4 ms·

You can vastly improve the success rate if you make an effort to make homeless-reduction initiatives provide options that are not actually worse than being home

by mjn 14y ago

You can vastly improve the success rate if you make an effort to make homeless-reduction initiatives provide options that are not actually worse than being homeless. American homeless shelters are extremely unpleasant and not particularly safe; there is very little effort put into individualized assessment or following up; and there are very few resources oriented towards getting someone back on track in any kind of productive sense. If a country takes harm-reduction more seriously, results improve. The anti-homeless program here in Copenhagen is much more successful than the one in San Francisco, in part because it assigns case workers to specific people, and gives them fairly wide authority to take action as needed, including things such as renting people small apartments, setting them up with counseling, or enrolling them in skills-training programs. This gets many people off the streets. Not everyone, but the success rate is much higher than in SF's case. Not coincidentally, Copenhagen is a lot nicer (and safer) to live in than San Francisco, so the results even benefit us well-off people.

Domenic_S 14y ago
> renting people small apartments This just in: renting homeless people small apartments (and paying rent for them) decreases homelessness. Denmark's safety net is not all roses. A nice article about it: http://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/9-homelessness-in-a-welfare-state-perspectives-from-copenhagen http://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/9-homelessness...
- mjn 14y ago
  Your link appears to argue that Denmark isn't 100% successful in eradicating homelessness, as evidenced by the continued existence of homeless people. That is certainly true, and I acknowledged as much in my comment. My claim is simply that Copenhagen's approach to homelessness is (much) better than San Francisco's approach to homelessness. And yes, the solution is not particularly complex: if you want to get people off the streets, you need to make a credible effort to get them off the streets. Apartments are a good step, partly because they do literally get people off the streets, and partly because they vastly increase the odds of the person getting into some kind of routine: they have an address, regular access to a shower, a place to store possessions with less risk of them being stolen, etc. I'm not arguing it's any kind of magic.
  - Domenic_S 14y ago
    > if you want to get people off the streets, you need to make a credible effort to get them off the streets. I think the goal should be to get people living healthy, satisfying lives, not a simple 'get them off the street'. Some homeless in SF choose to be homeless, and they're explicit about that fact (there was an article about the kids in the park here on HN a few weeks back, I can't find it). The goal of getting homeless off the streets does nothing for that population. So if the goal is to increase the happiness of the well-off folks in a city, then by all means, get people off the streets by renting them apartments. But if the goal is to help the homeless find meaning in their lives by participating in society, that's a whole different ballgame that nobody has solved yet.
    - mjn 14y ago
      Some homeless subcultures do choose homelessness (in Denmark, also). If it were just them, the problem would be small. I'd like to do something about the rest, though. I agree helping homeless find meaning in their lives is different from helping well-off folks. I don't suggest that anyone should be forced into apartments against their will. But I'd make the option available. I would be surprised if SF's homeless are, on the whole, actually happier and more fulfilled than Copenhagen's ex-homeless. So I suspect making the option available to them would benefit them in addition to the rest of us, certainly relative to the status quo, which is bad for everyone.
    - AJ007 14y ago
      Homelessness could be divided in to two groups -- one of necessity and one of autonomy. Separating these reasons seems to be an important start. In general, we see the US as a place even the bottom tier of society can get by without dieing outright in the streets. We produce so much consumable garbage even the non-homeless go dumpster diving (freegans.) Cities such as Detroit are bulldozing thousands of homes that fell apart because they were simply abandoned. In this sense, the US has excess capacity. The second issue becomes one of autonomy. Do we force the homeless out of public parks? As pointed out above a lot of homeless people have mental illness issues (arguably all long term homeless do.) Deinstitutionalization means we just don't lock people away in insane asylums anymore. One thing I've learned from running a business is that its ok for things to be broken some of the time. What we need to be aware of is the little broken things that turn in to big broken things. Homelessness could grow out of control. The monetary and economic growth policies governments pursue can force people out of their homes (legal and extra-legal private property) and in to urban slums. My concern is what happens when "normal" people can no longer afford the cost of living in a wide geographic region. I am a big advocate of deflation, being driving prices lower rather than up. We recognize and expect this in technology. Indeed, that is the very basis of our growth. On the contrary, pretty much the entirety of government policies globally the past 50 years has been optimized solely around growth in annual GDP records. These policies can create big problems as wealth from the working class is re-allocated to the business class through lower interest rates, property forfeiture for development, low bank lending standards, and outright subsidies. Ultimately they have to re-balance but the process is not pretty or enjoyable.

by mjn 14y ago

Domenic_S 14y ago

> renting people small apartments This just in: renting homeless people small apartments (and paying rent for them) decreases homelessness. Denmark's safety net is not all roses. A nice article about it: http://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/9-homelessness-in-a-welfare-state-perspectives-from-copenhagen http://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/9-homelessness...

mjn 14y ago
Your link appears to argue that Denmark isn't 100% successful in eradicating homelessness, as evidenced by the continued existence of homeless people. That is certainly true, and I acknowledged as much in my comment. My claim is simply that Copenhagen's approach to homelessness is (much) better than San Francisco's approach to homelessness. And yes, the solution is not particularly complex: if you want to get people off the streets, you need to make a credible effort to get them off the streets. Apartments are a good step, partly because they do literally get people off the streets, and partly because they vastly increase the odds of the person getting into some kind of routine: they have an address, regular access to a shower, a place to store possessions with less risk of them being stolen, etc. I'm not arguing it's any kind of magic.
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  > if you want to get people off the streets, you need to make a credible effort to get them off the streets. I think the goal should be to get people living healthy, satisfying lives, not a simple 'get them off the street'. Some homeless in SF choose to be homeless, and they're explicit about that fact (there was an article about the kids in the park here on HN a few weeks back, I can't find it). The goal of getting homeless off the streets does nothing for that population. So if the goal is to increase the happiness of the well-off folks in a city, then by all means, get people off the streets by renting them apartments. But if the goal is to help the homeless find meaning in their lives by participating in society, that's a whole different ballgame that nobody has solved yet.
  - mjn 14y ago
    Some homeless subcultures do choose homelessness (in Denmark, also). If it were just them, the problem would be small. I'd like to do something about the rest, though. I agree helping homeless find meaning in their lives is different from helping well-off folks. I don't suggest that anyone should be forced into apartments against their will. But I'd make the option available. I would be surprised if SF's homeless are, on the whole, actually happier and more fulfilled than Copenhagen's ex-homeless. So I suspect making the option available to them would benefit them in addition to the rest of us, certainly relative to the status quo, which is bad for everyone.
  - AJ007 14y ago
    Homelessness could be divided in to two groups -- one of necessity and one of autonomy. Separating these reasons seems to be an important start. In general, we see the US as a place even the bottom tier of society can get by without dieing outright in the streets. We produce so much consumable garbage even the non-homeless go dumpster diving (freegans.) Cities such as Detroit are bulldozing thousands of homes that fell apart because they were simply abandoned. In this sense, the US has excess capacity. The second issue becomes one of autonomy. Do we force the homeless out of public parks? As pointed out above a lot of homeless people have mental illness issues (arguably all long term homeless do.) Deinstitutionalization means we just don't lock people away in insane asylums anymore. One thing I've learned from running a business is that its ok for things to be broken some of the time. What we need to be aware of is the little broken things that turn in to big broken things. Homelessness could grow out of control. The monetary and economic growth policies governments pursue can force people out of their homes (legal and extra-legal private property) and in to urban slums. My concern is what happens when "normal" people can no longer afford the cost of living in a wide geographic region. I am a big advocate of deflation, being driving prices lower rather than up. We recognize and expect this in technology. Indeed, that is the very basis of our growth. On the contrary, pretty much the entirety of government policies globally the past 50 years has been optimized solely around growth in annual GDP records. These policies can create big problems as wealth from the working class is re-allocated to the business class through lower interest rates, property forfeiture for development, low bank lending standards, and outright subsidies. Ultimately they have to re-balance but the process is not pretty or enjoyable.