4 ms·

The past 6-7 years or so I personally noticed a steep increase in homelessness in most metropolitan areas I visited and then slowly started to see an increase i

The past 6-7 years or so I personally noticed a steep increase in homelessness in most metropolitan areas I visited and then slowly started to see an increase in homelessness in the surrounding areas. What was never clear to me was whether there was a genuine increase in homelessness or a change in policy/culture surrounding the "management" of homelessness. This article describes a mixed picture of homelessness (i.e. increases in some areas and decreases in other areas) which suggests to me that we have a policy problem that has a risk to create a feedback loop. It feels to me that homelessness is more "tolerated" these days. If someone is sleeping in front of the metro station entrance we have a "leave them be" kind of attitude. I wonder if this correlates to a reduction in homelessness management systems like described in the article "less beds". If we're okay with homeless people camping on our trails and in our parks maybe there is less incentive to spend money on creating other places for them to go. Then with less places to go we have more homeless people so then we have less incentive to create places for them to go. Makes me speculate if tolerance is part of the problem here. If culturally we found homelessness intolerable then we would be more motivated to solve it.

kavavita 3y ago
You are correct that there was a legal change in what cities could do to punish homeless folks: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/23748522/tent-encampments-martin-boise-homelessness-housing https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/23748522/tent-encampments-m... I don’t think homelessness should be tolerated. That said, homeless people definitely deserve our tolerance and compassion.
joeythedolphin 3y ago
Homeless people are majority men, and we are a long way to having social discussion about helping men. At least in the US, the predominant view is that homeless men on the streets is a good thing, a sort of superiority/inferiority complex in our society. Not good like "we like this social problem" but good like "they deserve it" and the solution is to eliminate it from your eyes and city, a sort of homeless genocide of inferior men who do not deserve support. My brother was homeless and he'd send me pictures of all the spikes that cities built just to prevent homeless people from resting (US-biased)
- corinroyal 3y ago
  > At least in the US, the predominant view is that homeless men on the streets is a good thing I've been homeless a lot and literally never heard this view until now. Asserted and dismissed without evidence. > we are a long way to having social discussion about helping men. Are we? Which men? With which problems? I hear this argument all the time from anti-feminists. MRM propagandists often make an argument like, "Almost all the domestic violence shelters are for women. You feminists only care about women." The response from feminists is generally, "Feel free to get to work." But of course, MRM people don't care about men's suffering under sexism, they care about bashing feminists, so they don't do any organizing. This dynamic would be funnier if it weren't so sad. So what are you personally doing to address the suffering of men under sexism? I mean, aside from alienating your natural allies?
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    > I hear this argument all the time from anti-feminists. MRM propagandists often make an argument like, "Almost all the domestic violence shelters are for women. You feminists only care about women." The response from feminists is generally, "Feel free to get to work." But of course, MRM people don't care about men's suffering under sexism, they care about bashing feminists, so they don't do any organizing. This dynamic would be funnier if it weren't so sad. Painting the above poster with an anti-feminist brush is uncharitable. Disposable male theory isn't incompatible with a feminist perspective. I realize it's a mens rights talking point, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. My take: Patriarchy reinforces male supremacy which puts men in positions of power, and prioritizes the needs of men at a societal level; but men without power (as well as non-white, non-straight, non-"traditionally masculine" men) are also victims of patriarchy, and face challenges specific to men. I'd point you to the /r/menslib subreddit which was a great, anti-men's rights, intersectional, and feminist-allied discussion forum for men's issues, but they've unfortunately gone dark. For a brief introduction, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement at least edit: Here's a fascinating video essay deconstructing the toxic masculinity of Andrew Tate, and how patriarchy affects men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6_TOFy3k6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6_TOFy3k6k I found it on /r/breadtube, but it's definitely the type of fare common on /r/menslib
Hermitian909 3y ago
I volunteer with the homeless in the Bay Area and am tapped into the "scene" as it were and so can speak to this. Absolute numbers of homelessness are on the rise, in the Bay Area there was a dramatic uptick in COVID. This is in part due to rising housing costs and because homelessness is a "cumulative" problem. The most common outcomes for homeless people are either get it together after 2-4 years or become so damaged they're never able to re-enter society. We've been accumulating at an ever increasing rate since the 90s. Visibility is also due to "management" side as you called it. IMO the driving force is the Supreme Court decision Martin v. Boise which forbids criminalizing homelessness. Previously a lot homeless were hidden out of necessity, being visible meant that police would confiscate your belongings and either jail you or move you forcefully. It's now quite easy to get restraining orders against cities who try to do this and people are doing it. For an example of how this can go see this article[0] on a Sausalito homeless encampment. The city spent north of $2 million trying and failing to disperse a homeless encampment. > If culturally we found homelessness intolerable then we would be more motivated to solve it. Plenty of people are deeply intolerant of the homeless, but the reaction is usually to hurt not help. Homeless people I know are regularly brutalized by the police and even by ordinary citizens. The blocker here is that a large number of Americans don't believe that the state has a role in providing the necessities for life. This means its hard to fund programs and even if you do there's no institutional expertise to run them with any competency. IMO we're decades away from a solution. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sausalito-homeless-encampment-17531723.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sausalito-homele...
corinroyal 3y ago
I came to HN for the tech discussion but stay to watch the train wreck whenever tech workers try their hand at humanities. Sure, maybe if we were even more cruel to one of societies most hated groups, we could make them disappear from view. Perhaps we should just move fast and disrupt homelessness with a solution that removes their suffering and provides a real benefit to normal, respectable people. Let's turn the homeless into into protein bars and hand them out at the Google HQ commissary. Kidding aside, don't speculate--educate yourself. Then you would at least recognize when you say ridiculous and cruel things about people you don't like, don't know, and never bothered to understand.
- lazypenguin 3y ago
  What are you going on about? Please get off your high horse. Your disparaging comments have contributing nothing to the conversation except to virtue signal your alleged moral superiority. Perhaps instead of going online and lecturing people you could take a moment to read more critically. To extend my original comment further, my commentary was in regards to the phenomenon of homelessness rather than an attack on homeless individuals. We tolerate homelessness in so much as that when we come across a homeless individual we might be give them some money, a warm meal, some clothes or other things. This doesn't solve their troubles, this only continues their state of being. If homelessness as a state of being was truly culturally intolerable then we would be forced to find solutions to the root problem rather than simply making platitudes towards those suffering from homelessness.

kavavita 3y ago

You are correct that there was a legal change in what cities could do to punish homeless folks: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/23748522/tent-encampments-martin-boise-homelessness-housing https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/23748522/tent-encampments-m... I don’t think homelessness should be tolerated. That said, homeless people definitely deserve our tolerance and compassion.

joeythedolphin 3y ago

Homeless people are majority men, and we are a long way to having social discussion about helping men. At least in the US, the predominant view is that homeless men on the streets is a good thing, a sort of superiority/inferiority complex in our society. Not good like "we like this social problem" but good like "they deserve it" and the solution is to eliminate it from your eyes and city, a sort of homeless genocide of inferior men who do not deserve support. My brother was homeless and he'd send me pictures of all the spikes that cities built just to prevent homeless people from resting (US-biased)

corinroyal 3y ago
> At least in the US, the predominant view is that homeless men on the streets is a good thing I've been homeless a lot and literally never heard this view until now. Asserted and dismissed without evidence. > we are a long way to having social discussion about helping men. Are we? Which men? With which problems? I hear this argument all the time from anti-feminists. MRM propagandists often make an argument like, "Almost all the domestic violence shelters are for women. You feminists only care about women." The response from feminists is generally, "Feel free to get to work." But of course, MRM people don't care about men's suffering under sexism, they care about bashing feminists, so they don't do any organizing. This dynamic would be funnier if it weren't so sad. So what are you personally doing to address the suffering of men under sexism? I mean, aside from alienating your natural allies?
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  > I hear this argument all the time from anti-feminists. MRM propagandists often make an argument like, "Almost all the domestic violence shelters are for women. You feminists only care about women." The response from feminists is generally, "Feel free to get to work." But of course, MRM people don't care about men's suffering under sexism, they care about bashing feminists, so they don't do any organizing. This dynamic would be funnier if it weren't so sad. Painting the above poster with an anti-feminist brush is uncharitable. Disposable male theory isn't incompatible with a feminist perspective. I realize it's a mens rights talking point, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. My take: Patriarchy reinforces male supremacy which puts men in positions of power, and prioritizes the needs of men at a societal level; but men without power (as well as non-white, non-straight, non-"traditionally masculine" men) are also victims of patriarchy, and face challenges specific to men. I'd point you to the /r/menslib subreddit which was a great, anti-men's rights, intersectional, and feminist-allied discussion forum for men's issues, but they've unfortunately gone dark. For a brief introduction, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement at least edit: Here's a fascinating video essay deconstructing the toxic masculinity of Andrew Tate, and how patriarchy affects men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6_TOFy3k6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6_TOFy3k6k I found it on /r/breadtube, but it's definitely the type of fare common on /r/menslib

Hermitian909 3y ago

I volunteer with the homeless in the Bay Area and am tapped into the "scene" as it were and so can speak to this. Absolute numbers of homelessness are on the rise, in the Bay Area there was a dramatic uptick in COVID. This is in part due to rising housing costs and because homelessness is a "cumulative" problem. The most common outcomes for homeless people are either get it together after 2-4 years or become so damaged they're never able to re-enter society. We've been accumulating at an ever increasing rate since the 90s. Visibility is also due to "management" side as you called it. IMO the driving force is the Supreme Court decision Martin v. Boise which forbids criminalizing homelessness. Previously a lot homeless were hidden out of necessity, being visible meant that police would confiscate your belongings and either jail you or move you forcefully. It's now quite easy to get restraining orders against cities who try to do this and people are doing it. For an example of how this can go see this article[0] on a Sausalito homeless encampment. The city spent north of $2 million trying and failing to disperse a homeless encampment. > If culturally we found homelessness intolerable then we would be more motivated to solve it. Plenty of people are deeply intolerant of the homeless, but the reaction is usually to hurt not help. Homeless people I know are regularly brutalized by the police and even by ordinary citizens. The blocker here is that a large number of Americans don't believe that the state has a role in providing the necessities for life. This means its hard to fund programs and even if you do there's no institutional expertise to run them with any competency. IMO we're decades away from a solution. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sausalito-homeless-encampment-17531723.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sausalito-homele...

corinroyal 3y ago

I came to HN for the tech discussion but stay to watch the train wreck whenever tech workers try their hand at humanities. Sure, maybe if we were even more cruel to one of societies most hated groups, we could make them disappear from view. Perhaps we should just move fast and disrupt homelessness with a solution that removes their suffering and provides a real benefit to normal, respectable people. Let's turn the homeless into into protein bars and hand them out at the Google HQ commissary. Kidding aside, don't speculate--educate yourself. Then you would at least recognize when you say ridiculous and cruel things about people you don't like, don't know, and never bothered to understand.

lazypenguin 3y ago
What are you going on about? Please get off your high horse. Your disparaging comments have contributing nothing to the conversation except to virtue signal your alleged moral superiority. Perhaps instead of going online and lecturing people you could take a moment to read more critically. To extend my original comment further, my commentary was in regards to the phenomenon of homelessness rather than an attack on homeless individuals. We tolerate homelessness in so much as that when we come across a homeless individual we might be give them some money, a warm meal, some clothes or other things. This doesn't solve their troubles, this only continues their state of being. If homelessness as a state of being was truly culturally intolerable then we would be forced to find solutions to the root problem rather than simply making platitudes towards those suffering from homelessness.