11 ms·

> reduce homelessness Is the homeless problem due to the cost of housing? Or is it moreso due to fentanyl?

by LewisVerstappen 4y ago

lalaithion 4y ago
If they had homes, it wouldn't be called homelessness. You can take fentanyl in an apartment.
- m00x 4y ago
  It's a lot more comfortable to take drugs at home, too. They would take homes if they could.
  - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
    SF/LA has numerous programs that will give you housing if you're homeless. The issue is that many of the homeless refuse to take up these programs and insist on staying in their tents.... so... no?
    - m00x 4y ago
      I'm from Vancouver so I'm pretty familiar with this issue. They give you housing but don't allow drugs. Being able to own your own place where you can do drugs helps. These people are addicts and homeless. We can cure homelessness with more homes, but we also need to help them get rid of addiction.
    - metalforever 4y ago
      no, dealing with this issue with a friend in SF right now, theres a waitlist and its long.
sonofaplum 4y ago
it's due to the cost of housing, as evidenced by lower homelessness rates in places where housing is cheaper.
m00x 4y ago
Homelessness is mostly due to lack of housing, and fentanyl crisis mostly due to addiction. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2356643-we-can-reduce-homelessness-if-we-follow-the-science-on-what-works/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2356643-we-can-reduce-h...
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Stats like these are only true because the general public and policymakers/NGOs mean completely different populations of people when discussing "the homeless." Private market housing in SF will not get most of the very visible & mentally ill off of the streets, this likely requires services and some level of compulsion.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    If you redefine "homelessness" to only include those with addiction or mental illness problems, then you might have a point. But that's not a terrible useful definition, and many of those addiction and mental illness problems stem from not having housing and the extreme difficulty of that situation. Other areas with higher rates of addiction, but cheaper housing, have lower rates of homelessness. Cheaper housing really does allow people to get off the streets.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      Expensive housing is also correlated with better provisioning of services which draws people here. I am not redefining anything, I am describing to you what people are colloquially talking about and why these conversations oftentimes are just people talking past each other because they have different issues in mind. When people in SF say "homelessness is out of control", they are typically talking about the population I am mentioning - one that is unlikely to be helped by changes to housing costs at the margin.
  - timerol 4y ago
    Note that homelessness is a constant flow of people. The services and compulsion removing people from the streets is currently happening. The problem is that the housing market is dumping more new homeless onto the street than our current system can handle. Turning off the faucet, so to speak, will make dealing with the existing homeless population a much simpler and more humane activity.
daveguy 4y ago
Well, we are going to find out. Something tells me everyone who's homeless isn't a fentanyl addict. Especially given housing costs.
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  > Something tells me everyone who's homeless isn't a fentanyl addict. Especially given housing costs SF/LA has numerous programs that will give you housing if you're homeless. The issue is that many of the homeless refuse to take up these programs and insist on staying in their tents.... because they're mentally ill.... because of drugs.
  - piperswe 4y ago
    Okay, correct me if I'm wrong: - They're homeless - Because they're mentally ill - Because they're on drugs - Because they're mentally ill - Because they're homeless
    - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
      To be clear, I'm not suggesting a drug problem is a character defect nor am I implying that these people don't deserve a huge amount of empathy. I'm just unsure if the root cause is the price of housing (despite there meaning numerous problems to house & relocate them) or if it's due to the drug addiction. Anyway, obviously I'm for more housing to reduce the price of rent. There's a youtube channel called Invisible People that interviews homeless people on the streets and the story is very frequently had job -> got on highly addictive drugs -> everything is about getting another hit -> tried rehab multiple times and want to go to rehab again And yeah I mean, heroine/meth/whatever is obviously super dangerous & addictive so you can't really blame them.
  - metalforever 4y ago
    so i am dealing with this issue with a good friend of mine right now, who is homeless in the city of san francisco. No, this isnt true , theres a very very long waitlist for assistance. His credit is shot and he cannot find a new rental. so, hes been living in a hotel. Hes paying the daily, so he has money.
bradleyjg 4y ago
Depends on what you mean by homeless. Regular people mean people living on the street. Policy types mean them but also people living in overcrowded conditions.
jwagenet 4y ago
People enter homelessness and drug use from both directions. Many homeless are not addicts and more affordable housing will help get those off the street and keep more people at the margin in more stable housing situations. This will in turn help make services more available for the drug using homeless.
hangonhn 4y ago
Why not both? And if the law fixes the prior, it will reduce overall homelessness. I'll take the progress and we can deal with the fentanyl issue in parallel for its own reasons.
jrochkind1 4y ago
Someone who takes fentanyl but has a home isn't homeless; while someone who does not take fentanyl but does not have a home is. So.
iskander 4y ago
Homeless population by state is more or less a map of housing cost: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-population-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-po...
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  This might just be because homeless people prefer to live in the same places everyone else does though, which is why those places are expensive.
  - iskander 4y ago
    You would then expect the percent of homeless per state to be roughly similar, when it in fact varies tremendously: https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-rate-in-the-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-rate... NYC, HI, CA >40 per 100k homeless in 2020 (higher now) States with lots of poverty but also extremely cheap housing at the bottom with a 5x lower rate of homelessness: LA, AL, MS Similarly, WV very low on the list despite being high on all of the other supposedly causal factors such as mental health and drug problems Poor people with mental health and addiction problems can still live with a roof over their head as long as they're not competing with tech salaries to buy any kind of shelter.
    - HDThoreaun 4y ago
      > You would then expect the percent of homeless per state to be roughly similar No, I would expect the opposite. All the would be homeless in unappealing states leave and go to california or NYC because if they're not paying for housing they figure might as well go to the nicest area.
      - iskander 4y ago
        That's a very different model than 'prefer to live in the same places everyone else' -- you're saying that wherever housed people want to live, the homeless want to live there even more. Not obvious that there's evidence for that
schnable 4y ago
It's three main things: lack of housing, lack of support for the mentally ill, and drug addiction. The proportion of each varies in different cities.
- andromeduck 4y ago
  Lack of opportunity at the lower rungs as well. No factory/construction jobs means it's service or bustwithout a college degree.
raincom 4y ago
Homelessness also makes people get addicted to alcohol and drugs too.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
It's not really going to help the people that most imagine when they think of their personal experience of homelessness. i.e. people sleeping in the streets or on the subway, or the "crazy people" you cross the street to avoid. For example, in NYC, more than 95% of the homeless are actually sheltered (whether in the city shelter system, or in other temporary situations like doubling up with friends or relatives), and more than 80% of homelessness is situational rather chronic. 30% of homeless families have at least one employed adult. 60% of all shelter residents are families. Most spending on combating homelessness is invisible to us; and most improvements in affordable housing are going to have little impact on the (predominantly) male, drug-using and/or mentally-ill street sleepers.
timerol 4y ago
Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ > Over the course of the book, the researchers illustrate how absolute rent levels and rental vacancy rates are associated with regional rates of homelessness. Many other common explanations—drug use, mental illness, poverty, or local political context—fail to account for regional variation.
treesrule 4y ago
Other people have linked good articles, but a good way to think about it is in Japan and West Virginia they have almost no homelessness and in both those places its very easy to rent a studio for under 300$ a month. Even for someone addicted to drugs you can see how its possible to manage 300$ a month (or for say a charity or city organization to come up with the money) without solving the underlying issues.
roughly 4y ago
First one and then the other.

> reduce homelessness Is the homeless problem due to the cost of housing? Or is it moreso due to fentanyl?

lalaithion 4y ago

If they had homes, it wouldn't be called homelessness. You can take fentanyl in an apartment.

m00x 4y ago
It's a lot more comfortable to take drugs at home, too. They would take homes if they could.
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  SF/LA has numerous programs that will give you housing if you're homeless. The issue is that many of the homeless refuse to take up these programs and insist on staying in their tents.... so... no?
  - m00x 4y ago
    I'm from Vancouver so I'm pretty familiar with this issue. They give you housing but don't allow drugs. Being able to own your own place where you can do drugs helps. These people are addicts and homeless. We can cure homelessness with more homes, but we also need to help them get rid of addiction.
  - metalforever 4y ago
    no, dealing with this issue with a friend in SF right now, theres a waitlist and its long.

sonofaplum 4y ago

it's due to the cost of housing, as evidenced by lower homelessness rates in places where housing is cheaper.

m00x 4y ago

Homelessness is mostly due to lack of housing, and fentanyl crisis mostly due to addiction. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2356643-we-can-reduce-homelessness-if-we-follow-the-science-on-what-works/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2356643-we-can-reduce-h...

whimsicalism 4y ago
Stats like these are only true because the general public and policymakers/NGOs mean completely different populations of people when discussing "the homeless." Private market housing in SF will not get most of the very visible & mentally ill off of the streets, this likely requires services and some level of compulsion.
- epistasis 4y ago
  If you redefine "homelessness" to only include those with addiction or mental illness problems, then you might have a point. But that's not a terrible useful definition, and many of those addiction and mental illness problems stem from not having housing and the extreme difficulty of that situation. Other areas with higher rates of addiction, but cheaper housing, have lower rates of homelessness. Cheaper housing really does allow people to get off the streets.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Expensive housing is also correlated with better provisioning of services which draws people here. I am not redefining anything, I am describing to you what people are colloquially talking about and why these conversations oftentimes are just people talking past each other because they have different issues in mind. When people in SF say "homelessness is out of control", they are typically talking about the population I am mentioning - one that is unlikely to be helped by changes to housing costs at the margin.
- timerol 4y ago
  Note that homelessness is a constant flow of people. The services and compulsion removing people from the streets is currently happening. The problem is that the housing market is dumping more new homeless onto the street than our current system can handle. Turning off the faucet, so to speak, will make dealing with the existing homeless population a much simpler and more humane activity.

daveguy 4y ago

Well, we are going to find out. Something tells me everyone who's homeless isn't a fentanyl addict. Especially given housing costs.

LewisVerstappen 4y ago
> Something tells me everyone who's homeless isn't a fentanyl addict. Especially given housing costs SF/LA has numerous programs that will give you housing if you're homeless. The issue is that many of the homeless refuse to take up these programs and insist on staying in their tents.... because they're mentally ill.... because of drugs.
- piperswe 4y ago
  Okay, correct me if I'm wrong: - They're homeless - Because they're mentally ill - Because they're on drugs - Because they're mentally ill - Because they're homeless
  - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
    To be clear, I'm not suggesting a drug problem is a character defect nor am I implying that these people don't deserve a huge amount of empathy. I'm just unsure if the root cause is the price of housing (despite there meaning numerous problems to house & relocate them) or if it's due to the drug addiction. Anyway, obviously I'm for more housing to reduce the price of rent. There's a youtube channel called Invisible People that interviews homeless people on the streets and the story is very frequently had job -> got on highly addictive drugs -> everything is about getting another hit -> tried rehab multiple times and want to go to rehab again And yeah I mean, heroine/meth/whatever is obviously super dangerous & addictive so you can't really blame them.
- metalforever 4y ago
  so i am dealing with this issue with a good friend of mine right now, who is homeless in the city of san francisco. No, this isnt true , theres a very very long waitlist for assistance. His credit is shot and he cannot find a new rental. so, hes been living in a hotel. Hes paying the daily, so he has money.

bradleyjg 4y ago

Depends on what you mean by homeless. Regular people mean people living on the street. Policy types mean them but also people living in overcrowded conditions.

jwagenet 4y ago

People enter homelessness and drug use from both directions. Many homeless are not addicts and more affordable housing will help get those off the street and keep more people at the margin in more stable housing situations. This will in turn help make services more available for the drug using homeless.

hangonhn 4y ago

Why not both? And if the law fixes the prior, it will reduce overall homelessness. I'll take the progress and we can deal with the fentanyl issue in parallel for its own reasons.

jrochkind1 4y ago

Someone who takes fentanyl but has a home isn't homeless; while someone who does not take fentanyl but does not have a home is. So.

iskander 4y ago

Homeless population by state is more or less a map of housing cost: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-population-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-po...

HDThoreaun 4y ago
This might just be because homeless people prefer to live in the same places everyone else does though, which is why those places are expensive.
- iskander 4y ago
  You would then expect the percent of homeless per state to be roughly similar, when it in fact varies tremendously: https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-rate-in-the-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-rate... NYC, HI, CA >40 per 100k homeless in 2020 (higher now) States with lots of poverty but also extremely cheap housing at the bottom with a 5x lower rate of homelessness: LA, AL, MS Similarly, WV very low on the list despite being high on all of the other supposedly causal factors such as mental health and drug problems Poor people with mental health and addiction problems can still live with a roof over their head as long as they're not competing with tech salaries to buy any kind of shelter.
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    > You would then expect the percent of homeless per state to be roughly similar No, I would expect the opposite. All the would be homeless in unappealing states leave and go to california or NYC because if they're not paying for housing they figure might as well go to the nicest area.
    - iskander 4y ago
      That's a very different model than 'prefer to live in the same places everyone else' -- you're saying that wherever housed people want to live, the homeless want to live there even more. Not obvious that there's evidence for that

schnable 4y ago

It's three main things: lack of housing, lack of support for the mentally ill, and drug addiction. The proportion of each varies in different cities.

andromeduck 4y ago
Lack of opportunity at the lower rungs as well. No factory/construction jobs means it's service or bustwithout a college degree.

raincom 4y ago

Homelessness also makes people get addicted to alcohol and drugs too.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago

It's not really going to help the people that most imagine when they think of their personal experience of homelessness. i.e. people sleeping in the streets or on the subway, or the "crazy people" you cross the street to avoid. For example, in NYC, more than 95% of the homeless are actually sheltered (whether in the city shelter system, or in other temporary situations like doubling up with friends or relatives), and more than 80% of homelessness is situational rather chronic. 30% of homeless families have at least one employed adult. 60% of all shelter residents are families. Most spending on combating homelessness is invisible to us; and most improvements in affordable housing are going to have little impact on the (predominantly) male, drug-using and/or mentally-ill street sleepers.

timerol 4y ago

Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ > Over the course of the book, the researchers illustrate how absolute rent levels and rental vacancy rates are associated with regional rates of homelessness. Many other common explanations—drug use, mental illness, poverty, or local political context—fail to account for regional variation.

treesrule 4y ago

Other people have linked good articles, but a good way to think about it is in Japan and West Virginia they have almost no homelessness and in both those places its very easy to rent a studio for under 300$ a month. Even for someone addicted to drugs you can see how its possible to manage 300$ a month (or for say a charity or city organization to come up with the money) without solving the underlying issues.

roughly 4y ago

First one and then the other.