12 ms·

Houston moved 25k people from the streets into homes of their own

205 points by js2 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago
> Nationwide, most of those who experience homelessness do not fall into that narrow category. They are homeless for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job. This makes sense but is also surprising, I think most people think of the "chronically homeless" when they hear "homeless". The loss of SROs is a huge hit that we never really compensated for, and something like that should be brought back or encouraged, even if not in the same form.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  > This makes sense but is also surprising, I think most people think of the "chronically homeless" when they hear "homeless". Right, because the people who are most suffering from and also causing social ills are the chronically homeless. Being homeless for a short period of time is still very bad for the person, but I don't think it causes the same level of degradation that long-term homelessness does. And most of the "problematic homeless", the ones involved in drug dealing or chop shops or harassing random passersby, are likely the chronically homeless, not people who've been homeless for a few weeks.
  - WalterGR 4y ago
    Is there a rash of homeless people running chop shops? That seems shocking. Tools are expensive - where do they keep them? Are they dissecting cars under bridges?
    - arrosenberg 4y ago
      At least where I live, it's mostly bikes and specific car parts that are accessible like the catalytic converter. A 20A multitool and steel cutting saw blades are not expensive (~$250 retail) and can get the job done very quickly.
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Or you can simply steal any tools required as well.
      - 83 4y ago
        No one chopping parts is going to spend $250 on a Milwaukee, they'll buy (or steal) the $55 dollar harbor freight version.
        bombcar 4y ago
        I mean if you're going to steal one, why not steal the Milwaukee (though those are often locked up in the Home Depots in the bad part of town). Most use a hacksaw I suspect.
        mywittyname 4y ago
        Break into a work van, steal tools, use stolen tools to steal catalytic converter.
    - kansface 4y ago
      When I lived in SF, there was a chronically homeless guy with essentially a permanent residence in front of my apartment. He ran a highly ineffective chop shop whereby he would disassemble stolen bikes with a 3’ section of steel pipe. It was a slow/loud/labor intensive process. He was an OK neighbor besides that I suppose…
      - convolvatron 4y ago
        there's a guy living down by islais creek that sells and repairs bikes for other homeless. at one point the port authority cleaned out his camp. 4 large dumpsters full of bike parts
    - conductr 4y ago
      Thief and chop shops are separate specialties. I’d imagine if this claim is even true, the homeless people are acquiring raw assets and flipping them quickly
      - WalterGR 4y ago
        > Thief and chop shops are separate specialties. Right. It's unclear if that distinction is understood here.
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        ...okay? Those are both pretty terrible things to just let go on, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Yes, I understand that the people doing the stealing and the people running the chop shop are usually not the same people.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        WalterGR 4y ago
        I've never known the term "chop shop" to also include stolen-parts swap meet, so by homeless people "involved in" chop shops, I read it as you saying that they are running chop shops. Which is an undertaking that requires tools and at minimum, semi-permanent secluded space. It's now clear to me that you did not mean that, and rather meant something like "Homeless people that are street thieves."
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        > Which is an undertaking that requires tools and at minimum, semi-permanent secluded space. A few tools, yes, but secluded space no. https://abc7news.com/chop-shop-bicycle-theft-san-jose-downtown/5698704/ https://abc7news.com/chop-shop-bicycle-theft-san-jose-downto... The ones I'm more familiar with are for taking apart bikes. I imagine that's much easier to do, in terms of tooling and space, than cars (and also less likely to bring down the cops). > It's now clear to me that you did not mean that, and rather meant something like "Homeless people that are street thieves." No. Both the stealing and the taking apart of bikes seem linked to the growing homelessness issue we're seeing.
    - jgust 4y ago
      It's happening broad daylight in green spaces in Seattle. It's not pervasive, but it's there.
    - agentofoblivion 4y ago
      There’s a caravan of dilapidated RVs on the road next to my gym in Seattle. The “homeless” have setup permanent structures and solar panels. A guy runs a bike chop shop out of his.
    - GauntletWizard 4y ago
      Very literally, yes. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plain-sight-beneath-first-ave-bridge/QYCFDL7YUVHPROHG2UUNEIITLU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plai...
    - TulliusCicero 4y ago
      Not in the sense of "a large percentage of homeless people are running chop shops". However, you do find some notable examples of apparently homeless people just running chop shops in the open on random public land. Sometimes people who've had their bikes stolen will go them to find their bikes there and take 'em back.
    - ingsoc79 4y ago
      Yes. Seattle had multiple chop shops scattered around the city, including this one dissecting cars under a bridge: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plain-sight-beneath-first-ave-bridge/QYCFDL7YUVHPROHG2UUNEIITLU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plai...
    - jrnichols 4y ago
      > Is there a rash of homeless people running chop shops? That seems shocking. It's true, especially for things like bicycles or small engines. > Tools are expensive - where do they keep them? Some of the camps are quite elaborate. > Are they dissecting cars under bridges? yes. It's been getting worse around Sacramento for several years now.
      - WalterGR 4y ago
        >> Tools are expensive - where do they keep them? > Some of the camps are quite elaborate. They are. However, tools are expensive thus need to be locked securely. Think: storage unit, not elaborate connected tents. >> Are they dissecting cars under bridges? > yes. It's been getting worse around Sacramento for several years now. Hey, I live in Sacramento too! I've never seen what you're talking about. Where in Sacramento can I see that?
        jrnichols 4y ago
        > They are. However, tools are expensive thus need to be locked securely They're really not. A Dewalt sawzall is a common catalytic converter theft tool. They're not super expensive, and tools are also commonly stolen items. You don't need a storage unit to keep a few tools you use to chop up bikes. (I'm not thinking of a whole vehicle storage yard when I think 'chop shop.') >> yes. It's been getting worse around Sacramento for several years now. >Hey, I live in Sacramento too! >I've never seen what you're talking about. Where in Sacramento can I see that? where can you see homeless camps? they're all over the place. Down Folsom Blvd towards Sac State, the W/X freeway, all over the interchange, right off the 15th St exist into downtown, a few of them along Broadway down towards 99, etc. Those are just ones that I drive by on a regular basis. It's really bad up along Roseville Rd towards the city dump too. so many RVs and homemade structures. Up towards the Blue Diamond plant too, and a whole bunch of camps down along and under 160. It's almost unsafe to ride a bicycle across the C st bridge because of all of the camps that are in the parks along the American River. There's also a ton of RVs across 160 from Costco too. not sure how you have never seen any of this, but it's really quite visible.
        4y ago
- legitster 4y ago
  > They are homeless for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job. Huh. So whenever a city pats itself on it's back for how many people it has homed, it's very likely the majority were people who were going to get back on their feet anyway.
  - tjr225 4y ago
    I think it takes a pretty extreme leap of mental gymnastics to figure out how to look at this in a negative light.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      Is it negative to criticize a statistic for including short term homeless people who would have resolved their homelessness without aid in the total for homeless aided by the city of Houston? Seems like a valid point despite the positive result. At the least, a consistent measure should be used when comparing statistics between cities.
      - giraffe_lady 4y ago
        It's taking only an external view of homelessness: what are its effects on me and people like me. It completely ignores the consequences and experiences of being homeless: losing possessions, damaging relationships, stretching support networks, risk of acquiring long-term health and legal problems. It's a "valid point" as far as you're talking about numbers not people but I don't think you should feel so comfortable only going that far.
        ryan93 4y ago
        Actually people want to know about the street homeless and if they are being housed. You are being holier than thou
    - legitster 4y ago
      I don't get why this isn't a fair criticism. My city has both spent a record-breaking amount on homelessness and yet still has record breaking numbers of homeless. It seems worth pointing out that these programs might not be doing what we think they are.
- CSMastermind 4y ago
  Relevant to this discussion at large is Lloyd Pendleton's TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/lloyd_pendleton_the_housing_first_approach_to_homelessness https://www.ted.com/talks/lloyd_pendleton_the_housing_first_... It really is worth a watch. One of the things he breaks down is that there are really three homeless populations: About 75% of people are "Temporarily Homeless", about 10% of people are "Episodically Homeless", and about 15% of people are "Chronically Homeless". That last group consumes 60%+ of community resources in addition to costing taxpayers money in the form of consuming police and EMT resources. Focusing on the chronically homeless is the highest leverage way to spend money. And the housing first model has shown amazing success.
- 99_00 4y ago
  I wonder if solving the problem housing people who are in the "are homeless for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job" category will result in few people becoming "chronically homeless".
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Most of the people in the first category don't really cross paths with the chronic population- they have friends or family who will take them in for a bit, and likely already have access to a bank account and other myriad things that the chronically homeless do not. Focusing on the episodically homeless may be a better way to prevent more becoming chronically homeless; they may not have as many of the barriers (deeply seated drug addiction, mental illness, fear of being involuntarily committed) that is more prevalent among the chronic homeless, but I imagine they are more likely to quickly burn through their social network good will than the first category.
- silisili 4y ago
  Serious question: What specifically constitutes homelessness? If I sell my house, decide to hotel/airbnb/etc for a month or two, then move into a new house, would I be considered homeless for those two months? Or because I can afford some form of shelter, not counted?
  - bobkazamakis 4y ago
    > Serious question: What specifically constitutes homelessness? Serious answer: this always depends on the context. >If I sell my house, decide to hotel/airbnb/etc for a month or two, then move into a new house, would I be considered homeless for those two months Define home? Is a home a house? Is shelter a home? In some cases people think of homelessness as a lack of adequate shelter, but obviously how you define homelessness matters to how it is constituted.
    - silisili 4y ago
      Gotcha. I first wondered this when seeing a similar stat in my old hometown. The reported homeless was way higher than I expected, and it similarly said the vast majority were only homeless for a few weeks. I assume it's counting people that reach out for help in some way, and not just anyone temporarily without a permanent address.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  > for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job. I said years ago (during occupy wallstreet), that I think this class of person isn't homeless, they're friendless. Someone shouldnt be homeless for less than a month, with a job, so long as they have a few friends with a couch. EDIT: Yeah yeah, edge cases, families etc. The problem scales with the quality of friend groups you have. And in the most extreme I'd expect collaborative groups to step in -- eg: for a family of 4 I'd expect my church to collectively solve this.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Nobody should be homeless, period. I know that homelessness is unavoidable, so I'll settle for nobody should be homeless with a job. And if unemplyed a social security net in a developed nation has to be strong enough to avoid tgat. Relying on friends and family is poor societies safety net, a rich coubtry counting on that took capitalism one step too far.
    - maerF0x0 4y ago
      Interesting take. From my PoV I see a society that's rich in social fabric (such as relationships) to be a rich society, not a poor one. Perhaps I think I kinda get the angle you're hammering on though? Are you kind of talking similar to the Walmart +EBT, right? ie No employer should get to pay so little that the tax payer subsidizes the worker's basic needs? For that I sort of agree-- albeit IMO a big part of the issue is rising costs of living, not a lack of pay raises... Pay raises are in the locus of control of a business, but a lack of housing supply caused by NIMBYism is not.
sema4hacker 4y ago
Plans to "end" homelessness are naive, because the will end nothing. At best, they will only help to make homelessness somewhat more bearable for those trapped by it. The proper solution is a long-term attack on the causes, not the symptoms. It is indeed noble to help the homeless who are mentally or physically disabled, or addicted to drugs or alcohol, or unemployable for lack of job skills or education, or abandoned by spouses or family, or simply too old and alone. However, it's unlikely you'll ever help enough of them permanently out of their holes to address the problem in any substantial way. Instead, the first step has to be a truly intensive effort to educate and convince children, beginning at about ages 6 to 7, and continuing through high school, that they must do five things to have a successful and happy life: they must keep their bodies healthy and avoid addiction (because bad food, lack of exercise, unsafe sex, and using drugs or alcohol will disable you), they must continuously learn job skills that keep their labor in demand (otherwise you can be tossed out of work at any time), they must live within their means and know how to save money (because living on credit can make you a slave for life, and no one else will provide a good enough safety net for you if you can't earn a living), they must be self-sufficient (otherwise if your spouse or lover should disappear, the cupboard will be bare, and it will be especially tough if you have dependent children), and they must stay honest (otherwise you'll turn to crime, wreck other peoples' lives, and end up in prison). You would think parents and our education system are already doing a decent job of indoctrinating our children about those important facts of life, and monitoring them to make sure they don't waiver, but we're not. If we make sure our growing children truly understand and follow the above five principles, I guarantee the next generation will have a much smaller percentage of people falling into homelessness, and we'll also enjoy a lower crime rate. There's no reason that trend couldn't be repeated for future generations. Our free society makes it easy for us to make bad personal decisions, and decent education and good parental guidance aren't guaranteed, so it seems our country will always be doomed with a certain amount of poverty. Even when we do the right thing, unpredictable disease and our abominable lack of affordable health care for everyone guarantees some of us will at least fall victim to mental or physical health issues. However, the vast majority of causes of homelessness can easily be targeted and attacked and eventually overcome, if we just do it in a preventative frame of mind, instead of the typical too-late band-aid approach.
- 4y ago
tyingq 4y ago
The cheap ubiquitous access to background checks, both criminal and "tenant history" also makes it hard to get into housing for some of these people, even if they have money. Edit: off-topic, but amusing that Google is showing me ads for tents on the page. Hurray for world class ML.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  I'm genuinely surprised at how expensive the fees are for applying to an apartment. I sense the background checks are not that expensive to perform, nor are the credit score lookups. I can't help but think the complexes are just being greedy and using the application fees as 1) a filter to keep out lower income residents in a totally legal way, and 2) a means of collecting even more money. Edit: I have only ever applied at apartment complexes owned by regional/national real estate management companies. I do not know what the experience is like for independent properties or small landlords. The fees I encountered were typically $100 to $250, non refundable.
  - hardtke 4y ago
    Credit checks are actually somewhat costly for a small landlord. We had a rental house, and you can't just order a one off credit check. We needed to join a rental housing organization (or contract with a rental agency) to get access to credit checks. That being said, there is room in the market for a tenant friendly app that caches your credit check if you are applying to multiple apartments -- no need to run your credit multiple times within a few weeks.
    - enragedcacti 4y ago
      This is exactly what Zillow provides, but with the obvious caveat that the tenant doesn't decide which apartments use Zillow's application/tenant screening features. $29 gives you a 30-day window to apply to however many apartments you would like. https://www.zillow.com/z/rental-manager/rental-applications-faq/ https://www.zillow.com/z/rental-manager/rental-applications-...
olivermarks 4y ago
The claim here is 'The overwhelming majority of them have 'remained housed' after two years'. Data please.... This is key to the 'housing first' model, which I don't think has worked well in California where close to half the US homeless currently live. We see endless positive pr about the huge non profit industry that 'service' the homeless, but having been pretty involved in researching this for a while it is very important to get accurate data and answers. A 12 billion homeless budget and astonishing sums spent on housing people with serious mental illness and serious substance abuse problems is not working well for anyone except arguably the California homeless industry. ('LA spending up to $837,000 to house a single homeless person A Los Angeles audit finds that a $1.2 billion program intended to quickly build housing for the city's homeless residents is moving too slowly, and costs are climbing' etc) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/la-spending-837000-house-single-homeless-person-83072411 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/la-spending-837000... As SF mayor Newsom pledged to 'end homelessness in two years' in 2001 and totally failed after spending vast sums. https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homelessness-Thousands-in-S-F-30431.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homeles... The previous SMI/SA/transient model triaged people far more effectively imo, with shelters that ideally routed people to sobriety, mental health and wellness resources, with those responding and recovering being housed. We currently have shelters in places like LA & SF that are too dangerous and understaffed for terrified newly homeless to stay, an almost total lack of sobriety triage compounded by budgets being spent on housing first pipe dreams and 'safe consumption sites' for opioids and meth. Many of the treatment beds in SF are empty. (Twitter is a good place to follow this slow moving disaster). Many of the hotels in SF that were commandeered by the state for 'shelter in place' accommodation of homeless are now suing for huge sums as they are completely trashed. Many drug addicts would rather be on the street rather than behind a closed door because if/when they OD they can be seen and revived. With the end of the rent moratorium and economic disaster we are going to have a fresh wave of homeless working poor who will need housing. I don't know enough about the Houston model to comment - I hope it's working - but we have a dire situation on our hands that is getting worse by the day and is not working well at all. we have the cartels preying on the homeless as opioid cash cows. This is a federal level problem. Cities, counties and states are squandering resources on various patchwork solutions. I really hope Newsom isn't the next president because he has spent two decades going in the wrong direction.
avrionov 4y ago
Stanford SIEPR did a seminar and published most of the discussion online about homelessness in California [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmPYI8jT328&list=PLs-p47TpkzbemYfBVVz8ocxZ4olEgAu8f https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmPYI8jT328&list=PLs-p47Tpkz...
BurningFrog 4y ago
Houston has the most permissive rules for building housing in the country, so funding housing should be that much easier there!
- cudgy 4y ago
  Is this really the boogeyman issue that is always mentioned on HN? Many cities have plenty of existing buildings that could be repurposed and many cities real estate prices are extremely high due to the land already being built out. Very few if any government budgets can afford (nor should they) to place homeless in ultra-expensive markets; it would be inefficient to do this. Homeless may need to be placed in outlying areas (outside even the jurisdiction of where the homeless originated) where real estate is cheaper. Coordinating this though may be difficult since many homeless bring crime and drugs with them.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Of all the parcels in San Francisco, perhaps 1000 are terminally "built out" and the overwhelming majority of the rest are severely underused as detached simplex houses or parking.
    - guywithahat 4y ago
      I agree, and I'm not sure why people are downvoting you. SF is slightly more dense than Jersey City, so it should look like a slightly more built up version of Jersey City, not a bunch of single family houses and homeless on the streets. The built up portion of SF is tiny compared to the rest of it There should be federal laws protecting your right to build to prevent cities like SF from preventing the construction of housing to try and push out poor people
      - abakker 4y ago
        And the single family homes are shit! They are not seismically sound, they have poor to no insulation, single pane windows, 2x4 framing, rusting rebar destroying the foundation walls, and sketchy electrical. SF is supposed to be pro environment. If they were, they would permit the demolition of a lot of crappy unsafe houses and they'd build some new buildings that are actually up to modern standards. Source: lived in midtown terrace for years in a serial-numbered home from '56. everything was bad. No functional ground in the electrical panel, plenty of paper-jacked BX wire. actually no insulation. My 1000 sq ft of living space in SF used as much energy in the winter as my 4k ft house in Colorado does, and the climates are way different.
RappingBoomer 4y ago
so giving away something that ordinary people people work years for, that is a good thing? Why not just make housing cheaper to build? Zoning, building codes, permits, environmental regs, etc...none of these need apply to single family homes..and people could build a tin shack...there ya go...americans think the vast favelas of latin america are a horror show, but if you watch youtube videos of westerner youtubers who go in them and report, it's really a good place to live...
- tootie 4y ago
  I'm guessing you didn't read it because the deregulation that lead to the boom in single-family housing is cited as a cause of massive homelessness. Shifting to multi-family would do way more to increase housing supply and be environmentally beneficial.
- cgriswald 4y ago
  This is like being rich and trying out homelessness for a month. No matter how authentic you try to make your experience, you know you can always go home at any time and in any real emergency you've got a lot more options than the average homeless person. I would want to hear ideally from people who actually lived there and now live in other places. These are the people that know the truth about what it is like and also have a basis for comparison. A person of unknown journalistic integrity editing a series of interview of locals on his tax-break vacation who is incentivized by view counts isn't compelling.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  No running water or toilets dysentery cholera high infant mortality. Good place to live.
  - formerkrogemp 4y ago
    Sounds like chunks of America.
    - edmcnulty101 4y ago
fmajid 4y ago
> The scale of its woes does not approach what is happening in San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles. No, but its famously permissive zoning also does not let NIMBYs veto all new construction and make housing utterly unaffordable either.
screye 4y ago
Each city in the US has a unique homelessness problem. Relevant blog [1]. The most relevant distinction is between tech-cities that HN audiences live in (SF, Seattle) vs the success stories mentioned in this article (Atlanta, Houston). See the graphs here, credit to Dynomight: [2] Atlanta and Houston were dealing with high number of 'mentally healthy and sober' homeless. They were ripe for rehousing, and the project was a relative success. DO NOT EXTEND THESE INTUITIONS TO YOUR TECH CITY. Seattle and SF have seen an alarmingly high base/growth of mentally unhealthy homeless with substance abuse issues. Houston's solutions will not work here. There is reason a that residents of NYC do not complain about their homeless populations as much. They are overwhelmingly sheltered and able [3]. On the other hand, Seattle resident complain more about the sub-human interactions (property crime, harassment, flashing, open defecation) caused by for which the proportionally-larger mentally-ill/addicted population. Guess which city had an anomalous jump in meth consumption over a couple of years. It's Seattle [4] Drugs and mental health are at the center of the homelessness, crime, urban fallout and lack of safety in west coast tech cities. It is a hard problem with no good solutions, but ""compassion"" and abolition are certainly not it. The safety of 'mentally healthy and sober' homeless can only be ensured through the Institutionalization (institutional care or forced social isolation) of the mentally ill and drug addicted. Homeless shelters, social welfare workers and protection from police harassment are good learnings to pick from other cities. However, Seattle and SF should also consider reopening psychiatric hospitals, forcing mandatory rehab and unfortunately imprisoning repeat violent offenders who refuse care. Some might call it inhumane. But, it provides rehabilitation for those willing to seek care, it provides safety for those who've 'fallen on hard times' and makes the difficult decision to socially-isolate the small but dangerous minority within them. If you have a better solution, I am all ears. Last but not the least, NIMBYism is selfish. It is okay to be selfish. But do not claim to fight injustices, for then you'd be a hypocrite. It is not okay to be hypocrite.[5] [1] https://dynomight.net/homeless-crisis/ https://dynomight.net/homeless-crisis/ [2] https://imgur.com/a/KNbgDHr https://imgur.com/a/KNbgDHr [3] https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%20City.svg https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%... [4] https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%20City.svg https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%... (sauce : https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/ https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/) [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljaP2etvDc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljaP2etvDc4 (RIP)
adenozine 4y ago
Let me guess, it worked like a charm. Homelessness is so fucked in America. Zoning is just some form of terrorism against the poor. Just build the apartments and get it over with.
- ericbarrett 4y ago
  It's not that simple. Denser housing means denser infrastructure. You have to build bigger sewers, bigger water feeds, add more power. More substations and distribution centers. Denser trash collection. Access; stronger roads to support more traffic. (Ban cars? Awesome! You still have to support buses and garbage trucks and delivery vehicles, all of which cause exponentially more wear on a road surface than private vehicles.) All the stuff it takes to support humans. That doesn't mean that American cities' zoning isn't deeply flawed, but zoning is not itself "terrorism against the poor."
  - adenozine 4y ago
    I don’t know why any of this is being brought up about homelessness. All those human beings are already living there, on the streets. Do you think they stop shitting? Do you think they aren’t getting water? People like you are the problem. Your words are just bullshit excuses, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve volunteered with homelessness programs for over two decades, and literally none of what you said has anything to do with the problem. Apartments are not being built plentifully enough to be affordable enough to support people. Period. Zoning is the biggest perpetrator to the suffocation of affordable housing and rentals. Can you dispute that?
    - ericbarrett 4y ago
      You must have seen some really terrible things with your volunteer work to trigger that anger, and I understand the response. That said, I can't respond to you in good faith with the insults flying. I'm not your enemy and I'm sad that you're trying to make me one. Hope you find some peace.
      - 4y ago

205 points by js2 4y ago

> Nationwide, most of those who experience homelessness do not fall into that narrow category. They are homeless for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job. This makes sense but is also surprising, I think most people think of the "chronically homeless" when they hear "homeless". The loss of SROs is a huge hit that we never really compensated for, and something like that should be brought back or encouraged, even if not in the same form.

TulliusCicero 4y ago
> This makes sense but is also surprising, I think most people think of the "chronically homeless" when they hear "homeless". Right, because the people who are most suffering from and also causing social ills are the chronically homeless. Being homeless for a short period of time is still very bad for the person, but I don't think it causes the same level of degradation that long-term homelessness does. And most of the "problematic homeless", the ones involved in drug dealing or chop shops or harassing random passersby, are likely the chronically homeless, not people who've been homeless for a few weeks.
- WalterGR 4y ago
  Is there a rash of homeless people running chop shops? That seems shocking. Tools are expensive - where do they keep them? Are they dissecting cars under bridges?
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    At least where I live, it's mostly bikes and specific car parts that are accessible like the catalytic converter. A 20A multitool and steel cutting saw blades are not expensive (~$250 retail) and can get the job done very quickly.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Or you can simply steal any tools required as well.
    - 83 4y ago
      No one chopping parts is going to spend $250 on a Milwaukee, they'll buy (or steal) the $55 dollar harbor freight version.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        I mean if you're going to steal one, why not steal the Milwaukee (though those are often locked up in the Home Depots in the bad part of town). Most use a hacksaw I suspect.
        mywittyname 4y ago
        Break into a work van, steal tools, use stolen tools to steal catalytic converter.
  - kansface 4y ago
    When I lived in SF, there was a chronically homeless guy with essentially a permanent residence in front of my apartment. He ran a highly ineffective chop shop whereby he would disassemble stolen bikes with a 3’ section of steel pipe. It was a slow/loud/labor intensive process. He was an OK neighbor besides that I suppose…
    - convolvatron 4y ago
      there's a guy living down by islais creek that sells and repairs bikes for other homeless. at one point the port authority cleaned out his camp. 4 large dumpsters full of bike parts
  - conductr 4y ago
    Thief and chop shops are separate specialties. I’d imagine if this claim is even true, the homeless people are acquiring raw assets and flipping them quickly
    - WalterGR 4y ago
      > Thief and chop shops are separate specialties. Right. It's unclear if that distinction is understood here.
      - TulliusCicero 4y ago
        ...okay? Those are both pretty terrible things to just let go on, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Yes, I understand that the people doing the stealing and the people running the chop shop are usually not the same people.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        WalterGR 4y ago
        I've never known the term "chop shop" to also include stolen-parts swap meet, so by homeless people "involved in" chop shops, I read it as you saying that they are running chop shops. Which is an undertaking that requires tools and at minimum, semi-permanent secluded space. It's now clear to me that you did not mean that, and rather meant something like "Homeless people that are street thieves."
        TulliusCicero 4y ago
        > Which is an undertaking that requires tools and at minimum, semi-permanent secluded space. A few tools, yes, but secluded space no. https://abc7news.com/chop-shop-bicycle-theft-san-jose-downtown/5698704/ https://abc7news.com/chop-shop-bicycle-theft-san-jose-downto... The ones I'm more familiar with are for taking apart bikes. I imagine that's much easier to do, in terms of tooling and space, than cars (and also less likely to bring down the cops). > It's now clear to me that you did not mean that, and rather meant something like "Homeless people that are street thieves." No. Both the stealing and the taking apart of bikes seem linked to the growing homelessness issue we're seeing.
  - jgust 4y ago
    It's happening broad daylight in green spaces in Seattle. It's not pervasive, but it's there.
  - agentofoblivion 4y ago
    There’s a caravan of dilapidated RVs on the road next to my gym in Seattle. The “homeless” have setup permanent structures and solar panels. A guy runs a bike chop shop out of his.
  - GauntletWizard 4y ago
    Very literally, yes. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plain-sight-beneath-first-ave-bridge/QYCFDL7YUVHPROHG2UUNEIITLU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plai...
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    Not in the sense of "a large percentage of homeless people are running chop shops". However, you do find some notable examples of apparently homeless people just running chop shops in the open on random public land. Sometimes people who've had their bikes stolen will go them to find their bikes there and take 'em back.
  - ingsoc79 4y ago
    Yes. Seattle had multiple chop shops scattered around the city, including this one dissecting cars under a bridge: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plain-sight-beneath-first-ave-bridge/QYCFDL7YUVHPROHG2UUNEIITLU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/is-chop-shop-operating-plai...
  - jrnichols 4y ago
    > Is there a rash of homeless people running chop shops? That seems shocking. It's true, especially for things like bicycles or small engines. > Tools are expensive - where do they keep them? Some of the camps are quite elaborate. > Are they dissecting cars under bridges? yes. It's been getting worse around Sacramento for several years now.
    - WalterGR 4y ago
      >> Tools are expensive - where do they keep them? > Some of the camps are quite elaborate. They are. However, tools are expensive thus need to be locked securely. Think: storage unit, not elaborate connected tents. >> Are they dissecting cars under bridges? > yes. It's been getting worse around Sacramento for several years now. Hey, I live in Sacramento too! I've never seen what you're talking about. Where in Sacramento can I see that?
      - jrnichols 4y ago
        > They are. However, tools are expensive thus need to be locked securely They're really not. A Dewalt sawzall is a common catalytic converter theft tool. They're not super expensive, and tools are also commonly stolen items. You don't need a storage unit to keep a few tools you use to chop up bikes. (I'm not thinking of a whole vehicle storage yard when I think 'chop shop.') >> yes. It's been getting worse around Sacramento for several years now. >Hey, I live in Sacramento too! >I've never seen what you're talking about. Where in Sacramento can I see that? where can you see homeless camps? they're all over the place. Down Folsom Blvd towards Sac State, the W/X freeway, all over the interchange, right off the 15th St exist into downtown, a few of them along Broadway down towards 99, etc. Those are just ones that I drive by on a regular basis. It's really bad up along Roseville Rd towards the city dump too. so many RVs and homemade structures. Up towards the Blue Diamond plant too, and a whole bunch of camps down along and under 160. It's almost unsafe to ride a bicycle across the C st bridge because of all of the camps that are in the parks along the American River. There's also a ton of RVs across 160 from Costco too. not sure how you have never seen any of this, but it's really quite visible.
        4y ago
legitster 4y ago
> They are homeless for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job. Huh. So whenever a city pats itself on it's back for how many people it has homed, it's very likely the majority were people who were going to get back on their feet anyway.
- tjr225 4y ago
  I think it takes a pretty extreme leap of mental gymnastics to figure out how to look at this in a negative light.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    Is it negative to criticize a statistic for including short term homeless people who would have resolved their homelessness without aid in the total for homeless aided by the city of Houston? Seems like a valid point despite the positive result. At the least, a consistent measure should be used when comparing statistics between cities.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      It's taking only an external view of homelessness: what are its effects on me and people like me. It completely ignores the consequences and experiences of being homeless: losing possessions, damaging relationships, stretching support networks, risk of acquiring long-term health and legal problems. It's a "valid point" as far as you're talking about numbers not people but I don't think you should feel so comfortable only going that far.
      - ryan93 4y ago
        Actually people want to know about the street homeless and if they are being housed. You are being holier than thou
  - legitster 4y ago
    I don't get why this isn't a fair criticism. My city has both spent a record-breaking amount on homelessness and yet still has record breaking numbers of homeless. It seems worth pointing out that these programs might not be doing what we think they are.
CSMastermind 4y ago
Relevant to this discussion at large is Lloyd Pendleton's TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/lloyd_pendleton_the_housing_first_approach_to_homelessness https://www.ted.com/talks/lloyd_pendleton_the_housing_first_... It really is worth a watch. One of the things he breaks down is that there are really three homeless populations: About 75% of people are "Temporarily Homeless", about 10% of people are "Episodically Homeless", and about 15% of people are "Chronically Homeless". That last group consumes 60%+ of community resources in addition to costing taxpayers money in the form of consuming police and EMT resources. Focusing on the chronically homeless is the highest leverage way to spend money. And the housing first model has shown amazing success.
99_00 4y ago
I wonder if solving the problem housing people who are in the "are homeless for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job" category will result in few people becoming "chronically homeless".
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Most of the people in the first category don't really cross paths with the chronic population- they have friends or family who will take them in for a bit, and likely already have access to a bank account and other myriad things that the chronically homeless do not. Focusing on the episodically homeless may be a better way to prevent more becoming chronically homeless; they may not have as many of the barriers (deeply seated drug addiction, mental illness, fear of being involuntarily committed) that is more prevalent among the chronic homeless, but I imagine they are more likely to quickly burn through their social network good will than the first category.
silisili 4y ago
Serious question: What specifically constitutes homelessness? If I sell my house, decide to hotel/airbnb/etc for a month or two, then move into a new house, would I be considered homeless for those two months? Or because I can afford some form of shelter, not counted?
- bobkazamakis 4y ago
  > Serious question: What specifically constitutes homelessness? Serious answer: this always depends on the context. >If I sell my house, decide to hotel/airbnb/etc for a month or two, then move into a new house, would I be considered homeless for those two months Define home? Is a home a house? Is shelter a home? In some cases people think of homelessness as a lack of adequate shelter, but obviously how you define homelessness matters to how it is constituted.
  - silisili 4y ago
    Gotcha. I first wondered this when seeing a similar stat in my old hometown. The reported homeless was way higher than I expected, and it similarly said the vast majority were only homeless for a few weeks. I assume it's counting people that reach out for help in some way, and not just anyone temporarily without a permanent address.
maerF0x0 4y ago
> for six weeks or fewer; 40 percent have a job. I said years ago (during occupy wallstreet), that I think this class of person isn't homeless, they're friendless. Someone shouldnt be homeless for less than a month, with a job, so long as they have a few friends with a couch. EDIT: Yeah yeah, edge cases, families etc. The problem scales with the quality of friend groups you have. And in the most extreme I'd expect collaborative groups to step in -- eg: for a family of 4 I'd expect my church to collectively solve this.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Nobody should be homeless, period. I know that homelessness is unavoidable, so I'll settle for nobody should be homeless with a job. And if unemplyed a social security net in a developed nation has to be strong enough to avoid tgat. Relying on friends and family is poor societies safety net, a rich coubtry counting on that took capitalism one step too far.
  - maerF0x0 4y ago
    Interesting take. From my PoV I see a society that's rich in social fabric (such as relationships) to be a rich society, not a poor one. Perhaps I think I kinda get the angle you're hammering on though? Are you kind of talking similar to the Walmart +EBT, right? ie No employer should get to pay so little that the tax payer subsidizes the worker's basic needs? For that I sort of agree-- albeit IMO a big part of the issue is rising costs of living, not a lack of pay raises... Pay raises are in the locus of control of a business, but a lack of housing supply caused by NIMBYism is not.

sema4hacker 4y ago

Plans to "end" homelessness are naive, because the will end nothing. At best, they will only help to make homelessness somewhat more bearable for those trapped by it. The proper solution is a long-term attack on the causes, not the symptoms. It is indeed noble to help the homeless who are mentally or physically disabled, or addicted to drugs or alcohol, or unemployable for lack of job skills or education, or abandoned by spouses or family, or simply too old and alone. However, it's unlikely you'll ever help enough of them permanently out of their holes to address the problem in any substantial way. Instead, the first step has to be a truly intensive effort to educate and convince children, beginning at about ages 6 to 7, and continuing through high school, that they must do five things to have a successful and happy life: they must keep their bodies healthy and avoid addiction (because bad food, lack of exercise, unsafe sex, and using drugs or alcohol will disable you), they must continuously learn job skills that keep their labor in demand (otherwise you can be tossed out of work at any time), they must live within their means and know how to save money (because living on credit can make you a slave for life, and no one else will provide a good enough safety net for you if you can't earn a living), they must be self-sufficient (otherwise if your spouse or lover should disappear, the cupboard will be bare, and it will be especially tough if you have dependent children), and they must stay honest (otherwise you'll turn to crime, wreck other peoples' lives, and end up in prison). You would think parents and our education system are already doing a decent job of indoctrinating our children about those important facts of life, and monitoring them to make sure they don't waiver, but we're not. If we make sure our growing children truly understand and follow the above five principles, I guarantee the next generation will have a much smaller percentage of people falling into homelessness, and we'll also enjoy a lower crime rate. There's no reason that trend couldn't be repeated for future generations. Our free society makes it easy for us to make bad personal decisions, and decent education and good parental guidance aren't guaranteed, so it seems our country will always be doomed with a certain amount of poverty. Even when we do the right thing, unpredictable disease and our abominable lack of affordable health care for everyone guarantees some of us will at least fall victim to mental or physical health issues. However, the vast majority of causes of homelessness can easily be targeted and attacked and eventually overcome, if we just do it in a preventative frame of mind, instead of the typical too-late band-aid approach.

4y ago

tyingq 4y ago

The cheap ubiquitous access to background checks, both criminal and "tenant history" also makes it hard to get into housing for some of these people, even if they have money. Edit: off-topic, but amusing that Google is showing me ads for tents on the page. Hurray for world class ML.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
I'm genuinely surprised at how expensive the fees are for applying to an apartment. I sense the background checks are not that expensive to perform, nor are the credit score lookups. I can't help but think the complexes are just being greedy and using the application fees as 1) a filter to keep out lower income residents in a totally legal way, and 2) a means of collecting even more money. Edit: I have only ever applied at apartment complexes owned by regional/national real estate management companies. I do not know what the experience is like for independent properties or small landlords. The fees I encountered were typically $100 to $250, non refundable.
- hardtke 4y ago
  Credit checks are actually somewhat costly for a small landlord. We had a rental house, and you can't just order a one off credit check. We needed to join a rental housing organization (or contract with a rental agency) to get access to credit checks. That being said, there is room in the market for a tenant friendly app that caches your credit check if you are applying to multiple apartments -- no need to run your credit multiple times within a few weeks.
  - enragedcacti 4y ago
    This is exactly what Zillow provides, but with the obvious caveat that the tenant doesn't decide which apartments use Zillow's application/tenant screening features. $29 gives you a 30-day window to apply to however many apartments you would like. https://www.zillow.com/z/rental-manager/rental-applications-faq/ https://www.zillow.com/z/rental-manager/rental-applications-...

olivermarks 4y ago

The claim here is 'The overwhelming majority of them have 'remained housed' after two years'. Data please.... This is key to the 'housing first' model, which I don't think has worked well in California where close to half the US homeless currently live. We see endless positive pr about the huge non profit industry that 'service' the homeless, but having been pretty involved in researching this for a while it is very important to get accurate data and answers. A 12 billion homeless budget and astonishing sums spent on housing people with serious mental illness and serious substance abuse problems is not working well for anyone except arguably the California homeless industry. ('LA spending up to $837,000 to house a single homeless person A Los Angeles audit finds that a $1.2 billion program intended to quickly build housing for the city's homeless residents is moving too slowly, and costs are climbing' etc) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/la-spending-837000-house-single-homeless-person-83072411 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/la-spending-837000... As SF mayor Newsom pledged to 'end homelessness in two years' in 2001 and totally failed after spending vast sums. https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homelessness-Thousands-in-S-F-30431.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homeles... The previous SMI/SA/transient model triaged people far more effectively imo, with shelters that ideally routed people to sobriety, mental health and wellness resources, with those responding and recovering being housed. We currently have shelters in places like LA & SF that are too dangerous and understaffed for terrified newly homeless to stay, an almost total lack of sobriety triage compounded by budgets being spent on housing first pipe dreams and 'safe consumption sites' for opioids and meth. Many of the treatment beds in SF are empty. (Twitter is a good place to follow this slow moving disaster). Many of the hotels in SF that were commandeered by the state for 'shelter in place' accommodation of homeless are now suing for huge sums as they are completely trashed. Many drug addicts would rather be on the street rather than behind a closed door because if/when they OD they can be seen and revived. With the end of the rent moratorium and economic disaster we are going to have a fresh wave of homeless working poor who will need housing. I don't know enough about the Houston model to comment - I hope it's working - but we have a dire situation on our hands that is getting worse by the day and is not working well at all. we have the cartels preying on the homeless as opioid cash cows. This is a federal level problem. Cities, counties and states are squandering resources on various patchwork solutions. I really hope Newsom isn't the next president because he has spent two decades going in the wrong direction.

avrionov 4y ago

Stanford SIEPR did a seminar and published most of the discussion online about homelessness in California [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmPYI8jT328&list=PLs-p47TpkzbemYfBVVz8ocxZ4olEgAu8f https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmPYI8jT328&list=PLs-p47Tpkz...

BurningFrog 4y ago

Houston has the most permissive rules for building housing in the country, so funding housing should be that much easier there!

cudgy 4y ago
Is this really the boogeyman issue that is always mentioned on HN? Many cities have plenty of existing buildings that could be repurposed and many cities real estate prices are extremely high due to the land already being built out. Very few if any government budgets can afford (nor should they) to place homeless in ultra-expensive markets; it would be inefficient to do this. Homeless may need to be placed in outlying areas (outside even the jurisdiction of where the homeless originated) where real estate is cheaper. Coordinating this though may be difficult since many homeless bring crime and drugs with them.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Of all the parcels in San Francisco, perhaps 1000 are terminally "built out" and the overwhelming majority of the rest are severely underused as detached simplex houses or parking.
  - guywithahat 4y ago
    I agree, and I'm not sure why people are downvoting you. SF is slightly more dense than Jersey City, so it should look like a slightly more built up version of Jersey City, not a bunch of single family houses and homeless on the streets. The built up portion of SF is tiny compared to the rest of it There should be federal laws protecting your right to build to prevent cities like SF from preventing the construction of housing to try and push out poor people
    - abakker 4y ago
      And the single family homes are shit! They are not seismically sound, they have poor to no insulation, single pane windows, 2x4 framing, rusting rebar destroying the foundation walls, and sketchy electrical. SF is supposed to be pro environment. If they were, they would permit the demolition of a lot of crappy unsafe houses and they'd build some new buildings that are actually up to modern standards. Source: lived in midtown terrace for years in a serial-numbered home from '56. everything was bad. No functional ground in the electrical panel, plenty of paper-jacked BX wire. actually no insulation. My 1000 sq ft of living space in SF used as much energy in the winter as my 4k ft house in Colorado does, and the climates are way different.

RappingBoomer 4y ago

so giving away something that ordinary people people work years for, that is a good thing? Why not just make housing cheaper to build? Zoning, building codes, permits, environmental regs, etc...none of these need apply to single family homes..and people could build a tin shack...there ya go...americans think the vast favelas of latin america are a horror show, but if you watch youtube videos of westerner youtubers who go in them and report, it's really a good place to live...

tootie 4y ago
I'm guessing you didn't read it because the deregulation that lead to the boom in single-family housing is cited as a cause of massive homelessness. Shifting to multi-family would do way more to increase housing supply and be environmentally beneficial.
cgriswald 4y ago
This is like being rich and trying out homelessness for a month. No matter how authentic you try to make your experience, you know you can always go home at any time and in any real emergency you've got a lot more options than the average homeless person. I would want to hear ideally from people who actually lived there and now live in other places. These are the people that know the truth about what it is like and also have a basis for comparison. A person of unknown journalistic integrity editing a series of interview of locals on his tax-break vacation who is incentivized by view counts isn't compelling.
edmcnulty101 4y ago
No running water or toilets dysentery cholera high infant mortality. Good place to live.
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  Sounds like chunks of America.
  - edmcnulty101 4y ago

fmajid 4y ago

> The scale of its woes does not approach what is happening in San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles. No, but its famously permissive zoning also does not let NIMBYs veto all new construction and make housing utterly unaffordable either.

screye 4y ago

Each city in the US has a unique homelessness problem. Relevant blog [1]. The most relevant distinction is between tech-cities that HN audiences live in (SF, Seattle) vs the success stories mentioned in this article (Atlanta, Houston). See the graphs here, credit to Dynomight: [2] Atlanta and Houston were dealing with high number of 'mentally healthy and sober' homeless. They were ripe for rehousing, and the project was a relative success. DO NOT EXTEND THESE INTUITIONS TO YOUR TECH CITY. Seattle and SF have seen an alarmingly high base/growth of mentally unhealthy homeless with substance abuse issues. Houston's solutions will not work here. There is reason a that residents of NYC do not complain about their homeless populations as much. They are overwhelmingly sheltered and able [3]. On the other hand, Seattle resident complain more about the sub-human interactions (property crime, harassment, flashing, open defecation) caused by for which the proportionally-larger mentally-ill/addicted population. Guess which city had an anomalous jump in meth consumption over a couple of years. It's Seattle [4] Drugs and mental health are at the center of the homelessness, crime, urban fallout and lack of safety in west coast tech cities. It is a hard problem with no good solutions, but ""compassion"" and abolition are certainly not it. The safety of 'mentally healthy and sober' homeless can only be ensured through the Institutionalization (institutional care or forced social isolation) of the mentally ill and drug addicted. Homeless shelters, social welfare workers and protection from police harassment are good learnings to pick from other cities. However, Seattle and SF should also consider reopening psychiatric hospitals, forcing mandatory rehab and unfortunately imprisoning repeat violent offenders who refuse care. Some might call it inhumane. But, it provides rehabilitation for those willing to seek care, it provides safety for those who've 'fallen on hard times' and makes the difficult decision to socially-isolate the small but dangerous minority within them. If you have a better solution, I am all ears. Last but not the least, NIMBYism is selfish. It is okay to be selfish. But do not claim to fight injustices, for then you'd be a hypocrite. It is not okay to be hypocrite.[5] [1] https://dynomight.net/homeless-crisis/ https://dynomight.net/homeless-crisis/ [2] https://imgur.com/a/KNbgDHr https://imgur.com/a/KNbgDHr [3] https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%20City.svg https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%... [4] https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%20City.svg https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/NY-New%20York%... (sauce : https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/ https://dynomight.net/p2p-meth/) [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljaP2etvDc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljaP2etvDc4 (RIP)

adenozine 4y ago

Let me guess, it worked like a charm. Homelessness is so fucked in America. Zoning is just some form of terrorism against the poor. Just build the apartments and get it over with.

ericbarrett 4y ago
It's not that simple. Denser housing means denser infrastructure. You have to build bigger sewers, bigger water feeds, add more power. More substations and distribution centers. Denser trash collection. Access; stronger roads to support more traffic. (Ban cars? Awesome! You still have to support buses and garbage trucks and delivery vehicles, all of which cause exponentially more wear on a road surface than private vehicles.) All the stuff it takes to support humans. That doesn't mean that American cities' zoning isn't deeply flawed, but zoning is not itself "terrorism against the poor."
- adenozine 4y ago
  I don’t know why any of this is being brought up about homelessness. All those human beings are already living there, on the streets. Do you think they stop shitting? Do you think they aren’t getting water? People like you are the problem. Your words are just bullshit excuses, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve volunteered with homelessness programs for over two decades, and literally none of what you said has anything to do with the problem. Apartments are not being built plentifully enough to be affordable enough to support people. Period. Zoning is the biggest perpetrator to the suffocation of affordable housing and rentals. Can you dispute that?
  - ericbarrett 4y ago
    You must have seen some really terrible things with your volunteer work to trigger that anger, and I understand the response. That said, I can't respond to you in good faith with the insults flying. I'm not your enemy and I'm sad that you're trying to make me one. Hope you find some peace.
    - 4y ago