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National Alliance estimates it would cost $25B per year to eliminate homelessness in America. As always, it's the upper echelon that is the true welfare state.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> National Alliance estimates it would cost $25B per year to eliminate homelessness in America I’ve seen it as low as $8bn [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-21/citylab-daily-can-you-put-a-price-on-ending-homelessnes https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-21/cityla...
- Alupis 3y ago
  I am very skeptical of these low-ish figures, given current efforts are excessively expensive - such as LA spending $800k+ per individual. [1] https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/ https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-t...
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    The situation with LA's Proposition HHH was pure graft, imho. The voters were duped into thinking that their increase in sales tax was going to end the encampments, but there was fine print in the measure that enabled two devopers to rake in vast amounts of money while not remotely solving the problem. The language of the housing first measure stipulated that the developers of the housing had to have previous experience developing permanent supportive housing. There were only two developers that qualified, making them for all practical purposes no-bid contracts. LA could've sheltered every human being on the streets with that money, and still would've had hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase cheaper, existing housing. That whole thing was just wicked, brazen corruption that extended the needless suffering of everyone living on the street.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      Having experienced many similar stories, including the infamous High-Speed Rail in California, I see no reason we can assume this type of thing can do any better under existing systems.
spoonjim 3y ago
That’s obviously a wrong or insufficient because much more has spent than that without fixing the problem.
simonsarris 3y ago
The United States already spends over 1 trillion every year on social assistance, including 71 billion yearly on housing assistance. Anyone claiming that it would be merely a money problem to end homelessness is lying to you.
- kingTug 3y ago
  Bc the strategy is all wrong. They need to give them homes to live in for free, no strings attached. There's ~600k homeless people in america. If the budget is $25B per year, that's 43k/person. No means tests just free apartments.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > They need to give them homes to live in for free, no strings attached. Possibly. But you need to address the fact that a lot of these folks need expensive medical assistance. That isn't just housing. Somewhere around 15% of SF homeless have a traumatic brain injury. That's about 1 in 8 homeless who desperately need expensive medical assistance. Single payer/medicare for all would have a larger impact on the homeless than mere housing or cash.
  - cplusplusfellow 3y ago
    Can I get one of the free houses also? Happy to stop paying $4600 a month in rent.
    - mrtweetyhack 3y ago
      [dead]
  - medvezhenok 3y ago
    You run into the issue - once you start giving out free homes, you will suddenly have a lot more homeless people. It's called induced demand (people who were borderline homeless will prefer to go homeless to get a home rather than keep fighting to stay off the street). People who quote a number like $8B forget that proposed solutions to the problem can actually change the scope of the problem. I'm sure that while the number of homeless might be 600K, the number of close-to-homeless is likely at least 10X that number.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> National Alliance estimates it would cost $25B per year to eliminate homelessness in America I’ve seen it as low as $8bn [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-21/citylab-daily-can-you-put-a-price-on-ending-homelessnes https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-21/cityla...

Alupis 3y ago
I am very skeptical of these low-ish figures, given current efforts are excessively expensive - such as LA spending $800k+ per individual. [1] https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-to-house-a-single-homeless-person/ https://ktla.com/news/los-angeles-is-spending-up-to-837000-t...
- mullingitover 3y ago
  The situation with LA's Proposition HHH was pure graft, imho. The voters were duped into thinking that their increase in sales tax was going to end the encampments, but there was fine print in the measure that enabled two devopers to rake in vast amounts of money while not remotely solving the problem. The language of the housing first measure stipulated that the developers of the housing had to have previous experience developing permanent supportive housing. There were only two developers that qualified, making them for all practical purposes no-bid contracts. LA could've sheltered every human being on the streets with that money, and still would've had hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase cheaper, existing housing. That whole thing was just wicked, brazen corruption that extended the needless suffering of everyone living on the street.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    Having experienced many similar stories, including the infamous High-Speed Rail in California, I see no reason we can assume this type of thing can do any better under existing systems.

spoonjim 3y ago

That’s obviously a wrong or insufficient because much more has spent than that without fixing the problem.

simonsarris 3y ago

The United States already spends over 1 trillion every year on social assistance, including 71 billion yearly on housing assistance. Anyone claiming that it would be merely a money problem to end homelessness is lying to you.

kingTug 3y ago
Bc the strategy is all wrong. They need to give them homes to live in for free, no strings attached. There's ~600k homeless people in america. If the budget is $25B per year, that's 43k/person. No means tests just free apartments.
- bsder 3y ago
  > They need to give them homes to live in for free, no strings attached. Possibly. But you need to address the fact that a lot of these folks need expensive medical assistance. That isn't just housing. Somewhere around 15% of SF homeless have a traumatic brain injury. That's about 1 in 8 homeless who desperately need expensive medical assistance. Single payer/medicare for all would have a larger impact on the homeless than mere housing or cash.
- cplusplusfellow 3y ago
  Can I get one of the free houses also? Happy to stop paying $4600 a month in rent.
  - mrtweetyhack 3y ago
    [dead]
- medvezhenok 3y ago
  You run into the issue - once you start giving out free homes, you will suddenly have a lot more homeless people. It's called induced demand (people who were borderline homeless will prefer to go homeless to get a home rather than keep fighting to stay off the street). People who quote a number like $8B forget that proposed solutions to the problem can actually change the scope of the problem. I'm sure that while the number of homeless might be 600K, the number of close-to-homeless is likely at least 10X that number.