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The root cause in both instances isn't drugs and so infinite spending or (de)criminalization won't matter. The core issue is hope. In the absence of work for the abled and care for the disabled and housing, there isn't much hope and so crimes, habits, and deaths of despair take hold. Without holistic and comprehensive betterment of people who feel ignored and cheated, there isn't much for this growing sector of society to look forward to. It should be no wonder why many people are so desperate and put faith in a lying, vindictive con artist like Trump.

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This assessment contradicts all evidence we have on the homelessness in the US. Unemployment rate is very low in the US, shelters are very often half-empty. Drug-addicts and homeless people refuse help (unless it's cash or free drugs).

The idea that we just need to invest more and more into this extremely corrupt industry has no merit.

> shelters are very often half-empty

Shelters have a lot of restrictions that keep swaths of homeless out. For instance most don't allow animals or carts. If you're homeless and don't want to abandon those you're stuck on the street. There might be reasons for restrictions but they exist and homeless are excluded from shelters because of them.

What are you talking about? Homeless shelters are full, wages are the lowest they have been in decades, and US health care is the most expensive in the world

Available shelter space, housing vacancies:

https://www.kqed.org/news/11668623/why-do-thousands-of-l-a-s...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/san-f...

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/top-stories/story/2020-...

> wages are the lowest they have been in decades

This is an endless argument. Why can't a person with 0 skills rent an apartment in San Francisco? Some wages are very low. If you can't afford rent in one of the most expensive cities on the planet, move to a cheaper place, don't become homeless in SF.

Do you want me to solve this for you? Here you go:

- Find a job in Wallmart in Fresno (if you insist on staying in CA): https://careers.walmart.com/us/jobs/0619201885FE-cashier-fro... (Cashier, $16-$26 an hour)

- Find a cheap rental in Fresno: e.g. this studio is $800 https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/719-W-Hammond-Ave-Fresno-...

- Sign up for free health insurance: https://www.coveredca.com/

You're acting like people aren't emotionally attached to their home cities.

Most people are born and raised in the same city or area their whole lives. The adult illiteracy rate is 20% and less than 40% get any kind of 4 year degree. Options are limited. People will cling to hope and the life (and community!) they know, until they're broke and lost their job... and at that point, they straight up can't move to Fresno and start that Walmart job. Walmart wouldn't hire them without a local place to live, and cheap Fresno landlords wouldn't rent to someone without a local job. Neither Walmart nor the landlord has an incentive to change, they're doing just fine exploiting the local Fresno populace.

Low-skill/low-pay life situations are a completely different reality than what well-off knowledge workers know.

> You're acting like people aren't emotionally attached to their home cities.

Respectfully, you misplace the responsibility. When people go through a rough breakup, we don't call for the person experiencing attachment anxiety to be housed with their ex just because it would make things easier for one party at least temporarily. Life is full of hard moments and challenging choices. The fact that something is hard doesn't mean giving up is the healthiest path that the society should encourage.

Talk to people who work in social services. The fact is, visibly homeless (street homeless, most often addicted people) are in this situation not because they have tried everything else and have no choices. They don't seek employment and often refuse help. They are not part of a community (unless you consider other homeless people they randomly ended up living close to their true community).

As usual, the discussion about homeless is kind of pointless without clarifying which segment we are talking about. Homeless families with children, disabled non-addicts, etc are not someone I include in this discussion, and I never see them living on the street.

With all due respect, I was responding to your original highly reductionistic take

> Do you want me to solve this for you? Here you go:

As if your list was anything close to a viable solution for someone already homeless and addicted.

With this post, you're right - it is absolutely more complex. There are absolutely families on the street, they're just more likely in cars or squatting rather than assaulting people.

Beds can be located in places that lock people out of employment or introduce them to toxic elements... and becoming unhoused by itself causes mental health issues in a society which does nothing but stigmatize that from birth to adulthood.

Even within treatment, skilled help is chronically burned out and mediocre help is worse than a rubber duck.

There's a need for structural reform, from policing through sentencing and voluntary/mandatory rehabilitation, as well as public education. Not to mention real estate bottlenecks that drive up prices for everone from low-income odd-job workers, to the city police force, to building new institutional facilities, to staffing social services.

Agree with all your points. We just need the people in power to recognize and act on that, instead of pandering to the extreme vocal minority and throwing money at an industry that has no incentive to make itself more efficient and effective.

Cashier at Walmart is not a zero-skilled job. The incumbent needs to:

* show up

* not be high or drunk when showing up

* adhere to a schedule

* read

* follow instructions

* not cuss out his boss or customers

* count money

* not steal money

* operate a computerized cash register

A large number of homeless probably could not do these things.

This is an unpopular but more tenable solution. The federal government should step in should anyone be homeless and find them better living conditions and comprehensive services especially in under-utilized, lower cost areas where it is cheaper to deliver services. The federal government level is necessary because it amortizes the financial risks more fairly than dumping the costs on specific municipalities.

I dunno, I would rather be homeless in a city I know then to be homeless in a city I don’t.

Up to you mate. Just don't blame the society for your choices.

The articles you've cited don't show a problem with "vacancies", but with mismanagement, lack of funding, and lack of sanitization/maintenance.

To add an independent voice, here's ChatGPT responding to "summarize this article in one paragraph", for each article you linked to:

> https://www.kqed.org/news/11668623/why-do-thousands-of-l-a-s...

The article discusses the significant problem of empty beds in Los Angeles County's homeless shelters, despite a large homeless population. Investigations reveal safety and sanitation issues in many shelters, such as bedbugs, rats, foul odors, and lax medical care. Half of the LAHSA shelters had 78 percent utilization. Homeless individuals cite issues like theft, harassment, and violence within shelters, prompting some to prefer living on the streets. There's no unified oversight system, and the is much room for improvement to ensure humane conditions in shelters.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/san-f...

Approximately 7,800 homeless people in San Francisco, 2,100 have been approved for subsidized housing, yet challenges persist in moving them indoors. The city cites issues such as a shortage of case managers, complicated paperwork, and resistance from the homeless to certain unit conditions. Although efforts have been made to address the problem, including a $62 million investment in case managers, the average wait time has increased to five months, a significant delay considering the program's annual budget of $356 million. The article calls for an in-depth audit of the permanent supportive housing program and urgent action to house homeless individuals promptly.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/top-stories/story/2020-...

The article discusses California's Project Roomkey initiative, launched by Governor Gavin Newsom in April 2020 to lease 15,000 hotel rooms for homeless individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the program's progress has been slow, with only about half of the rooms occupied over a month into its implementation. Challenges include delays in preparing rooms for occupancy, a shortage of service providers, and difficulties in transitioning residents into permanent housing. While some counties, like Sacramento, have seen relative success, others, such as San Diego and Orange County, struggle to fill leased rooms. The initiative, funded by FEMA, targets homeless individuals aged 65 or older and those with health conditions susceptible to COVID-19, but the article raises concerns about the overall effectiveness and limited coverage of the program in addressing the state's homelessness crisis.

Thanks for the summary. All of that confirms that the shelters are not full, they are underutilized. I am opposed to the idea that we just need to pump more money into this issue, which then gets distributed among "case managers".

E.g. we have invested $62M in case managers to handle 2100 approved cases? With the program's annual budget being $365M? This shows a ridiculous level of bloat and corruption. Do we need to spend $30K per case, considering that this doesn't cover the shelter expense?

I am not opposed helping people in need, I am opposed the idea that we just need to spend more money. And then next year a little bit more. More taxes, more case managers, more street cleaning teams, more safe injection sites. None of that is solving homelessness, all of that is contributing to making the homeless industry bigger.

> Unemployment rate is very low in the US

Caveat: unemployment statistics don't count people who aren't seeking work. Which chronically homeless and/or drug addicted people usually do not.

> The unemployment rate measures the share of workers in the labor force who do not currently have a job but are actively looking for work. People who have not looked for work in the past four weeks are not included in this measure.

https://www.epi.org/newsroom/useful_definitions/

Basically what unemployment rate tells us is that USA has enough jobs for people who want to work. It says nothing about people who have given up looking.

> Basically what unemployment rate tells us is that USA has enough jobs for people who want to work. It says nothing about people who have given up looking.

That's a fair point. If people are not seeking work but claim benefits indefinitely, doesn't this require a different solution than blaming the society and expecting taxpayers to take care of that?

Which benefits are you referring to? Unemployment insurance and welfare are generally time limited. Disability payments can last forever, specifically because those people can't work. (There is a small amount of disability fraud by people who are capable of working but choose not too, and are able to convince physicians to approve their claims.)

Benefits in a very broad sense. This includes both e.g. SF General Assistance payments and things like cleaning the streets from syringes, urine and poop on a weekly basis.

I have come to the conclusion that lots of humans have a religion-shaped hole in their psyche. It is far better to fill it with a stable, local, hope-giving religion.

Hymns are a better opiate of the masses than fentanyl.

While I agree that the reduction in the role of religion in the US is partially to blame for the increase in severe cases of drug addition, the idea that we need to bring religion back essentially to control people is extremely patronizing. Basically, we are saying that some people are too stupid to live productively if they are not controlled by fairy tales.

This is the same approach as we are seeing in the "far left" bubble in the context of this issue: street drug addicts have no responsibilities and agency, the society has to accommodate their every whim, including ignoring all illegal activities they are engaged in.

Until we acknowledge that benefits come with responsibilities we are not going to solve this.

It's naive to see religion as fairy tales. If used correctly, the tales are a medium of communication to instill values, discipline and morals in the masses.

The fundamental reason and ground for these morals will remain in fairy tales. You don't see how divisive and fragile that is? This is fundamentally wrong, even if it used to work effectively.

Surely there is another way? Stronger families, philosophy, sports, education? Humanism over religion - the only truly universal approach.

It's not fairy tales. Its human need for attachment to something greater. America has not filled that with anything else. The previous flag waving civic nationalism has become demonized so now there's nothing.

Religion is far from the only venue to explore the purpose and meaning of one's life.

I think religion is declining because people are discovering there are many ways to perform self-discovery and practice fulfillment.

The only aspect of religion that has been beneficial to modern society is providing a social venue for others to interact. This can be achieved by building stronger neighborhoods and encouraging the development of more welcoming social venues -- something that I think is the cure to America's loneliness epidemic.

> I think religion is declining because people are discovering there are many ways to perform self-discovery and practice fulfillment.

Let's suppose this were true. If, as you say, it's all about purpose and meaning, then we would expect that although everyone's conception of these things is different, it would still provide the same benefit. However, this is not what we find. Markers of purpose and meaning (such as suicide rate, depression, etc) are getting worse, not better.

So we're forced to come to terms with a few possible conclusions, none of which are very good for your point of view. Either the systems people are coming up with are insufficient to achieve the same goals or people are not coming up with their own system and are left to flounder.

> This can be achieved by building stronger neighborhoods and encouraging the development of more welcoming social venues -- something that I think is the cure to America's loneliness epidemic.

How is Europe doing on these indicators? Or anywhere else?

> America has not filled that with anything else

That's not an issue that America has to solve (i.e. the government or the society). It's an individual need that every individual is responsible for.

> It's an individual need that every individual is responsible for.

You shouldn't be surprised then when vast amounts of people fail to fill a hole that for the vast majority of human history was filled for them.

I honestly believe most people simply aren't capable of making their on meaning or purpose out of nothing.

I am not surprised by that in the slightest, and I agree that most people struggle with that, myself included. It is THE struggle of our lives.

Being told as a child that if you take drugs you will go to hell is not a meaningful alternative. Not for incredibly complex thinking beings that we are.

Submitting to Jesus, being a part of the "right" religious group is not a benefit to the human race as a whole. It's poison, promoted by power hungry maniacs.

Does America have to solve it if America destroyed it?

Our maturing world (not just the US) is starting to recognize that religion is BS. We can't go back to relying on religion for keeping our bad instincts at bay. The influence of religion is and has been low in many European countries for decades, which did not result in an increase in homelessness we are seeing in the US.

Social programs, education, keeping corporations in check - these are meaningful alternatives to the idea that we need to bring Jesus back to control the population.

I'm pretty sure they anticipated this attitude in Revelation 3:15

Indifference is worse than extreme atheism or fundamentalism because those two options are actually concerned about others

The indifferent person could care less whether you believe or don't, it's your own "individual responsibility", they owe nothing to you and you owe nothing to them

Widespread indifference will bring about the slow dismantlement of society

East Asia and parts of Europe have quite a few people who are entirely apathetic towards religion. Drug addicts aren't out and open in those regions.

I've really only witnessed such open drug abuse in countries with strong Christian influence, e.g. the US and Latin America. Might be worth investigating why widespread debilitating drug abuse stems from that background.

I mean, they anticipated the effect of eating shellfish and allowing women to speak up in Whatever X:YY, is this going to end the world as we know it as well?

Finding purpose and our place in the world is our individual responsibility. Don't confuse it with the lies of eternal heaven at the cost of total submission in this life that your religion is promoting.

It isn't a "price" that you pay for some reward down the line, or at least that's a pretty shallow way of approaching it, and assuming that is kind of reductive

The individuals are killing themselves with drugs, hence the discussion.

I get that. I disagree with the idea that to stop that we need Jesus.

On the contrary, it's completely an issue that society needs to solve, even if the government does not. Part of a civilization is providing a culture.

>the idea that we need to bring religion back essentially to control people is extremely patronizing. Basically, we are saying that some people are too stupid to live productively if they are not controlled by fairy tales.

Can something be simultaneously true and patronizing?

Just looking at how humans in general behave worldwide, I'd say that yes, people are really quite stupid.

Ha, well, yes. But despite sounding so anti-religious and pro individual responsibility, I am not only optimistic, I am always inspired and heartened by us, humans. I believe, we are capable of incredible breakthroughs and are growing as a whole. Untangling from centuries of brutal religious domination will take time, and we will struggle, and sometimes fail. But eventually we will grow out of the need to find purpose in submission, and will thrive as more aware and realized beings.

> I have come to the conclusion that lots of humans have a religion-shaped hole in their psyche.

I increasingly believe the same and I don't believe the vast majority are capable of filling it on their own in a healthy way, but there are a lot of other social factors at play too.

> It is far better to fill it with a stable, local, hope-giving religion.

If it's a binary choice of opiate addiction vs. religious practice, sure. But for many, the hole that some fill with religion is filled with other sorts of meaning-giving practices. Not to take away from the comfort, stability and hope that religious affiliation provides for many; but for others the source of connection to the transcendent and to contributing to concerns beyond oneself comes in different forms.

This is also true. The decline in community (where religion played a large part in cementing personal and local bonds) and increase in anomie has led not just to deaths of despair and to other symptoms not just loneliness and depression, but on the fringes of alienation and disconnection to where some volatile people go as far hate-fueled "blaze of glory" mass shootings.

I find one of the biggest losses, especially in dense cities, is that the churches and community orgs there often lack local, long-term ties to said communities. Also, there are a number of religious institutions in big cities that are sometimes open only on (Friday, Saturday, or Sunday depending on their beliefs) and don't provide as much closeness and synomie for people as rural religious institutions do.

I wouldn't recommend that all things must attempt to recapture the 1950's apartheid and social conservativism in all regards, but a crucial linchpin of a functional society appears to be missing. It is not necessarily religion or faith, but it includes a lack of love for, and trust of, others where America went from community-individual balanced to hyperindividualism with a dysfunctional social safety net.

>I wouldn't recommend that all things must attempt to recapture the 1950's apartheid and social conservativism in all regards

I don't think you can avoid this. If you bring back religion, you necessarily have to accept apartheid and social conservatism. The two go hand-in-hand.

Religion probably worked well for bonding communities back when communities were small and homogeneous and had little contact with the outside world. But in an era of global travel and communications, it doesn't work: we have to have huge wars to decide whose religion is the correct one. Just look at what's going on with Israel lately. Different religions can't peacefully co-exist, so devastating wars are necessary to maintain order.

> Religion probably worked well and bonding communities back when communities were small and homogeneous and had little contact with the outside world.

Religion has been more impactful in spreading knowledge and connecting cultures around the world than the printing press, radio and the internet combined. Religion for a long time was the only contact with the outside world. Christianity today is more or less the culture and knowledge from thousands of years and countless different tribes and cultures, fused into one piece. Spread worldwide by preaching, manuscripts, monks, monasteries and by the sword. Compared to most ideologies that only spread by the sword, ancient and modern.

The default human condition is to spread by breeding among your own people, and exterminate other people. Sometimes just the men and the boy children, to breed with the women. Sometimes by exterminating everybody and even eating them. Cannibalism and human sacrifice was the default human condition for tens of thousands of years, or maybe even for millions of years, before the light came to man.

Thinking that religion is only war and oppression is like thinking math is only for calculating artillery. It's a limited perspective.

This was one of the topics covered by "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong [1]. While she didn't propose people should find religion per se, she did present the argument that a god sized hole exists in our psyche, so if one is not religious it needs to be filled somehow.

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

The side effect of that is that some people will get it into their head that they're the chosen ones and push their religion onto others at great cost. Religious nations have already shown that.

Consider video games as the opiate instead. At least they don't fuck up your health and you might come out with stronger problem solving skills.

Almost like we are hard-wired for belief. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.h...

Do you have any evidence for this?

This is well documented and even acknowledged by the US government. https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2-5-million-uncounted-unemplo... https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2020/05/08/the-un...

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