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All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Obviously large cities have very high rents, and most of the homeless peopl

All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Obviously large cities have very high rents, and most of the homeless people. It’s also Zillow. I am uncertain why they are doing these studies. The fact that you keep saying homelessness is primarily political and keep emphasizing that aspect kinda proves my point. I’m curious if you’ve worked in homeless services, or know a number of homeless people? In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics. Sometimes life is really hard, and it’s not the government’s fault, or corporations, or any of that. I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion?

joe_the_user 7y ago
All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Google can point you to several other studies. The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" basically could best broken down as "the correlation of two graphs doesn't mean much unless you have a decent model to explain why they're correlated". But in this case, we have a good model for high rents causing homelessness - people become homeless when they lose homes and can't find another house or apartment. High rents make this more likely - high rents also make it harder for someone who's working to "couch surf" until they find another place. Being a functional, short-term homeless person makes latent substance abuse and mental illness issues more likely to appear and intensifying existing ones - sleep deprivation is a major factor. The relationship between sleep deprivation and many such problems has been studied in depth. In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics. That's a pretty weird statement. Obviously, I'm politically to the left and believe that society in general and highly destructive social policies, in total is responsible for homelessness in aggregate but see below. I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion? My default reaction to homelessness is generally an effort to step-in and help. I've spent thousands of dollars of my own money helping individual friends avoid homelessness (sometimes successfully, sometimes not so), I've distributed food at soup kitchens and I've protested the eviction of homeless camps. I give money directly to homeless people when I can. I've know others involved in social services. Oh, and I've been homeless for moderate periods. Your statements seem to imply that seeing homelessness as political negates efforts to help - but instead, my individual efforts to help give me the strong impression this problem larger than my personal ability to solve, hence it is a problem of society, a political problem in the sense of how do we run our society (assuming, maybe mistakenly, some "we" exists today). I think most people involved in homeless services feel also feel this problem requires more than just the intervention of charity. I understand that some people are so wholly dysfunctional that they aren't going to easily join society when offered a minimum wage job or even, necessarily, an ordinary apartment - mean, my original post mentioning broken people is what started this off, right? That doesn't change the way that social conditions are a large part of what creates this society. Of those groups involved in interacting with homeless, your attitude seems closest to that of the police and others in the "justice" system who constantly claim far greater knowledge of the conditions of the homeless than all others but who's views tend be twisted, cruel and malicious through their impulse justify society's brutal dictates towards the homeless. Plus unsupported by any objective studies. "You don't really know what these people are like" is the common rhetoric. I would mention that law enforcement sees the dysfunctional homeless primarily because anyone functional and homeless stays as far as practical away from law enforcement and any homeless service that aims to control people (ie, lots of shelters, etc).
- whiddershins 7y ago
  You are creating a false binary, and then ascribing my views to the ‘other’ side of the binary because they aren’t exactly the same as yours, therefore they must be opposite. What I’m saying is blaming “society” and “this country” for “breaking people [...] nowadays” is wrong headed. Sure, society and our political system can be harmful and damaging, but that’s not the main issue, it is a red herring. In my view, society should very much participate in helping mitigate the effects of bad luck, bad choices, being victims of abuse, horrible circumstances, whatever bad befalls someone, regardless of the source. We very much need a robust safety net in many dimensions. Just because we could do better... much much better ... in that regard doesn’t not automatically make for evidence our country is uniquely bad for people, or that this criticism of our country is the most salient point to comment about on an article about medical treatments for high need groups. That is where we disagree. I don’t agree that the mere existence of suffering people means a political system is screwed up. I think suffering is part of existence, and people who want to try to get rid of all suffering by remaking politics have created nightmare after nightmare throughout history. And I think this idea that individual suffering is a priori a failure of the social and political system means people hijack discussions about helping people to take swipes at the system. Edit: And if you want to know what I really think about homelessness and systemic issues, I think regulations prohibiting boarding houses are cruel, because it prevents someone who is in a tough spot from renting a cheap room somewhere while they figure out what to do.

joe_the_user 7y ago

All I see is the Zillow study. It’s correlation, there’s nothing to imply causation. Google can point you to several other studies. The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" basically could best broken down as "the correlation of two graphs doesn't mean much unless you have a decent model to explain why they're correlated". But in this case, we have a good model for high rents causing homelessness - people become homeless when they lose homes and can't find another house or apartment. High rents make this more likely - high rents also make it harder for someone who's working to "couch surf" until they find another place. Being a functional, short-term homeless person makes latent substance abuse and mental illness issues more likely to appear and intensifying existing ones - sleep deprivation is a major factor. The relationship between sleep deprivation and many such problems has been studied in depth. In my experience, there is such a thing as suffering that shouldn’t be pinned on bad politics. That's a pretty weird statement. Obviously, I'm politically to the left and believe that society in general and highly destructive social policies, in total is responsible for homelessness in aggregate but see below. I think ... ideally ... the default first reaction to suffering should be compassion? My default reaction to homelessness is generally an effort to step-in and help. I've spent thousands of dollars of my own money helping individual friends avoid homelessness (sometimes successfully, sometimes not so), I've distributed food at soup kitchens and I've protested the eviction of homeless camps. I give money directly to homeless people when I can. I've know others involved in social services. Oh, and I've been homeless for moderate periods. Your statements seem to imply that seeing homelessness as political negates efforts to help - but instead, my individual efforts to help give me the strong impression this problem larger than my personal ability to solve, hence it is a problem of society, a political problem in the sense of how do we run our society (assuming, maybe mistakenly, some "we" exists today). I think most people involved in homeless services feel also feel this problem requires more than just the intervention of charity. I understand that some people are so wholly dysfunctional that they aren't going to easily join society when offered a minimum wage job or even, necessarily, an ordinary apartment - mean, my original post mentioning broken people is what started this off, right? That doesn't change the way that social conditions are a large part of what creates this society. Of those groups involved in interacting with homeless, your attitude seems closest to that of the police and others in the "justice" system who constantly claim far greater knowledge of the conditions of the homeless than all others but who's views tend be twisted, cruel and malicious through their impulse justify society's brutal dictates towards the homeless. Plus unsupported by any objective studies. "You don't really know what these people are like" is the common rhetoric. I would mention that law enforcement sees the dysfunctional homeless primarily because anyone functional and homeless stays as far as practical away from law enforcement and any homeless service that aims to control people (ie, lots of shelters, etc).

whiddershins 7y ago
You are creating a false binary, and then ascribing my views to the ‘other’ side of the binary because they aren’t exactly the same as yours, therefore they must be opposite. What I’m saying is blaming “society” and “this country” for “breaking people [...] nowadays” is wrong headed. Sure, society and our political system can be harmful and damaging, but that’s not the main issue, it is a red herring. In my view, society should very much participate in helping mitigate the effects of bad luck, bad choices, being victims of abuse, horrible circumstances, whatever bad befalls someone, regardless of the source. We very much need a robust safety net in many dimensions. Just because we could do better... much much better ... in that regard doesn’t not automatically make for evidence our country is uniquely bad for people, or that this criticism of our country is the most salient point to comment about on an article about medical treatments for high need groups. That is where we disagree. I don’t agree that the mere existence of suffering people means a political system is screwed up. I think suffering is part of existence, and people who want to try to get rid of all suffering by remaking politics have created nightmare after nightmare throughout history. And I think this idea that individual suffering is a priori a failure of the social and political system means people hijack discussions about helping people to take swipes at the system. Edit: And if you want to know what I really think about homelessness and systemic issues, I think regulations prohibiting boarding houses are cruel, because it prevents someone who is in a tough spot from renting a cheap room somewhere while they figure out what to do.