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Were you born addicted to drugs? People needs treatment and a path to become useful members of society again. Affordable housing makes a lot of poor people ab

Were you born addicted to drugs? People needs treatment and a path to become useful members of society again. Affordable housing makes a lot of poor people able to save money and help their peers.

phpisthebest 3y ago
anyone that has any depth of knowelege of the homeless knows there are generally 2 types of homeless population. Transitory economic homeless, these homeless can be assisted by affordable housing, housing first, and other programs. Often these homeless of covered pretty well by current homeless programs, as they are the type of homeless people most easily identify with, and engineer programs to solve. Then there are chronic non-economic homeless. For this group it is not economic issues they face no amount of affordable, or even free housing will make them not homeless, even if you give them a home chances are they will not stay in it. CA has an outsized portion of the latter type of homeless population, and only have programs designed for the former, that is why the problem does not get better. Infact many of CA programs actively harm the latter population
- spaniard89277 3y ago
  So why other big cities in other continents have so few homeless compard to SF and LA? We do have people with mental problems here in Spain, but most don't roam the streets and end up living under a bridge. And I can assure you the Spanish institutions are not precisely brilliant dealing with problems.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    I have no idea, but I suspect it is combination of factors. Let me ask, does Spain have and enforce loitering laws that prevent homeless of camping in front of businesses? Is this a factor in driving them to under the bridges instead of roaming the streets? Because CA prohibits the police from enforcing any of these laws, and many prosecutors refuse to charge anyone with "low level" crime. SF and LA (and CA in general) has the nicest weather, unlike other parts of the US where you have Extreme cold, extreme heat, or both in many area's LA and SF have mild temperate weather with limited rain fall, this promotes a "roaming the street" style of living.
    - spaniard89277 3y ago
      You can see homeless people in my mid-sized city. They typically sit in front of supermarkets or places where they can get money. It's always the same faces. If there's a law about that, it isn't being enforced. Most of Spain has a weather similar to CA.
- panarchy 3y ago
  It's almost like the second group has been deeply traumatized over time by a society whose only response to their mental health issues was a "fuck you" to the point that their mental health just keeps deteriorating and they become completely anti-social and actively avoid help, because fuck it why contribute back to a system that won't contribute to you. Many view the assistance as just being a pathway to get them back to contributing to a system that already failed them, not real help.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    We could always do what Finland does: admit that these people will never be productive members of society again and get them into housing with social workers on staff. Yes, it’s a constant drain, but Finland says it actually saves money doing it that way, since the services people use on the street turn out to be even more expensive. The big issue is that the USA doesn’t have a national strategy for dealing with homelessness. So any city offering programs that provide housing will become popular very quickly, with predictable results.
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      >>The big issue is that the USA doesn’t have a national strategy for dealing with homelessness. This is likely saying "the EU does not have strategy for dealing" remember the USA stands for "United STATES" States here is the key... We are 50 independent states, and most of our problems are because we look to the incompetent and corrupt federal government to solve problems they are not constitutional empowered to solve. There is a reason we are not "America" but instead our United States we seem to be losing that foundation, to our own demise. Not every problem is a national one, and homelessness certainly is not >>We could always do what Finland does: admit that these people will never be productive members of society again and get them into housing with social workers on staff. Well we used to do that, after many many many human rights abuses the US stopped doing that, and if you look at the graphs of institutionalization, and homelessness there is a striking correlation as the rate of institutionalization drops the rate of homelessness increases. I am not sure bringing back institutionalization is going to be a popular solution

Were you born addicted to drugs? People needs treatment and a path to become useful members of society again. Affordable housing makes a lot of poor people able to save money and help their peers.

phpisthebest 3y ago

anyone that has any depth of knowelege of the homeless knows there are generally 2 types of homeless population. Transitory economic homeless, these homeless can be assisted by affordable housing, housing first, and other programs. Often these homeless of covered pretty well by current homeless programs, as they are the type of homeless people most easily identify with, and engineer programs to solve. Then there are chronic non-economic homeless. For this group it is not economic issues they face no amount of affordable, or even free housing will make them not homeless, even if you give them a home chances are they will not stay in it. CA has an outsized portion of the latter type of homeless population, and only have programs designed for the former, that is why the problem does not get better. Infact many of CA programs actively harm the latter population

spaniard89277 3y ago
So why other big cities in other continents have so few homeless compard to SF and LA? We do have people with mental problems here in Spain, but most don't roam the streets and end up living under a bridge. And I can assure you the Spanish institutions are not precisely brilliant dealing with problems.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  I have no idea, but I suspect it is combination of factors. Let me ask, does Spain have and enforce loitering laws that prevent homeless of camping in front of businesses? Is this a factor in driving them to under the bridges instead of roaming the streets? Because CA prohibits the police from enforcing any of these laws, and many prosecutors refuse to charge anyone with "low level" crime. SF and LA (and CA in general) has the nicest weather, unlike other parts of the US where you have Extreme cold, extreme heat, or both in many area's LA and SF have mild temperate weather with limited rain fall, this promotes a "roaming the street" style of living.
  - spaniard89277 3y ago
    You can see homeless people in my mid-sized city. They typically sit in front of supermarkets or places where they can get money. It's always the same faces. If there's a law about that, it isn't being enforced. Most of Spain has a weather similar to CA.
panarchy 3y ago
It's almost like the second group has been deeply traumatized over time by a society whose only response to their mental health issues was a "fuck you" to the point that their mental health just keeps deteriorating and they become completely anti-social and actively avoid help, because fuck it why contribute back to a system that won't contribute to you. Many view the assistance as just being a pathway to get them back to contributing to a system that already failed them, not real help.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  We could always do what Finland does: admit that these people will never be productive members of society again and get them into housing with social workers on staff. Yes, it’s a constant drain, but Finland says it actually saves money doing it that way, since the services people use on the street turn out to be even more expensive. The big issue is that the USA doesn’t have a national strategy for dealing with homelessness. So any city offering programs that provide housing will become popular very quickly, with predictable results.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    >>The big issue is that the USA doesn’t have a national strategy for dealing with homelessness. This is likely saying "the EU does not have strategy for dealing" remember the USA stands for "United STATES" States here is the key... We are 50 independent states, and most of our problems are because we look to the incompetent and corrupt federal government to solve problems they are not constitutional empowered to solve. There is a reason we are not "America" but instead our United States we seem to be losing that foundation, to our own demise. Not every problem is a national one, and homelessness certainly is not >>We could always do what Finland does: admit that these people will never be productive members of society again and get them into housing with social workers on staff. Well we used to do that, after many many many human rights abuses the US stopped doing that, and if you look at the graphs of institutionalization, and homelessness there is a striking correlation as the rate of institutionalization drops the rate of homelessness increases. I am not sure bringing back institutionalization is going to be a popular solution