With a spouse that works in palliative medicine, I really wish the author had chosen a different phrase. Please don’t get the idea that palliative care is only for the dying. Everything else about the article is spot on.
Also, I cost more, on a per year basis, than the individual in the article, as I require an orphan drug and will for the rest of my life.
I am American but fortunately live abroad so I don’t have to put up with people writing BS narratives and stories that “link” arbitrary statistics together, which people with economics backgrounds tend to do. All in all, this is clickbait.
The solution to the “problem” in the article is houses, regardless of drug usage status.
We're talking chiefly people addicted to opiates, not someone affected by stimulant psychosis. They can handle homework just fine.
And even if that was the case, the cost would be lower than keeping these people in hotels and less damaging than sleeping rough.
And yes, it's actually very, very easy to do incredible amounts of damage to a place without much action. Don't clean it and leave trash rotting everywhere and cause an insect and vermin infestation. Throw literal shit on the walls, leave a clogged faucet on and forget about it and cause a lot of water damage everywhere along with a very bad mold problem, punch the walls in anger and leave huge holes in the drywall and broken windows. Rip off cabinet doors and use it as firewood because it's 'free firewood'. Fixing damage from bad behavior like that crosses into 6 figures very quickly.
And if your actively angry, you can do shit like pour concrete down the toliet and faucets and more.
These people need active management in a long term mental health facility, not just housing. The +%90 of invisible homeless that don't have a serious mental illness, brain damage and crippling drug addictions yes can be helped by housing. Most 'invisible' homeless people in that category get out within a year or two. I think what everyone is referencing when they are talking about homeless is the chronic visible ones yelling at a random tree.
I to tought that it was a branch of medicine dedicated to the relief of the suffering of those who are afflicted with a disease that will eventually kill them. But clearly you indicate that it's more than that so I would like to know.