y ago
    Heartlessness isn’t a factor here. At least individually I’d say that people over here are way more indifferent towards the homeless. There is very little enthusiasm in terms of volunteering and such.
    - mter 7y ago
      Where is over here? The US leads the world in volunteering. https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO4.1-Participation-voluntary-work.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO4.1-Participation-voluntar... You can also look at BLS info: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/volun.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/volun.pdf Most cities have programs with volunteering with the homeless, just visit a nearby church and ask. Clothes, food and resumes are pretty popular things to help with.
      - thomasz 7y ago