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Comment by awsthro00945 | Hacker News Reader

>Homeless shelter's don't help, they're ridiculously dangerous to be in.

Then solve this problem.

The problem I constantly see with homelessness in America is that municipalities constantly half ass every attempt to fix it, and then throw up their hands and say "well that didn't work, I guess there's nothing we can do!" Building homeless shelters without making them safe places to be is the perfect example of half-assing. I mean ffs, it's in the name: shelter. A homeless shelter not being safe doesn't mean that homeless shelters don't work, it just means your execution was shit.

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Do yourself a favour and volunteer at your nearest shelter for an afternoon.

Do yourself a favor and don't make assumptions about me. I've volunteered at homeless shelters before. At a previous company, I was in charge of working directly with a homeless shelter to organize volunteer events for my colleagues. I have firsthand experience at homeless shelters that have successfully become shelters where people really want to be there rather than on the street because of the services and environment they provide.

it would be constructive to provide some examples of concrete things municipalities can do, and that we can learn about so we can hold them accountable.

I mentioned it in my earlier comment but in my experience it really comes down to continued funding and not "half assing" efforts. The successful homeless shelter I mentioned earlier is not a revolutionary shelter that is doing vastly different things, it's just a shelter that, due to outside donations and support, is able to actually follow through on things like providing security, nutritional food, community building, and opportunities to gain work experience.

In contrast, some of the other homeless "shelters" I've seen are just barely funded enough by the city to keep the roof from leaking and the lights on with minimal staffing. That just doesn't work.

Kudos for being a hands-on part of the solution instead of a hand-wringing theoretician.

But if the only response to “how can things be done better” is “send more money”, anyone who has been on the funding side of things will just move on.

Not “half-a*ing” things doubtless has a lot of components. If you are as successful in your shelter as you say, you have a bunch of proven best practices that can be implemented by other shelters and those who certify them. What are those? How can a funder support the implementation of even one of those specific ideas? That will bring out the wallet faster than a blank check appeal. (Are there even certification and rating programs in this space?)

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