Comment by pkaler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pkaler | Hacker News Reader

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I live in downtown Vancouver. I'm in one of the more affluent neighbourhoods however about 11% of housing is non-market (depending on how you count). Vancouver has a fairly large homeless population because it is the most temperate Canadian city.

Most of the homeless people are just regular people. Sure, some of them have substance abuse problems.

But stand up in your cubicle when you get to the office on Monday morning. One of the coworkers that you can see from your desk has probably taken an opioid, cocaine, amphetamine, or a prescribed drug for ADHD or anxiety.

And they are fully functional.

Your coworkers are regular people. Just like the homeless that you see. More people than you know are one missed paycheque away from being on the streets.

Many of the "chronically homeless" as you call it are one medicine away or one therapist away from being fully functional. And one of your coworkers is one paycheque away, one bad week away from being chronically homeless.

The very fact that drug-using coworkers are able to maintain a regular job demonstrates that they're stable and functional, though. You can't say the same for most of the drug-using homeless population.

> Many of the "chronically homeless" as you call it are one medicine away or one therapist away from being fully functional.

[Citation needed]

IIRC when SLC got most its chronically homeless into permanent housing and assistance, their problems did decrease substantially. But most still weren't really able to work.

> "prescribed drug for ADHD or anxiety"

I think you intended to imply "without a prescription" in grouping such people with daytime cocaine users.

> I think you intended to imply "without a prescription" in grouping such people with daytime cocaine users.

Actually reading the comment the driving point seems to be that there's less separating them than you might think--people on and off the street have legal and illegal uses for drugs, so perhaps the legal distinction isn't very useful at discerning the cause of homelessness.

In fact, the main differentiating symptom between legal and illegal drug use seems to be prison.

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