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Comment by rdubs333 | Hacker News Reader

I lost everything due to Covid in 2020. I have been on and off homeless since. Not able to find affordable or stable housing. I wrote three books, one of which is top ten on Apple Books for "design system", while living in parking lots at the library. I get continually harassed and fired for things I cant help. Americans are cruel to the homeless. Its quite disturbing. I have met so many that quite literally will never get out of their situation. No facilities, no showers. One lost a leg due to infection. Never trust your eyes only and most humans these days dont even use theirs very good.

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Our government collects a lot of taxes for helping people like you. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that that’s not working but do you have any insight into why none of the homeless assistance projects aren’t capable of bringing you back to a stable situation?

It's a haphazard, inconsistent, bureaucratic, unkind, demeaning patchwork that isn't funded enough to meet the needs of people left-out in the actual cold. It's not meant to help people improve their situation because it treats people consistently like lazy criminals who don't want help and can't be helped.

- Section 8 housing takes forever.

- Work programs are for menial jobs that don't pay anywhere close to livable wages.

- Cash assistance amounts to $5 per day.

- Food assistance amounts to $7 per day (without a means of refrigeration).

- Medic-aid is barely accepted by any doctors except random ones. Medicare with SSDI takes years to get.

- Make just enough to try to get ahead, then you can't afford medications. Working severely penalizes the destitute into even more impossible situations.

- Everything takes longer and is more difficult and more expensive: laundry, showering, and transportation.

- Social workers don't go outdoors in most of America. They sit at desks, fill out paperwork, and randomly stop benefits based on errors, assumptions, and their lack of communication.

I read a statistic that the government spends $108k per homeless individual in San Francisco per annum. Reading this, it seems efficient for government to just hand that directly to the homeless..

That's the argument for UBI. Basically it's "no, we don't trust the government even to decide if somebody is in a precarious situation, much less to know how to help them".

It's probably more cynical than the reality warrants, but it's visibly closer to the truth than the current "let's poll the money and hire some people to help the ones in need".

> "no, we don't trust the government even to decide if somebody is in a precarious situation, much less to know how to help them"

UBI switches the question : "we think the people themselves would do a much better job if they just had the money". It's gonna be true in some cases. And completely wrong in many others.

1. I need to see the exact statistic, but IME statistics like that are flawed because they undercount the amount of people served (ie. housing assistance that keeps people housed would count towards the budget, but won't count toward the amount of "homeless individuals")

2. the other possibility is that for the very mentally ill, they actually do need 2x the median income to survive, eg. because of mental illness counseling costs.

If there was a no-strings attached $108K/y to be had somewhere, some conniving scum would find a way to get their hands on it before any single genuine homeless person in need.

Conniving scum skimming off the top is a large is part of the reason it costs $108k/y/pp in the first place. A simpler system is less prone to fraud and embezzlement.

> Medic-aid is barely accepted by any doctors except random ones

What makes you think any sort of government intervention will solve this? If you implement universal healthcare these doctors will still have revenue streams from rich people and won't need to take poor patients. You can't force doctors to treat people they don't want to.

An even more absurd form of this is happening in France.

There used to be some "abuse" (according to the national health insurance administration) where people would, supposedly, try to see specialists for no reason. So they figured that everyone should have a "family doctor" and, with a few exceptions (dentist, eyes, maybe others) you always have to go through this doctor first.

Now most of these doctors are "full" and won't take any new clients. You don't need to be poor, they don't even ask your situation. If you call them up, they'll ask you if the doc knows you. If not, they hang up. And even if they're your family doctor, you better hope your cough isn't anything too urgent, 'cause they're in no hurry to see you.

Of course, there are doctors who will see you, but usually they charge extra, so they're not fully covered by the "free" healthcare, if at all.

> So they figured that everyone should have a "family doctor" and, with a few exceptions (dentist, eyes, maybe others) you always have to go through this doctor first.

Every private insurer I've ever had in the US has the exact same requirement.

That’s mostly a problem in small towns, not that it makes the problem OK

From what I hear it's brutal in small towns. My post above came from my own experience, living in Paris proper.

I live in Paris, and finding a medecin traitant has been a pain.

Interesting, never had an issue in Lyon. Just use google maps, call the ones that are closer to you, sure some won't take you because they have too many patients but usually there are so many doctors that it's not a problem. I'm surprised that Paris would have this problem but not Lyon.

Univers healthcare almost always bans duplicate coverage. Without private insurance, a tiny fraction of people (<1%) can afford to bypass the public healthcare system. Therefore, it is not financially viable for all but a small number of doctors not to integrate into the public healthcare system.

The scenario you're described had the opportunity to be borne out in dozens of countries and generally didn't.

No. Most proposals for universal healthcare by the American left would ban private insurance.

Most actual universal healthcare does not ban private insurance.

>Basically, every single country with universal coverage also has private insurance,” says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies international health systems. “I don’t think there is a model in the world that allows you to go without it.”

https://www.vox.com/health-care/2019/2/12/18215430/single-pa...

You're making the exact mistake I was anticipating when I talked about duplicate insurance. Sure, you can get private insurance, but it cannot legally cover anything that is covered by public insurance. This is the standard worldwide.

You're conflating private insurance and duplicate private insurance, and ending up on a very mistaken conclusion because of it.

Nope. There is no such "standard worldwide". Read the article I posted. In most countries private insurance either replaces public insurance (in countries whose system uses an individual mandate like the original ACA) or as the article puts it, "complements it", for "faster access to specialty doctors or elective procedures."

In the vast majority of countries it "complements" or "supplements" it. There are very few countries where private healthcare is allowed to replace public care. Israel, Slovenia, the Netherlands and few developing countries are the only cases.

There are other countries with a system between complementary and duplicate where private insurance may also pay for duplicate care, but you still aren't allowed to not subscribe to the public healthcare plan.

Duplicate healthcare insurance is deeply toxic and

> Duplicate healthcare insurance is deeply toxic

Wanting better coverage - lower wait times, higher quality doctors - is deeply toxic? Getting higher quality doctors who don't want to get paid pennies by the public system is toxic? (for example Medicare pays substantially less than most private insurance in the US today to care providers, which is one of the biggest reasons why many doctors don't take Medicare patients)

I don't see how being able to have a private plan isn't a win-win for doctors and patients. Doctors get paid more by private insurance, and patients get better care. If you want to use the public system you have the option of doing that.

What happens in the long run if you force doctors to exclusively get paid public system rates? Doctors make less and less smart people want to become doctors. Why do you think the federal government can't hire top tier software talent? It's because they pay pennies on the dollar compared to private companies. You can't regulate your way out of a market. The Soviet Union found that out the hard way.

> the only cases

You left out Germany and Switzerland, probably others. Hardly "developing countries".

So you agree that universal healthcare systems do not almost always ban duplicate coverage, and you agree that there is no "worldwide standard" of banning duplicate coverage though private insurance.

You're just in favor of banning private insurance and are willing to engage in sweeping hyperbole toward that end.

Other countries don't have Supreme Court rulings stating that banning campaign finance contributions was a violation of the 1st Amendment. Such a ban would absolutely be challenged and likely struck down in court in the US.

Meh. There are already Supreme Court rulings that state that insurance falls upon the Federal government as interstate commerce, and there is already precedent for banning certain categories of insurance.

The only way it would get struck down is if there were activist judges and if there was no political will to repair the Supreme Court. I would assume that in a world where the US political system manages to fix itself enough to pass universal healthcare that would be dealt with or fixable, because those are more urgent issues.

>manages to fix itself enough to pass universal healthcare

The Democrats could have done this of their own volition in Obama's first term, during periods where the Senate had a filibuster-proof majority. Instead, they came up with the ACA.

Thanks a lot Joe.

> Lieberman, 67, used his deciding vote in Congress to help strip out a provision for government-run medical insurance, intended to set up competition to the abuses of private companies, by threatening to filibuster the legislation.

> Senate leaders agreed to drop the public option for all in favour of allowing people over 55 to buy into an existing government-run scheme for the elderly. In September, Lieberman supported the measure, as he had when he was Al Gore's running mate. But just as it seemed that a deal was done, Lieberman scuppered it by announcing that he had changed his mind and would block any bill that expanded government insurance coverage. Obama gave way.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/16/joe-lieberman-...

> The Democrats could have done this of their own volition in Obama's first term, during periods where the Senate had a filibuster-proof majority. Instead, they came up with the ACA.

How much more than the ACA (a campaign promise) and stimulus did you expect them to get done in the 4 months of the first term that they had a filibuster-proof majority?

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-oba...

>How much more than the ACA

They could have done universal healthcare instead of ACA and with much simpler legislation and less regulatory authoring burden.

They never said that. All they did was describe why the current American system sucks.

Because we solved it entirely in Scandinavia and most of northern Europe.

- If you start to make a little legal money, your benefits get reduced by more than you earn.

One of the major problems is that inexpensive housing is illegal.

India has slums, and Brazil has favelas. They aren't good but they are better than the street. US used to have rooming houses. Now, if you cant afford an apartment, and can't get an expensive one gifted from the state, you have to live in the street. (Not in your car; that's usually illegal too.)

russia has house shares that work good for them

urban campgrounds. even Rome had showers. people like me. i am a web developer and artist. i never took no help from any of your tax dollars. i paid my way or asked permission. very rarely broke laws. racially discriminated, income discriminated. people like me is part of the problem

I wouldn't say refuse, I was accepted to a program but got mugged and had to move to new location only to get mugged again. I think you are grossly over estimating the help there is or the strings tied to that help. I do still have legs and a brain and I work as much as I can, give back but I also dont sell out my work or myself or my goals or freedom.

why do you refer to yourself on your website in third person? genuinely curious, as marketing goes, thats a red flag.

also the load time is wack, and the stats aren't backed up, im confused

red flag for what? ask me anything. good feedback but i guess i been so many roles over years i rather be objective about my accomplishments. the man, the myth, the legend!!!

You should seek therapy, there’s a few red flags here

well for one, you didn't answer my question...

Seems weird to complain about a bad situation and then refuse the help that exists.

If you're an immigrant like me, then a lot of these services are not available to you in the USA. Or, if you do take advantage of any of them you are permanently excluded for applying for citizenship.

Just an offhand comment, but looking through your personal site[1] makes it seems like you're living this amazing life and smashing goals. One of those real "Instagram vs. Reality" contrasts.

[1]https://rwoodall.com/

thanks for viewing my portfolio i worked really hard for those pieces and accomplishments. not trying to be anything its got its ups m downs

I don't understand how is this possible exactly?

A minimum wage job will get you at least $900 a month.

You can get an apartment for $500. Health Insurance is $30, utilities $200. You can get a minimum of $50 per week in food stamps. You will get about $1000 in EITC each year.

That is with bare-bones, $7.25 an hour minimum wage and the lowest level of assistance.

With a tiny bit of advancement you can afford much more.

I know I will get downvoted to shit for this, but I honestly think most Americans have a poor relationship with money.

I grew up poor in Eastern Europe. When I came to the US in one of those work&travel programs, I was shocked people were sooo bad with their finances. I had a lot of financial responsibility because I grew up poor but most people did not have such a thing over there.

Are you trolling, not in the US, or from the past?

In plenty of big cities, you'll see 6 people share a 1-bedroom apartment. Price can be $500 each. These places are terrible, but they are cheap.

Example 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/nyregion/overcrowding-wor...

Example 2: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/23/nyregion/base...

In plenty of big cities, that is nominally illegal.

No, I'm not trolling and I live in the US. What part of the specifics do you take issue with?

I'll bite!

>>You can get an apartment for $500. Health Insurance is $30, utilities $200

Right off the bat, you're not "getting an apartment for $500." MAYBE you can find someone trustworthy who can rent you a bedroom for $500/month in some cities but:

As of 2020, monthly rent averaged $1,164 nationwide; median rent is $1,104.

-- https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renting-statistics

Only 7% of US counties have 1-bedroom apartments affordable on the prevailing minimum wage.

-- https://reports.nlihc.org/oor

Also, you need first month's rent ($500), security deposit ($500-$1000), utility deposit ($50 - $500), and sometimes last month's rent ($500).

So now we're talking a few grand. Better hope you spent the past three months working that guaranteed-40-hours/week minimum wage job without spending a single penny of your wages!

I also hope that your job is very close to your new apartment because you're going to need to spend a LOT of time chasing all the benefits that you seem to think are easily handed out and you don't have money for transit. Nope, you can't afford to take a whole day off work to wait in line for a free transit pass -- after all, you're going to spend $700 of this month's $900 income on housing and utilities!

At least make up numbers from this century if you're going to pull this Horatio Alger stuff :-)

I say this without judgement, but it's very possible that the OP isn't able to hold down a job: not through any fault of their own, but because employment is extremely narrow in what it can accommodate. As they clearly state, they're able to get a job but unable to keep one: your suggestion, while probably meant to be helpful, isn't very helpful when the world of employment is out of reach to a lot of people, not because they lack the skills, but because employers don't care to accommodate people.

For what it's worth, I'd be completely incapable of handling a minimum wage job.

> they're able to get a job but unable to keep one

(Genuine Q) if someone were to provide a home, would they be able to keep that?

I'm struggling to find an article I read years ago (feel sure it was somewhere at theguardian.com) in which it was proposed that just providing houses wouldn't all by itself "fix" homelessness.

If you literally can't hold down a job you can get disability, but I think if you are able to live in a car you can get a job. There is such a wide variety of jobs and this guy says he wrote a book. You can make more than minimum wage right now, just writing posts on your phone.

Aside from the minimum wage income, no other number you said is remotely in line with reality.

That's not true at all. Those are absolutely real numbers. Cheapest ACA plans with income of $13k is $20 and no deductible. Lots of Apartments for $500 or less all over US. Check Zillow, which is a poor representative.

Your minimum wage number goes over the $13k income.

>Check Zillow

There's literally zero matches for rents under $500 in LA County.

13k isn't a cut off, it doesn't change much. If your are in California medi-cal would be free anyway, and the minimum wage would be much higher.

But...don't live in LA county... Or even California, the options are not either be homeless or live in the most expensive place in the US.

What city are you getting a $500 apartment in, and what health insurance plan is $30?

Shitty, illegal apartments, likely with 5+ roommates.

In New York City: Example 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/nyregion/overcrowding-wor... Example 2: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/23/nyregion/base...

> What city are you getting a $500 apartment in

Probably possible with a roommate. Still possible without, but rarer. I’ve seen dirt cheap one rooms available (think like $350/m) in middle of nowhere Utah. In certain cities, you can even live in the city, for maybe a little more than $500. I’ve seen them for example, in Des Moines.

I wouldn’t necessarily blanket any region, as as you drill down, you find that some places where’s you’d expect cheaper housing don’t have it because of whatever local bureaucracy is preventing it.

The cheapest ACA plans with $13000 income are $20-$30. So regular insurance. There are apartments all over for $500 or less. Search Zillow, there are far more though if you look on Facebook or just walk around an area and collect signs. Obviously it's not going to be the nicest spot, but most any college town will have lots of nice places for around $500.

The average Apartment in California is over $3000. If there is anything that is 500, it will be worse than a tent.

It's not worse than a tent / car, and you don't need to stay in California. Although there are spots for less than $500, even in CA.

No, that's an average luxury apartment or 2 bedroom regular apartment. If you're working a minimum wage job you can live with roommates. You can absolutely find a shared room with 1 other person for $900/mo (OP's $7.25 assumption is wrong as minimum wage in LA is $16.04/h = $2500/mo fulltime). In California you would also qualify for MediCal which is completely free, including 0 copay.

>The average Apartment in California is over $3000

In the Bay Area or L.A.; not the other 90% of CA.

Probably leave california. They'll even give you a bus ticket for free.

I am from Missouri USA and collecting help is frowned upon due to our Libertarian lean. As far as jobs go, whenever I have a project or a job I short term rent or house share. My reporting is that of actual street boot stompin and witnessing. I got accepted to a housing program but got mugged by a hotel and repeats the trauma cycle of abuse.

I mean that's like a personal issue I would assume being homeless is frowned up as well?

> am from Missouri USA and collecting help is frowned upon due to our Libertarian lean.

Why? I thought charitable work/donations were a libertarian talking point against social welfare and related programs

I dont really know what "their" talking points are I am just saying what is and isnt culturally accepted round here. I guess being independent and to provide for yourself are big ideals and sometimes these laws cultures and customs prevent that. I prescribe to no political ideology.

if he do not have address, he can't get a job

I agree with you. But I think some people are so sick of hearing about $400k salaries and those people complaining of a pay cut since inflation outpaced their $15k raise in 2022 that they might be "fighting the system" by living in tents next to rich people making $415k.

That may be, but I didn't get that from the OP.

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