8 ms·

Before this gets too big I'd like to say this kind of saccharine story, while nice for the person involved, does not give a realistic picture of homelessness. H

Before this gets too big I'd like to say this kind of saccharine story, while nice for the person involved, does not give a realistic picture of homelessness. Homelessness is not caused by people not having a job. It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage, coupled with high housing prices, making them one unexpected expense from being on the street. It is caused by people developing mental health issues that make retaining employment extremely difficult; and what could be more ruinous for your mental health than not having a home, a safe place to retreat to & store your possessions? Think - many of us have been depressed. Do you think you could manage your depression at all if you didn't have a safe, warm place to just hang out alone and recover from the world? Of course, the worst mental health problem of all is addiction. If you are homeless and develop an addiction then there is very little hope of recovery. The homeless also suffer at the hands of the criminal justice system. It's very easy to get arrested for petty crimes when unhoused; the cops really hate the homeless. Someone can't periodically destroy a bunch of peoples' meager shelter in completely unproductive "sweeps" without developing a view that they're less than human. Maybe you spend a couple days in jail, so you've lost what job you had. Or you have a record, so good luck getting a job and possibly escaping homelessness! All of this is to say that this pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps story is just completely ridiculous, and if you see the world through the lens of this story then you'll have a ridiculous worldview. The fundamental reason for homelessness is simple. As long as housing costs money, there will be those who cannot afford it. I encourage you to think about this simple sentence and its implications.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I think that this is the worst feedback loop in American society. You get the cycle of poverty, no healthcare, petty crime, criminal record or prison, round and round. Many Americans who are well off fail to realize that in the end they're paying for all of this. They're paying for the prisons, subsidies, etc. Many I know call the poor/homeless drains on society but do not want to do anything to help them become a positive on society. It's spiteful and not pragmatic.
- ahelwer 6y ago
  Yes that's exactly what it is - a huge negative feedback loop!
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    I agree, but isn’t it a positive feedback loop? Just because the result is deemed negative didn’t mean it’s not feeding on itself.
    - ahelwer 6y ago
      Oh yes, you are correct lol.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 6y ago
      Negative feedback loops are also a thing, the difference is if the tendency is to steady state or wildly increasing / chaotic systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_feedback https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_feedback
      - cmehdy 6y ago
        There might be a difference between colloquial terms and control theory/system modelling there. Negative isn't pejorative when referring to a loop, it's (mostly) stabilizing. A negative feedback loop example is a nuclear reactor (goes down when it's too high, goes higher when it's too low). A positive feedback loop example is a nuclear bomb (goes higher when it's high).
        Retric 6y ago
        I think you’re misunderstanding what I am suggesting. People can be homeless for very long periods, so there may be some threshold below which you see positive tendencies and above which you see negative tendencies.
kowlo 6y ago
You've raised valid points and I agree. Do you have any recommendations for further reading/watching that gives us more insight?
- ahelwer 6y ago
  I don't think there's really a single thing I read that led me to this. I'll list off life experiences that come to mind, though: (1) I guess it probably started off back in 2015 when I read about Utah's "Housing First" approach to ending homelessness which got quite a bit of national news coverage at the time[0]. (2) I started talking to some of the people experiencing homelessness who hung around the grocery stores I went to in Seattle, seeing them as a person and not an unsightly problem to be swept under a rug. Ask them what food they want then buy it for them sometime, you might get a good conversation out of it; if they're not up to talking, well, someone got a meal out of it at least - and they shouldn't really owe you anything. (3) Then one year I went on a business trip to Copenhagen, and saw their hybrid system of both privately-owned & socialized housing; went to a BBQ at a coworker's place at one of the socialized housing complexes, which was very nice. (4) I bought a condo myself, and cheered as the price went up on Zillow. Then was struck with the somehow extremely obvious yet little-noticed contradiction that house prices appreciating in value, which is more-or-less the driving thesis of investment the largest asset class in the world, is diametrically opposed to the goal of making housing affordable - as in, cost less & thus be worth less! (5) I met my current partner, who is a medical resident in combined internal medicine & psychiatry. Their patient population is almost all homeless. I heard many of their patients' stories and the misery they experience. (6) I started watching some urban planning videos by donoteat01 on youtube[1], who is an entertaining presenter that uses Cities: Skylines to illustrate common concepts. I especially liked their video on gentrification[2]. (6) Somehow I heard about the Tax Amazon movement in Seattle[3], which aims to put a payroll tax on workers at large corps & use the proceeds to fund the creation of public housing. I thought - that sounds great! Even though I work at a large tech corp myself, I'll participate. Speaking with people at the various planning meetings (who were almost all outside the bubble of friends-who-work-in-tech I had) was really educating and solidified my views on all this. Sorry that isn't a link, but more a story of how I arrived here. Hopefully it helps you in some way. [0] https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni... [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/donoteat01/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/donoteat01/videos [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdeirDrinWk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdeirDrinWk [3] https://www.taxamazon.net/ https://www.taxamazon.net/
bvcvbuiy 6y ago
Maybe I am wrong but at least two points mentioned in your comment are US specific : "It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage" Where I come from minimum wage is enough to pay for a rent. "the cops really hate the homeless. Someone can't periodically destroy a bunch of peoples' meager shelter in completely unproductive "sweeps" without developing a view that they're less than human." Again I may be wrong but where I live there are no 'homeless villages' like there are in the US.
- efdferfghr 6y ago
  These may not apply to where you live but that does not mean that they only apply to the US. These qualities describe most human societies now and throughout history. This kind of ignorance is a side effect of living a life of privilege.
- loloquwowndueo 6y ago
  If you say where you live maybe some homeless folks can be relocated and be happy :)
  - bvcvbuiy 6y ago
    There is one problem though. That happens a lot (I have homeless Syrian people in mind) but the government does not allow them the right to work so they can't get out of poverty.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  They're not even US specific. They're "a handful of cities with insane local economic conditions" specific. Homelessness is not a rampant problem except on the west coast. Yes big cities have homeless populations but they mostly cycle into various shelters (often church run) where the ones that don't have serious mental issues get their lives back on track. It's not rampant like it is on the west coast. Spend a few years riding the MTA, T or Metro and then compare to BART if you don't believe me. California can kind of make the "hospitable climate" excuse but even rainy Seattle is just carped bombed with tents. Places like DC and Miami are not exactly known for exemplifying effective social services yet somehow they manage to have much less of a problem than the west coast.
whiddershins 6y ago
> It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage, coupled with high housing prices, making them one unexpected expense from being on the street. I agree with much of your post but let’s be clear, leading with this can be misleading. Fundamentally, homelessness centers around being unable, for whatever reason, to work. Not around specific wages and rents, which I think makes this part a red herring. We can’t solve homelessness by attacking several ‘root causes’ at once. The key here is to be absolutely candid about what the root cause actually is right now. Edit: Your comment is using homelessness to critique capitalism, and is not actually about homelessness at all.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  There are many people in the US who are gainfully employed in fulltime jobs and homeless: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JHDkALRz5Rk https://youtube.com/watch?v=JHDkALRz5Rk
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    This is a great video with some much needed outside perspective. Highly recommended.
- ahelwer 6y ago
  There will always be reasons, often outside of peoples' control, why they cannot make enough money to afford housing. Your solution to this is - what? I believe that the fundamental necessities of life - shelter, healthcare, education (food, sure, but it is still relatively inexpensive) - should all be socialized to some degree. This can easily coexist with capitalism. Denmark has these things and is still a fervently capitalist country.
  - whiddershins 6y ago
    Let’s say, for the sake of argument, the is some ‘socialization’ of housing, whatever that means ... but somehow everyone always has a place to live no matter what. In that situation should we still be angry about minimum wage? See, we are conflating things here. Some people really can’t work and need help. At that point, as I said above, specific rent amounts and wage amounts become irrelevant. You need to focus on: what will genuinely help them? Drug treatment? Mental Health treatment. A lifetime of free food and housing etc and the removal of any obligation to contribute to society forever? I say none of this ironically. When someone simply can’t work, and no one else voluntarily want to take care of them, we have to figure out what to do. And how to distinguish between fakers and real. And between temporary and permanent. Partial and complete. At that point there are so many issues, putting high rents and low wages in is literally a distraction.
jakelazaroff 6y ago
I remember volunteering once to serve lunch in a soup kitchen. One of the people that came in for a meal was someone whom I’d seen working in a local bagel shop. I’d known mentally that having a job didn’t automatically mean you weren’t homeless or struggling, but seeing someone who worked in my neighborhood right in front of me like that really hammered it home.
dominotw 6y ago
>It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage I thought this is the whole point of minimum wage laws. I see this word often but i don't understand the difference between 'living wage' and 'minimum wage' . Can 'living wage' be clearly defined so the number can be derived using logic ?
- staticman2 6y ago
  MIT has a living wage calculator for U.S. regions you can look up for your area if you livenin the U.S.. I have no opinion on the methodologies but it's been attempted. https://livingwage.mit.edu https://livingwage.mit.edu
  - dominotw 6y ago
    Thank you. This is very interesting. This seems to take into account number of children and adults working in the family.Minimum wage doesn't take that into account. Not sure if it would be possible to make employers pay different minimum wage based on number of children and working adults in a employees family. So I think this the idea behind paying living wage, pay based on employee's circumstances.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  Many minimum wage laws have not kept up with the inflation in living costs, which is why people now use the term living wage. It likely was the original point, but very few are/were indexed to inflation. Add in the unwillingness of a large portion of politicians to raising the minimum wage, and drift has occurred.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    Looking at the calculator posted in the sister comment, living wage isn't simply minimum wage adjusted up to inflation. It has to do with employers taking personal circumstances of employees into consideration when setting the minimum wage for that particular employee. Living wage for a single person is very different from living wage for a single parent with two children.
seastonATccs 6y ago
In the US the state of Utah decided that the cure for homelessness is housing homeless people. They stop asking if the person was worthy or will be responsible and just started to house them. Turns out that the vast majority of homeless, mental health issues or not, prefer to live in a safe environment. “In terms of preventing homelessness, it’s pretty straightforward. It’s housing.” Preston Cochrane, former executive director of Shelter the Homeless. There are still homeless in Utah, but the government priority is House them first then figure out why they became homeless after.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  If I’m not mistaken, studies have shown this to be a quite effective way to help people out of homelessness.
- hairofadog 6y ago
  Yeah, I wish this was the norm nation-wide. There’s a homeless crisis in my city (as in many cities) and too many people think the solution is to harass them into leaving or to jail them. Counterproductive and morally reprehensible. There seems to be a premise in Puritan America that punishing people is more important than solving problems.
- rich_sasha 6y ago
  This is phenomenal and I love it. I read about a few places doing it, but never any discussion on the following: are the houses well looked-after? And in particular, do they last? Stereotypes and needs aside, isn't this a common issue with e.g. social housing? I guess perhaps because people who need this kind of help often have severe mental issues alongside. I'm wondering about the sustainability of such approaches, rather than any kind of 'worthy/not worthy' arguments. Also, how does one avoid creating ghettos? This is already an issue with low cost / subsidised housing, this sounds related.
  - BryantD 6y ago
    They should be solid houses, yes. They aren't always, obviously, but that's the goal. The term of art for this is permanent supportive housing, which is handy if you want to look for more research and documentation. Seattle currently has 1,900 units (building more this year) and we have a 99%+ success rate at keeping people from re-entering homelessness. Our homeless problem is still awful, but that's because a) pandemic and b) we've been hanging around 10,000 people living on the streets, so the units are a pretty small percentage of what we need. We're not putting all our housing in one place, which alleviates the stigma problem. There is not a ton of research on the effect supportive housing has on the crime rate nearby, but the research we do have suggests that it's a relatively minor problem that can be solved: https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/support_1.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/support_1.pdf (Denver, PDF) https://furmancenter.org/research/publication/the-impact-of-supportive-housing-on-surrounding-neighborhoods-evidence https://furmancenter.org/research/publication/the-impact-of-... (NYC)
Technically 6y ago
> It is caused by people developing mental health issues that make retaining employment extremely difficult. Sadly, there are many other reasons, too. I met a family of immigrants. I learned through their eight-year old son his parents lost their jobs, couldn't find legal employment, did not speak english. As they were at a shelter, I imagine they were decent candidates to be picked up by ICE. Nonetheless, I agree with your post. This is a solvable problem but it is only solvable at the housing level.
SEJeff 6y ago
It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage, coupled with high housing prices, making them one unexpected expense from being on the street. My wife is a social worker, and something I've since learned from her is that the "poverty level" is solely for the cost of food and has utterly nothing to do with the cost of housing. It is utterly bananas that you can "not be impoverished" yet be homeless. Fixing that number to account for local cost of living for housing would be a really good step in helping fix the underlying problem (and the govt giving a crap about their citizens!)

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

I think that this is the worst feedback loop in American society. You get the cycle of poverty, no healthcare, petty crime, criminal record or prison, round and round. Many Americans who are well off fail to realize that in the end they're paying for all of this. They're paying for the prisons, subsidies, etc. Many I know call the poor/homeless drains on society but do not want to do anything to help them become a positive on society. It's spiteful and not pragmatic.

ahelwer 6y ago
Yes that's exactly what it is - a huge negative feedback loop!
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  I agree, but isn’t it a positive feedback loop? Just because the result is deemed negative didn’t mean it’s not feeding on itself.
  - ahelwer 6y ago
    Oh yes, you are correct lol.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 6y ago
    Negative feedback loops are also a thing, the difference is if the tendency is to steady state or wildly increasing / chaotic systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_feedback https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_feedback
    - cmehdy 6y ago
      There might be a difference between colloquial terms and control theory/system modelling there. Negative isn't pejorative when referring to a loop, it's (mostly) stabilizing. A negative feedback loop example is a nuclear reactor (goes down when it's too high, goes higher when it's too low). A positive feedback loop example is a nuclear bomb (goes higher when it's high).
      - Retric 6y ago
        I think you’re misunderstanding what I am suggesting. People can be homeless for very long periods, so there may be some threshold below which you see positive tendencies and above which you see negative tendencies.

kowlo 6y ago

You've raised valid points and I agree. Do you have any recommendations for further reading/watching that gives us more insight?

ahelwer 6y ago
I don't think there's really a single thing I read that led me to this. I'll list off life experiences that come to mind, though: (1) I guess it probably started off back in 2015 when I read about Utah's "Housing First" approach to ending homelessness which got quite a bit of national news coverage at the time[0]. (2) I started talking to some of the people experiencing homelessness who hung around the grocery stores I went to in Seattle, seeing them as a person and not an unsightly problem to be swept under a rug. Ask them what food they want then buy it for them sometime, you might get a good conversation out of it; if they're not up to talking, well, someone got a meal out of it at least - and they shouldn't really owe you anything. (3) Then one year I went on a business trip to Copenhagen, and saw their hybrid system of both privately-owned & socialized housing; went to a BBQ at a coworker's place at one of the socialized housing complexes, which was very nice. (4) I bought a condo myself, and cheered as the price went up on Zillow. Then was struck with the somehow extremely obvious yet little-noticed contradiction that house prices appreciating in value, which is more-or-less the driving thesis of investment the largest asset class in the world, is diametrically opposed to the goal of making housing affordable - as in, cost less & thus be worth less! (5) I met my current partner, who is a medical resident in combined internal medicine & psychiatry. Their patient population is almost all homeless. I heard many of their patients' stories and the misery they experience. (6) I started watching some urban planning videos by donoteat01 on youtube[1], who is an entertaining presenter that uses Cities: Skylines to illustrate common concepts. I especially liked their video on gentrification[2]. (6) Somehow I heard about the Tax Amazon movement in Seattle[3], which aims to put a payroll tax on workers at large corps & use the proceeds to fund the creation of public housing. I thought - that sounds great! Even though I work at a large tech corp myself, I'll participate. Speaking with people at the various planning meetings (who were almost all outside the bubble of friends-who-work-in-tech I had) was really educating and solidified my views on all this. Sorry that isn't a link, but more a story of how I arrived here. Hopefully it helps you in some way. [0] https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni... [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/donoteat01/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/donoteat01/videos [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdeirDrinWk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdeirDrinWk [3] https://www.taxamazon.net/ https://www.taxamazon.net/

bvcvbuiy 6y ago

Maybe I am wrong but at least two points mentioned in your comment are US specific : "It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage" Where I come from minimum wage is enough to pay for a rent. "the cops really hate the homeless. Someone can't periodically destroy a bunch of peoples' meager shelter in completely unproductive "sweeps" without developing a view that they're less than human." Again I may be wrong but where I live there are no 'homeless villages' like there are in the US.

efdferfghr 6y ago
These may not apply to where you live but that does not mean that they only apply to the US. These qualities describe most human societies now and throughout history. This kind of ignorance is a side effect of living a life of privilege.
loloquwowndueo 6y ago
If you say where you live maybe some homeless folks can be relocated and be happy :)
- bvcvbuiy 6y ago
  There is one problem though. That happens a lot (I have homeless Syrian people in mind) but the government does not allow them the right to work so they can't get out of poverty.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
They're not even US specific. They're "a handful of cities with insane local economic conditions" specific. Homelessness is not a rampant problem except on the west coast. Yes big cities have homeless populations but they mostly cycle into various shelters (often church run) where the ones that don't have serious mental issues get their lives back on track. It's not rampant like it is on the west coast. Spend a few years riding the MTA, T or Metro and then compare to BART if you don't believe me. California can kind of make the "hospitable climate" excuse but even rainy Seattle is just carped bombed with tents. Places like DC and Miami are not exactly known for exemplifying effective social services yet somehow they manage to have much less of a problem than the west coast.

whiddershins 6y ago

> It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage, coupled with high housing prices, making them one unexpected expense from being on the street. I agree with much of your post but let’s be clear, leading with this can be misleading. Fundamentally, homelessness centers around being unable, for whatever reason, to work. Not around specific wages and rents, which I think makes this part a red herring. We can’t solve homelessness by attacking several ‘root causes’ at once. The key here is to be absolutely candid about what the root cause actually is right now. Edit: Your comment is using homelessness to critique capitalism, and is not actually about homelessness at all.

elliekelly 6y ago
There are many people in the US who are gainfully employed in fulltime jobs and homeless: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JHDkALRz5Rk https://youtube.com/watch?v=JHDkALRz5Rk
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  This is a great video with some much needed outside perspective. Highly recommended.
ahelwer 6y ago
There will always be reasons, often outside of peoples' control, why they cannot make enough money to afford housing. Your solution to this is - what? I believe that the fundamental necessities of life - shelter, healthcare, education (food, sure, but it is still relatively inexpensive) - should all be socialized to some degree. This can easily coexist with capitalism. Denmark has these things and is still a fervently capitalist country.
- whiddershins 6y ago
  Let’s say, for the sake of argument, the is some ‘socialization’ of housing, whatever that means ... but somehow everyone always has a place to live no matter what. In that situation should we still be angry about minimum wage? See, we are conflating things here. Some people really can’t work and need help. At that point, as I said above, specific rent amounts and wage amounts become irrelevant. You need to focus on: what will genuinely help them? Drug treatment? Mental Health treatment. A lifetime of free food and housing etc and the removal of any obligation to contribute to society forever? I say none of this ironically. When someone simply can’t work, and no one else voluntarily want to take care of them, we have to figure out what to do. And how to distinguish between fakers and real. And between temporary and permanent. Partial and complete. At that point there are so many issues, putting high rents and low wages in is literally a distraction.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

I remember volunteering once to serve lunch in a soup kitchen. One of the people that came in for a meal was someone whom I’d seen working in a local bagel shop. I’d known mentally that having a job didn’t automatically mean you weren’t homeless or struggling, but seeing someone who worked in my neighborhood right in front of me like that really hammered it home.

dominotw 6y ago

>It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage I thought this is the whole point of minimum wage laws. I see this word often but i don't understand the difference between 'living wage' and 'minimum wage' . Can 'living wage' be clearly defined so the number can be derived using logic ?

staticman2 6y ago
MIT has a living wage calculator for U.S. regions you can look up for your area if you livenin the U.S.. I have no opinion on the methodologies but it's been attempted. https://livingwage.mit.edu https://livingwage.mit.edu
- dominotw 6y ago
  Thank you. This is very interesting. This seems to take into account number of children and adults working in the family.Minimum wage doesn't take that into account. Not sure if it would be possible to make employers pay different minimum wage based on number of children and working adults in a employees family. So I think this the idea behind paying living wage, pay based on employee's circumstances.
adamcstephens 6y ago
Many minimum wage laws have not kept up with the inflation in living costs, which is why people now use the term living wage. It likely was the original point, but very few are/were indexed to inflation. Add in the unwillingness of a large portion of politicians to raising the minimum wage, and drift has occurred.
- dominotw 6y ago
  Looking at the calculator posted in the sister comment, living wage isn't simply minimum wage adjusted up to inflation. It has to do with employers taking personal circumstances of employees into consideration when setting the minimum wage for that particular employee. Living wage for a single person is very different from living wage for a single parent with two children.

seastonATccs 6y ago

In the US the state of Utah decided that the cure for homelessness is housing homeless people. They stop asking if the person was worthy or will be responsible and just started to house them. Turns out that the vast majority of homeless, mental health issues or not, prefer to live in a safe environment. “In terms of preventing homelessness, it’s pretty straightforward. It’s housing.” Preston Cochrane, former executive director of Shelter the Homeless. There are still homeless in Utah, but the government priority is House them first then figure out why they became homeless after.

adamcstephens 6y ago
If I’m not mistaken, studies have shown this to be a quite effective way to help people out of homelessness.
hairofadog 6y ago
Yeah, I wish this was the norm nation-wide. There’s a homeless crisis in my city (as in many cities) and too many people think the solution is to harass them into leaving or to jail them. Counterproductive and morally reprehensible. There seems to be a premise in Puritan America that punishing people is more important than solving problems.
rich_sasha 6y ago
This is phenomenal and I love it. I read about a few places doing it, but never any discussion on the following: are the houses well looked-after? And in particular, do they last? Stereotypes and needs aside, isn't this a common issue with e.g. social housing? I guess perhaps because people who need this kind of help often have severe mental issues alongside. I'm wondering about the sustainability of such approaches, rather than any kind of 'worthy/not worthy' arguments. Also, how does one avoid creating ghettos? This is already an issue with low cost / subsidised housing, this sounds related.
- BryantD 6y ago
  They should be solid houses, yes. They aren't always, obviously, but that's the goal. The term of art for this is permanent supportive housing, which is handy if you want to look for more research and documentation. Seattle currently has 1,900 units (building more this year) and we have a 99%+ success rate at keeping people from re-entering homelessness. Our homeless problem is still awful, but that's because a) pandemic and b) we've been hanging around 10,000 people living on the streets, so the units are a pretty small percentage of what we need. We're not putting all our housing in one place, which alleviates the stigma problem. There is not a ton of research on the effect supportive housing has on the crime rate nearby, but the research we do have suggests that it's a relatively minor problem that can be solved: https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/support_1.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/support_1.pdf (Denver, PDF) https://furmancenter.org/research/publication/the-impact-of-supportive-housing-on-surrounding-neighborhoods-evidence https://furmancenter.org/research/publication/the-impact-of-... (NYC)

Technically 6y ago

> It is caused by people developing mental health issues that make retaining employment extremely difficult. Sadly, there are many other reasons, too. I met a family of immigrants. I learned through their eight-year old son his parents lost their jobs, couldn't find legal employment, did not speak english. As they were at a shelter, I imagine they were decent candidates to be picked up by ICE. Nonetheless, I agree with your post. This is a solvable problem but it is only solvable at the housing level.

SEJeff 6y ago

It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage, coupled with high housing prices, making them one unexpected expense from being on the street. My wife is a social worker, and something I've since learned from her is that the "poverty level" is solely for the cost of food and has utterly nothing to do with the cost of housing. It is utterly bananas that you can "not be impoverished" yet be homeless. Fixing that number to account for local cost of living for housing would be a really good step in helping fix the underlying problem (and the govt giving a crap about their citizens!)