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Comment by oconnor663 | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is that one of the serious practical downsides to free public transit in American cities is that lots of homeless people use it. This sounds silly (like, isn't that the goal?), but some fraction of those people are smelly and/or scary, and what tends to happen is that anyone who has a choice stops using those parts of the system. And then however one might feel about that outcome, what tends to happen next is that the transit system loses political support and funding.

There's probably a common sense solution somewhere that includes both free ridership and also fairly strong enforcement around loitering and hygeine, but I don't know if any city has managed to really nail it.

Incidentally, I think a lot of similar problems come up in cities that have free public bathrooms. A small number of abusers tend to make those bathrooms extremely unpleasant for everyone else.

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Part of the problem is in being one of the only services that offers itself for free. If the homeless don't have ready access to showers and basic hygiene products, but do have ready access to public transit, then you get a lot of unhygenic people on public transit.

If homeless people do not have ready access to shelter, but do have ready access to public transit, then you get them spending time on public transit for the shelter it provides, which means they use it a lot more then they would if they were using it for transit. Public transit isn't even particularly good shelter, but since most places don't allow loitering (with selective enforcement against the undesirables), you again get them congregating on the few places that do.

I wonder if it's possible to have a multi-tier system where you have a free compartment but also a separate paid compartment with much higher standards (and prices).

The higher prices of the paid compartment would go towards subsidizing the free compartment.

In theory, I think is a good idea. An even better benefit in my mind is that it addresses the original articles complaint by providing a form of means testing without actually means testing. The free compartment is available to everyone weather they need it or not (that is to say, weather they can demonstrate in a satisfactory manner that they need it or not), however the people that don't actually need it will self-select out.

The problem is political. At least in the US, this approach would be opposed by both major political ideologies: the right because it is a government hand out, and the left because it is unfair to have a "poor" section of the bus (see the reaction to mixed income apartments having a separate section 8 entrance, or restricting the amenities that section 8 residents are allowed to use, which is essentially what you are proposing).

Further, the nature of bureaucracies in our economics system (be they for profit or government) is to prioritize profit centers at the expense of cost centers, so it would be difficult to maintain the "poor" compartment to an adequate level. Compounding on this is the fact that the poor and homeless tend to be the least politically powerful groups, and maintaining adequete funding for this scheme would be difficult,

If the prices are too high, that could lead to issues where someone who b can't afford to regularly be taking it might not end up riding if the free compartment is regularly full even if the paid one never is. OTOH, I suppose it's also possible some people might not ride now due to prices but would be able to if there were a way to ride completely for free.

> Part of the problem is in being one of the only services that offers itself for free.

It's worse than that imho.

I live somewhere that provides a fair bit of support and free services (e.g., transitional housing) for the homeless. That doesn't get rid of the homelessness, all it means is that the remaining people without access to shelter and showers are those that are generally incompatible with polite society for a variety of reasons. (Crime, severe drug abuse, severe mental illness, etc.)

Implementing it as "anyone can hop on wherever" implements a weak filter for the worst of the homeless population using it as shelter. Those who've been refused or kicked out of available shelter.

I could see it working more as a "free transit passes" program so they could be revoked and not re-issued for people that were going to cause ongoing issues in the same way someone that shows up to transitional housing and gets high and assaults other tenants and neighbours could be removed.

“A fair bit of support and free services” != a home, so it should be unsurprising that the homeless remain. Getting a job that can afford a home is hard enough if you already have a home. Without a home at all, getting a job is just unrealistic.

You can say all you want about Castro, but he did in fact eliminate homelessness in Cuba.

> “A fair bit of support and free services” != a home

The city provides studio apartments with "daily meals, laundry, showers, housing application assistance, community and health service referrals, skills building, relationship building, connection to volunteer and employment opportunities, and other support services".

It's not a home, but it certainly means that the people availing themselves fully of the opportunities presented to them aren't unwelcome on transit because of their inability to maintain basic hygiene.

I was just thinking about this when typing up a top level reply. If you make things free, sometimes people will abuse it or do weird things - for example, homeless people taking sponge baths in public library bathrooms. But I doubt homeless people would clean themselves in public libraries at the same frequency if they had convenient access to "public showers" or some such.

But there are a lot of wrinkles to this kind of thinking. What if there is access to shelter, but it imposes some kind of deal breaking restriction like no drug usage? Or no felons? Let's get even more controversial - what if the shelter bans sex offenders, should homeless sex offenders be forced to shower in libraries? Things get complicated, and a lot of politicians aren't willing to die on these hills when their housed constituents have strong emotional reactions to these things.

It's called the tragedy of the commons.

Nuh. None of those fix the problem. They just fix tiny issues around the problem.

The only way to reduce homeless is rebuild traditional value and traditional family structure. Less people get divorced, less kids get abandoned. People always get last resort from the big family and the church and family friends and church friends, etc.

Get help from the government and charity organizations should be rare cases.

But we are on the destructive path for a long time. Part of it is natural consequence of social change, but it's also partly due to some people think they are capable of design a new society from top to bottom.

Yeah, because 100 years ago there were not any tramps, hobos or bums.

> Less people get divorced, less kids get abandoned.

Afaik, most abandoned homeless kids are queers, most often trans. Then kids with behavioral issues (yes, stemming from crappy parents in the first place). I really dont understand how return to traditional values and family structure would improve either.

Another dynamic I've seen is the effect of every community doing it differently. I live in a community that leans a little more liberal and wealthy than many of the counties around it. For a period some 15 years ago, there was a real public outreach to do better. Facilities were added, taxes were raised a little, but it was mostly good at first. And then word got out that we were where the free stuff was at. This caused a spike in homeless immigration to the area, and then the system wasn't enough. This has led to a real reversal in public attitudes about this. The resources aren't infinite, and being nicer than your neighbors just creates a feedback loop that doesn't stabilize.

The tragedy of the commons in action.

Many homeless person are facing a little more than a hygiene crisis and it's not something a few free baths around can fix and you don't need that many to ruin the premises of a free service

So the argument against an interesting idea that has been implemented successfully in some localities is that there is an unrelated problem (homelessness) that has also been addressed successfully in other places.

I agree that potential problems should always be anticipated. But if the conclusion is "well we have homelessness so we can't offer a service that will be taken advantage of by homeless people in unintended ways" we can just as well agree that everyone with a six figure income move into a gated community and leave the rest of society to THE PURGE.

The obvious conclusion for a self-respecting society should be "let's try free public transit and also throw money and mental health support at the homeless population until they don't exist any more."

> But if the conclusion is "well we have homelessness so we can't offer a service that will be taken advantage of by homeless people in unintended ways"

The objection isn't that homeless people will use the service, it's that they'll effectively make it unusable by everyone else.

Yes, in an ideal world that wouldn't happen. But whether or not we should have homeless people, we do, so proposals need to take this reality into account. If you think you can "just fix" homelessness, then do that first and worry about transit after.

Back around WWII when most households didn't have warm running water here in Denmark, there were places where you could go and have a shower or a bath for a small fee. Would that be a possibility, or is that as untouchable politically as pay toilets?

This sounds like a strange idea, but when I traveled in Europe, there were always first and second class carriages on the trains. You could do the same thing with transit. Every other bus is free. People could then choose between hanging out with the people for a few blocks, or paying for a ride.

What an innovative idea! Here in the states, economic indicators are a great proxy for many other aspects. Maybe we could do a trial in Montgomery, Alabama, surely nothing would go wrong.

It would be helpful to us non-US persons if you'd explain what signal you're proxying with "Montgomery, Alabama". As it is this means nothing to a large number of people reading your comment.

I think they are referring to Rosa Parks, where the economic difference would lead to segregation.

That's an incidental effect of not providing proper housing. Blaming homeless people for not having somewhere to go is like victim shaming. Giving homeless people homes is cheaper than not.

Unlimited access to housing, medicine, and food does not make you a responsible adult.

As the brother of a homeless person, many do have a place to go, but choose the homeless lifestyle. My brother moved to a big west coast city to be homeless. Cheaper housing there wouldn't have helped him.

Not everyone chooses to be homeless, so painting all homeless with one brush would be disingenuous.

For example, I know 6 sane, smarter-than-average, old guys who drift around the SF Bay Area mid-Peninsula region who don't drink or do drugs, but are poor and cannot afford housing on their own. 2 have managed to get accommodations, 1 by the COVID lockdown. That's 4 left looking for 24-hour coffee shops, laundromats, bus stops, and diners.

But giving all homeless homes isn't the solution either, lest you want crime and drug filled ghettos.

The solution in my mind requires everything, at once. Homes for those who need it. Mental support for those who need it. And enforcement for those who merely want to abuse and corrupt the system.

The homeless problem lumps everyone together into one camp and while they do suffer equally, their reasons are vastly different. There is no single solution, and it certainly will be difficult.

Unfortunately i see the friction involved in _actually_ solving this problem as so great that it will never be done. Though some extreme measures may be taken.

Hate and demonization of homeless people is entirely inappropriate. I suggest you look at yourself before judging people you don't know.

There is no hate at all here. What about what i said makes you think that?

Furthermore, what about being homeless is good? Since all i said is a way to resolve homelessness, in my eyes, yet you perceive that as hate. To me it is hateful to leave those people in this state.

> But giving all homeless homes isn't the solution either, lest you want crime and drug filled ghettos.

Doesn't ghettos implies that they're all in the same place? Maybe having a few everywhere would avoid that problem.

There are bigger problems that won't ever get solved. This small one won't be the first.

You are the one that painted all homeless with one brush when you said:

> That's an incidental effect of not providing proper housing.

There are many causes, it is not only an effect of not providing proper housing, which I think was GC's point.

But free housing in that west coast city could have reduced the amount he cost that city.

Yep. It's also important that free housing doesn't turn into concentration camps (defined as collecting people into areas separate from communities) to hide former homeless people. Expanding Section 8 and similar with rapid SRO placement would be an easier solution in the short-term, while there is a need for dedicated/incentivized Section 8 and true affordable housing inventory against the wishes of NIMBYs.

This is it exactly - in areas without a "homeless problem" however you want to define that - you have a completely workable solution (example: airport shuttle trains, etc).

Where you have an issue the fare requirement is often used an excuse to enforce a minimum level of "cleanliness" if you will.

That's a symptom though; if you don't want homeless people looking for shelter, you should solve the homeless crisis instead of making public transit expensive.

I mean there's a lot of people who would gain a lot of opportunities if they could afford to commute, so free public transit would also reduce the homeless and poverty situation.

What really makes me angry is that it's not a dichotomy; the US is the richest country in the world, they can give free health care, housing and education to everyone. But they refuse, instead (nationally) pumping it into the military while (privately) funneling it upwards to the extremely rich.

That money could be redistributed to raise the minimum wage (and if you get paid minimum wage, your employer is effectively saying "I'd pay you less if I could") and improve the lives of everyone.

But the people in power (and their voters) don't want that, because that means considering those worse off as them as equals. It boils down not to economics, but egoism, classism and racism. It's the "as long as I got mine" attitude.

I hear this a lot, but it isn't as much of a problem as it would seem. The emery go round in Emerville and Oakland, and the Alameda Loop shuttle are both free and don't have this problem. It seems like the solution here is everyone disembarking at the end of the route. And you have areas where public transit isn't free that do have this problem

Nailed it.

I would love to use public transit in SF, but instead I'll just keep using Uber for my own sanity and health.

Perfect. Tax Uber to subsidize free public transit.

This turns into an adverse selection death spiral. The people who abuse the service will be subsidized by those who were driven off by them.

That might work in the short run. In the long run, voters who don’t see value in the service will inevitably tire of paying for it.

Making public transit broadly appealing is the way to sustain it. Finding competing services to tax to pay for it is a minor part of the overall strategy I think.

My relatively small city has free public transit, it's very nice. There isn't a big homeless population though. A quick Google search shows that quite a few bigger cities are also doing it for free.

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