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The tone of this really is disappointing because it sounds more like a complaint about the unhoused rather than compassion for their situation. Anyway, housing

The tone of this really is disappointing because it sounds more like a complaint about the unhoused rather than compassion for their situation. Anyway, housing first is a proven method for resolving the cycle of homelessness[0]. Rather than placing restrictions on people (get sober, get a job, etc) to access shelter, putting people in a stable home environment right off the bat has greater success at keeping people housed long-term. I learned about a study on housing first and one of the primary champions of the initiative in a fantastic podcast series called According to Need, by the 99% Invisible crew. It's an eye-opening look at the beuracracy that keeps people unhoused when they seek help[1]. Bonus points that it's reported on in the Bay Area, where the problem is completely out of control. Episode three deals with housing first, but I'd really recommend listening to the entire series if you have the time. "However, for the chronically homeless population, which represents about 10 percent of the homeless population, research has shown, and our experience has been, that when these individuals have a place of their own where they can be safe, the drinking and drug use decreases. Also, with effective case management support, we have found a positive supportive community is created in the single site locations."[2] [0] https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Housing-First-Research.pdf https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Housing-First-Research... [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ https://99percentinvisible.org/need/ [2] https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/07/14/further-questions-about-housing-first/94326784/ https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/07/1...

alienbeast 4y ago
Pardon my ignorance, but does "housing-first" come with an expiration date, or is it indefinite? Obviously, if you pay for someone's home, you cure their homelessness, but the goal is to have them pay for their own home eventually, right? I'd expect something like: You get 1 year of "housing-first"-style free housing with no requirements, then you get 1 year of "tough love" free housing with sobriety and job-search requirements, then you get kicked out.
- mofosyne 4y ago
  I imagine it depends on the cost differential between the externalities of them being homeless like crime, health and surrounding business impact vs just providing basic housing indefinitely with some resources to get out when ready. People with complex issues have variable amount of time to resolve it. Can't put a time on it. But you can figure what cost you more and how much you value human dignity within that cost framework. So an arbitrary time limit in this case does not make sense as a government public welfare policy.
mofosyne 4y ago
Drug use sometimes feels like a method homeless people use to self medicate because of being homeless. So if the bottom of Maslow like housing first is addressed then by implication it means less medication needed to treat the horrors of being homeless. Sounds cheaper as well compared to the policing and emergency hospital bills needed to deal with them as well.
- bicx 4y ago
  I helped a middle-class family member get off legally-prescribed opioids, and it took over a year of tapering and misery. If you stop cold turkey (or even just taper too fast), it can become dangerous. All that to say: I the drug problem is a separate but related epidemic that thrives on vulnerable populations. Even if you’re temporarily vulnerable, it just takes a few bad decisions to land someone into an addictive cycle that can last a lifetime. Once someone decides they want off hard drugs, it takes an enormous amount of willpower and support. Even years after getting off something like opioids, the cravings can linger. I honestly think the drug problem is more powerful and detrimental than homelessness itself. The drug trade definitely feeds on homelessness, but it would likely still find a vulnerable population if homeless people were eliminated.
swearwolf 4y ago
My experience has been that as you dig deeper into the success of housing first programs, you start to find a lot of caveats. For example, for a while Utah was being praised for “solving” homelessness by applying the housing first method, but their program failed after a few years. It’s still probably the best idea we have going, but it’s not without significant downsides. Where I live, many small time landlords who have agreed to participate in programs like this with the city have had to evict the tenants placed with them because they made the entire property unlivable for other people through actions like smoking meth in their apartments, letting their dealers move in with them, or in one case, piling all their belongings into the bathtub and lighting them on fire in a state of meth induced psychosis. In Portland, there is a large housing complex called Bud Clark Commons that provides low barrier housing to the homeless. Since it was constructed, the area around it has become far more dangerous than it was before. There are hundreds of tents surrounding it, meth dealers operating openly from RVs, and trash strewn all around the area. But what’s really interesting about Bud Clark Commons is that the staff actually struggles to keep people there. People cycle in and out, often leaving to return to the streets voluntarily. It’s really depressing to consider, but it seems clear that some of the people living on our streets have been fundamentally changed in such a way that will make it extremely difficult for them to find their way back into society again. Especially for addicts, the call of euphoric oblivion right outside the door seems very hard to resist in the long term.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  Shellenberger covers it well in sanfransicko. Here's a quoted excerpt/article about it: https://www.americanexperiment.org/housing-first-vs-shelter-first/ https://www.americanexperiment.org/housing-first-vs-shelter-... Housing first doesn't work, shelter first probably does.
sien 4y ago
NYC runs shelters rather than housing first. NYC has a larger homeless population than LA. In LA 3 times more homeless people died than in NYC. https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/three-times-more-homeless-die-under?s=r https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/three-times-more...
namlem 4y ago
It would be great if Californian cities could actually implement housing first policies, but that's probably not possible unless the state government takes away their ability to control housing approvals.
gamblor956 4y ago
Housing first sounds great. Until you actually implement it and discover that the problem isn't housing, it's drug use and mental health. After all, homeless individuals have "stable" housing in their encampments (which is why they form in the first place). And then you realize that the problem isn't solved until you can force the individual into rehab or into treatment, which you can't do because the homeless advocates will fight you in court to prevent treatment and cite stories like the above, but these homeless advocates are the reason why the bureaucracy doesn't work.
- fineIllregister 4y ago
  You misunderstand housing first. There's a reason it's called housing first, not housing only. Every housing first initiative I've ever heard about has wrap-around services (physical/mental health, case management, employment, etc). Mental health care or substance use treatment just cannot be very effective if a person doesn't have a safe, climate-controlled place to be and keep their stuff. If policy insists that the mental health or substance use must be addressed prior to housing support, then money is being wasted. More importantly, people who could have gotten better under a housing first system are being denied the chance to do so. Homeless advocates are not the reason for the failures of housing policy. There's barely any of them and they have basically no power. It seems strange to blame them when all they do is ensure that people's rights are upheld, and clearly there are much larger forces at play. As someone who works in human services, forced treament almost always leaves the person being subjected to it worse off; it's used to satisfy the needs/biases of providers. Once someone is isolated from their supports, that's when they are most vulnerable. Providers treat people as objects to fulfill their own incentives; abuse runs rampant. The idea that we could fix homelessness if we just canceled the human and legal rights of people who are homeless is a terrifying take. If this ethical stance is unconvincing, please know that it would cost more and be even less effective in helping people.
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    No, I understand the stated goal of housing first. And as someone who also used to work for the homeless, I know firsthand what works and what doesn't. You know what the most effective way of treating homeless drug addicts is? Forcing them into rehab, while incarcerated. You know what the most effective way of treating mental illness is? Forcing them into mental hospitals where they are forcibly medicated. You know what the least effective way of treating mental illness and addiction is (of the ways where some sort of action is taken)? Housing first. Because it focuses on the wrong problem: it focuses on the symptom (homelessness) and not the cause of the homelessness (drug addiction or mental illness). If housing first worked, then permanent shelter assignments would be the quick and easy fix to the homeless problem. The idea that we could fix homelessness if we just canceled the human and legal rights of people who are homeless is a terrifying take. If this ethical stance is unconvincing, please know that it would cost more and be even less effective in helping people. This is the kind of silly belief that keeps the mentally ill and the addicted on the streets, shitting themselves and being eaten by rats and preyed on by rapists and drug dealers. Human rights are an theoretical concern for the homeless, not a tangible one.

alienbeast 4y ago

Pardon my ignorance, but does "housing-first" come with an expiration date, or is it indefinite? Obviously, if you pay for someone's home, you cure their homelessness, but the goal is to have them pay for their own home eventually, right? I'd expect something like: You get 1 year of "housing-first"-style free housing with no requirements, then you get 1 year of "tough love" free housing with sobriety and job-search requirements, then you get kicked out.

mofosyne 4y ago
I imagine it depends on the cost differential between the externalities of them being homeless like crime, health and surrounding business impact vs just providing basic housing indefinitely with some resources to get out when ready. People with complex issues have variable amount of time to resolve it. Can't put a time on it. But you can figure what cost you more and how much you value human dignity within that cost framework. So an arbitrary time limit in this case does not make sense as a government public welfare policy.

mofosyne 4y ago

Drug use sometimes feels like a method homeless people use to self medicate because of being homeless. So if the bottom of Maslow like housing first is addressed then by implication it means less medication needed to treat the horrors of being homeless. Sounds cheaper as well compared to the policing and emergency hospital bills needed to deal with them as well.

bicx 4y ago
I helped a middle-class family member get off legally-prescribed opioids, and it took over a year of tapering and misery. If you stop cold turkey (or even just taper too fast), it can become dangerous. All that to say: I the drug problem is a separate but related epidemic that thrives on vulnerable populations. Even if you’re temporarily vulnerable, it just takes a few bad decisions to land someone into an addictive cycle that can last a lifetime. Once someone decides they want off hard drugs, it takes an enormous amount of willpower and support. Even years after getting off something like opioids, the cravings can linger. I honestly think the drug problem is more powerful and detrimental than homelessness itself. The drug trade definitely feeds on homelessness, but it would likely still find a vulnerable population if homeless people were eliminated.

swearwolf 4y ago

My experience has been that as you dig deeper into the success of housing first programs, you start to find a lot of caveats. For example, for a while Utah was being praised for “solving” homelessness by applying the housing first method, but their program failed after a few years. It’s still probably the best idea we have going, but it’s not without significant downsides. Where I live, many small time landlords who have agreed to participate in programs like this with the city have had to evict the tenants placed with them because they made the entire property unlivable for other people through actions like smoking meth in their apartments, letting their dealers move in with them, or in one case, piling all their belongings into the bathtub and lighting them on fire in a state of meth induced psychosis. In Portland, there is a large housing complex called Bud Clark Commons that provides low barrier housing to the homeless. Since it was constructed, the area around it has become far more dangerous than it was before. There are hundreds of tents surrounding it, meth dealers operating openly from RVs, and trash strewn all around the area. But what’s really interesting about Bud Clark Commons is that the staff actually struggles to keep people there. People cycle in and out, often leaving to return to the streets voluntarily. It’s really depressing to consider, but it seems clear that some of the people living on our streets have been fundamentally changed in such a way that will make it extremely difficult for them to find their way back into society again. Especially for addicts, the call of euphoric oblivion right outside the door seems very hard to resist in the long term.

snapplebobapple 4y ago
Shellenberger covers it well in sanfransicko. Here's a quoted excerpt/article about it: https://www.americanexperiment.org/housing-first-vs-shelter-first/ https://www.americanexperiment.org/housing-first-vs-shelter-... Housing first doesn't work, shelter first probably does.

sien 4y ago

NYC runs shelters rather than housing first. NYC has a larger homeless population than LA. In LA 3 times more homeless people died than in NYC. https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/three-times-more-homeless-die-under?s=r https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/three-times-more...

namlem 4y ago

It would be great if Californian cities could actually implement housing first policies, but that's probably not possible unless the state government takes away their ability to control housing approvals.

gamblor956 4y ago

Housing first sounds great. Until you actually implement it and discover that the problem isn't housing, it's drug use and mental health. After all, homeless individuals have "stable" housing in their encampments (which is why they form in the first place). And then you realize that the problem isn't solved until you can force the individual into rehab or into treatment, which you can't do because the homeless advocates will fight you in court to prevent treatment and cite stories like the above, but these homeless advocates are the reason why the bureaucracy doesn't work.

fineIllregister 4y ago
You misunderstand housing first. There's a reason it's called housing first, not housing only. Every housing first initiative I've ever heard about has wrap-around services (physical/mental health, case management, employment, etc). Mental health care or substance use treatment just cannot be very effective if a person doesn't have a safe, climate-controlled place to be and keep their stuff. If policy insists that the mental health or substance use must be addressed prior to housing support, then money is being wasted. More importantly, people who could have gotten better under a housing first system are being denied the chance to do so. Homeless advocates are not the reason for the failures of housing policy. There's barely any of them and they have basically no power. It seems strange to blame them when all they do is ensure that people's rights are upheld, and clearly there are much larger forces at play. As someone who works in human services, forced treament almost always leaves the person being subjected to it worse off; it's used to satisfy the needs/biases of providers. Once someone is isolated from their supports, that's when they are most vulnerable. Providers treat people as objects to fulfill their own incentives; abuse runs rampant. The idea that we could fix homelessness if we just canceled the human and legal rights of people who are homeless is a terrifying take. If this ethical stance is unconvincing, please know that it would cost more and be even less effective in helping people.
- gamblor956 4y ago
  No, I understand the stated goal of housing first. And as someone who also used to work for the homeless, I know firsthand what works and what doesn't. You know what the most effective way of treating homeless drug addicts is? Forcing them into rehab, while incarcerated. You know what the most effective way of treating mental illness is? Forcing them into mental hospitals where they are forcibly medicated. You know what the least effective way of treating mental illness and addiction is (of the ways where some sort of action is taken)? Housing first. Because it focuses on the wrong problem: it focuses on the symptom (homelessness) and not the cause of the homelessness (drug addiction or mental illness). If housing first worked, then permanent shelter assignments would be the quick and easy fix to the homeless problem. The idea that we could fix homelessness if we just canceled the human and legal rights of people who are homeless is a terrifying take. If this ethical stance is unconvincing, please know that it would cost more and be even less effective in helping people. This is the kind of silly belief that keeps the mentally ill and the addicted on the streets, shitting themselves and being eaten by rats and preyed on by rapists and drug dealers. Human rights are an theoretical concern for the homeless, not a tangible one.