7 ms·
Homeless Mortality Data
- didgetmaster 3y agoIf I read that right, the mortality rate in the general population in 2020 (1027 per 100k); was higher than that found in the homeless community in 2011 (814 per 100k). Who says the world is not becoming more dangerous (and not just among the homeless)?
- mewpmewp2 3y agoDoesn't 1000 per 100k imply roughly average of 100 age span? Which seems really good to me.
- black_13 3y ago[dead]
- advael 3y agoNo, but I really gotta know how you drew that conclusion
- mewpmewp2 3y agoBecause if you had stable amount of population if people lived to be 100 years old then each year 1000 out of 100k would die.
- advael 3y agoIn this case, I think the assumption that doesn't bear out is "stable amount of population". The relationship between death rate and expected lifespan is likely calculable, but only if you also have either age data or at least approximate change in birthrate data, preferably going back to living memory. We might have that available somewhere, but I don't think your estimate came from having it. Like let's say there's a terrible war, and half of all people die. Can we conclude that most people are dying around 2? This example is extreme, but shows that we at least need some averages over time to start making a case for life expectancy being predicted well by the data
- mewpmewp2 3y agoYes, but also part of my point, that the above author based on these numbers implied that World is getting more dangerous, but firstly as you mentioned these numbers are meaningless if we don't know the exact demographics of the 100k and secondly for a stable 100k these would be really good numbers.
- advael 3y agoMakes sense from that perspective. Thanks for taking the time to clarify
- DefineOutside 3y agoNo because the population skews younger.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoBut even then you can hardly determine that it is a bad or unexpected number, as you would get that number if each year same amount of people were born and died and everyone lived to 100.
- lebean 3y agoThat's weird! Did something happen during 2020???
- forgotmypw17 3y agoIn 2020, the two main sources of life-sustaining resources for people without housing -- public spaces and other people -- were almost entirely cut off.
- cheriot 3y agoIt's a really unfortunate year for comparison. There was that one advantage to being outside... For those not reading the article, > The death rate across all 22 localities increased from 814 per 100,000 homeless residents in 2011, to 2,752 per 100,000 homeless residents in 2020. > Among the general population, the nationwide mortality rate was much lower: 1,027 deaths per 100,000 people in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- roenxi 3y agoIt might "just" be the homeless population is ageing. We really need a model prediction of how we expected the homeless population death rate to change over time. I doubt it is in a steady state. "The number of Californians 55 and older who sought homelessness services soared 84% between 2017 and 2021" (from the article), so something demographic is changing. It'd be interesting to know what happened to their retirement savings.
- brailsafe 3y ago> It'd be interesting to know what happened to their retirement savings. What happened to what retirement savings?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago45% percent of households with members ages 55 to 64 have no savings at all. The median retirement account balance is about $100,000; most middle-class people need $600,000. There are 39 million workers 55 and older in the U.S. Workers 75 and older are the fastest-growing age segment of the workforce. https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/basicfact-alt.pdf https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/basicfact-alt.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20231028173718/https://www.nirsonline.org/2020/01/new-report-40-of-older-americans-rely-solely-on-social-security-for-retirement-income/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231028173718/https://www.nirso... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39448800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39448800 Housing is also wildly unaffordable. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39550922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39550922 (citations)
- kelnos 3y agoA disturbing number of people in the US don't have much retirement savings to speak of. Or any retirement savings at all.
- rickydroll 3y ago> It'd be interesting to know what happened to their retirement savings. Multi-year medical problems leading to bankruptcy and divorce.
- kelnos 3y agoI'm a little confused why you chose those two not-particlarly-comparable data points. More notable -- and horrifying -- is the large rise in the homeless mortality rate between 2011 and 202.
- didgetmaster 3y agoIt was in the article. I am more interested in knowing why the author of the article chose those two particular years. Was 2011 the lowest number out of the last 25? Was 2020 the highest? If they were chosen to cherry-pick the data in order to better support a predetermined conclusion, then the whole study is suspect. Too many people do that on a wide variety of topics and then wonder why readers are so skeptical.
- random6754478 3y ago[flagged]
- earthwalker99 3y agoThis can't be repeated enough. We can't even take care of ourselves.
- kelnos 3y agoMoney alone doesn't fix problems like this. Many cities spend a ton of money on homeless services, but without meaningfully fixing the problem. You need the political will to enact the right sorts of policies, and I firmly believe that to truly fix our homeless problems, we need to fundamentally rethink how society and economies work, which isn't something you do overnight (assuming people even want to do it). Even the more short-term solution of just giving people housing and letting them take the next steps is controversial in the US, for IMO stupid reasons. Taxpayers here don't want to give other people stuff for free, for the most part, even if doing so would make the taxpayers' lives better too. Then again, $200B could house a lot of people. A quick search suggests there's in excess of 650,000 homeless people in the US. I'm sure that's an undercount, so let's round that up to one million. That's $200,000 per homeless person. Some will need more in order to get and stay on their feet (say, people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse issues), and some will need less (like someone who had their working hours reduced and is now coming up short on rent). Of course, that $200B wouldn't go to solving homelessness, even if we didn't have to spend it on other people's religious wars or to fight against other people's imperialist tendencies (yes, I recognize some amount of hypocrisy there). But it's fun to think about what we could do if it did. Ultimately, though, is it more important long-term to help Ukraine than to fix our homeless problem? I don't think there's a clear answer there. I'm not comfortable in a world where people like Putin find little resistance to invading neighboring countries (not to mention other certain dictatorships that will feel emboldened to do the same if the rest of the world doesn't care). I'm really disappointed and saddened by the state of things when people have to live out on the streets, though; that's a pretty big deal.
- Cloudef 3y ago
- Cloudef 3y ago[flagged]
- robobro 3y agoEvery country, now and throughout history, has homelessness. Are all countries failed countries?
- Cloudef 3y agoYes, what do you suppose is the meaning of a country? Whats the point of country if there is no safety or benefit for a person.
- ITB 3y agoThere’s no point to a country. It’s just a form of governance that is in vogue in the 21st century. Like every bureaucracy, a country wants to grow and survive. The homeless is also a very broad term. I think this sort of article doesn’t refer to people that are able and willing to work, but have to live from their cars. It’s usually about people that are often incapable of being a functioning member of society, beyond their housing status. The best way to help these people is not to give them “benefits”. It’s to permanently place them in facilities that can afford them a humane existence. There’s no reasonable amount of “benefit” you can give to some of these people otherwise.
- Cloudef 3y agoNordic countries do something absolutely insane and give these people a home. Unheard of I know right. The only homeless you see are either voluntarily homeless, or part of the mafia that extorts money from people pretending to be homeless (around helsinki its common). But I think it's better to view homes as a investment rather than place for a person to live, it's only way to get the numbers that matter up. Not saying nordic countries are some sort of perfect countries, but it does remind you that if country does not care about you, why should you care about the country.
- 3y ago
- latenightcoding 3y ago>> For many people, living on the streets of California is a death sentence. Canada had few -40C nights this winter, homeless shelters were completely full.
- betaby 3y agoCanada de-facto banned most type of homes/appointments due to regulations and zoning. Both in conjunction makes building housing expensive and slow. Canada is ways past of useful regulations. Over-regulation costs lives.
- deepspace 3y agoWhen we look back at the history of the US, the one practice that stands out is slavery. Today, we can only shake our heads and wonder how so-called civilized people allowed that abomination to continue for as long as it did. How can so many people have looked upon so much human suffering for so long, without lifting a finger? Today, we are forcing people out into the street through low wages and callous layoffs to increase corporate profits. All the while, condoning skyrocketing rents due to the commoditization of housing. Meanwhile, we provide virtually no support for homeless people. We literally leave them out to die in the street, as the article states. This attitude will likely be viewed in a similar light a hundred years from now as we view slavery today.
- infotainment 3y agoSpoken like someone who has never actually encountered a real homeless person, and only has an abstract, idealistic image of what a homeless person might hypothetically be like.
- Riseed 3y agoI am not the commenter to whom you’re replying. But for what it’s worth, I regularly “actually encounter[]” homeless people, and personally interact with at least a few of them multiple times per week. My image of them is neither abstract nor idealistic. I agree with what deepspace wrote.
- devwastaken 3y agoWhen participating in a conversation it is more helpful to first test what you are going to say before saying it. In this case what you have said applies equally to your own statement, and doesn't progress the conversation intellectually. Often if a statement looks like rhetoric, it's because it is. Having worked with, been, and always at the risk of homelessness, OP is half correct. Not everyone is there because they want to get out, but even when you do you're there in the first place because the systems of society are beyond broken.
- Exoristos 3y agoI've volunteered with the homeless for years. Someone doesn't get laid off from a corporate job and go live on the street. These are folks who exhausted the social safety nets, ran out of family members to impose on, ran out of friends' couches -- they're alcohol and drug addicts who burned all their bridges. Many of them have never held jobs at all.
- dzink 3y agoGarry Tan has a lot of X/Twitter posts on the subject. 68% of SF overdose deaths seem to happen inside shelters. Recently one of the shelter workers overdosed as well. There seems to be a massive disconnect between intention and consequences of policies. https://x.com/garrytan/status/1750566946201047218?s=46&t=bGAgVlSkTN1C09uVL3OifQ https://x.com/garrytan/status/1750566946201047218?s=46&t=bGA...
- Geisterde 3y agoI still believe treatment centers would be preferable, I just dont think its reasonable to expect that to happen. Requiring sobriety tests helps, I would suppose, the people that are actually interested in getting better, though many homeless allegedly avoid shelters because of the requirements. I can speculate on a few things that would reduce the rate of homelessness, economy, civil society, religion, but incarceration (where treatment is refused) seems like the only way to stop the cities from bleeding; open air drug use wouldnt be tolerated on private property (and where it is, fine, be my guest, I smoke, at home), it shouldnt be tolerated on public property either, dont be a menace.
- saagarjha 3y agoI don't have the details behind these numbers, but I wonder if the conclusion is sound? Like, a lot of people who die of sickness die in a hospital. I don't think that means that they are doing a poor job.
- tacocataco 3y agoWe could legalize all drugs so people can have access to clean drugs of a known potency.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- daft_pink 3y agoI just wonder in this data if people who are homeless have mental disorders or addiction problems that make them way more likely to die and the problem isn’t that they are homeless, but that they are addicts or have untreated mental illness. Correlation is not causation.
- rasengan0 3y agoWhere is the money going? Round down to ~ 3 Billion https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4808 https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4808 181,399 round up to 250,000 https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/01/california-homeless-point-in-time-count-2024/ https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/01/californ... Simple math = 12000 USD per person - food, shelter, clothing, treatment, burial, etc State actor and industry takes a slice of the profit: https://youtu.be/z6iW1poC-0c?si=EFrK07ew2vaX_yMD https://youtu.be/z6iW1poC-0c?si=EFrK07ew2vaX_yMD Iterate across the country. Almost like historical payback: https://youtu.be/u1dbOf63roI?si=q8fV1fya60abnceX https://youtu.be/u1dbOf63roI?si=q8fV1fya60abnceX
- cheriot 3y agoIn californian cities, the cost of renting an apartment for an otherwise homeless person is a multiple of 12k/year. The same anti-housing policies driving up homeless rates also makes helping them more expensive.