5 ms·

If we have an obligation to house them, then let's house them where housing is cheap -- which is not near Seattle. The people in the homeless non-profits don't

by coryrc 7y ago

If we have an obligation to house them, then let's house them where housing is cheap -- which is not near Seattle. The people in the homeless non-profits don't like this, because they like to live and work in Seattle. So nothing gets done and we have used needles everywhere.

village-idiot 7y ago
I think you’re making up why homeless advocates don’t want to literally ship the homeless out of the city. There are a lot of reasonable objections to that plan.
- sieabahlpark 7y ago
  Such as?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Cheap places tend to come with lower job prospects and services.
    - epicureanideal 7y ago
      Most of the homeless are already not working anyway. There are exceptions, but that's not the majority.
      - coryrc 7y ago
        The homeless can be classified into two groups: temporary and chronic. In any given year, temporary is about 80% of the homeless. We have a okay track record at helping the temporarily homeless, and lower housing costs would make it both less prevalent and cheaper to address. However, the chronically homeless, at ~20% of the population, take up over 50% of the budget. They aren't able to live independently, regardless of any reasonable cost of living. They're also the most visible group. We should keep in mind that the solutions for the two are vastly different. This seems pretty good: http://www.evidenceonhomelessness.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/evidence-page-chronic-homelessness-April-2018.pdf http://www.evidenceonhomelessness.com/wp-content/uploads/201...
    - bwb 7y ago
      ya this feels like just another symptom of expensive housing and all the roadblocks to building way more housing. Especially denser housing.
      - coryrc 7y ago
        The places with denser housing in Seattle have higher incidence of open drug use, public urination, and other anti-social behaviour. While most NIMBY arguments are garbage, the fact is the city will not enforce acceptable public behaviour, and the only protection you can get is distance. I so wish I could choose to live in a dense, safe area like I could in Amsterdam, Munich, Seoul, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and so many other places.
    - sigstoat 7y ago
      surely there have got to be some places which have a better ratio of housing price to job prospects than seattle.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Sure, and you send them there, and then that place sends them somewhere else, and so on and so forth. Either they wind up back where they started because East Nowhere, North Dakota wants them gone too, or you wind up with concentrations of homeless people in an area with minimal tax base and horrific conditions as a result.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      It all comes down to matching each homeless person with a city that matches their prospects. If you're disabled or won't ever be able to work, you should be offered the housing and support services in the cheapest place possible since you'll be using the services the longest. If you're lesser skilled but physically/mentally able, you are matched to housing and services in a city that has job prospects that match your capacity. Only those with the most skills and capacity to be successful should get housing and support in cities where the cost of living is very high. If you've got no prospect of sustaining yourself in a specific city because it requires competence beyond your capacity, you've got no business in that city. We should aim to help put people in circumstances where they can thrive sustainably on their own. None of this should be compulsory. I'm only suggesting that the support being offered for free should be focused on putting people in circumstances that match each individual and that cost the least amount to those providing the resources.
  - village-idiot 7y ago
    And the very ugly optics of pushing homeless out of sight and out of mind.
elvinyung 7y ago
Shouldn't cities be obligated to make sure they're able to have teachers and plumbers and piano tuners?
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  No. If rent gets so expensive that plumbers can't afford to live there, then some plumbers will just start coming in from some cheaper area and charge customers probably an increased fee based on the trouble of getting into the city.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Do cities have the power to make sure of such a thing? It's not like the mayor can just go around setting prices and wages to the level she thinks is best.
  - elvinyung 7y ago
    Why not? Isn't public/social housing basically that?
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      Public housing generally does not come with a nice enough environment that teachers and plumbers will agree to live there. Maybe there’s some way to build public housing which doesn’t come with drugs and petty crime, but if there is I don’t think American cities know how to do it. The conventional wisdom is that the right way to do affordable housing is distributing it evenly among all the new complexes in the city.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  I know it was rhetorical but define "obligation" and "have". Obligation in a moral sense is a matter of opinion. In the practical sense: What happens if the obligation isn't fufilled? Piano tuners are of lesser importance than teachers in terms of consequences for lacking entirely. There are alternatives for everything with their own price. Even if it is horrific like "die of rabies instead of getting vaccinated after being bit". If availability of workforce in a broader area is high but in city housing they afford is low either they need to be paid more or traffic and commute time will increase and make the job less desirable which may affect skill level and harm labor availability. Underserving is technically also an option but there will be knock on effects - if the schools are bad then parents will be more likely to relocate.
com2kid 7y ago
> which is not near Seattle. The city of Seattle has 0 power to force other municipalities to build housing. Any attempts by Seattle to build shelters and low income housing projects outside of the city limits would be swiftly shut down, assuming those attempts could even get started. Unfortunately Seattle has to pay the burden of the entire region. While some cities, such a Bellevue, are helping out, other cities around here have no real desire, or motivation, to start paying money in, and voters in those other cities would likely make that clear the second their elected officials started spending tax dollars.
- epicureanideal 7y ago
  They don't need to force them. They can just pay to build housing in another city, and by contract give it for free to certain current residents of Seattle who are without homes.
  - kyshoc 7y ago
    why would the other city ever agree to this? we have instances of cities facing outcry from residents for simply building homeless shelters within their own limits[0][1]. I imagine the outcry for a city "shipping out" their homeless to a shelter outside their bounds would be even worse. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/28/san-francisco-gofundme-homeless-shelter-embarcadero https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/28/san-francisc... [1]: https://www.ocregister.com/2019/04/02/huntington-beach-scratches-proposal-for-50-bed-homeless-shelter-near-marina-high-school-after-resident-outcry/ https://www.ocregister.com/2019/04/02/huntington-beach-scrat...
    - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      It doesn't need to be a city. I've thought about this idea myself, pick a state with a large amount of empty land and construct housing, addiction and mental health services in a single place. A massive complex for those unable to care for themselves in society. It would cost billions but it already costs billions nationally to care for the homeless. With lower wages and land values you'd have large cost savings and that's before economies of scale. Let the addiction specialists and mental health professionals set the rules here. They would be limited by the constitution but would be able to enact laws for this very specific segment of the population. A low trust society encased within a high trust society. At that point cities would be free to enact laws to the effect of "get help in the complex or go to prison" when they catch the homeless committing crime. Homeless no longer are a blight to the cities and the homeless get the best help we can offer.

by coryrc 7y ago

village-idiot 7y ago

I think you’re making up why homeless advocates don’t want to literally ship the homeless out of the city. There are a lot of reasonable objections to that plan.

sieabahlpark 7y ago
Such as?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Cheap places tend to come with lower job prospects and services.
  - epicureanideal 7y ago
    Most of the homeless are already not working anyway. There are exceptions, but that's not the majority.
    - coryrc 7y ago
      The homeless can be classified into two groups: temporary and chronic. In any given year, temporary is about 80% of the homeless. We have a okay track record at helping the temporarily homeless, and lower housing costs would make it both less prevalent and cheaper to address. However, the chronically homeless, at ~20% of the population, take up over 50% of the budget. They aren't able to live independently, regardless of any reasonable cost of living. They're also the most visible group. We should keep in mind that the solutions for the two are vastly different. This seems pretty good: http://www.evidenceonhomelessness.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/evidence-page-chronic-homelessness-April-2018.pdf http://www.evidenceonhomelessness.com/wp-content/uploads/201...
  - bwb 7y ago
    ya this feels like just another symptom of expensive housing and all the roadblocks to building way more housing. Especially denser housing.
    - coryrc 7y ago
      The places with denser housing in Seattle have higher incidence of open drug use, public urination, and other anti-social behaviour. While most NIMBY arguments are garbage, the fact is the city will not enforce acceptable public behaviour, and the only protection you can get is distance. I so wish I could choose to live in a dense, safe area like I could in Amsterdam, Munich, Seoul, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and so many other places.
  - sigstoat 7y ago
    surely there have got to be some places which have a better ratio of housing price to job prospects than seattle.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Sure, and you send them there, and then that place sends them somewhere else, and so on and so forth. Either they wind up back where they started because East Nowhere, North Dakota wants them gone too, or you wind up with concentrations of homeless people in an area with minimal tax base and horrific conditions as a result.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    It all comes down to matching each homeless person with a city that matches their prospects. If you're disabled or won't ever be able to work, you should be offered the housing and support services in the cheapest place possible since you'll be using the services the longest. If you're lesser skilled but physically/mentally able, you are matched to housing and services in a city that has job prospects that match your capacity. Only those with the most skills and capacity to be successful should get housing and support in cities where the cost of living is very high. If you've got no prospect of sustaining yourself in a specific city because it requires competence beyond your capacity, you've got no business in that city. We should aim to help put people in circumstances where they can thrive sustainably on their own. None of this should be compulsory. I'm only suggesting that the support being offered for free should be focused on putting people in circumstances that match each individual and that cost the least amount to those providing the resources.
- village-idiot 7y ago
  And the very ugly optics of pushing homeless out of sight and out of mind.

elvinyung 7y ago

Shouldn't cities be obligated to make sure they're able to have teachers and plumbers and piano tuners?

oh_sigh 7y ago
No. If rent gets so expensive that plumbers can't afford to live there, then some plumbers will just start coming in from some cheaper area and charge customers probably an increased fee based on the trouble of getting into the city.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Do cities have the power to make sure of such a thing? It's not like the mayor can just go around setting prices and wages to the level she thinks is best.
- elvinyung 7y ago
  Why not? Isn't public/social housing basically that?
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    Public housing generally does not come with a nice enough environment that teachers and plumbers will agree to live there. Maybe there’s some way to build public housing which doesn’t come with drugs and petty crime, but if there is I don’t think American cities know how to do it. The conventional wisdom is that the right way to do affordable housing is distributing it evenly among all the new complexes in the city.
Nasrudith 7y ago
I know it was rhetorical but define "obligation" and "have". Obligation in a moral sense is a matter of opinion. In the practical sense: What happens if the obligation isn't fufilled? Piano tuners are of lesser importance than teachers in terms of consequences for lacking entirely. There are alternatives for everything with their own price. Even if it is horrific like "die of rabies instead of getting vaccinated after being bit". If availability of workforce in a broader area is high but in city housing they afford is low either they need to be paid more or traffic and commute time will increase and make the job less desirable which may affect skill level and harm labor availability. Underserving is technically also an option but there will be knock on effects - if the schools are bad then parents will be more likely to relocate.

com2kid 7y ago

> which is not near Seattle. The city of Seattle has 0 power to force other municipalities to build housing. Any attempts by Seattle to build shelters and low income housing projects outside of the city limits would be swiftly shut down, assuming those attempts could even get started. Unfortunately Seattle has to pay the burden of the entire region. While some cities, such a Bellevue, are helping out, other cities around here have no real desire, or motivation, to start paying money in, and voters in those other cities would likely make that clear the second their elected officials started spending tax dollars.

epicureanideal 7y ago
They don't need to force them. They can just pay to build housing in another city, and by contract give it for free to certain current residents of Seattle who are without homes.
- kyshoc 7y ago
  why would the other city ever agree to this? we have instances of cities facing outcry from residents for simply building homeless shelters within their own limits[0][1]. I imagine the outcry for a city "shipping out" their homeless to a shelter outside their bounds would be even worse. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/28/san-francisco-gofundme-homeless-shelter-embarcadero https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/28/san-francisc... [1]: https://www.ocregister.com/2019/04/02/huntington-beach-scratches-proposal-for-50-bed-homeless-shelter-near-marina-high-school-after-resident-outcry/ https://www.ocregister.com/2019/04/02/huntington-beach-scrat...
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    It doesn't need to be a city. I've thought about this idea myself, pick a state with a large amount of empty land and construct housing, addiction and mental health services in a single place. A massive complex for those unable to care for themselves in society. It would cost billions but it already costs billions nationally to care for the homeless. With lower wages and land values you'd have large cost savings and that's before economies of scale. Let the addiction specialists and mental health professionals set the rules here. They would be limited by the constitution but would be able to enact laws for this very specific segment of the population. A low trust society encased within a high trust society. At that point cities would be free to enact laws to the effect of "get help in the complex or go to prison" when they catch the homeless committing crime. Homeless no longer are a blight to the cities and the homeless get the best help we can offer.