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Comment by hnpc123 | Hacker News Reader

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...

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