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Comment by jorgenhorstink | Hacker News Reader

"...and approximately 82,000 people are homeless on any given night." [1]

82,000 homeless on a population of 9,818,605 [2]; 0.835%

I just compared it to the 2012 stats for The Netherlands (highest homeless count in 2012).

27,300 homeless [3] on a population of 16,779,575 [4]; 0.163%

That was a bit surprising to me. It looks like there are 5 times more homeless per capita in LA than in The Netherlands...

[1] http://www.laalmanac.com/social/so14.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California [3] http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/ar... [4] http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=...

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There should be zero homeless (or close to it) in the United States. The U.S. is the richest country in the history of the world, by a long shot, and growing wealthier every year. Certainly Americans can afford to provide basic food and shelter (and healthcare) to everyone. We lose sight of concrete reality when we get caught up in the economic and social philosophizing and political conflict; nothing justifies leaving a human being on the street, like a stray dog, when you can do something about it. There is no excuse.

But we don't leave dogs on the street.

Of course, what happens to stray dogs a little while later is unthinkable for humans. Unless you are into eugenics, which many HN readers are. Social Darwinism and similar 19th century outmoded beliefs are extremely popular today. This classism and general elitism is the first part of the problem.

This might not be popular here (and I'm not advocating it, merely bringing it into the discussion), but Guaranteed minimum income (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income) has been proposed as a possible solution to homelessness in the US.

You wouldn't be able to survive winters in Netherlands. Also social system is probably better.

Coming to LA and accidentally wandering few miles off downtown to warehouse district left me in shock. I was ready to jump in front of police car just to get me out of there.

I knew about the ghettos and drug problem just wasn't expecting it to hit me so hard. People living in tents, some lady sort of dancing or having convolutions. I've seen plenty of poor people in various countries, but nothing like this. Heck, homeless beggar in London will say good day to you.

Edit: I actually have some anecdotal experience about social care in Netherlands. One morning I woke up in acquaintances house after night of doing MDMA (and him, speed). Some lady was staring at me. She explained as the guy was living off social care, he was being monitored in case he needed some help or something like that. She didn't ask anything in particular or was judgmental. Looked like he had everything, a computer, decent place, skateboard and bmx bike. A night earlier he explained his both parents deceased.

The downtown eastside of Vancouver, BC is pretty bad just for its sheer in your face drug use and rampant poverty. But at least it's the warmest place in Canada to live if you're homeless.

But you bring up a good point I can't imagine how people in Canada can survive being homeless in -40C weather in Winnipeg for example.

Homeless people with addiction to alcohol in Ulan Bator

http://visura.co/user/MikeA/view/40-96

What's also interesting is the contrast. Downtown LA and the "Arts District" are getting gentrified. People live in very fancy lofts. Check AirBnB for pictures of them. Some are incredibly amazing. But, right in between downtown LA and the Arts District is Skid Row. Drive down 4th street and see all the tents and homeless and fires.

I stayed at the Barker Block building for a month last October. 1/2 a block away there were tents.

https://www.google.com/search?q=barker+block&tbm=isch

http://www.hulu.com/watch/460340

>That was a bit surprising to me. It looks like there are 5 times more homeless per capita in LA than in The Netherlands...

Why wouldn't there be? US/California is famous for its homeless multitudes. You cannot miss them in downtown SF for example.

The Netherlands (and most of Western Europe) has much better social protection.

Let's face it - the weather in LA is much more hospitable to homeless than that of the Netherlands.

People keep saying that as if it's some kind of excuse, with homeless people taking in the LA sun.

In fact there are as many homeless in LA as they are in NY (around 30.000 - 50.000 in either place according to Wikipedia).

Is the weather in NY "much more hospitable" than that of the Netherlands?

I'm surprised there are any homeless people in the Netherlands.

Some people refuse even pointed attempts to help them. They'll say no to shelters; they'll say no to social workers; they'll even say no to the police. And the bar for involuntary confinement is high in some places.

He might also have been thinking about the "winter" [0] part.

[0] http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/climate/The-Netherlan...

A fairly common situation in the U.S. is that people with drug and alcohol problems usually need to get clean before they get housed and it is not at all easy to get clean if you are not housed.

In my immediate area social services are very good and anybody who is on the street who will comply with what DSS mandates can get off the street pretty quick, but many people won't do it for many reasons.

>A fairly common situation in the U.S. is that people with drug and alcohol problems usually need to get clean before they get housed and it is not at all easy to get clean if you are not housed.

Hurray for protestant ethics in 2015. As if a drug-using homeless person doesn't need shelter...

They evidently don't in LA or SF (as opposed to Norway in the winter). Otherwise, we would necessarily see far lower rates of homelessness in those places.

Yeah, because SF winter is warn and fuzzy.

Is the weather in NY "much more hospitable" than that of the Netherlands? Because it has as many homeless as in LA.

Utah's taken a different approach, and it seems to have worked pretty well, though I'm not sure how many urban cities want to (or can) follow that lead.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-utah-housing-first-20150...

Some more numbers:

    US         578,424   318.9M      0.18%
    LA County   44,359    10.02M     0.44%
    LA City     25,686     3.88M     0.66%

https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2014-AHAR-P... http://www.lahsa.org/homelesscount_results

There are only 578,424 homeless in the U.S.? That number seems much too low.

Why? If California is your norm, keep in mind that California has 20% of the U.S.'s homeless population (California, Texas, and Florida have 58% of the under-18 homeless population). It's really not a universal problem.

Yep. It's hard to be homeless in Michigan.

I can understand the reasoning, but in fact there are many homeless in northern cities. New York, for example, has a large number. Perhaps migration isn't common among the homeless.

That number is the result of the massive, largely volunteer effort led by HUD to count the homeless that is done every January. There are other numbers, but they tend to involve a lot more guesstimating and a lot less data.

Comparing data from different countries is very tricky. You don't know how the statistics define homelessness (they aren't consistent even in a single country), you don't know who they count or how they count them. For example in Europe the homeless statistics do not count or do not count the migrant population very well (at least in some countries cannot say for NL). Number of homeless at any given time is also not the only factor if a person in NL is homeless for average for 3 months and in the states for 6 or 1 it makes a bigger impact than the total number.

The UK for example is probably very very bad at counting homeless they don't even want to call them that they call it "sleeping rough" (people who actually sleep on the street and not in housing) here according to the official figures England has only 2414 (est. 2014) homeless people (at any given time). London apparently has only 400 or so homeless people at any given night and even by living in the 2nd most expensive borough in London i can easily go BS about it without the need to jump to east London. That said if you are arrested and are put in holding for the night you don't count for the "sleeping rough" statistics so it's very easy to poison such statistics with even simple police enforcement. Not claiming that the Dutch authorities are doing anything like that (although I've seen quite a few homeless people being picked up if they are in central Amsterdam) but playing with the numbers of people who "don't count" in the eyes of many is far too easy.

There's no doubt that the dutch social net is better, but large populations generate a large overhead it's always much easier to handle and provide social services to small population even at a fraction of the per-capita costs that the budgets of populated countries allow.

A lot of homeless people in the south of Europe comes from the north. I heard a lot of them speaking polish, for instance. They are running away from the hard winters.

I suppose is the same case in Los Angeles.

So, maybe, the homeless people from the Netherlands are not in the Netherlands.

cgrubb's comment puts the US-wide estimate at 0.18%, so actually pretty close.

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