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Comment by adamredwoods | Hacker News Reader

You've formulated a policy from one anecdote? Homelessness is complex. That is why no single policy can remedy it, because people try to see it or treat it as one-solution-fits-all.

https://www.seattle.gov/homelessness/the-roots-of-the-crisis

http://archive.kuow.org/post/tenants-risk-homelessness-were-...

http://archive.kuow.org/post/community-talk-about-jungle

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I haven't formulated a policy, nor would I be very good at it if I tried. You're absolutely right, homelessness _is_ complex, that's sort of what I was getting at, though I could've phrased it much better.

I think the viewpoint I find frustrating is that if we could "just" solve the housing affordability issue, that everything else would fall into place. There are places with very affordable housing with lots of homeless people. There are places with very expensive housing and almost no homeless people. The issue is multi-faceted and complex, but I personally think it's better to start by looking at the social factors than it is the strict economics.

> I think the viewpoint I find frustrating is that if we could "just" solve the housing affordability issue, that everything else would fall into place.

This is not a viewpoint that I've ever heard earnestly expressed by anyone involved in homelessness/housing policy.

Housing is something we should provide for two reasons: because it is the humane thing to do, and because it lowers the ceiling for other restorative/rehabilitative efforts. It can't on it's own solve every social ill that comes with homelessness or privation, and it isn't intended to.

I think people talk about housing a lot for a few reasons. Firstly, it is impossible to help someone out of an addiction and to help them land on their feet if they don’t have somewhere to live. Secondly, the cost of housing means that someone could end up on the streets for a short period of time just because they couldn’t make ends meet for a month. That can easily turn into something worse. Third, and maybe most importantly, housing is something which impacts everyone. When it’s very hard to find for the average person to find a decent place for a good price, everyone starts caring about it more. As an example, lower housing prices immediately benefits folk’s lives here more than addiction services would. Finally, the perceived changes required for housing are easier to make than other changes. For example, people mostly seem to talk about upzoning, reducing NIMBYism, and making the permitting process faster. Relatively speaking, it’s easier to make those changes than it is to solve drug use and crime.

So that’s why I believe people focus on housing a lot.

Of course the other aspects (mental health and drug use) are extremely important as well. Because someone who is mentally unwell might not want to live in that cheap apartment. But how do you solve that problem? If we have a group of people who can’t or don’t rely on a family support system (which was probably more common 50-100 years ago), we need to create a support system for them. And that is extremely challenging to do compared to “change the zoning laws” or “pay a developer to build a new building.”

So I think it makes sense that people fixate on housing, even if the other parts of it are also very impactful. (But again, how do you solve the social factors if someone doesn’t even have somewhere to live?)

People don't formulate policies from anecdotes, silly. They adopt policies that align with their existing world view and then anecdotes to back up these policies.

I strongly doubt it was the article from the Stranger's blog that completely turned around honkdaddy's thinking on this subject.

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