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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

All of these problems are downstream of California cities refusing to build enough housing to meet demand.

The homeless population is not fixed, it's a continuous stream of people becoming homeless, and some finding housing or leaving the area or dying.

The inflow rate of people entering homelessness is a regional problem; once you're homeless it's hard to go very far. So regional areas in charge of determining housing levels (the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process) has been messed up for a long time. It's finally getting fixed by state level policy.

Until California decides to build enough housing in order to house a person on minimum wage, then we will continue to have this people. Its not every state that has this problem, only those with housing so much more expensive than wages.

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> All of these problems are downstream of California cities refusing to build enough housing to meet demand.

California has been a magnet for the poor/downcast/hobos (using the term with its original meaning)/etc... since the late 19th century. California will never be able to build enough to meet demand on minimum wage, simply because if they did...there would be even more demand.

> The inflow rate of people entering homelessness is a regional problem; once you're homeless it's hard to go very far.

This is flat out wrong. I rode a Greyhound from Vicksburg to Seattle via LA once, and the bus stopped at each prison along the way, almost everyone getting off in LA and nowhere else to go. It isn't a regional problem, if it was just a regional problem it would be easy enough to solve as the demand would be bound. But it isn't: the more housing and services you offer, the more demand you are going to get.

If you build free housing for 45k homeless, you will wind up with 45k homeless housed and 45k more arriving in the hopes of being housed. You didn't solve your problem at all.

Sure there are some people arriving, but it's a fraction of the total, usually only 1/5 in most surveys and in the academic literature.

Just below you is a comment that's doubting the idea that a homeless person wouldn't move to somewhere cheaper immediately, whereas you seem to be asserting that homeless people will just move to a very high cost area.

I do agree that is we build housing for 45k homeless people, we will soon end up with 45k more, because homelessness is a temporary attribute for people, and far far more than 45k enter homelessness in LA every year.

Talking about the point in time counts as if they explain the magnitude of the problem is wrong, as you point out. It's a stock versus flow problem.

I do disagree that we can't build enough housing. Housing is super expensive to build right now, but that's by design. There's a finite number of people who want to live in the area, and it's pure folly to say "we can't do that". The truth is that current residents don't want to allow enough housing to be built. Which means it's an active choice to throw hindereds of thousands of people into homelessness through excessively high high housing costs, rather than have more neighbors.

It isn't even a fraction of the total, its a flood. LA churns homelessness like nowhere else in the world. Skid row fills up with one group of people in the fall, and a completely new group next fall.

> Just below you is a comment that's doubting the idea that a homeless person wouldn't move to somewhere cheaper immediately, whereas you seem to be asserting that homeless people will just move to a very high cost area.

When you are released from a Texas prison and no one is picking you up, the state of Texas hands you an open bus ticket, with the implicit knowledge that you are going west. You aren't moving to a cheaper place, you are losing your housing (Texas correctional housing) and you need to survive somewhere. It isn't like they have much other choice! It isn't about money, they could move to cheaper Houston, but they can't afford housing there either and the weather and services suck, so its off to LA.

> Talking about the point in time counts as if they explain the magnitude of the problem is wrong, as you point out. It's a stock versus flow problem.

Again, I don't think you get the problem, but it is multi-faceted, you have kids sleeping in cars for a couple of weeks because they got into a fight with their parents, technically homeless that year, but not part of the chronic homeless problem yet (and hopefully never). I guess I'm just referring to chronic homeless cases, not the more economic homelessness that is often just temporary (they have roots and such to help out, and don't have a huge drug addiction that keeps them from functioning in society).

I know life is hard and shit happens, but I refuse to believe that, except for very few edge cases, people who are staring down homelessness just decide to stay in one of the most expensive places in the world and live on the street rather than move somewhere cheaper And find a cheap apartment. It makes absolutely no sense.

I think if you do decide to stay in Los Angeles, when you have no job, no prospects, no family, no money and no place to live, you should be declared as someone who is unable to care for themselves.

Say you have a job, friends, a small support network, and are living on the edge, paycheck to paycheck. You don't have $800 in the bank to travel to a cheaper area and try to find a job and an apartment. You are just struggling to get by. Then your car breaks down, and you can't get to work, and you have less pay, or maybe even lose your job. You lose your apartment, and are stuck with no money, and no way to travel. What do you do? Leave everything you know? Is this really so implausible?

This is the story of so many people who are homeless. Not everyone, but many. There are a thousand paths into homelessness, but falling into it though unexpected expenses is extremely common

Do you believe uprooting and finding a new job and apartment is easy for the average person?

Have you ever talked to someone outside of the FAANG crowd who makes normal wages?

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