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Comment by atdrummond | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think the feds are to blame.

SF and similar CA cities have set up a program that encourages people to move there because it makes being “homeless” an actual possible lifestyle choice. Even an enjoyable one.

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Hmm. I wonder if you could say "if someone becomes homeless in your locality, your locality has failed them". And then rate localities/states by their net loss of citizens that have fallen "outside society". Then begin incentivizing communities to fix these problems. There's only so much a local community can do with limited funds, but while I'm sure the majority of homeless in California are Californian... I would love other states to take ownership of citizens they export/extrude. :s

I agree. From my research, Portugal’s drug assistance programmes for the homeless are quite effective.

For those in more of a poverty trap situation, Finland has done quite a good job finding the right set of policies for their country to bring levels down so far that most Americans would consider them to have “solved” homelessness.[1]

https://oecdecoscope.blog/2021/12/13/finlands-zero-homeless-...

The Feds may not be “to blame”. But it’s hard to see how individual states can solve this problem.

Any program by any state that helps the homeless in a country where you legally cannot create state level borders (and with the homeless you can’t establish residency by definition) would immediately draw homeless people across the country, especially since the homeless strategy in many states is to pay for one way bus tickets to a different state, and quickly overwhelm and undermine what could otherwise have been a successful program.

Any successful program must be funded and implemented at the Federal level.

Are you aware of this?

Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America

https://shelterforce.org/2004/05/01/reagans-legacy-homelessn...

Yes. States aren’t powerless to implement mental health requirements and programmes though. It is a cop-out to suggest that states and cities don’t use the full breadth of their legislative powers because the federal government made a bad policy decision over 4 decades ago.

Reagan hasn't been governor of California or president of the US for a long time.

That's why it's called a "legacy". It lingers after you've been gone.

Democrats must be remarkably ineffective to have someone that long ago still disrupting them after decades of unquestioned control.

Democrats are largely liberal capitalists. They don’t have solutions to this either.

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