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Comment by tracker1 | Hacker News Reader

A lot of homeless won't go into shelters for multiple reasons, including the fact that many are less safe than staying with somewhat known communities outside the shelters. The other is not being able to keep their drugs. I've seen many homeless that refuse to seek appropriate medical care for open wounds (including gun shots) because they don't feel they can stay clean through the care they need.

The level of addiction is crazy. I think a lot of people should volunteer a few times with a feed the homeless or similar charity and actually talk to some of these people before suggesting definitive answers. Most solutions simply won't work with the strings often attached.

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One of my BILs is frequently homeless and refuses shelters because they have rules, curfews, etc., that, when he's manic, he won't abide by. I've been around tent cities and encampments in SoCal pretty often over the last ~16 years, but not as much these last few years since we had children. My anecdotes are that they're overwhelmingly filled with people just like him.

That's largely been my observance as well. My SO has done a lot of feed the homeless work, and my best friend runs a medic/first-aid program to treat homeless. I haven't gone much, because it frankly breaks my heart to see. It's tough to even write about.

I don't think shipping people all over the country is a good solution... I do think that building a lot of cheap housing (the projected costs someone mentioned, like $1.4m per dwelling seems insane). Modular construction designs should be possible to deliver 1br or studio homes with a 3/4 bath and kitchenette for under $150k each relatively easily, including transport and final assembly.

It is really hard for me to understand that level of addiction or dissociation, but I've definitely seen it.

My city took 4 years after approval and 2 grants totaling $1.5M to build four 500 sq ft tiny homes for temporary housing. One of the biggest roadblocks was where to build them. From a local article, the residents selected for these homes will be required to pay rent and keep the units in a livable condition.

So for a local government that had the money in hand, it has built 4 highly contested tiny homes after 4 years that the people moving in will have to pay rent on. This, proclaimed by the mayor, will really help get people off the streets in our city. It feels like la la land.

The shelters around me are Christian and refuse to house queer people. They also split up families and won't take people with pets. In effect, these are fake shelter beds being operated tax free and enriching the operators with tax money despite not following civil rights law.

Same as the hospital systems. It simply is not going to be sustainable in the long term to allow religious control of massive portions of our social safety net, given the overt politicization of religion over the past decades, and the massive level of privilege they’ve been granted by the courts.

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