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It's certainly an element, but that's largely washing your hands and victim blaming. There's a direct correlation between housing costs and homelessness rates.

It's certainly an element, but that's largely washing your hands and victim blaming. There's a direct correlation between housing costs and homelessness rates. Update, here's a reference: https://endhomelessness.org/blog/new-research-quantifies-link-housing-affordability-homelessness/ https://endhomelessness.org/blog/new-research-quantifies-lin...

khazhoux 3y ago
Where’s the “victim-blaming”? From the reporting I’ve seen, the vast majority of folks on Skid Row or on the street in SF are heavy addicts. And they refuse shelters because then they couldn’t use. How does more housing help them?
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  Dry shelters are arguably a massive part of the problem. You fix the housing issue first, make their lives less fucking miserable, then it’s easier to get someone to accept help for their drug addiction. You can’t “cure” an addict who isn’t ready to be “helped”.
  - paisawalla 3y ago
    > Dry shelters are arguably a massive part of the problem. As someone who has housed and lived close to addicts, to put it plainly: this is a naive, academic view. Dry shelter are "a massive part of the problem"? Absolutely incorrect, and harmfully ignorant if implemented at societal scale. As someone who provided food and shelter to an addict in my own home, guaranteeing these things does nothing to increase the willingness to quit heroin. Material deprivation may cause you to seek drugs, but remedying deprivation does not lead to recovery. In fact, I honestly believe offering it unconditionally hampers it.
    - p_j_w 3y ago
      >this is a naive, academic view Academic maybe, but that's a hell of a lot better than one person who thinks their personal anecdote is more powerful than scientific evidence.
      - paisawalla 3y ago
        If your understanding of the scientific evidence is that it supports "dry shelters are harmful and their existence exacerbates heroin addiction," then I think that's a good argument in favor of the inclusion of anecdotes on this topic.
        p_j_w 3y ago
        If your understanding of the scientific method and critical inquiry amounts to "if you have some belief I don't like then anecdotes are useful" then you need to level up your understanding of the scientific method and critical inquiry.
        paisawalla 3y ago
        That is not my understanding.
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  1. Homeless are drug addicts. 2. Therefore, the homelessness is caused by drug addiction. Not exactly sound reasoning. Plenty of people with mental illness and drug addiction still manage to pay rent. No one disputes the rates of addiction and mental illness among the homeless. California has neither the highest rates for drug addiction/overdoses nor the highest rates of mental illness, yet it has the highest rate of homelessness. There is no correlation between rates of mental illness and rates of homelessness. There is no correlation between drug addiction rates and homelessness. There is a strong Correlation between rents and homelessness. Why? Being mentally ill and a drug addict doesn't automatically make you homeless in an area where rent for a room is $400/month.
  - nfw2 3y ago
    "Rates of mental illness among people who are homeless in the United States are twice the rate found for the general population" https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/homelessness-health https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/homelessne...
    - ZoomerCretin 3y ago
      You've completely missed the point. These people aren't homeless in cheaper housing markets.
- specialist 3y ago
  What percentage of the unhoused are on Skid Row?
- slg 3y ago
  From a census of homeless people in LA county a few years back[1]: 15% of LA's homeless population has substance abuse problems. Only 12% of these people are in shelters. 25% have serious mental illnesses. 20% of these people are in shelters. Overall 33% of homeless people are in shelters. So you are partially right that drug use and mental health issues can make sheltering some people more difficult. But you are very wrong that people with either of these issues make up a majority of all homeless people. It is just classic confirmation bias in that people with these issues are the most visibly homeless. The people who are living in their car or a shelter and simply can't afford a home aren't easily identifiable as homeless when you walk past them on the street. This can also be seen in the previously linked data as only 28% of LA's homeless population qualifies as chronically homeless. Basically you are only able to see a small portion of the problem and are assuming that is the whole problem when in actuality homelessness is roughly 4x worse. [1] - https://www.lahsa.org/documents?id=3423-2019-greater-los-angeles-homeless-count-los-angeles-county.pdf https://www.lahsa.org/documents?id=3423-2019-greater-los-ang...
nfw2 3y ago
I agree blaming the homeless is oversimplifying a complicated issue, but I don't think it's evident that shortage of housing is the primary cause. There are plausible explanations for non-causal correlations between housing costs and homelessness. For example: - homeless tend towards warm climates, which have higher housing costs because most people prefer warm climates - homeless tend towards cities, where they can more easily find support. Cities also have higher costs of living because they are densely populated Looking at the list of cities with the most homelessness per capita, the vast majority of them are temperate year-round. http://www.citymayors.com/society/usa-cities-homelessness.html http://www.citymayors.com/society/usa-cities-homelessness.ht...
- jimbobimbo 3y ago
  >Cities also have higher costs of living because they are densely populated Isn't population density supposed to introduce efficiencies that would lead to lowering costs? I think, that's the usual argument against suburban sprawl.

khazhoux 3y ago

Where’s the “victim-blaming”? From the reporting I’ve seen, the vast majority of folks on Skid Row or on the street in SF are heavy addicts. And they refuse shelters because then they couldn’t use. How does more housing help them?

fullspectrumdev 3y ago
Dry shelters are arguably a massive part of the problem. You fix the housing issue first, make their lives less fucking miserable, then it’s easier to get someone to accept help for their drug addiction. You can’t “cure” an addict who isn’t ready to be “helped”.
- paisawalla 3y ago
  > Dry shelters are arguably a massive part of the problem. As someone who has housed and lived close to addicts, to put it plainly: this is a naive, academic view. Dry shelter are "a massive part of the problem"? Absolutely incorrect, and harmfully ignorant if implemented at societal scale. As someone who provided food and shelter to an addict in my own home, guaranteeing these things does nothing to increase the willingness to quit heroin. Material deprivation may cause you to seek drugs, but remedying deprivation does not lead to recovery. In fact, I honestly believe offering it unconditionally hampers it.
  - p_j_w 3y ago
    >this is a naive, academic view Academic maybe, but that's a hell of a lot better than one person who thinks their personal anecdote is more powerful than scientific evidence.
    - paisawalla 3y ago
      If your understanding of the scientific evidence is that it supports "dry shelters are harmful and their existence exacerbates heroin addiction," then I think that's a good argument in favor of the inclusion of anecdotes on this topic.
      - p_j_w 3y ago
        If your understanding of the scientific method and critical inquiry amounts to "if you have some belief I don't like then anecdotes are useful" then you need to level up your understanding of the scientific method and critical inquiry.
        paisawalla 3y ago
        That is not my understanding.
ZoomerCretin 3y ago
1. Homeless are drug addicts. 2. Therefore, the homelessness is caused by drug addiction. Not exactly sound reasoning. Plenty of people with mental illness and drug addiction still manage to pay rent. No one disputes the rates of addiction and mental illness among the homeless. California has neither the highest rates for drug addiction/overdoses nor the highest rates of mental illness, yet it has the highest rate of homelessness. There is no correlation between rates of mental illness and rates of homelessness. There is no correlation between drug addiction rates and homelessness. There is a strong Correlation between rents and homelessness. Why? Being mentally ill and a drug addict doesn't automatically make you homeless in an area where rent for a room is $400/month.
- nfw2 3y ago
  "Rates of mental illness among people who are homeless in the United States are twice the rate found for the general population" https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/homelessness-health https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/homelessne...
  - ZoomerCretin 3y ago
    You've completely missed the point. These people aren't homeless in cheaper housing markets.
specialist 3y ago
What percentage of the unhoused are on Skid Row?
slg 3y ago
From a census of homeless people in LA county a few years back[1]: 15% of LA's homeless population has substance abuse problems. Only 12% of these people are in shelters. 25% have serious mental illnesses. 20% of these people are in shelters. Overall 33% of homeless people are in shelters. So you are partially right that drug use and mental health issues can make sheltering some people more difficult. But you are very wrong that people with either of these issues make up a majority of all homeless people. It is just classic confirmation bias in that people with these issues are the most visibly homeless. The people who are living in their car or a shelter and simply can't afford a home aren't easily identifiable as homeless when you walk past them on the street. This can also be seen in the previously linked data as only 28% of LA's homeless population qualifies as chronically homeless. Basically you are only able to see a small portion of the problem and are assuming that is the whole problem when in actuality homelessness is roughly 4x worse. [1] - https://www.lahsa.org/documents?id=3423-2019-greater-los-angeles-homeless-count-los-angeles-county.pdf https://www.lahsa.org/documents?id=3423-2019-greater-los-ang...

nfw2 3y ago

I agree blaming the homeless is oversimplifying a complicated issue, but I don't think it's evident that shortage of housing is the primary cause. There are plausible explanations for non-causal correlations between housing costs and homelessness. For example: - homeless tend towards warm climates, which have higher housing costs because most people prefer warm climates - homeless tend towards cities, where they can more easily find support. Cities also have higher costs of living because they are densely populated Looking at the list of cities with the most homelessness per capita, the vast majority of them are temperate year-round. http://www.citymayors.com/society/usa-cities-homelessness.html http://www.citymayors.com/society/usa-cities-homelessness.ht...

jimbobimbo 3y ago
>Cities also have higher costs of living because they are densely populated Isn't population density supposed to introduce efficiencies that would lead to lowering costs? I think, that's the usual argument against suburban sprawl.