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IMHO this article is pretty one sided. In general, homelessness is terrible, there are very few people who will dispute that. What is in dispute is how to dea

by bifrost 13y ago

IMHO this article is pretty one sided. In general, homelessness is terrible, there are very few people who will dispute that. What is in dispute is how to deal with it. There are undoubtedly people who "want" to live on the street, and there are absolutely people who desperately do not want to be there. I grew up in San Francisco, and while not completely immune to the plight of the homeless, I don't really have a ton of sympathy anymore for the folks who refuse help and just want to skate by. There are actually quite a few problems that are exacerbated by "outsiders" who try to help but really make the problem worse by supporting the habits of addicts and chronic bad actors. If homeless people make you feel bad, donate money to the organizations that help care for them, anything else is just not really that helpful in the long run.

noobermin 13y ago
I think the issue I often see here is that both sides have a one sided sense of exactly how many people "want" to live on the street and don't. Either they're all lazy or they're all victims of the system. This [1] perhaps helps illuminate the issue. We see that 66% have drug, alcohol, or mental health issues. That's a large fraction; about two in three homeless individuals have these issues. However, one in three is a significant fraction who don't. More upsetting is that 40% are veterans. So, I think it's fair to say that we have a slight edge on the interpretation that its "their fault" (although I am extrapolating a lot from a single number here). Still, one out of three individuals there out from nothing more than misfortune is just unacceptable, so I think something should be done. But clearly, what we are doing isn't enough; something more needs to be done. A lot of this can be alleviated by the other things, you know, fixing the rent problem, addressing the minimum wage, etc. In fact the article suggests a few fixes, like better public housing design. [1] http://www.statisticbrain.com/homelessness-stats/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/homelessness-stats/

by bifrost 13y ago

noobermin 13y ago

I think the issue I often see here is that both sides have a one sided sense of exactly how many people "want" to live on the street and don't. Either they're all lazy or they're all victims of the system. This [1] perhaps helps illuminate the issue. We see that 66% have drug, alcohol, or mental health issues. That's a large fraction; about two in three homeless individuals have these issues. However, one in three is a significant fraction who don't. More upsetting is that 40% are veterans. So, I think it's fair to say that we have a slight edge on the interpretation that its "their fault" (although I am extrapolating a lot from a single number here). Still, one out of three individuals there out from nothing more than misfortune is just unacceptable, so I think something should be done. But clearly, what we are doing isn't enough; something more needs to be done. A lot of this can be alleviated by the other things, you know, fixing the rent problem, addressing the minimum wage, etc. In fact the article suggests a few fixes, like better public housing design. [1] http://www.statisticbrain.com/homelessness-stats/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/homelessness-stats/