Comment by Rebelgecko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Rebelgecko | Hacker News Reader

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Unfortunately as we've seen with Project Roomkey (and like you alluded to) the problem is a lot more complicated than just routing unhoused people to empty beds. The LA Times[1] actually did an interesting series of articles a couple years back, chronicling what happens the city basically moved an entire encampment into a block of apartments.

People are homeless for different reasons. If someone just happens to be down on their luck or having financial trouble after fleeing an abusive family situation, housing seems to work fairly well. However for people with untreated mental illness and addiction, there can be problems. Especially since many of those people would actually turn down a free place to stay (as we saw recently in Echo Park). Maybe we can make more inclusive housing for the homeless that allows large pets and drug use, but the rent you see on those empty apartments is predicated on assumptions on a tenant's risk. Employees people who care about their credit score are going to have a much different risk profile than the homeless.

[1]: Called The Streets Within, part 1 here: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-15/the-stre...

There was a recent proposition in Californa to house mentally ill homeless people without first insisting they get mental health / drug rehabilitation treatment.

Of course, it was strongly opposed by essentially all groups with any actual experience in helping homeless people, and of course, because the idea sounds good until you think about it for a few minutes, the ballot proposition passed.

This sounds, well, extremely California. Do you remember which proposition it was? I'd like to check it out in more detail, see if anything's actually happened.

No; it passed in 2020, I think. Maybe 2019.

There was no such proposition in 2020, at least.

Has anyone tried/considered/researched work-camps for the homeless? Like a mini-city with metaphorical padding built-in everywhere, until they're "rehabilitated" back into being able to (and wanting to) survive in the normal world. That includes giving them a salary, shelter, "banking facilities", shops to buy things in, medical facilities and training, etc.

We spend so much on housing criminals in essentially adult daycare to "rehabilitate" them, so why can't we come up with similar elaborate institutions to care for the homeless that have problems functioning in the society we've built around them?

Most European prisons are similar to what you describe (though the focus is on education and training, not working to earn money).

They have much lower recidivism rates than the US (unlike the US prison system, which is optimized to punish and profit, those systems are optimized to reduce crime).

What was the offer for the people staying in Echo Park?

3 meals a day and a guaranteed hotel room for 6 months, and the city would make a best effort attempt to house everyone in a more permanent situation by September.

However the hotel rooms have really strict rules. For example there's a curfew for a dumb reason[1], and people who get back to the hotel too late have to wait until the next day to return to their rooms. There's also limitations on how much stuff they can bring with them into the hotels (no more than 2 suitcases or shopping carts full of stuff) which if you've seen many encampments you know will be a dealbreaker for some.

[1]: The city has designated COVID screeners during the day, but when they go home it's just security guards at the hotels. However the COVID screening is just a thermometer check so they could totally just teach the security guards how to use thermometers.

> (no more than 2 suitcases or shopping carts full of stuff) which if you've seen many encampments you know will be a dealbreaker for some.

I know a lot of people, myself included, who were fully employed and have rented rooms or even apartments where 2 shopping carts full of stuff would not have fitted.

Absolutely. For many homeless people, having to move into a hotel room would require some serious downsizing (here's one of the more extreme examples in LA- https://i.redd.it/arq8wlg5qfk61.jpg)

Large pets and drug use in multi-family houses built from cardboard (OSB) ? That's one sure way to increase number of mental health issues among those occupying said multi-family houses

OSB is made of strands of wood fiber and adhesive, not cardboard

Cardboard is made of wood fibers and adhesive

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