Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

'people without housing opted to sleep outside in tents rather than accept the heightened risk at the shelters'....

This issue is more complex than it appears. The catchall phrase 'homeless' doesn't begin to describe the three horsemen of the unsheltered apocalypse: Substance abuse, Serious mental illness and indigents.

While the shelters are often very rough drug dens, ironically many substance abuse casualties refuse care and walk out of other services facilities because they won't or can't abide by the sobriety rules.

I'm very enthusiastic about firms like palletshelter.com because local authorities can quickly set up their heat & ac equipped tiny homes on local land and infrastructure to serve the three distinct group's very different needs. What doesn't work is allowing addicts to camp out in downtown areas for obvious hygiene and practical reasons. This chap who is using his carpentry skills to 'help the homeless' is arguably a well meaning co dependent.

California is an absolute disaster area right now, with half the USA homeless and more coming, 13 billion spent in the last three years on a problem that is getting worse, and the misguided 'housing first' dogma dominating political decision making. The sooner we start behaving responsibly towards the unsheltered and take their disparate issues and needs seriously in the western world the sooner we can begin to tackle this huge issue. Building favelas and skid rows in major cities is a recipe for disaster and so are attempts to provide free housing for everyone who doesn't have one for obvious economic and behavioral/medical reasons.

https://vimeo.com/532718306 Venice Beach in LA 2021

How about we stop moralising and just provide shelter? Half of population is hooked on opioids and psych drugs. But somehow it is unacceptable for homeless to get high.

It is responsibility of city hall to provide basic infrastructure. That includes showers and toilets!

> Half of population is hooked on opioids and psych drugs. But somehow it is unacceptable for homeless to get high.

Indeed. It must be unacceptable for everyone. Drugs, like religion, is a cancer of society.

> How about we stop moralising and just provide shelter?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/us/fentanyl-overdoses-san...

Maybe if they would be in house, they would stop killing themselfs. It is kind of hard to get dosage right on dark street.

>Building favelas and skid rows in major cities is a recipe for disaster and so are attempts to provide free housing for everyone who doesn't have one for obvious economic and behavioral/medical reasons.

Where is "obvious ... reasons" being applied in this sentence - to the people's lack of housing, or to the problems with building housing for all?

I would imagine they follow a similar school of thought to the “Moral Hazard” crowd, by the sounds of things.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/moralhazard.asp

Favelas and skid rows: Public hygiene, safety, degradation of public facilities, stress on resources.

'Housing first': the economics of providing free housing has been historically demonstrated by then mayor of San Francisco Newsom, who pledged to 'end homelessness' 17 years ago. https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homeles... The result was an expensive disaster - the more housing was provided for the 'homeless', the more people came to get free housing in a temperate climate with a casual attitude to drug use.

Last year Newsom as California governor used billions of covid relief money to buy motels under 'project homekey'and is planning more of this spending in 2021 in a repeat of his San Francisco Mayor disster. Housing 31 people in hotel room 'homes' locally to where I am sitting now cost around 18m, just over a half million per person plus annual service costs - 3 hot meals a day delivered from a local restaurant (Mexicans who immigrated illegally and now run a thriving business).

In the western world urban centers the homeless migrate to, housing and utility costs are very high compared to the rest of the world. LA beachfront housing is famously high, yet local politicians are packing Venice Beach and other areas with street dwellers.

'Housing first' is an academic philosophy originating in 1980's UK that suggests that public spending to give permanent free housing to the homeless is a viable solution as that de stresses the person being housed and 'allows them to get back on their feet' in society, solving their SMI and substance abuse issues. This has been proven over and over again to be the wrong answer while being blindingly expensive and effectively advertising free houses through the grapevine.

Well meaning compassionate people buy in to politicians saying these things (and arguably become co dependents to those for whom obtaining drugs for their habit is paramount). All too often politicians create a Potemkin village housing a few homeless in show homes to parade in their media while ignoring the rest, all while quietly cutting housing costs elsewhere. An example is these San Francisco housing projects residents discussing how they may be evicted after the pandemic.

https://youtu.be/A_2dDbFD4FE

As I said previously the answer is mobile home/tiny home facilities on public land/infrastructure run at a federal level to prevent mass migrations to where the grass is greenest, and large scale spending on substance abuse and SMI care in separate locations.

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