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That’s because Cali’s approach is insane. They give you hundreds a month in cash grants (some make $1k a month in SF) and require you to make NO alterations to

• skrebbel 3y ago
  How is giving people money unconditionally not treating them as “humans with potential and aspirations”? I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that adding more rules and conditions and whatnot is better? I don’t have a well-formed opinion here myself, just that most people arguing for treating benefit recipients humanely argue for fewer rules, not more. So I’d like to understand your point better.
  • realjhol 3y ago
    Giving addicts drug money instead of providing for their needs is the peak of inhumanity.
    • madsbuch 3y ago
      Drug-addicts is something you interpret. It is specified that they are homeless. Doing this conflation is the worst kind of anti-ethical you can be. Just like assuming other things about whole groups of people. For this debate, I can really recommend Rutger Bregman and his books. One of his important points about poverty is that people are that: Poor. And that is their problem.
      • atdrummond 3y ago
        My problem when I was homeless wasn’t that I was poor. My problem was that I would never be able to manage assets properly until I get my mental house in order and started prioritizing things properly. There are plenty of homeless people who are in a poverty trap, as you describe, but I think it oversimplifies the situation to argue the arrow of causality only goes one direction for all homeless people.
        • madsbuch 3y ago
          Bregman I am referring is Dutch, I am Danish. Two countries where you'd have to look really hard to find homeless people. I think over-complication is the issue in the states, which in turn makes a lot of these grants go to heads thinking about the issues rather than the actual issues. I also think it is important to attribute issues where they are due: Mental issues is not a housing problem, it is a health care issue. Not being able to manage money is not a housing problem, it is a primary school problem. Etc. With all respect for your previous life, it does sound like you needed some quality health care more than a parental system that handed out food stamps (in fear that the money otherwise would have gone to drugs).
          • atdrummond 3y ago
            I agree completely with your third paragraph; I also agree regarding the Dutch (my partner lives in Amsterdam) and Danish programmes and their successes. Apologies if my reply misunderstood your initial post, as I feel we’re actually in agreement here.
      • Fauntleroy 3y ago
        I can see that you're not in California, so I feel like I should reiterate that drugs are a massive problem among our homeless population here. It is something that needs consideration when trying to help them. The main problem with just giving people $1,000/mo is that it is nowhere near enough to get off the street, but more than enough to continue fueling a drug problem.
    • Cthulhu_ 3y ago
      Maybe money isn't the right thing - it may reduce crime, but won't fix issues. But there's plenty of successful programs where they give drugs or substitutes to prevent withdrawal to addicts for free, no questions asked, no judgment. Or places to safely use, where privacy, health care and clean needles are available. But the subject isn't addicts, it's homeless people. Not all homeless people are addicts, and not all addicts are homeless.
    • heavyset_go 3y ago
      The majority of homeless people are homeless for economic reasons, like loss of income, cost of living increases, or lack of affordable housing, or changes in co-living situations caused by break-ups/divorce/abuse/loss of partner's income/etc. Families are the fastest growing homeless demographic.
      • atdrummond 3y ago
        And that group is hurt the most by having to share the streets with people whose uncivil and dangerous behaviour puts their life and well being in danger. Treating unhoused persons as a homogenous population is probably the original sin of modern American homeless policy.
        • floren 3y ago
          > Treating unhoused persons as a homogenous population is probably the original sin of modern American homeless policy It gives you some useful tricks, though. E.g. if somebody complains about the chronically homeless addicts assaulting people downtown? Why, you just point out that X% of "the homeless" are actually just regular non-addicted people temporarily down on their luck, who just need a free hotel room for a couple weeks.
        • amanaplanacanal 3y ago
          It's unfortunate. Most of the conversation here is about addicts and the mentally ill and how hard they are to help. Probably because they are the most visible.
          • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
            We should have separate programs for each, one with more resources. It is much easier to help someone without a substance abuse problem get back on their feet, so let’s pick the lowest fruit first? It also provides some incentive to not get addicted to drugs, knowing that society is going to not try as hard to save you (this is already true, it just isn’t codified anywhere). But ya, most people won’t notice, since they didn’t notice these people before.
    • mikeryan 3y ago
      Giving addicts drug money instead of providing for their needs is the peak of inhumanity. Not sure what you think a drug addicts needs are, because usually at the top of the list is "drugs". There other services provided en-masse for homeless people with addiction problems but you can't force them to take advantage of them. The "free-money" isn't about treating the root cause of the recipients addiction the hope is to address a symptom and prevent people with addiction problems from committing crimes to fuel their habits.
      • kortilla 3y ago
        Needs and wants aren’t the same things.
  • atdrummond 3y ago
    I’m not at all against unconditional cash grants. I work for a non-profit that does just that. What I am against is a totally unstructured program where they hand cash out knowing that 90% of it goes into an open air drug market that they make no attempt to shut down or control. I’m not arguing for work requirements or time limits. People who are legitimately struggling will fall through the cracks. But I don’t think it is insane or inhumane to require people to work with supportive assistance and be put on a pathway to supportive housing.
    • skrebbel 3y ago
      Awesome, thanks for clarifying. This makes a lot of sense to me.
    • marcellus23 3y ago
      > I’m not arguing for work requirements or time limits > I don’t think it is insane or inhumane to require people to work Sorry if I'm missing something, but aren't these directly antithetical?
      • nickff 3y ago
        The parent seems to be saying that they are not sure whether work requirements are necessary for a support program to succeed, but that the requirements do not appear to be unreasonable or obviously counter-productive.
      • atdrummond 3y ago
        Why did you cut off the sentence? What I said had nothing to do with employment requirements but about the need for supportive services to enable unhoused persons to achieve the next steps in their path to stability.
    • robotnikman 3y ago
      If the money is just going back to the drug dealers I would think that would just exacerbate the problem and make it even worse, as it just encourages drug dealers and producers to make and sell more. There definitely needs to be case workers or someone involved to help provide these people a path to recovery.
  • nathanyukai 3y ago
    Because they are not going to spend it on things that's going to help them improve skills and finding jobs, they'll stuck as homeless forever. Like when world bank lend money to country that are bankrupted, they ask them to take the money for reform and try to improve their economy, same should happen here.
  • akira2501 3y ago
    > How is giving people money unconditionally not treating them as “humans with potential and aspirations”? If access to money is not their actual impediment then you may be making their situation worse. > I’m not entirely sure what your point is. Are you saying that adding more rules and conditions and whatnot is better? You are drowning. I throw $1000 at you. Are you saying I should have done more? > argue for fewer rules Judging by living in the middle of this policy. The number of homeless has increased and the number of open air drug markets, prostitution, and suicides have increased with them. There is a concerted _lack_ of enforcement of rules. The homeless purchase RVs from scrap yards, move them onto the sides of streets, and live in them. Zoning and parking laws are ignored. Noise laws are ignored. Drug laws are ignored. There is zero effort to serve this population and get them out of the literal gutter. Pets are a massive problem. Children are living in the middle of this. And our response is just.. "here's $1000 and a legal carte blanche for anything short of murder." It's not working.
    • atdrummond 3y ago
      This is a great response. One of the most under appreciated aspects of this is that the current policies actually hurt the homeless people who are stuck in a poverty trap and want to get out. They have to live daily with an ever increasing number of people who are allowed to engage in dangerous and uncivil behaviour. There are parents and children on the streets who want nothing more than to get off them - but until that happens, their quality of life has been made considerably worse by the policies presently in place.
    • ribosometronome 3y ago
      >You are drowning. I throw $1000 at you. Are you saying I should have done more? What if we apply your logic to your own scenario? You are drowning. I will jump in and help you get to safety only after you have taken a blood and piss test. Are you saying I should have done more?
      • tivert 3y ago
        >> You are drowning. I throw $1000 at you. Are you saying I should have done more? > You are drowning. I will jump in and help you get to safety only after you have taken a blood and piss test. Are you saying I should have done more? I think his point was that if someone's drowning, you throw them a life preserver or jump in and save them. You don't throw them $1000, because that's not the solution to the problem they're actually having. It's not like the water will spit them out if you pay it. And if your problem is addiction, $1000 might just make your problem worse. That $1000 might as well be considered a pile of drugs or booze. When I was growing up I was friends with a kid whose Dad actually worked trying to help homeless people in a very cold climate. IIRC, one time they had a program to give out subzero rated sleeping bags, but stopped once they realized they were just getting pawned.
  • matthew9219 3y ago
    People addicted to heroin don't achieve their potential or their aspirations. The compassionate thing to do for drug addicts is to help them stop being addicted to drugs, not give them an apartment where they can do drugs without bothering anybody. Parent commenter is saying the state is doing mostly the latter and little of the former.
  • nonethewiser 3y ago
    Because it creates more homelessness.
• zhte415 3y ago
  > I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! Source? Because this seems to be banded around in comments without anyone sourcing. I dropped this actual source [1] in another comment, that measures 13% of unsheltered homeless as coming from out of state for LA. [1] https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/jun/28/dispelling-myths-about-californias-homeless/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/jun/28/dispelling-my...
  • atdrummond 3y ago
    I didn’t state any numbers. I don’t know. All I have is anecdotes from myself and others who work in this space. That said, you don’t think even 1 in 9 people being out of staters puts pressure on programs? That as more people see how you can migrate and live far more easily than in Midwestern/East Coast cities, that those numbers won’t increase? That there isn’t a negative psychic impact to homeless people who are actually trying to get out of the system having to live around many others who are content to collect their scrip? I’m skeptical the number is that low but even if it is, I don’t think it is the non-issue you think it is. I think it reveals quite a lot about the preferences of the homeless who both originate from within, and outside, California.
    • mschuster91 3y ago
      Homeless people will always gravitate towards where sleeping rough is easier - no one wants to risk freezing to death.
    • latency-guy2 3y ago
      > I don’t think it is the non-issue you think it is. Those words, phrases, and thoughts were never shared by the user. This is you inventing a person in your head, and you are arguing with that imaginary person.
  • nwienert 3y ago
    On my street in the Mission there were mostly illegal immigrants living on the sidewalk in tents, they told me as much.
• crooked-v 3y ago
  On the other hand, $1K a month in SF won't even get you a bed in a shared room. I mean that literally - I just checked apartments.com and there's exactly one listing out of 5,400 right now that's under $1000 and open to non-students.
  • atdrummond 3y ago
    They don’t need a bed or a room. You can camp quite comfortably throughout the city all year long thanks to the mild weather. It’s a very different situation than being homeless in cities with more typical seasonal weather patterns; I nearly lost a number of toes due to frostbite when I was homeless in Saint Louis during a major blizzard. San Francisco’s climate and permissive camping policies help absolve a lot of the housing related issues that are involved with being homeless.
    • cumshitpiss 3y ago
      [dead]
    • da39a3ee 3y ago
      > San Francisco’s climate and permissive camping policies help absolve a lot of the housing related issues that are involved with being homeless. Of course they don't. Living out of a tent on a street makes it extremely hard to get your life onto target for rejoining the economically healthy portion of society. I'm sure you know that. I don't know what you were trying to say.
  • fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
    Where do you get the idea apartments.com is a source that can inform you about the market price of shared housing? As a long-time participant in the bay area rental housing market, $1000 is enough to rent a bedroom in many homes, but how would such a listing get onto apartments.com? If you’re paying more than $1000 to share a bedroom, you’re getting ripped off.
    • o1y32 3y ago
• laurels-marts 3y ago
  This is not surprising at all. Currently it’s all about affirmation and validation and being your true authentic self. Suggesting alterations to lifestyles implies that some lifestyles might be inferior to others. Would this implication end at drug use or could it be extended to other areas of life as well? When you extrapolate this a bit further you could quickly get yourself labeled closed-minded and a bigot. Therefore just throwing cash non-judgmentally at these problems and hoping the issues go away is the only path forward for many.. alternatives would be too uncomfortable to stomach.
• devoutsalsa 3y ago
  There's also simply no good solution for people with mental health issues. People who need help aren't scooped up & put somewhere for treatment. They're left on the street.
• christkv 3y ago
  There are a lot of people making money in the current system. It's pretty obvious that just giving money to people trapped in a cycle of addiction is not going to break that cycle. They need treatment and in many cases it might need to be compelled to break the cycle. This then needs to be followed with integration programs (and jobs, schooling) that do not happen in the same area where they spent their time addicted.
• guardiangod 3y ago
  >It is absolutely insane how we’ve stopped treating homeless people as humans with potential and aspirations and assume that all they can be is a vacuum for drugs and cash. Vancouver has the same approach- warmest place in Canada. When I suggested active intervention (eg. force detox), the activists would accuse me of treating homeless people as sub-humans, that I am being cruel and inhumane and a monster, and that we should give them (the users and the NGOs) money and safe-supply drug and leave them alone on the street.
  • tptacek 3y ago
    There's a pervasive belief that homeless people in various comfortable climes are migrants from harsher locales, but when you do the research you apparently tend to find that they're overwhelmingly people who had stable living situations in those comfortable locations, and became homeless there: they aren't "imported". So the "warmest place in Canada" thing is unlikely to be meaningful, unless there's some reason a comfortable climate makes housing less stable.
    • bawolff 3y ago
      I definitely see less homeless people in places that go to -40 in the winter. Now I don't know why, maybe they still exist but are less visible. Perhaps the threat of homelessness is a lot scarier when it is cold outside. Maybe homeless people in those climates move. I don't know, but anecdotally it does seem like there are much fewer homeless people in cold places.
      • bombcar 3y ago
        They certainly exist. https://www.hmismn.org/point-in-time-count-information https://www.hmismn.org/point-in-time-count-information But you have to have some form of shelter to survive -40, which means that nature itself forces something (or you just die). (Note the homeless veterans, that's just an absolute embarrassment to the country as a whole; something major should be done like just re-activating them and providing housing).
    • guardiangod 3y ago
• youreincorrect 3y ago
  > I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! My least favorite part of this was the local media pretended this wasn't true. They pretended it vociferously despite this being such an obvious lie.
  • lr4444lr 3y ago
    The Dept. of Homeless Services doesn't track this? It is done in NYC, and it was a major bone of contention that the high level of service was effectively magnetizing the city for homeless in other parts of the country to come here, or for cities even to bus them here. The law is a little vague on the matter, but the prevailing belief by the NYC administration is that anyone who can make it to the agency's doorstop and claim homelessness is entitled to emergency shelter up to 6 months, with no residency check (let alone U.S. citizenship), and there is no clear regulation preventing renewal. Even before the current foreign migrant crisis, about 10-15% of the shelter population came from outside NYC as their most recent stated prior address.
    • DoreenMichele 3y ago
      The Dept. of Homeless Services doesn't track this? Previous discussions on HN suggest that the official stats are misleading and, for example, will count one as "local" if their last official street address was time in a local prison.
    • labcomputer 3y ago
      They do, and if you dig into them, the numbers show that most people are not from SF. https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-PIT-Count-Report-San-Francisco-Updated-8.19.22.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-PIT-Co... By the agency's own numbers, only 72% of SF's homeless population "became homeless while living in SF." Additionally, among those 72% who "became homeless while living in SF", only 35% have lived in SF for more than 10 years at the time of the census (the agency only has buckets for 0-1, 1-10 and 10+ years, and does not collect the amount of time the person lived in SF before becoming homeless). So, although they may have technically "become homeless while living in SF", 65% are not really "from SF" in any meaningful way (they lived in SF for less than 10 years since they first got here, including time while homeless). Those 65% aren't kids: Only 2% of SF's homeless are under 18, and more than half of homeless were over the age of 25 when they first became homeless. When you multiply it out (0.35*0.72), you end up with an upper bound of just 25% of the homeless population is really "from SF" (as in, became homeless while here and have been here >10 years). It's probably even lower when you consider that the current episode of homelessness is their first for only 23% (so while they may have "become homeless" while in SF, many have been homeless elsewhere before and thus only marginally housed when arriving).
• Convolutional 3y ago
  > I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians! I visited the Bay Area a number of times and only met one person who was born locally. "Not even Americans!" in many cases.
• cashsterling 3y ago
  Demographics of homeless populations is one of those things that is pretty hard to determine conclusively without some serious invasion of privacy and/or violation of rights. Take in consideration that homeless folks are under no obligation to tell the truth when surveyed or questioned and are generally aware that "migration of homeless into certain areas" is a hot-button issue (these folks are homeless, not stupid)... and we have a recipe for the demographics of homeless populations in these 'desirable' areas being misreported and the percent of out-of-region homeless being under-reported as a rule. Homeless folks definitely migrate to places that are more tolerant of homelessness and are all around "better" places to be homeless. SF, LA, Seattle, etc. are good places to be homeless. Boulder, CO is a good place to be homeless; they even put folks up in hotels in the winter for free when it is too cold outside. Some people moved to these regions before being homeless, but they moved here for easy access to drugs and the overall drug climate (often not arrested or prosecuted for possession of hard drugs and pot is legal). This is sort of 'pre-homelessness'... their drug addiction was practically guaranteeing they would become homeless eventually. BTW: Governments paying to bus their homeless people somewhere else so "it's not their problem" should be illegal unless tacitly agreement upon by the two regional/municipal governments. This practice is disgusting.
• WeylandYutani 3y ago
  It's the "I'm gonna give you a social welfare check to fuck off" approach. Let's not pretend society really wants to hug these people or employers want to hire them.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• givemeethekeys 3y ago
  > They give you hundreds a month in cash grants (some make $1k a month in SF) and require you to make NO alterations to your lifestyle. If you look up the amount spent per homeless person by SF on homelessness, you'll wonder how it is possible that they're giving away ONLY $1000 per month.
• nonethewiser 3y ago
  Its subsidized, simple as that. Subsidizing creates more. It’s inhumane honestly because homelessness is a real problem.