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Comment by will4274 | Hacker News Reader

I see on Mary's places "About us" page: "Empowering homeless women, children, and families to reclaim their lives by providing shelter, nourishment , resources, healing and hope in a safe community"

While their work appears extremely positive and (of course) every charity is not required to solve every problem, I can't help but wondering about the many many single homeless men or homeless men disconnected from the families. The best data source on homelessness, the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress indicates that the majority of the homeless are single males. Up to about 10% of the homeless are veterans (a group that is vastly male) and many of them have mental illnesses like PTSD. Are these people accepted at Mary's place? Is there a "Ryan's place" shelter? Does / would Amazon sponsor it?

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Most shelters in Seattle serve single men. Most explicitly do not allow women or children such that it is difficult for single women or families of any variety. I would love to see Amazon sponsor more assistance for homelessness but I think their first project serves a population that is otherwise underserved.

That's a good point. At least here in Amsterdam I know a few people who avoid shelters if they can because they are/feel unsafe. These were all men, so I can imagine it might be worse for women.

As has already been pointed out, there are in fact plenty of charities serving the needs of men. Is there enough? Maybe not, but I suspect the same is true of women's refuges too.

However, I'd like to highlight that women's refuges and most men's homeless shelters are actually dealing with very different problems. The problems faced by the average homeless shelter that principally serves men includes addiction and mental illnesses like you describe. Women's refuges don't tend to have either of those problems to the same extent, but schooling and former partners require their own set of skills. Equally, because the problems are so different, it makes sense to keep them separate (you don't want to put a six year old next to a meth addict, for instance).

Could we do more for both of these groups? Heck yes. Ironically, some US cities have shown that the cheapest way of dealing with homeless men may be to... give them somewhere to live.

Note: I lived in a women's refuge for a while when I was a kid.

You really need to look at the current homeless crisis in the northwest. It is all heroin and meth, but mostly heroin, and it affects both genders. There are literally tents lining the streets and needles everywhere.

You could've went a little deeper. They accept both men and women who have children.

> Who does Mary’s Place currently serve?

> Homeless women and men with their children from the greater King County area. The women and families we serve range from young adults to seniors and represent diverse backgrounds in race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, education, and life experience. Many struggle with disabilities and mental health issues. Approximately 30-40% of our guests are immigrants or refugees, the majority of those from East Africa.

http://www.marysplaceseattle.org/about/common-questions/

They specifically complained about single men or men disconnected from their families not being served, so they probably did read that bit.

One thing to consider (and I swear I'm not (a) claiming this is necessarily in reality the case or (b) implying that if it were we shouldn't have a "Ryan's Place") is that there is homelessness due to different causes, some of them more amenable to help than others. If someone's homeless because they were dependent on a partner who was abusive and so they left that environment and are basically a functioning member of society who nonetheless isn't on their feet, it's a whole nother story (though arguably not more tragic) than someone who's a drug addict and therefore isn't on their feet.

For one of these two, a roof over their head and hot meals a couple times a day for a period of months is going to be extremely beneficial including in the long run, since they'll reliably be able to support themself thanks to the homeless shelter's infrastructure. For the other hypothetical case, it's still the right and humane thing to do for them, but the "bang for your buck" is lower to put it in crass terms.

If it just works out that women outnumber men in the former group, and the gender discrimination does a huge amount of work in selecting for the most efficient candidates to keep in the shelter, I'm in favor of the discrimination.

Why do you assume that homeless women are homeless because of abuse and not drug addiction, while homeless men are homeless because of drugs or PTSD? These assumptions seem incredibly sexist, especially in light of the fact that the current opioid crisis is affecting women disproportionately.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/08/31/opiods-...

He explicitly doesn't assume that:

> I swear I'm not (a) claiming this is necessarily in reality the case

What's the point of the comment then?

and yet he goes on to say exactly that.

Hey, I'm not claiming this is actually reality, but did you know that women aren't as good at their jobs as men, and that's why they get paid less?^^

Yeah, I didn't think that putting a little disclaimer at the top was really good enough.

^^ Making a point about doublespeak. I think this statement is total BS.

You're working yourself up the wrong tree... take it easy, it's not that anyone that doesn't exactly follow your very same mental model is a monster. Please

That's not really how I interpreted their message. It's more likely that a woman is homeless due to an abusive relationship than it is a man being homeless due to an abusive relationship. That isn't saying women are less likely to be homeless due to drugs. Independent statements.

They certainly aren't independent statements.

Share of homelessness due to an abusive relationship + share of homelessness due to drugs + share of homelessness for all other reasons = 1.

If one of those variables goes higher, one or both of the others must go lower. On the assumption that one of those reasons gets more common "all else equal"... both of the others will go lower.

You are correct in the zero sum outcome for the //ENTIRE// homeless population; however you are not correct in the sense of a hypothetical subject being homeless.

A singular case subject/family could be homeless for MULTIPLE reasons or None (other than other of course) outlined above.

> You are correct in the zero sum outcome for the //ENTIRE// homeless population; however you are not correct in the sense of a hypothetical subject being homeless.

This is wrong. What's correct as a description of the entire female homeless population is equally correct as a probability assignment for one element of it.

Your second sentence is unrelated to your first, and also applies equally well to the entire population as to an individual sample from it. It is arguing that the sum I describe is in fact more than 1. That is defensible, but it won't make the statements independent; they aren't.

The OP didn't say that women were homeless due to abuse and not drugs and that men were homeless due to drugs/PTSD.

In fact if you read what they wrote, they didn't specify sex at all. A man can be homeless due to an abusive relationship, they never said they couldn't. Hence independent statements. nsnick was the one assuming something.

> Share of homelessness due to an abusive relationship + share of homelessness due to drugs + share of homelessness for all other reasons = 1.

No, because someone can be homeless for multiple reasons.

I already acknowledged this in a cousin comment. As long as they can also be homeless for a single reason, the statements are not independent. A population of women who are homeless due to domestic abuse, but not for any other reason, simultaneously drives the share of women-homeless-due-to-domestic-abuse up and the share of women-homeless-for-reasons-other-than-domestic-abuse down.

Sounds like a lot of of stereotyping with a cop-out "hey, this is the reason! (but I really don't know)" disclaimer. Got any hard data to back this up?

That's a great point. The wikipedia article and my best Google fu seems to say that while drug addiction and lack of education is common to both genders, domestic violence and poverty from supporting children are more common causes of homelessness for women and homeless men are more likely to be mentally ill. I see that providing temporary shelter for DV victims is an easier problem than mental illness. Poverty otoh..

Why is it that anytime a women's cause comes up, someone always has to chime in with "but what about men"? Organizations are formed by people with a common vision. You can contact them or participate to try to get them to expand this vision or you can start your own. For whatever reason they decided to target their focus on women. Sidetracking from the main issue to grandstand on gender is not constructive and is no different from the #AllLivesMatter rhetoric that always manages to feign concern and completely miss the point of the movement.

Why not solve the generic problem instead of only a subset? Cure all cancer, not just prostate cancer.

Why not both?

Mary's place sounds like a commendable organization and if so, Amazon's sponsorship is also commendable. I made sure to say so. My questions were honest - I really don't know if Mary's place serves single men (though it sounds like no?) and I really don't know how Amazon's charitable contributions are proportioned.

Where we spend our charitable contributions is indicative of our values (both as individuals and as a society). Some charities are criticized for being too "feel-good" or being inefficient with donor money for emotional heart strings. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/heartwarming-causes-... OTOH, this argument taken to it's logical conclusion says we should only ever donate to the Gates foundation and it's ilk. I find it interesting that Amazon is receiving such positive press for making a donation to an organization that is deliberately aimed at a subset of an issue. I've never seen an article about a corporate charitable donation of this small dollar value on hacker news before - not that the value is so small, but most charity news that breaks the media bubble is so high (e.g. billionaires pledging to donate half their wealth).

The make a wish foundation existence says something about our values. So does this donation sitting on the front page. Some people love the make a wish foundation and say it reflects positively on our empathy and compassion. Others murmur about warm fuzzies vs the greater good. I don't think this ethical question should be invalid or offensive in the context of politically charged issues.

> Why is it that anytime a women's cause comes up, someone always has to chime in with "but what about men"?

Because there are many people who think that discrimination against women is bad, but discrimination against men is OK. These people should be fought against.

I'm female, and absolutely disgusted that most shelters for domestic violence victims or ones that accept children often have a "no males" policy.

The first person I met who was abused by their lover was male... she was female. I've met homeless men that risk getting their children taken away because the appropriate shelter wouldn't accept them. These sorts of things cause a negative stereotype for such places. It doesn't matter that most of the victims tend to be female: I'd rather them be gender-neutral on this front. IT isn't just a female problem.

Homeless shelters specifically for men do exist.

Here's one in my area, the Free Clinic Beacon House. It is specifically for single homeless men. https://stpetersburgfreeclinic.org/beacon-house-2/

If you Google around, there's also homeless programs that specifically focus on veterans, homeless programs that specifically focus on women with children, and homeless shelters specifically focusing on dual parent families with children. Along with shelters for substance abuse, shelters for domestic violence victims, and general purpose shelters.

I can see the need for some separation in charities, to help charities focus more on various issues that may be more prevalent with one group vs. another.

Society doesn't look at homeless men the same way. There's far more shelters for women and children, a big reason why most of the visible homeless are male.

Every shelter is for men by default. Women-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers. Shelters can be ugly, violent places, especially if there's a cold-weather snap and they have to open their doors to those with severe behavioural issues.

The big reason why most of the homeless are male is because as rough an existence as that is, they can survive out there. Women simply do not last as long. They're pressured into sex work, they're dragged into abusive relationships, or they die.

Women are also more likely to be homeless with kids, a nightmare scenario. They have significantly more motivation to get off the street by any means necessary if they're in that situation. By comparison a homeless old male can just stumble along at rock bottom for decades.

Survivorship bias. Be careful how you observe things.

> Every shelter is for men by default. Women-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers

You're presenting that as comparing the situation for men and women, but it's not doing that.

You're comparing shelters that let in men (i.e. including both men-only and mixed shelters) vs shelters that only let in women.

You could just as equivalently switched the genders in the quote and it's be just as much true "Every shelter is for women by default. Men-only shelters are the exception and are far fewer in numbers"

EDIT: to all the people downvoting this, care to say what you think the problem is with what I've said?

> You could just as equivalently switched the genders in the quote and it's be just as much true...

Except that's not true. In most cities there's a handful of women-only shelters, even fewer for women with children, and yet there's a multitude of other options not gender-specific.

Here there's maybe six women-specific shelters, yet there's dozens of Salvation Army locations alone. On top of that there's other organizations that offer shelter services. They do their best to cater to everyone that abides by the rules, but there's an inherent risk in those places.

It's not that women are weak any more than men are drug addicts, but shelters don't represent society as a whole. They're heavily skewed towards certain portions of the population, and that portion tends to have problems with mental illness, substance abuse, and a multitude of other issues. It's not the environment you'd want to be in under any circumstances, especially not as a woman.

Pointing out that "In most cities there's a handful of women-only shelters, even fewer for women with children, and yet there's a multitude of other options not gender-specific" does not make what I said wrong! It's just making the same error I was talking about my original comment. Read it again carefully.

If I said "there are fewer billionaires in the country than millionaires" would you insist that "you could just as equivalently switched the two and it's be just as much true..."?

Logic doesn't work that way.

Go and read the two sentences in question, and what I said about them. It's completely different to that.

#(X or Y) > #(Y-only)

#(Y or X) > #(X-only)

See how these can both be true? (See how meaningless the comparison in either one of those statements actually is? That was the point I was making).

It seems to me that people are so ideologically driven in their thinking that they could only see what I was saying as "taking one side, to the exclusion of the other".

That is, people treating my statement as like

#X > #Y

is equivalent to

#Y > #X

like you did in your millionaires/billionaires attempt at an analogy. Even though if you take the ideological blinkers off it is plainly obvious that I'm not saying anything at all like that.

My original comment would be really greyed out if not for also having received a lot of upvotes along with all the downvotes (the points count on it has swung up and down over time).

How on Earth is a homeless shelter for males by default? Just because it's a shitty place to be you're saying it's for men and that women should have their own shelters where men are not allowed, that are presumably less shitty.

How does this make any sense? It's the sexist "women are weak" argument without any obsfucation. This is the exact reason why there's more shelters for women than men, broken sexist logic like this.

> This is the exact reason why there's more shelters for women than men...

There's more "women-only" shelters than there are men-only ones, but it's patently false to state there's more women-only shelters than there are non-specific shelters.

> it's patently false to state there's more women-only shelters than there are non-specific shelters.

show me who tried to state that

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