Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

NoMoreNicksLeft

As I've said before, there is a counter-intuitive meta-problem with homelessness.

Fixing homelessness doesn't require love, or honesty, or any other virtue. Like most problems, it requires money. But no matter how much money is allocated to fix the problem of homelessness, fixing it attracts more homeless. Their feet aren't nailed to the ground on the other side of the continent... if they hear of a magical place that solves homelessness, they go there. They hitchhike, they'll panhandle for cash for a bus ticket, if nothing else they'll hoof it.

So while your city is busy celebrating its miraculous solution to homelessness that took 500 people off the streets and put rooves over their heads, there's an army of homeless marching there, invisible to you. 8000 of them, and you budgeted for up to 550.

But it really never even gets this far. Your local politician is a bit more savvy than you give him credit for, and he recognizes this meta-problem, at least subconsciously. So when it comes time to solving the problem for those 500 homeless, he deflects and postpones. He changes the subject, he asks for more studies. In the end, he has the cops chase them out and then bulldozes the tent city. And this happens regardless of his politics, because the meta-problem doesn't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican. It doesn't even care what the real solution is either. Maybe the homeless do need tough love, maybe they just need a handout. But tough love costs money just like handouts need money, and you can't ever allocate enough. Red state, blue state, it's all the same.

They need to fix the meta-problem first.

The notion of 'highly mobile homeless people' is not born out by the actual statistics:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/california...

Yes, you're absolutely right. It's why there are equal numbers of homeless people in Minneapolis and Los Angeles in December.

The big statistic is right there at the beginning of the article I shared:

> The overwhelming majority of homeless people surveyed were locals, not migrants from far away: 90 percent lost their last housing in California, and 75 percent lost it in the same county where they were experiencing homelessness. Of the 10 percent who came from elsewhere, 30 percent were born in California. Most of the others had familial or employment ties, or had previously lived in the state.

Which is about what you'd expect, given that there isn't a very tempting reason to hitchhike all the way from Rhode Island currently.

If you'll check my original comment, I suggested that this occurs only in those magical places where they have already solved homelessness, as if with a magic wand. Not exactly anyone's description of San Francisco at the moment.

> But no matter how much money is allocated to fix the problem of homelessness, fixing it attracts more homeless. Their feet aren't nailed to the ground on the other side of the continent... if they hear of a magical place that solves homelessness, they go there.

The federal reserve is meeting today and tomorrow. They usually say implicitly (although sometimes explicitly) what an Australian real estate mogul recently came out and explicitly said - they're trying to drive unemployment up and wages down. If this isn't done, it's a threat to the aristocracy, to the heirs expropriating their rentier wealth in profits, interest etc. This is the real meta-problem. The heirs and their allies are working to generate poverty, homelessness, unemployment etc., in the case of the real estate mogul quite openly. The recent corporate response to writers, auto workers etc. is yet another side of that.

Who's the real estate mogul?

The idea of homeless people as rootless resource consumers free and willing to migrate any distance for services is completely alien to the actual experiences and issues.

Almost half of homeless people have jobs. The "street homeless" are the visible tip of the iceberg but not representative. And even more importantly, almost all homeless people have family and friends, churches, AA meetings, coffee shops where they are welcome on rainy days, etc. These ties are just as important to them as they are to you, and they are just as reluctant to break them as you would be.

Surely people do move only for better access to services but I have never seen numbers on how many. More interestingly, in years of my own homelessness and later ties to those communities, I never met one who had.

GP was clearly talking about street homelessness, while you are talking about a broader issue.

I agree with you. There are far more wealthy transplants buying the houses and changing policies after being here 4 seconds than there are inbound homeless.

> Surely people do move only for better access to services but I have never seen numbers on how many.

First, there would need to be "better services" significantly better for that to be worth the trouble.

Which, again, I explained pretty clearly in the first comment. I plainly say "this is why no one does better services". Did you miss that part?

No I didn't miss it at all, I simply do not think that's the reason and you didn't do anything to persuade me.

So you're just irrational. Good to know.

This isn't a criminal trial closing argument. I'm not trying to persuade you of anything, I'm just laying out the mechanism. Good luck with the sidewalk shitters in SF.

I don’t know that there is any evidence that ”the solution to homelessness is money” is true, other than that we intuitively feel it should be.

The homeless budget in SF has been growing much faster than the homeless population but the problem has been getting continuously worse.

https://files.sfchronicle.com/sfc-graphics-engineering/sros/...

This argument has been used to describe unchecked or open immigration. Those in need will migrate to those places that provide support. A crisis in one location will push those in need to flood into a neighboring location seeking help, which can overwhelm and strip available resources for that area, exacerbating the problem all over again. With communication among the poor and homeless not terribly great, more will keep coming because they heard there was a place that would help them.

How does one fix the meta problem? With immigration I can see, close the borders, require those persons to stay in their original locations and support them there, but short of drastically limiting aid I don't know how this is workable.

My solutions aren't applicable to immigration, which has a far simpler solution. We hand out green cards to people at border INS offices. Half-hour interview, one time, they get on the bus immediately afterward. If they show up with the right paperwork, instant background check passes, etc.

Now these people can't be cheated out of wages or paid below minimum. They pay into taxes. Employers have to pay for health insurance. They suddenly become much less tempting to hire. They too, won't want gangbangers and criminals ruin things, but now they feel safe to contact the police. They'll now snitch on people sneaking in. Most of the problems that even the right complain about are caused by keeping them an underclass. If, is as claimed, they "steal jobs from Americans", then doing this would probably reverse the flow and we'd see emigration.

There have been more wealthy Great Lakes (Canada, Michigan) people flooding to SF than anyone else for years now. Pretty much since Detroit died.

You can always tell because they don't assimilate. Canadians LOVE their own flag, and will typically wear it on their clothing every day, while condescending all the arrogant Americans lol. Same with Michigan and the color yellow. Look what they did to JFK in the park T_T

They have the exact same views toward homeless and home ownership and opportunities here in SF as they did back home. To us locals, it looks a lot like a wave of people from a failed city are coming here with their failed policies to try and kill this city next.

"Caravan of 'Undesirables'" scare tactic.

Get real.

Is that how you read my comment?

I think I'm safe in saying that it's a documented fact that however many homeless there are in your city, there are more elsewhere. I feel confident in the assumption that if homeless people learn that somewhere they currently aren't the ex-homeless now don't have to live in gutters, and all they have to do is somehow go there... they'll go there. This isn't a scare tactic, it's a reality.

And it means that there is no budget large enough to solve homelessness in any arbitrary city, unless they budget to solve it for the entirety of the North American mainland.

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