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Comment by AlexTWithBeard | Hacker News Reader

How do we prevent these houses from turning into slums?

If you treat the homeless as lepers and stick them at the edge of town - you will get exactly what you said. If however, you create one home for the homeless on every street/block/floor - you'll find out that they are people, just like you and me, and with a little bit of support many of them will even thrive. The US is just so big on NIMBY that there is zero chance of that happening :-(

Distribute them across cities in mixed income neighbourhoods rather than the US model of post red lining NIMBY isolationism.

Homeless people have a wide demographic, a large number have had employment and professions and seek the stability to re-engage with the workforce.

The notion that all homeless are on a one way spiral into a slum and should be keep out of sight and out of mind is a great part of the underlying issues.

I doubt it, but would be happy to see the data proving the opposite.

Just for comparison, in top-of-the-shelf socialist Sweden there are 30k homeless people per 10 million population. It matches pretty well to 500k of homeless people in the USA.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Sweden

> Distribute them across cities in mixed income neighbourhoods

How is this actually done in practice?

Something like X units per new development are "reserved" for people under certain income limits. It distributes income ranges across geographic regions, rather than concentrating them by unit rental prices.

Here's one example from my neighborhood:

"On Sept. 19, contractors with the Anderson Companies were issued an $8 million construction permit for the foundation and footings of what will be a two-year building project at 411 Lexington Parkway — the 304-unit Lexington Station apartment building, half of which will be designated affordable housing."

https://www.twincities.com/2022/10/10/after-st-pauls-concess...

Build them in wealthy hoods.

How is it going to help?

Slums are a result of factors such as emargination, lack of services, crime and poverty. All factors that are lacking in wealthy hoods. Police actually cares about safety and order when wealthy citizens are at stake.

I don't see how being poor forces people to throw garbage in the streets and pee in the streets.

One thing I can tell after living outside of the USA for some time, is that a couple of unemployed drug addicts can turn an otherwise neat and tidy house into a shithole. And that was a country with a free medical care. Including addiction treatment.

> I don't see how being poor forces people to throw garbage in the streets and pee in the streets.

> a couple of unemployed drug addicts can turn an otherwise neat and tidy house into a shithole.

Thanks for showing us your very progressive view of the poor.

Drug addicts need help and that has nothing to do with housing, same goes for people with mental health issues.

> lack of services

In San Francisco, where I live, all of the “services” (i.e., food banks, check cashing services, shelters, soup kitchens, even the DMV) are in the poor neighborhoods (the Mission). You can’t find any of those services in rich neighborhoods (Noe/Cole Valley).

So, maybe we should keep building affordable housing in poor neighborhoods instead?

I'm talking about having access to good schools, good law enforcement, clean environment, etc. You know, the same quality services people like you receive, as the poor are nothing else but people like you.

>end slums

>end homelessness

Unless you can end poverty, pick one.

The thing is, we easily could end poverty. The economic productivity is there. We just don't want to.

Who's we?

Slum would still be better to homeless compared to being without roof. First we need to ensure everyone has somewhere to live.

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