Ask HN: How to Solve Homelessness?
It seems to be a real problem. Any ideas?
That should get us close, but I don’t think it is possible to reach zero homelessness. There always will be some vagabonds who will wander around from short temporary job to short temporary job, and occasionally will sleep on the street. Always give them the option of temporary shelter, a place to clean them up, but as long as they don’t do harm to society, don’t force them to have a home.
Yes, vast increase of capacity of prisons is necessary, today it's difficult to fight many types of crime because there's nowhere to put criminals in - vast, gulag-style camps able to house as many people as needed, is necessary. Make sure they don't come back until they are too old to be a problem.
Seriously, society needs some discipline and some fear factor. Most people can be motivated by greed, but not everyone, so some healthy portion of fear is necessary.
I always make an example of Belarus as a country that solved homelessness. It is a crime there, but extremely small number of chronic bums are actually behind bars - rest are too scared to even try bumming so they try as hard as possible to hold on to work, housing and their families.
Does this logic track for other things as well? Nope.
Poverty: “just make it a felony” Addiction: “just make it a felony” Laziness: “just make it a felony”
You fail to understand the myriad of reasons of why someone might be homeless. Some might — in sound state or mind — choose it and others might be mentally unwell to “try as hard as possible to hold on to work, housing and their families”.
Greater investments in mental health, subsidized housing or building more affordable housing for the vulnerable — those who work one or more jobs on the verge of losing their housing and other such programs can help mitigate homelessness.
And no, they don't just send every bum they catch to prison. They have a sorting and distribution system in place that directs them to either mental hospitals, rehabs, or prisons (most go to rehabs for alcoholics), after that, they provide them jobs (usually shitty jobs on useless state-owned factories, or cleaning streets) and housing (dormitory rooms), and check on them on a regular basis to prevent relapse, if caught again bumming or avoiding work, yes then they go to prison.
A state exists for the benefit or tax-paying, law-abiding public, and one of it's goals is to protect them from everyone else. And no, bums are sent to prison not to "fix" them, or even isolate, but to deter potential other ones from bumming (and it does a great job, because number of bums in prison is very low, and there are almost 0 bums in the streets). Prison must be hell and even bums should be scared to death at the prospect of getting there.
Subsidised housing - that can't work in a country like USA. Because if you give housing to bums, all housing in the vicinity becomes a lot cheaper and the value lost, and property taxes lost, will become so unbearably high it's better to leave them in the streets.
There must be no bums. People must know that staying out in the street is a very bad idea. Now they only do because they can.
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/BelarusHel...
[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2021/call-input-dec...
Is there a link to a page where I can read about this Belarusian law?
"I think lack of affordable housing is a problem but I have some concerns in my neighborhood" - Everybody
Let this simmer for a few decades and combine with opioid crisis, you get SF/LA