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Comment by jimmysacks | Hacker News Reader

Its allowed to continue because some are mentally Ill and refuse to get treated (and we can't force them into treatment) and some make poor life decisions like having multiple children with no means to support them (you have the freedom to do this).

You can't just give money to someone mentally Ill or will just squander the money and continue to make bad decisions. We will still have just as much poverty and homelessness.

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Just as much? Mental health crises are exacerbated by desperate conditions like not having a home. The two are linked and keeping someone with bipolar disorder who has just lost their job from ending up on the street in the first place would head off a lot of cases of individuals going off the deep end in the face of despair and nowhere to go.

Do you have proof that not having a home causes mental Illness and not the reverse?

Are you kidding me? We literally dump our mental health patients on the streets. [1]

How many of the homeless in SF/NYC that you see have kids with them?

The mental gymnastics people go through to justify homelessness and poverty is sickening.

https://www.kqed.org/news/10737399/nevada-to-pay-san-francis...

"In a national survey, 60 percent of homeless women and 41 percent of homeless men had at least one minor child, but only 39 percent of women and 3 percent of men lived with any children (Burt et al., 1999)" [1]

Most homeless people have had children, they just get taken away from them.

[1]https://aspe.hhs.gov/report/homeless-children-update-researc...

You didn't read my post.

We should be forcing the mentally Ill into treatment, not giving them a choice to stay on the streets.

1000$ a month to every adult wouldn't reduce poverty and homelessness _at all_? Not a teeny tiny bit? Economics sure is unintuitive.

It might help for a short time, until inflation catches up and that $1000 wont go very far.

You seem to be suggesting that everyone stuck in poverty is there because they are mentally ill or are incapable of making good life choices... which is outrageously false.

I guess a third option is that they dont have the mental capacity?

I've lived on minimum wage for many years. It takes discipline to not buy booze, drugs, and electronics, and not have children that I know I can't afford.

I know many people that would be considered poor and they refuse to stop buying luxuries.

I would consider these poor life choices and the cause of a large percentage of poverty.

Many will turn right around and spend it on drugs.

Honestly, so what? Most will not and those that do will have less car stereos to steal to get their fix.

The real problem is that some people just can't get over the fact that some other people are just going to use drugs no matter what, so we might as well reduce the total harm involved for society.

Shame on you. Your hateful and ignorant stereotypes are defective victim blaming and based on myths. The US has almost no mental healthcare system because JFK was assassinated before the transition to community-based residential treatment centers could be stood-up. Reagan destroyed what remained and condemned the mentally-unwell to neglect and misery.

I agree 100% with your world view but downvoted you due to the unnecessary hostility. That kind of rhetoric is not debate or discussion, it is ring-fighting theatrics to get the crowd cheering for you.

I agree. My point is to force these people into state hospitals and get them help.

Shame on the liberals for getting rid of these facilities.

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