4 ms·

In considering that 90% of homeless people, you infer that the complexities that led them there are actually a single cause. This seems to be a fairly absurd no

In considering that 90% of homeless people, you infer that the complexities that led them there are actually a single cause. This seems to be a fairly absurd notion. I would certainly find no wisdom in basing action on it.

WalterBright 4y ago
"60 Minutes" didn't buy it either. They went to Seattle to see for themselves, and everyone they interviewed turned out to be homeless because of drug addiction or alcoholism.
- crtified 4y ago
  IMO, battling poverty by way of a war on drugs is like fighting chicken pox by pressing the bumps flat. The underlying causes need to be addressed, else you'll simply get a new batch.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    I'm not defending the War on Drugs, which has proven to be an abysmal failure. I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it.
    - crtified 4y ago
      By focusing solely upon drug addiction, one runs the risk of overlooking the myriad other complex factors which lead these people to where they are. The actual causes go further back than the addictions themselves. A person desperate enough to descend into substance abuse is already damaged. It's that damage we need to prevent, if one truly wants a 'fix'.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Sure, but that's not what's happening. They simply ignore the fact of drug addiction.
        crtified 4y ago
        That's unfortunate because, whatever other factors may exist, it's undeniable that heavy addiction to certain drugs like alcohol or heroin can be completely debilitating in it's own right. But it's also true that as long as society has outcasts, it will also have people who turn to desperate, normally-undesirable ends. No matter what drugs are available, or where.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it. Drug addiction is, in fact, not the cause of most of it, abd ignoring the homeless problem is, in terms of actual real policy failures, more of a problem for dealing with drug addiction than ignoring drug addiction is for dealing with the homelessness problem (they are intertwined amd both underaddressed, but homelessness is far more underaddressed in the context of addressing addiction than vice versa.)
- WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
  Your understanding of homelessness seems to be from curated, indirect sources and your opinions reflect that. For a contrast, I just spent 10 years adjacent to a large homeless community and had direct and ongoing interaction the entire time. My wife left our family to join it. I've been homeless myself (30 years ago). Lastly, me and my adult children came scary close to being on the streets 18 mos ago. From the top. It's poverty and mental illness, in that order. Those things don't magically disappear in the absence of drugs. Given that the vast, vast majority of addicts are housed, correlation would tell us that drugs cause housing - if one were keen to make assumptions based on a single instance of correlation. My ex is a stereotypical example of our homeless. She'd been housed for 9 months and was just evicted for behavior during a prolonged delusional state. The park manager was fully clear why she had to go. The drug addicts in the park are remaining housed and nothing indicates that will change. Last year, my family nearly joined the ranks of homeless (with savings in the bank) because our rental was sold. We have zero credit (save, then buy) which bars us from all corp rentals and ~100% of private ones. Past that, every available rental has dozens->hundreds of applicants and bidding wars are common. It's one rental for every 40 households that need one and rental prices are 50%-300% higher than they were in Jan 2020 (our rent is 70% higher, we were lucky). These are the actual numbers facing renters, not curated. Survivor bias is why I can post this info. For a closing note, consider this. News orgs have been reporting on official homeless figures (a direct count plus extrapolation). The numbers are meant to represent actual numbers of homeless. Let's say my county homeless count is N. Schools are also federally mandated to report numbers of homeless students. My county's homeless student population is N x 2.5. Even that is an obvious undercount as it only reflects students in attendance. The news orgs reporting homeless numbers - they're accepting what is given to them, apparently without any attempt at verification. The homeless info that's curated for us doesn't seem like what we want, if what we want is to understand the reality of the situation.

WalterBright 4y ago

"60 Minutes" didn't buy it either. They went to Seattle to see for themselves, and everyone they interviewed turned out to be homeless because of drug addiction or alcoholism.

crtified 4y ago
IMO, battling poverty by way of a war on drugs is like fighting chicken pox by pressing the bumps flat. The underlying causes need to be addressed, else you'll simply get a new batch.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I'm not defending the War on Drugs, which has proven to be an abysmal failure. I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it.
  - crtified 4y ago
    By focusing solely upon drug addiction, one runs the risk of overlooking the myriad other complex factors which lead these people to where they are. The actual causes go further back than the addictions themselves. A person desperate enough to descend into substance abuse is already damaged. It's that damage we need to prevent, if one truly wants a 'fix'.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Sure, but that's not what's happening. They simply ignore the fact of drug addiction.
      - crtified 4y ago
        That's unfortunate because, whatever other factors may exist, it's undeniable that heavy addiction to certain drugs like alcohol or heroin can be completely debilitating in it's own right. But it's also true that as long as society has outcasts, it will also have people who turn to desperate, normally-undesirable ends. No matter what drugs are available, or where.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it. Drug addiction is, in fact, not the cause of most of it, abd ignoring the homeless problem is, in terms of actual real policy failures, more of a problem for dealing with drug addiction than ignoring drug addiction is for dealing with the homelessness problem (they are intertwined amd both underaddressed, but homelessness is far more underaddressed in the context of addressing addiction than vice versa.)
WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
Your understanding of homelessness seems to be from curated, indirect sources and your opinions reflect that. For a contrast, I just spent 10 years adjacent to a large homeless community and had direct and ongoing interaction the entire time. My wife left our family to join it. I've been homeless myself (30 years ago). Lastly, me and my adult children came scary close to being on the streets 18 mos ago. From the top. It's poverty and mental illness, in that order. Those things don't magically disappear in the absence of drugs. Given that the vast, vast majority of addicts are housed, correlation would tell us that drugs cause housing - if one were keen to make assumptions based on a single instance of correlation. My ex is a stereotypical example of our homeless. She'd been housed for 9 months and was just evicted for behavior during a prolonged delusional state. The park manager was fully clear why she had to go. The drug addicts in the park are remaining housed and nothing indicates that will change. Last year, my family nearly joined the ranks of homeless (with savings in the bank) because our rental was sold. We have zero credit (save, then buy) which bars us from all corp rentals and ~100% of private ones. Past that, every available rental has dozens->hundreds of applicants and bidding wars are common. It's one rental for every 40 households that need one and rental prices are 50%-300% higher than they were in Jan 2020 (our rent is 70% higher, we were lucky). These are the actual numbers facing renters, not curated. Survivor bias is why I can post this info. For a closing note, consider this. News orgs have been reporting on official homeless figures (a direct count plus extrapolation). The numbers are meant to represent actual numbers of homeless. Let's say my county homeless count is N. Schools are also federally mandated to report numbers of homeless students. My county's homeless student population is N x 2.5. Even that is an obvious undercount as it only reflects students in attendance. The news orgs reporting homeless numbers - they're accepting what is given to them, apparently without any attempt at verification. The homeless info that's curated for us doesn't seem like what we want, if what we want is to understand the reality of the situation.