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Comment by cco | Hacker News Reader

I use portapotties all the time, they're not unicorns and rainbows but assuming they haven't been defaced, i.e. poop or urine all over the inside and not in the receptacle, they're just fine.

I don't see them as a dehumanizing thing. Shoot, nearly all construction workers use them as their office toilet, is that unacceptable?

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When you are homeless, you tend to wear the same clothes for days or weeks at a time. You may be unable to shower for long stretches.

Construction workers are going to go home, shower, change clothes, wash the clothes they wore all day and worked hard in.

You seem to be taking it for granted that one can get cleaned up again after being exposed to a port-a-potty. This is not a given for homeless individuals.

If you are in good health -- which many homeless people are not -- and have regular access to showers, laundry service, etc, using a port-a-potty may be no big deal. But this is generally not the case for people on the street.

The solution is public showers for the homeless.

Yes, let's just leave them on the street and give them lousy port-a-potties and shower access. That's the humane approach.

(Do I need a sarcasm tag here?)

That still leaves them wearing the same filthy clothes. It doesn't remotely solve the problem. Furthermore, homeless showers tend to be as horrible as most homeless services.

Either you have no privacy -- because why the hell should your dignity matter when you are homeless? -- or it has mold issues, etc.

All services specifically designed to service the homeless population tend to be really, truly terrible in a "you would get sued if this were aimed at middle class people" kind of way. The general attitude is "beggars can't be choosers" and "don't be so uppity -- show a little gratitude for the shitty service you are getting for free, you ungrateful whiner."

So, no, that's not the solution. Missing Middle Housing is The Solution here. Or one part of it.

There is no single cause of homelessness. There is no single solution.

> There is no single cause of homelessness. There is no single solution.

This is really important to emphasize.

I've never been homeless, but I did spend two years hanging out with homeless people while making a documentary film. The range of people on the street is almost as broad as the range of people off it. I met homeless people with Ph.D.'s. I met homeless people with florid schizophrenia. I met homeless people with substance abuse issues. I met homeless people who were perfectly ordinary but had some bad luck (ranging from losing their job to losing their entire family in a car crash). I even met homeless people who chose to live on the street (or in their car) because they wanted a nomadic lifestyle.

But no matter how you slice it, the only real solution to homelessness is housing.

You made an excellent movie about the issue. I highly recommend it:

http://www.graceofgodmovie.com/

Thanks! :-)

If the purpose of society is to compete for evolutionary fitness status by hoarding socioeconomic tokens...seemingly for the eventual purpose of turning every part of the environment including the human body into a sooty tern egg and a fungible asset, then that IS a single cause of homelessness, ethnic cleansing, authoritarianism, metabolic syndrome and the rest of the parade of monsters.

If the point of the lives we lead is some seemingly positive direction for the human soul, individually or communally, maybe the single cause of homelessness is that we have lost our way, perhaps irrevocably.

But maybe we can be optimistic and imagine things becoming so horrific in the future that the survivors stop doing the things that led us to build a world that either wears down the people or the living ecosystem or both.

It's hard to walk past a homeless person without condemning the society you live in. It's even harder to do anything substantial to change their situation, especially yourself. But to not blame anyone is just morally disorienting. Eric Weinstein, in a podcast that was posted here a day ago, kept harping on "there are intentional causes and emergent causes."

But maybe people are just basically hypocritical lying jerks.

And bathrooms. And laundry. And a place to eat. And a clean bed. In other words: home. The only answer to the problems associated with homelessness is, as always, moving people from homeless to not homeless.

I also spent time on the streets. It's _not_ just a home. Many of the kids I hung out with ran away from "homes". A home can isolate you from your family (other street kids) who are the only other people you care about at the time.

Homeless kids need hope, they need time with people who will actually stick with them and really help them see the benefit of a job, going to bed on time (the shelter's had a curfew), how to be respectful, help getting off drugs (or staying off them).

If you give homes to homeless people as they are, I think most of them would get trashed and abused until they are no more liveable than a park bench.

Then what, evict the homeless people from their free homes? Give them another free home all fixed up?

It really is hard work without a simple answer.

For the record, I'm not personally talking about giving homes to people who are currently homeless. I'm talking about increasing supply of a certain kind of housing so that we see fewer people land on the street to begin with, as well as addressing other social issues, such as access to healthcare.

"Throwaway" children are a hard issue to resolve. There are no simple solutions once things have gone that far.

But I'm talking about focusing more on prevention generally. One side effect of that will be to have more per capita resources for those hard cases who do land on the street.

One of the problems with most conversations about the issue of homelessness is the mantra of wanting to "help the homeless." It tends to lead to a sense of hopelessness. The problem seems too big and thorny to resolve. It's also not the most humane approach.

I'm talking about creating a world where people are at less risk of homelessness because their lives aren't being suddenly and completely derailed by high medical bills, because they can find housing within their budget that works for them even if they have no car, etc.

Such a world should generally see fewer throwaway kids as well. We really don't do enough to support parents in America today. It's dreadful.

While I don't disagree with you in general, it does seem that there are a lot of things that can be done that our modern society simply won't tolerate.

I think we could _easily_ provide shelter and food for every single homeless person in America right now. But I can tell you that most of the homeless people won't take that shelter. Because you'd have to remove weapons, drugs, violence, etc... to make the shelter safe. So then you have a jail system.

I spent exactly zero nights in a homeless shelter in my years on the street. They were generally pretty revolting, for a very long list of reasons.

I don't use recreational drugs and never have. I have no criminal record. I carried no weapons while homeless.

I am not really for expanding the current shelter system. I am for improving supply of the right kind of housing, as well as providing adequate healthcare. Health issues and cost of healthcare are major factors in the equation here.

I spent time in youth shelters (I was young when on the streets) and they weren't terrible in some places. But it was still not totally safe.

But if it weren't for a shelter, I would not have been able to stay clean and get a job.

And if you can't get a job and maintain an income, you can't afford housing of any kind.

There's a chicken/egg problem with housing/job. But you can't house people that won't/can't work in the same housing as people who will work.

There's so many obstacles in the way that I think the focus should be on the people that recently became homeless and help them get back off as quickly as possible. It's the lifers I think that really may be beyond ever taking care of themselves, no matter how much help is given.

I'm glad you apparently got off the street. I'm not talking about dismantling the current shelter system.

I'm leery of answers that entrench the problem. A lot of people want to "help the homeless," which is a very different goal than reducing the incidence of homelessness overall in the US. Focusing exclusively on "helping the homeless" has a tendency to entrench and even grow the problem by ignoring the need to solve other issues.

It tends to create a situation where the only way you can help is to wind up on the street and there is no help available before the problem is that severe. Lesser problems don't count or get any assistance.

I'm personally focused on those other issues.

I don't deny that we will always need some emergency services, such as shelters and soup kitchens. I just am very leery of cries for more shelters and more soup kitchens and more port-a-potties as the only approach to the issue, thereby not bothering to address some of the root causes.

I'm not trying to argue with you and I'm not trying to "win" some argument here. I'm trying to communicate my position clearly. I'm trying to let you know that my position isn't a threat to people getting the help they need once they are in crisis.

You can have soup kitchens and homeless shelters and also affordable healthcare and affordable (missing middle) housing. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

I just would like to see enough resources put into solutions like universal healthcare such that the homeless problem actually begins to shrink without anyone being "rescued."

I'm trying to step away from this discussion.

Have a great day.

I don't mean to shit on (pun intended) your solution, but really, the solution is for society to get serious in dealing with homelessness and to Do The Right Thing.

You, me and other others here have no idea what the right thing is. We can guess, but many of those guesses will have very unexpected side effects. (People using locked showers for things other than showering, for example.)

I noticed this weird trend with portas and how people treat them. I volunteer with orgs that put on big events and rent lots of portas. The attendees are "woke", and we give lots of warnings to not throw trash in the portas, to not deface them or stop them up. But they get destroyed anyway, and then we have to clean them out to avoid getting big cleaning costs from the porta rental companies. If, however, we have an event with "regular" bathrooms, they don't get as destroyed.

One solution may be to construct "alternative portas" with a different name, that look and feel more like a european or asian home-model toilet+shower combo. I think this might cause people to abuse them less, if they think of them more like their own bathroom.

This doesn't solve things like the laundry issue, or, well, housing. But most other developed nations have decent public toilets, and we should too.

But surely a porta-potty is better than going to toilet in the open?

Perhaps better than openly pissing and pooping on a city sidewalk in broad daylight. But I spent nearly six years homeless and never did that.

In the city, you can find proper bathrooms. Big cities sometimes have public bathrooms open 24 hours and with an attendant. San Diego had at least two that I knew of.

You can also use the library bathroom if you haven't been banned from the library by staff for behaving badly. There are bathrooms at homeless services. There are bathrooms in malls, grocery stores, homeless services, etc.

If you aren't in the big city, if you are camped in a patch of woods, you poop and pee in the bushes. It's vastly more sanitary than a port-a-potty. If you grew up in a semi-rural environment with a culture of folks who did things like go hunting in the woods, relieving yourself in the bushes isn't a weird idea at all. It's only in recent years that anyone seems to think it is. It certainly wasn't when I was growing up.

Thanks for the explanation. One of the things I hear about SF is the public pooping, so assumed that was a large part of the problem.

I have had two friends, one still, homeless. I understand, and do not take for granted, that homeless people do not have ready access to clean clothes or showers. Does anybody think that homeless people can just shower and do laundry? If they do I do not know them.

Regardless you still are making portapotties out to be disaster zones, some are for sure, I've opened some up and there is human waste covering the entire thing and I wouldn't suggest that people, homeless or otherwise, plop down and use that. But portapotties are relatively sanitary places, they're a totally fine, emphasis on fine, way to keep human waste off of the streets. Having pooped in a lot of places I would 100% choose a portapotty over an alleyway or my apartment building's stoop. I'm a little surprised by your opinion as well, I can't speak for every homeless person by any means but the ones I do know would definitely prefer to see an unlocked and clean portapotty if they needed to go vs. having to go in an alley. Sure, a bathroom in their own home would be better...but that isn't what we're talking about right? We're talking about a public health crises and it is inhumane to suggest we take no action and instead shout, "These people deserve homes!", even though they do, when they're literally dying of Hep A.

I'm not suggesting we take no action. I'm just suggesting we take actions other than the one you are advocating. There is a huge difference between those two things.

I'm actively working on this problem space myself and have been for years.

I personally run multiple websites that help address the problem. I do my best to get that information into the hands of homeless people wherever possible, both via internet participation and handing out fliers to local homeless services and the local police department.

(Here is an edited version of what I am distributing locally: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L5CsLmHLPUV1uehvRtu17H9y...)

I'm also involved (very part time) with two local non profits who do urban planning and economic development type work. Some of that I get a little for. Most of it is done pro bono.

I cannot afford to just give all my time away for free and such interests tend to not pay. I blog. I do freelance writing. I edit resumes. I do a little website work here and there.

Still, I continue to struggle to get by. I suck at promoting my Patreon. People on the internet routinely tell me to go get a real job and stop trying to monetize my online work and yadda.

I'm a woman. I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leaderboard of HN. But being a woman closes a lot of doors for me. People here occasionally give me a few bucks out of compassion when I'm especially broke. But I can't, for example, get much support for my Patreon.

There are no doubt myriad reasons for that. But I don't know how to readily solve it. I am not willing to create a non-profit homeless services thing. That approach is antithetical to my beliefs about how to actually fix things.

I'm just saying that I have done substantial research on the problem space. I wanted to be an urban planner before life got in the way and I have taken a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU when I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area as a military wife.

I think I have a good outline for what works. I am interested in promoting real solutions. But unless I can get an actual job in urban planning or economic development, the odds are poor that I can find a means to monetize my efforts to address this problem.

Some of those reasons are inherent to the problem space itself. Among other things, poor people don't have a lot of money to give you to fix their problems.

If you want to get your city to build proper public bathrooms with a 24 hour attendant, I would be all for that. I don't support a policy of more port-a-potties. I'm okay with you being all surprised and what not about that.

I'm tired and I think I left my best comments much earlier. It's probably all downhill from here. I plan on trying to step away from the discussion. I think I've made whatever useful points I can reasonably make. People can do with the info I've already posted as they see fit.

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