3 ms·

There are a couple of factors I think in the way of adopting the solution I've outlined - * It's incredibly authoritarian, ripe for abuse (as the commitment to

by Aloha 4y ago

There are a couple of factors I think in the way of adopting the solution I've outlined - * It's incredibly authoritarian, ripe for abuse (as the commitment to mental hospitals was), and requires an evolution in legal thinking about what civil commitment can be used for. * It offends a wide swath of people in an ideological way. No one really want to believe that some people cannot help themselves improve enough to exist in wider society (liberals assume everyone unless profoundly disabled can if given proper support, conservatives just assume people need to tug harder on those bootstraps). Similarly everyone on some level I've talked to about it is offended by the authoritarian nature of - it bothers people of all stripes once they think about it a little (including myself as a liberal with a general libertarian lean). Conservatives also object to spending money on such a venture (why should those people who contribute nothing to society eat better than I do?) for pretty obvious and consistent reasons. * No one knows how to fund it, you need to either create new sources of revenue or deallocate money from someplace else, now, yes perhaps you could reduce funding allocated to policing - but there are existing stakeholders who will fight ardently to prevent it. * Finally, there are existing stakeholders (the homeless industrial complex, as I glibly descried them) who want the status quo to persist for various reasons (for many organizations it is raison d'être - either for religious reasons, or more basal ones - money, they have workforces who are paid, and are a consumer of taxpayer grants). I agree broadly with you, that the current illness is worse than the cure, but the cure isn't without its own side effects. For what it's worth the example that I use of some people not being able to improve themselves is the Vanderbilt family, One of Cornelius Vanderbilt's great grandchildren was born into poverty. No matter what advantages afforded, some people will fail to thrive. (See https://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Children-Fall-House-Vanderbilt-ebook/dp/B00BKZGOIQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Children-Fall-House-Vanderbi... for more information) I agree with you, everyone is very busy arguing about either the PH of the water, the color of the water spout or if you should spray the base of the fire, or the top of the fire, and the fire rages further consuming people in its path and we never quite get around to putting the fire out. There are a whole host of issues in society that are like this - where the optimal solution will never get significant political support behind it without the problem being perceived by voters as much worse than it is perceived now. Some of these are: * End of Life Care (from old age, chronic illness, etc) * Cigarette Regulations (There are a ton of stakeholders who want to preserve the status quo of regressive taxes with general availability, when lower taxes with a gradually increasing age of purchase would be better for society) * Overemphasis on safety in automobiles and other things (I did a cost benefit analysis on backup cameras, and it came out to something like 15,000 dollar per life saved, and most of these added burdens end up on the poor)

danenania 4y ago
Perhaps a less authoritarian option than civil commitment could be to create this type of housing then incentivize it in various ways. The biggest one is: if you’re going to have zones where hard drugs are de facto legalized, it should be in one of these places that are out of the way and designed to handle the externalities as well as possible rather than in the middle of cities. It would also give police a place to take people who are creating quality of life issues for residents (tents, screaming, littering, using streets as toilets, etc.). Instead of the “bus out of town” or simply moving people around in the city, they could keep bringing people back to these facilities. Perhaps not all would stay, but I imagine many would. Maybe the way to think about it is almost like a business serving customers. If homeless people don’t want to stay in this housing voluntarily, how can it be improved to change that? They have reasons for choosing the places that they do now, so if those factors can be replicated and improved upon, force might not generally be necessary.
- Aloha 4y ago
  I dont know that you can get people to stay without more.. coercion, particularly those who are homeless by choice. In some ways, they're the most libertarian of the libertarians, they dont like being told to what to do, they often (but not always) have various addictions - and move around. They're also the homeless who are least likely to cause trouble, leave a mess, they vary from addicts who are on the streets to 'urban campers'. I think at least trying it would be better than what we're doing now, and I think we're on the same page about that. You win victories against great social ills by convincing one person at a time that we need to try something different. I believe firmly that most of the ills our society has are caused by poverty, if we can solve 3/4 of poverty, we will end up with a richer, safer and happier world.

by Aloha 4y ago

danenania 4y ago

Perhaps a less authoritarian option than civil commitment could be to create this type of housing then incentivize it in various ways. The biggest one is: if you’re going to have zones where hard drugs are de facto legalized, it should be in one of these places that are out of the way and designed to handle the externalities as well as possible rather than in the middle of cities. It would also give police a place to take people who are creating quality of life issues for residents (tents, screaming, littering, using streets as toilets, etc.). Instead of the “bus out of town” or simply moving people around in the city, they could keep bringing people back to these facilities. Perhaps not all would stay, but I imagine many would. Maybe the way to think about it is almost like a business serving customers. If homeless people don’t want to stay in this housing voluntarily, how can it be improved to change that? They have reasons for choosing the places that they do now, so if those factors can be replicated and improved upon, force might not generally be necessary.

Aloha 4y ago
I dont know that you can get people to stay without more.. coercion, particularly those who are homeless by choice. In some ways, they're the most libertarian of the libertarians, they dont like being told to what to do, they often (but not always) have various addictions - and move around. They're also the homeless who are least likely to cause trouble, leave a mess, they vary from addicts who are on the streets to 'urban campers'. I think at least trying it would be better than what we're doing now, and I think we're on the same page about that. You win victories against great social ills by convincing one person at a time that we need to try something different. I believe firmly that most of the ills our society has are caused by poverty, if we can solve 3/4 of poverty, we will end up with a richer, safer and happier world.