4 ms·

#3 is not a problem at all as it can be trivially enforced. #2 its hard to imagine someone being more comfortable on the street that in a housing provided by t

#3 is not a problem at all as it can be trivially enforced. #2 its hard to imagine someone being more comfortable on the street that in a housing provided by the gov. They don't pay bill/rent there so no anathema here.And when they start having income - pretty sure most will gladly pay rent/bills to not lose their comfort as people get used to comfort very very quickly.

spondyl 3y ago
> #2 its hard to imagine someone being more comfortable on the street that in a housing provided by the gov First off, the following is all anecdotal based on some articles I read a few years back now so take it with a grain of salt. New York had a program to house the homeless in hotels after running the numbers and concluding it would be cheaper to do so in the long run compared to the medical expenses and so on incurred. As part of that, I believe somewhere between 5 - 10% of people would persistently return to the streets despite having shelter provided. Most homeless are people in a dark period of their lives and get back on their feet with some aid to break the bootstrapping problem. A small portion however are considered to always end up there despite any help for whatever reason whether it's mental illness, drug use and so on. Of course, I'm not citing any links and I'm probably misremembering so I'd encourage you to do some more searching if you're interested. It seems like the NYC Hotel program was disestablished recently too.
alt227 3y ago
#3 is in fact a massive problem and the reason 90% of shelters shut down. Most of the homeless people I have ever spoken to avoid government welfare centers and homeless shelters purely because they attract the type of people who take advantage of the genuinely vulnerable people who are looking for help. They say that they feel much safer out on the street and that their stuff is much less likely to be stolen than in a shelter. I have known more than one person who has been involved in setting up a charity and shelter for the homeless with the best of intentions, only for it to close a year later due to violence and drug reelated crime.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Sounds like a difference between providing shelters for some vs. individual homes for all.
  - alt227 3y ago
    Not really. Vulnerable people are already suceptable to 'cuckooing' right now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckooing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckooing As soon as you put some vulnerable people in an isolated setting, they get preyed upon by others looking to take advantage. There are many reasons why somebody would want to use somebody elses home for illegal activity, and scooping up people off the street and putting them in indivudal homes is a massive danger for those who are not able to deal with confrontation. There is already not enough staff or funding to enforce against this. A huge increase in extra housing provided for the homeless would need to come along side a much larger financial package to support the enforcement of it. This may sound like doom and gloom, but it is the not taking this into account or planning for it which has caused the downfall of most if not all housing initiatives for the homeless.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      A drug raid like the ones I mentioned happened in my own community, against an apartment where I knew several of the tenants. It was tragic. I came home one night, rounded a corner, and a cop with an assault rifle suggested to me that it might be better to stay put, to which I readily agreed. Someone was stabbed on my doorstep on Holy Saturday one year, apparently about a marijuana sale. After I moved out (thank GOD), I received a notice from the courthouse that said I may be called as a witness for something I didn't remember, which came to nothing. There were a couple of shady Muslim dudes who stalked the Catholic Church I attended. One day Mr. Shady encountered me Downtown and summoned me to his home. Who knows why I agreed (well, I was homeless, hungry, and vulnerable.) At his home, I found a Quran on the shelf, a pistol under his sofa cushion when he brandished it for me, and the centerpiece was a computer he wanted me to work on and install software which was obviously pirated. He rewarded me with fried chicken. Ugh, I shiver to imagine getting caught up in that again.
vidarh 3y ago
#2 is very easy to imagine when you consider that a typical problem with shelters vs. "housing first" is that shelters traditionally comes with all kinds of strings attached. It seems a lot of the objections to the "housing first" approach here are people assuming shelters rather than individual homes meant to fix the issue that shelters don't work.

spondyl 3y ago

> #2 its hard to imagine someone being more comfortable on the street that in a housing provided by the gov First off, the following is all anecdotal based on some articles I read a few years back now so take it with a grain of salt. New York had a program to house the homeless in hotels after running the numbers and concluding it would be cheaper to do so in the long run compared to the medical expenses and so on incurred. As part of that, I believe somewhere between 5 - 10% of people would persistently return to the streets despite having shelter provided. Most homeless are people in a dark period of their lives and get back on their feet with some aid to break the bootstrapping problem. A small portion however are considered to always end up there despite any help for whatever reason whether it's mental illness, drug use and so on. Of course, I'm not citing any links and I'm probably misremembering so I'd encourage you to do some more searching if you're interested. It seems like the NYC Hotel program was disestablished recently too.

alt227 3y ago

#3 is in fact a massive problem and the reason 90% of shelters shut down. Most of the homeless people I have ever spoken to avoid government welfare centers and homeless shelters purely because they attract the type of people who take advantage of the genuinely vulnerable people who are looking for help. They say that they feel much safer out on the street and that their stuff is much less likely to be stolen than in a shelter. I have known more than one person who has been involved in setting up a charity and shelter for the homeless with the best of intentions, only for it to close a year later due to violence and drug reelated crime.

vidarh 3y ago
Sounds like a difference between providing shelters for some vs. individual homes for all.
- alt227 3y ago
  Not really. Vulnerable people are already suceptable to 'cuckooing' right now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckooing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckooing As soon as you put some vulnerable people in an isolated setting, they get preyed upon by others looking to take advantage. There are many reasons why somebody would want to use somebody elses home for illegal activity, and scooping up people off the street and putting them in indivudal homes is a massive danger for those who are not able to deal with confrontation. There is already not enough staff or funding to enforce against this. A huge increase in extra housing provided for the homeless would need to come along side a much larger financial package to support the enforcement of it. This may sound like doom and gloom, but it is the not taking this into account or planning for it which has caused the downfall of most if not all housing initiatives for the homeless.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    A drug raid like the ones I mentioned happened in my own community, against an apartment where I knew several of the tenants. It was tragic. I came home one night, rounded a corner, and a cop with an assault rifle suggested to me that it might be better to stay put, to which I readily agreed. Someone was stabbed on my doorstep on Holy Saturday one year, apparently about a marijuana sale. After I moved out (thank GOD), I received a notice from the courthouse that said I may be called as a witness for something I didn't remember, which came to nothing. There were a couple of shady Muslim dudes who stalked the Catholic Church I attended. One day Mr. Shady encountered me Downtown and summoned me to his home. Who knows why I agreed (well, I was homeless, hungry, and vulnerable.) At his home, I found a Quran on the shelf, a pistol under his sofa cushion when he brandished it for me, and the centerpiece was a computer he wanted me to work on and install software which was obviously pirated. He rewarded me with fried chicken. Ugh, I shiver to imagine getting caught up in that again.

vidarh 3y ago

#2 is very easy to imagine when you consider that a typical problem with shelters vs. "housing first" is that shelters traditionally comes with all kinds of strings attached. It seems a lot of the objections to the "housing first" approach here are people assuming shelters rather than individual homes meant to fix the issue that shelters don't work.