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They'll also refuse to house you if you have a pet, smell like alcohol, have a tent, or they just filled up already. There is rarely consistency in a shelter, s

They'll also refuse to house you if you have a pet, smell like alcohol, have a tent, or they just filled up already. There is rarely consistency in a shelter, so most are better off finding an alternative that's consistent. Otherwise you end up with no shelter some nights, with no way to manage it. I can't stand how everyone keeps brushing over the fact that it's completely legal to clear an encampment if there's somewhere for them to go. Instead of immediately starting housing first initiatives; these cities pretend there's nothing they can do and continue to sue for the right to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on their citizens. It's insane.

bradleyjg 3y ago
If you lost your job and couldn’t find another one, you’d land on a couch somewhere. Most of us would. Other people may be glossing over some legal technicality but the “it’s easy, we just need to spend more money” crowd constantly and deliberately glosses over the fact that the population we are talking about are not people down on their luck and just need a helping hand to get back on their feet. They are people that have alienated everyone in their lives and that no else in this world—-including each other—-wants to share space with.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- thecrash 3y ago
  > If you lost your job and couldn’t find another one, you’d land on a couch somewhere. Most of us would. Another way of saying this is that your safety net is the excess capacity of your social network. If your network is composed of people with stable jobs and guest rooms, it's practically guaranteed that someone will accommodate you for as long as you need. After taking all the time you need to get back on your feet, you will probably pay it forward to others in your social network. If your social network is composed of people with low income, lots of dependents, and unstable housing, it's less likely. Sometimes because your peers have no capacity to help, but mostly because the network is already saturated - you're not the only one of your friends who needs a couch and a ride to work. A term to describe this phenomenon is "class", which is a concept so thoroughly erased from American culture that we have to rediscover it through thought exercises like this.
  - rufus_foreman 3y ago
    >> If your network is composed of people with stable jobs and guest rooms, it's practically guaranteed that someone will accommodate you for as long as you need I had a stable job, had plenty of room for someone to stay over, had people in my network that were junkies, and no way would I ever let them in my house. That would be insane. Best case, they steal my shit to buy drugs, that is the most favorable possible outcome, worst case they OD in my bathroom. There's nothing you can do. But no, you can't "accommodate" them.
    - theossuary 3y ago
      Why did you bring up drug addicts, when nobody else mentioned it? We were talking about losing your job and couch surfing, and your immediate response was "no way I'd let a junky into my house." Do you think that everyone that ended up homeless (living out of their cars or couch surfing) deserved it due to some personal failing? That's the usual conservative line, but they tend not to be so forward about it, so I'm curious
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Aye. Studies have shown that a lot of "homeless" folks are couch crashing, sleeping in cars, or have other made-do options. Some people make it work, but most of the time people are stuck there, and are often one bad argument away from being on the street.
- BryantD 3y ago
  Well, most of the commenters on HN would. But more than 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and the cost of giving a friend shelter is not just space on a couch. If the friend is broke, you're absorbing their food costs. Maybe not a big deal for a few weeks, of course. But when highly competent software engineers are out of work for months... Plus the pandemic exacerbated the problem a fair bit. And no, spending more money isn't easy. There's nothing easy about this. I think Housing First is the right solution because it works, not because it's trivial.
asdff 3y ago
Cities are trying to build what they can get political will to build, but the scale and costs of what has recently been done so far are unbelievable. County of LA voters already voted to tax themselves over a billion dollars for homeless services and shelters. An audit recently found they were spending some half a million per unit on new shelter projects (1). There are by recent counts 75,000 homeless people in LA county, so at the prices LAHSA has been paying for new shelter beds the county would need to spend almost 40 billion dollars. That is the size of the entire LA county budget for reference. 1. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-23/city-controller-audit-los-angeles-homelessness https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-23/city-con...
majormajor 3y ago
> I can't stand how everyone keeps brushing over the fact that it's completely legal to clear an encampment if there's somewhere for them to go. There's a whole world outside any given city. We shouldn't brush over this fact either. If cities face restrictions on public space they'll just continue to turn their public spaces over to private entities who don't have to follow such rules which is its own kind of dystopia and not one that would be any more friendly to the struggling poor.
rufus_foreman 3y ago
>> these cities pretend there's nothing they can do and continue to sue for the right to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on their citizens The punishment for vagrancy was the same as the typical punishment for many other crimes - a short stay in jail or a fine. That's neither cruel nor unusual. Far from being unusual, it is a completely ordinary punishment. The cruel and unusual punishment clause was intended by the authors the Constitution to prohibit the use of torture in order to get a confession. The founders were worried about things like the Inquisition or the use of torture devices like the rack. The 9th Circuit completely ignored the original meaning of the Constitution, as it has done in so many other cases. Hopefully the Supreme Court will uphold the rule of law here, instead of continuing to allow the judicial branch to usurp the functions of the legislative branch by ignoring or misinterpreting the law in order to enact its own policy decisions.

bradleyjg 3y ago

If you lost your job and couldn’t find another one, you’d land on a couch somewhere. Most of us would. Other people may be glossing over some legal technicality but the “it’s easy, we just need to spend more money” crowd constantly and deliberately glosses over the fact that the population we are talking about are not people down on their luck and just need a helping hand to get back on their feet. They are people that have alienated everyone in their lives and that no else in this world—-including each other—-wants to share space with.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thecrash 3y ago
> If you lost your job and couldn’t find another one, you’d land on a couch somewhere. Most of us would. Another way of saying this is that your safety net is the excess capacity of your social network. If your network is composed of people with stable jobs and guest rooms, it's practically guaranteed that someone will accommodate you for as long as you need. After taking all the time you need to get back on your feet, you will probably pay it forward to others in your social network. If your social network is composed of people with low income, lots of dependents, and unstable housing, it's less likely. Sometimes because your peers have no capacity to help, but mostly because the network is already saturated - you're not the only one of your friends who needs a couch and a ride to work. A term to describe this phenomenon is "class", which is a concept so thoroughly erased from American culture that we have to rediscover it through thought exercises like this.
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  >> If your network is composed of people with stable jobs and guest rooms, it's practically guaranteed that someone will accommodate you for as long as you need I had a stable job, had plenty of room for someone to stay over, had people in my network that were junkies, and no way would I ever let them in my house. That would be insane. Best case, they steal my shit to buy drugs, that is the most favorable possible outcome, worst case they OD in my bathroom. There's nothing you can do. But no, you can't "accommodate" them.
  - theossuary 3y ago
    Why did you bring up drug addicts, when nobody else mentioned it? We were talking about losing your job and couch surfing, and your immediate response was "no way I'd let a junky into my house." Do you think that everyone that ended up homeless (living out of their cars or couch surfing) deserved it due to some personal failing? That's the usual conservative line, but they tend not to be so forward about it, so I'm curious
red-iron-pine 3y ago
Aye. Studies have shown that a lot of "homeless" folks are couch crashing, sleeping in cars, or have other made-do options. Some people make it work, but most of the time people are stuck there, and are often one bad argument away from being on the street.
BryantD 3y ago
Well, most of the commenters on HN would. But more than 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and the cost of giving a friend shelter is not just space on a couch. If the friend is broke, you're absorbing their food costs. Maybe not a big deal for a few weeks, of course. But when highly competent software engineers are out of work for months... Plus the pandemic exacerbated the problem a fair bit. And no, spending more money isn't easy. There's nothing easy about this. I think Housing First is the right solution because it works, not because it's trivial.

asdff 3y ago

Cities are trying to build what they can get political will to build, but the scale and costs of what has recently been done so far are unbelievable. County of LA voters already voted to tax themselves over a billion dollars for homeless services and shelters. An audit recently found they were spending some half a million per unit on new shelter projects (1). There are by recent counts 75,000 homeless people in LA county, so at the prices LAHSA has been paying for new shelter beds the county would need to spend almost 40 billion dollars. That is the size of the entire LA county budget for reference. 1. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-23/city-controller-audit-los-angeles-homelessness https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-23/city-con...

majormajor 3y ago

> I can't stand how everyone keeps brushing over the fact that it's completely legal to clear an encampment if there's somewhere for them to go. There's a whole world outside any given city. We shouldn't brush over this fact either. If cities face restrictions on public space they'll just continue to turn their public spaces over to private entities who don't have to follow such rules which is its own kind of dystopia and not one that would be any more friendly to the struggling poor.

rufus_foreman 3y ago

>> these cities pretend there's nothing they can do and continue to sue for the right to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on their citizens The punishment for vagrancy was the same as the typical punishment for many other crimes - a short stay in jail or a fine. That's neither cruel nor unusual. Far from being unusual, it is a completely ordinary punishment. The cruel and unusual punishment clause was intended by the authors the Constitution to prohibit the use of torture in order to get a confession. The founders were worried about things like the Inquisition or the use of torture devices like the rack. The 9th Circuit completely ignored the original meaning of the Constitution, as it has done in so many other cases. Hopefully the Supreme Court will uphold the rule of law here, instead of continuing to allow the judicial branch to usurp the functions of the legislative branch by ignoring or misinterpreting the law in order to enact its own policy decisions.