Books helped South African man overcome homelessness
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The homeless also suffer at the hands of the criminal justice system. It's very easy to get arrested for petty crimes when unhoused; the cops really hate the homeless. Someone can't periodically destroy a bunch of peoples' meager shelter in completely unproductive "sweeps" without developing a view that they're less than human. Maybe you spend a couple days in jail, so you've lost what job you had. Or you have a record, so good luck getting a job and possibly escaping homelessness!
All of this is to say that this pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps story is just completely ridiculous, and if you see the world through the lens of this story then you'll have a ridiculous worldview.
The fundamental reason for homelessness is simple. As long as housing costs money, there will be those who cannot afford it. I encourage you to think about this simple sentence and its implications.
What I don't fully understand is how prevalence of homelessness doesn't seem to correlate much with the general wealth of the society, at least in generally speaking 'rich' countries - say G20. Sure, wealth is a relative concept, but 'warm place to sleep and a bowl of soup' is a pretty absolute yardstick, one which many people sadly don't make.
A negative feedback loop example is a nuclear reactor (goes down when it's too high, goes higher when it's too low). A positive feedback loop example is a nuclear bomb (goes higher when it's high).
If I understood that correctly, that would bring in the assumption that homelessness can be to some extent a positive thing. Stretching my mind to include even a teenage runaway for a day perhaps I could see that, but otherwise I could hardly visualize anything about basic needs not being covered that doesn't automatically triggers a positive feedback loop (i.e. no access to sanitation makes you dirtier which makes you less likely to access sanitation, no access to food makes you less likely to have the energy and composure to heighten your chances to get food, not having a physical address to be in makes you less likely to kick-start any life since most parts of society such as renting/jobs/phones depend on each others - getting a job without a place can be harder, and getting a job without a place too, likewise to get a phone without an address or to get a job without a phone)
To use an overly simplified example, an alcoholic homeless person would be less able to get money when drunk than sober.
I am not saying that specific example is accurate, but there does seem to be a balance point where homeless people can acquire money but not savings to eventually stop being homeless.
“In terms of preventing homelessness, it’s pretty straightforward. It’s housing.” Preston Cochrane, former executive director of Shelter the Homeless.
There are still homeless in Utah, but the government priority is House them first then figure out why they became homeless after.
I read about a few places doing it, but never any discussion on the following: are the houses well looked-after? And in particular, do they last?
Stereotypes and needs aside, isn't this a common issue with e.g. social housing? I guess perhaps because people who need this kind of help often have severe mental issues alongside.
I'm wondering about the sustainability of such approaches, rather than any kind of 'worthy/not worthy' arguments.
Also, how does one avoid creating ghettos? This is already an issue with low cost / subsidised housing, this sounds related.
The term of art for this is permanent supportive housing, which is handy if you want to look for more research and documentation. Seattle currently has 1,900 units (building more this year) and we have a 99%+ success rate at keeping people from re-entering homelessness. Our homeless problem is still awful, but that's because a) pandemic and b) we've been hanging around 10,000 people living on the streets, so the units are a pretty small percentage of what we need.
We're not putting all our housing in one place, which alleviates the stigma problem. There is not a ton of research on the effect supportive housing has on the crime rate nearby, but the research we do have suggests that it's a relatively minor problem that can be solved:
https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/support_1.pdf (Denver, PDF) https://furmancenter.org/research/publication/the-impact-of-... (NYC)
I’d known mentally that having a job didn’t automatically mean you weren’t homeless or struggling, but seeing someone who worked in my neighborhood right in front of me like that really hammered it home.
I’d also recommend “Down and Out in Paris and London” by George Orwell. It’s a travel-log where Orwell actually becomes a “tramp” in order to best document the experience of homelessness and to meet people experiencing homelessness. Orwell recognised the basic truth about homelessness almost a century ago, and unfortunately nothing really has changed.
(1) I guess it probably started off back in 2015 when I read about Utah's "Housing First" approach to ending homelessness which got quite a bit of national news coverage at the time[0].
(2) I started talking to some of the people experiencing homelessness who hung around the grocery stores I went to in Seattle, seeing them as a person and not an unsightly problem to be swept under a rug. Ask them what food they want then buy it for them sometime, you might get a good conversation out of it; if they're not up to talking, well, someone got a meal out of it at least - and they shouldn't really owe you anything.
(3) Then one year I went on a business trip to Copenhagen, and saw their hybrid system of both privately-owned & socialized housing; went to a BBQ at a coworker's place at one of the socialized housing complexes, which was very nice.
(4) I bought a condo myself, and cheered as the price went up on Zillow. Then was struck with the somehow extremely obvious yet little-noticed contradiction that house prices appreciating in value, which is more-or-less the driving thesis of investment the largest asset class in the world, is diametrically opposed to the goal of making housing affordable - as in, cost less & thus be worth less!
(5) I met my current partner, who is a medical resident in combined internal medicine & psychiatry. Their patient population is almost all homeless. I heard many of their patients' stories and the misery they experience.
(6) I started watching some urban planning videos by donoteat01 on youtube[1], who is an entertaining presenter that uses Cities: Skylines to illustrate common concepts. I especially liked their video on gentrification[2].
(6) Somehow I heard about the Tax Amazon movement in Seattle[3], which aims to put a payroll tax on workers at large corps & use the proceeds to fund the creation of public housing. I thought - that sounds great! Even though I work at a large tech corp myself, I'll participate. Speaking with people at the various planning meetings (who were almost all outside the bubble of friends-who-work-in-tech I had) was really educating and solidified my views on all this.
Sorry that isn't a link, but more a story of how I arrived here. Hopefully it helps you in some way.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/donoteat01/videos
It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage, coupled with high housing prices, making them one unexpected expense from being on the street.
I thought this is the whole point of minimum wage laws. I see this word often but i don't understand the difference between 'living wage' and 'minimum wage' .
Can 'living wage' be clearly defined so the number can be derived using logic ?
I have no opinion on the methodologies but it's been attempted.
This seems to take into account number of children and adults working in the family.Minimum wage doesn't take that into account.
Not sure if it would be possible to make employers pay different minimum wage based on number of children and working adults in a employees family. So I think this the idea behind paying living wage, pay based on employee's circumstances.
Sadly, there are many other reasons, too. I met a family of immigrants. I learned through their eight-year old son his parents lost their jobs, couldn't find legal employment, did not speak english. As they were at a shelter, I imagine they were decent candidates to be picked up by ICE.
Nonetheless, I agree with your post. This is a solvable problem but it is only solvable at the housing level.
"It is caused by peoples' jobs not paying a living wage" Where I come from minimum wage is enough to pay for a rent.
"the cops really hate the homeless. Someone can't periodically destroy a bunch of peoples' meager shelter in completely unproductive "sweeps" without developing a view that they're less than human." Again I may be wrong but where I live there are no 'homeless villages' like there are in the US.
Maybe you can squeak by if you’re lucky… but you have to be consistently lucky. One bad month and the whole thing can fall apart. It’s basically impossible to build wealth or savings in this situation (not to mention care for your own fucking health).
Edit:
https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-tracker/
This is a comprehensive tracker of state and local minimum wages across the US.
I'm sure there are cops that live for this, but I'd be willing to wager money that the sweeps, etc. come as the result of some external pressure from local governments, citizens, and the like.
OP is talking about coping with what they are tasked to do. You can't treat them the way that "local governments, citizens, and the like" require you too, without hardening your heart, or it will really tear you up inside.
Homelessness is not a rampant problem except on the west coast. Yes big cities have homeless populations but they mostly cycle into various shelters (often church run) where the ones that don't have serious mental issues get their lives back on track. It's not rampant like it is on the west coast.
Spend a few years riding the MTA, T or Metro and then compare to BART if you don't believe me.
California can kind of make the "hospitable climate" excuse but even rainy Seattle is just carped bombed with tents. Places like DC and Miami are not exactly known for exemplifying effective social services yet somehow they manage to have much less of a problem than the west coast.
Your anecdote is just an anecdote.
https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/map/#fn[]=1400&fn[]=2...
When I checked the box to view percentages, homelessness seems pretty consistent with the major outliers being CA and NY. CA says 26% and NY says 16%, with most everyone else on low single digits. I'm not entirely sure what those numbers mean, though.
Not that this source is anything close to a comprehensive view into national homelessness patterns, but it's clearly an issue throughout the country [1].
[1] https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/map/#fn[]=1400&fn[]=2...
I agree with much of your post but let’s be clear, leading with this can be misleading.
Fundamentally, homelessness centers around being unable, for whatever reason, to work.
Not around specific wages and rents, which I think makes this part a red herring.
We can’t solve homelessness by attacking several ‘root causes’ at once. The key here is to be absolutely candid about what the root cause actually is right now.
Edit: Your comment is using homelessness to critique capitalism, and is not actually about homelessness at all.
No, as the parent said, homelessness centers around the fact that homes cost money. There are all kinds of people in this country who have homes, sometimes many homes, and they don't do any work at all. Conversely, are you aware that many homeless people have jobs and they do actually work? “about 30% of … homeless people have a job” https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-do-about-30-of-h...
As a society, we have the resources to say "Everyone should have a home, no matter what." We have enough homes. There are more empty homes in the US than there are homeless. So it's not even a case that we don't have the resources to end homelessness. We, as a society, choose not to.
I believe that the fundamental necessities of life - shelter, healthcare, education (food, sure, but it is still relatively inexpensive) - should all be socialized to some degree. This can easily coexist with capitalism. Denmark has these things and is still a fervently capitalist country.
In that situation should we still be angry about minimum wage?
See, we are conflating things here.
Some people really can’t work and need help. At that point, as I said above, specific rent amounts and wage amounts become irrelevant.
You need to focus on: what will genuinely help them? Drug treatment? Mental Health treatment. A lifetime of free food and housing etc and the removal of any obligation to contribute to society forever?
I say none of this ironically. When someone simply can’t work, and no one else voluntarily want to take care of them, we have to figure out what to do. And how to distinguish between fakers and real. And between temporary and permanent. Partial and complete.
At that point there are so many issues, putting high rents and low wages in is literally a distraction.
The problem you see is: something prevents some people from contributing enough to society to afford housing.
The problem others see is: some people do not have housing.
I am with the second group. In an era of unparalleled abundance, is it so crazy to provide for everyone’s basic needs without expecting anything in return? What is even the point of “society”, and our contributions to it, if not to make life better for everyone?
We agree on the problem: some people don’t have housing.
Second point: if some subset, which I say is the majority, of people who can’t afford housing are in this situation because they literally can’t work ...
Decreasing rent or raising wages does nothing to address this.
Since these are the most vulnerable people, I feel that bringing concepts like the imbalance between rents and wages actually muddies the waters.
If we agree that’s the problem, can we then agree on the simplest solution? Give everyone housing, with no conditions or strings attached.
It isn’t smart or effective to mix the two. Pick one, and maybe something can get accomplished.
And also, every were the problem primary economic, it doesn’t necessarily follow that capitalism is the problem, it could be bad or corrupt policy that is straightforward to change without diving in on reforming capitalism.
See: every single means tested program in America like disability benefits or SNAP. Hell, my state is throwing out vaccines right now because of this.
I don't understand this point you made? Are you saying that if someone was receiving food and housing they would no longer be obligated to contribute to society? I think that would make them more obligated to contribute, seeing as they are getting food and housing out of the deal.
If you feel otherwise, feel free to campaign for that throughout your life... don't be surprised if most people think you're a dick for it though.
In my native tounge some groups started to frown upon using "homeless man/woman" and suggest to use "person in a crisis of homelessness" underlining that the state is temporal and not intrinsic to the person. When you start talking and hearing it like that it makes it more humane, it can be treated to be kind of xenophobic to say "homeless" about such individual.
Similar thing can be applied to people who are generally said to be "disabled" and there are good causes advocating for saying "people with disabilites" to shift the perspective we look them.
--
Americans have developed a survival strategy of turning horror stories into heartwarming tales. "Homeless person turns to crowdfunding to get themselves a home!"
Americans: Aww how cute!
Rest of the world: What the actual fuck?
"Family turns to internet for insulin supplies because they can't afford them, man drives 1000 miles to give them some."
Americans: Amazing heroism!
Rest of the world: How the hell does a diabetic not get their life-saving medicine?
"96 year old woman flies 200 miles to queue for 6 hours to vote!"
Americans: Wonderful determination!
Rest of the world: Why couldn't she vote where she already was?
I posted it in good faith because I found it a witty highlight of the misery that a reader must ignore to be able to consider a story like this a feel-good tearjerker.
Obviously the comment is a commentary on a specific aspect of American culture, and obviously it takes some poetic liberties (such as suggesting that American culture is a singular thing at all, or that this is only an American thing, or using swear words). But it's not an attack. The way I read it, it neither idealizes nor rejects any country, and wouldn't at least one of those be required for it to be nationalistic flamebait?
For what it's worth, I have no beef with America and I strongly doubt the author has (I do not know them personally). HN is a US-dominated site run by an American organization. America exports a lot of a culture that I want a piece of (notably, SV/startup culture, which HN is a fantastic conduit for). That's what I'm here for.
Either way, I'll refrain from reproducing this particular comment in the future. But we clearly have different frames of reference, and I might take some time to fully understand yours. I believed I was well in the clear wrt HN guidelines and norms with this one.
Flamebait doesn't need replies to count as flamebait - it's all about the odds, i.e. what's the expected flamewar output of such a comment in the long run. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
As it turns out, you speak with a soft G instead of a hard one ;-)
Eindhoven has all the good parts of the south of NL, such as the relaxed culture, the good food, the deep aversion to bullshit, etc. Yet I find that the people here have way less of the shitty parts of Southern Dutch culture, such as the chauvinism, that weird inferiority complex, and the distrust/paranoia towards outsiders.
(My theory is that this is due to there being so many expats here for the big (hardware) tech sector. They came from Drenthe 100 years ago to work at Philips, and now they come from India to work at ASML. It takes only one generation for them to mix with the locals, yet they keep an opener mind than eg the inbreds from Den Bosch)
Also the usual "medium size city" perks: the place is big enough for lots of stuff to do, nice bars and cafes etc, yet small enough to be able to randomly bump into people you know. As someone who grew up on the countryside, I find that a nice balance. That said, there's an exceptionally large amount of stuff to do per capita. Eg neighbouring Tilburg is almost the same size but significantly less vibrant.
Finally, it's super well connected. Notably, the direct train to Utrecht/Amsterdam goes every 10 minutes, almost like a subway.
I’ve never been more than 10 minutes walk from where I need to vote in both countries I’ve lived in
Reading this article was a great way to start my day.