> And as someone who also used to work for the homeless, I know firsthand what works and what doesn't.
Since you are appealing to your authority: I have worked with the homeless. I have also been homeless. I know firsthand what works and what doesn't. You are wrong.
> You know what the most effective way of treating homeless drug addicts is? Forcing them into rehab, while incarcerated.
> You know what the most effective way of treating mental illness is? Forcing them into mental hospitals where they are forcibly medicated.
Both of these are absolutely false, both in my experience and according to every study I've ever come across. Involuntary treatment, whether physically forced or coerced by denying certain benefits, almost never has successful outcomes. Why would it? Recovery is an active process that cannot be forced onto someone.
> You know what the least effective way of treating mental illness and addiction is (of the ways where some sort of action is taken)? Housing first. Because it focuses on the wrong problem: it focuses on the symptom (homelessness) and not the cause of the homelessness (drug addiction or mental illness).
You're now arguing with a strawman. Housing first claims to be neither mental health care, nor substance use treatment. It just makes those things dramatically easier. As I said in my first comment, housing first programs always offer mental health and subsrance use support in addition to the housing.
It should be self-evident that navigating treatment is easier when you have a safe, consistent place to live. It's easier to get mail fron Medicaid and other supports (and you should know that you can lose your benefits if you don't respond to certain pieces of mail!). It's easier to have providers arrange transportation to and from appointments. You have a physical boundary you can set with people who are triggers for unhealthy behavior. And it just takes off a massive cognitive load so you can focus mental energy on recovery.
> If housing first worked, then permanent shelter assignments would be the quick and easy fix to the homeless problem.
Be consistent. Don't compare it to "quick and easy". Give an honest, apples-to-apples comparison to your suggested alternative.
If we take all the permanent housing assignments after forced treatment, are those "quick and easy solutions"? No, long-term success rates are abysmal.
Housing first isn't a magical spell, it just works better, at a lower cost, with less authoritarianism than the alternatives.
> This is the kind of silly belief that keeps the mentally ill and the addicted on the streets, shitting themselves and being eaten by rats and preyed on by rapists and drug dealers. Human rights are an theoretical concern for the homeless, not a tangible one.
No, it's the hardass mindset which you're advocating that prevents sufficient funding toward evidence based approaches. Having safe, stable housing one controls reduces the chances that someone will be "eaten by rats" or "raped". We've tried what you're proposing and it was a human rights disaster.
During my time in the system, I avoided seeking help at times because I knew I might get psychiatrically locked up and lose my job. That's my human rights being a tangible concern.
It's very cavalier of you to suggest other people's human rights are "theoretical concerns". Thank goodness our (including anyone who is homeless, me, and you) human rights are legal, and not subject to what you deem "theoretical". They matter to me, and to the people who I support in my work.