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In America, slums and informal housing is destroyed by the city government. See LA's Echo Park for a recent example https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-protesters-

In America, slums and informal housing is destroyed by the city government. See LA's Echo Park for a recent example https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-protesters-clash-sweep-echo-park-homeless-encampment/story?id=76701960 https://abcnews.go.com/US/police-protesters-clash-sweep-echo... We have 350m people, 0.5m homeless and lack the political will to build more housing. They are expected to stay out of sight or the municipality will destroy their shelter and often trash their belongings. Humanity is more cost effective, but doesn't allow us to moralize https://scoop.me/housing-first-finland-homelessness/ https://scoop.me/housing-first-finland-homelessness/ /rant

justicezyx 5y ago
Note that Indian people are suffering way more than than their western counterparts. The homeless in US lives a considerably better life than Indian homeless. This is not justifying one or the other. But if one always start with humanity as one's subject of discussion, than there probably is no meaningful progress to be made at all.
- aerovistae 5y ago
  Can you explain how it's better in the US? Seems to me like it's pretty hard to get worse than sleeping on the pavement and eating out of the trash.
  - macjohnmcc 5y ago
    I'd say that it being your life from birth to death is worse and your parents and grandparents likely suffering the same back who knows how far.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
hilbertseries 5y ago
I think there’s a little more nuance to what happened in echo park. Echo Park lake has always had some homeless people living there, but it was nowhere close to 200 prepandemic. There was also some attempt to relocate everyone, it’s the city of LA so obviously no one really trusted them. But it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over and then when it’s taken back. LA is destroying informal housing?
- sombremesa 5y ago
  > it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over That's what a majority of urban poor in India live on - public/unclaimed land (i.e. informal housing). They're not counted as homeless as a result, unlike in LA. That's how LA can appear to have a comparatively larger homeless population, even if it's a lot smaller in reality. In India this type of housing is illegal and can be destroyed by the government, but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people). Yay democracy.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    >but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people) There's a massive difference hidden in that statement alone. Here the politicians just assume those people aren't voting.
  - captain_price7 5y ago
    I'm hesitant to call the slum population "homeless". We have people in the parks, footpaths too, and that's very different from people living in many of these slums. Here are a few facts: some of these slums are 100+ yrs old. A lot of them have "permanent" homes, something lot harder to uproot than tents. And lastly, if the government attempted to destroy them, it won't be just poor people, almost entire society will be outraged. Something similar happened here in Dhaka.
    - sombremesa 5y ago
      That they are 100+ years old doesn’t change the fact that that they remain illegal (and thus available for political leverage).
jimbob45 5y ago
It’s not about building more housing. There is enough housing to house everyone in the US and then some. Homelessness is not just about finding/funding a home. You need food and transportation for a job. If the solution were as simple as throwing money at the homeless, California would have long ago solved their homelessness issue.
- pm90 5y ago
  > It’s not about building more housing. It actually is. From: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/06/08/1003982733/squalor-behind-the-golden-gate-confronting-californias-homelessness-crisis https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/06/08/1003982733/squ... > By the 1980s, homelessness emerged as a chronic issue. There were many factors, including the federal government deciding to slash the budget for affordable housing. By then the California state government had significantly cut taxes and gutted social programs, including for state-funded mental institutions, resulting in thousands of people with mental illnesses and other difficulties struggling to make it on their own. > Yet the core reason for the crisis boils down to supply and demand for housing. As regions like the San Francisco Bay Area became magnets for highly paid professionals in the computer-driven economy, they failed to build enough new units to keep up with demand. > A 2016 study by McKinsey Global Institute estimated that California needs 3.5 million new housing units by 2025 to deal with its chronic housing shortage. Yet new housing construction has only slowed since then, despite Gov. Gavin Newsom's campaign promise to lead an effort to produce those 3.5 million units. Even before the pandemic wrought havoc on the construction business, California was constructing only about 100,000 new homes per year, way below the minimum 180,000 per year that analysts say the state desperately needs.
  - wahern 5y ago
    > Gov. Gavin Newsom's campaign promise to lead an effort to produce those 3.5 million units. He is leading an effort. Whether he's spending enough of his own political capital is another question. But one of the problems in California is that the state constitution guarantees municipalities "home rule". That means very little can be accomplished without local cooperation, including local zoning board cooperation. It's like federalism at the state level--the central government can ban practices relatively easily, but it can't force positive action, only coerce through tax revenue incentives, which has its own constitutional restrictions, not to mention political barriers. California is a NIMBY paradise, legally speaking.

justicezyx 5y ago

Note that Indian people are suffering way more than than their western counterparts. The homeless in US lives a considerably better life than Indian homeless. This is not justifying one or the other. But if one always start with humanity as one's subject of discussion, than there probably is no meaningful progress to be made at all.

aerovistae 5y ago
Can you explain how it's better in the US? Seems to me like it's pretty hard to get worse than sleeping on the pavement and eating out of the trash.
- macjohnmcc 5y ago
  I'd say that it being your life from birth to death is worse and your parents and grandparents likely suffering the same back who knows how far.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

hilbertseries 5y ago

I think there’s a little more nuance to what happened in echo park. Echo Park lake has always had some homeless people living there, but it was nowhere close to 200 prepandemic. There was also some attempt to relocate everyone, it’s the city of LA so obviously no one really trusted them. But it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over and then when it’s taken back. LA is destroying informal housing?

sombremesa 5y ago
> it’s weird to me see a public park that’s meant to be used by everyone taken over That's what a majority of urban poor in India live on - public/unclaimed land (i.e. informal housing). They're not counted as homeless as a result, unlike in LA. That's how LA can appear to have a comparatively larger homeless population, even if it's a lot smaller in reality. In India this type of housing is illegal and can be destroyed by the government, but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people). Yay democracy.
- Talanes 5y ago
  >but that rarely happens because the situation can be leveraged for votes (there's a lot of poor people) There's a massive difference hidden in that statement alone. Here the politicians just assume those people aren't voting.
- captain_price7 5y ago
  I'm hesitant to call the slum population "homeless". We have people in the parks, footpaths too, and that's very different from people living in many of these slums. Here are a few facts: some of these slums are 100+ yrs old. A lot of them have "permanent" homes, something lot harder to uproot than tents. And lastly, if the government attempted to destroy them, it won't be just poor people, almost entire society will be outraged. Something similar happened here in Dhaka.
  - sombremesa 5y ago
    That they are 100+ years old doesn’t change the fact that that they remain illegal (and thus available for political leverage).

jimbob45 5y ago

It’s not about building more housing. There is enough housing to house everyone in the US and then some. Homelessness is not just about finding/funding a home. You need food and transportation for a job. If the solution were as simple as throwing money at the homeless, California would have long ago solved their homelessness issue.

pm90 5y ago
> It’s not about building more housing. It actually is. From: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/06/08/1003982733/squalor-behind-the-golden-gate-confronting-californias-homelessness-crisis https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/06/08/1003982733/squ... > By the 1980s, homelessness emerged as a chronic issue. There were many factors, including the federal government deciding to slash the budget for affordable housing. By then the California state government had significantly cut taxes and gutted social programs, including for state-funded mental institutions, resulting in thousands of people with mental illnesses and other difficulties struggling to make it on their own. > Yet the core reason for the crisis boils down to supply and demand for housing. As regions like the San Francisco Bay Area became magnets for highly paid professionals in the computer-driven economy, they failed to build enough new units to keep up with demand. > A 2016 study by McKinsey Global Institute estimated that California needs 3.5 million new housing units by 2025 to deal with its chronic housing shortage. Yet new housing construction has only slowed since then, despite Gov. Gavin Newsom's campaign promise to lead an effort to produce those 3.5 million units. Even before the pandemic wrought havoc on the construction business, California was constructing only about 100,000 new homes per year, way below the minimum 180,000 per year that analysts say the state desperately needs.
- wahern 5y ago
  > Gov. Gavin Newsom's campaign promise to lead an effort to produce those 3.5 million units. He is leading an effort. Whether he's spending enough of his own political capital is another question. But one of the problems in California is that the state constitution guarantees municipalities "home rule". That means very little can be accomplished without local cooperation, including local zoning board cooperation. It's like federalism at the state level--the central government can ban practices relatively easily, but it can't force positive action, only coerce through tax revenue incentives, which has its own constitutional restrictions, not to mention political barriers. California is a NIMBY paradise, legally speaking.