Hacker News Reader

The situation is arguably worse in Seattle. We have over 11000 homeless with a smaller total population. We also had a similar story in the news today -> https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/letter-to-seattle-conventio...

View on HN

i don't think these are easy problems that can be solved just by the city being "less wasteful" and stopping doing stupid things, which seems to be the common response to the problems.

Housing the homeless seems to be more effective than a lot of alternatives.

In a more humane age, they were housed in asylums.

Then Reagan happened.

Actually, Big Pharma happened. And it was the left who argued that asylums were inhumane, more than the right arguing that it was too expensive. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was a real agent of change in how people thought about the problem as well.

>In a more humane age, they were housed in asylums.

Then Reagan happened.

No, the ACLU happened. Because of their efforts, it's much more difficult today to involuntarily commit someone to an institution who thinks that aliens are controlling their digestive system.

That's not to say that state governments weren't happy to empty out and shut down their mental institutions, however.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com