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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

This is a good point, but part of what the article is saying is that where housing is cheap, some of even those "at the margins of society" people with some drug problems can maybe stay housed. Which means fixing the drug part of their problems is easier than if they're moving around on the streets.

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Ya, but isn’t that complete BS? I lived in Vicksburg MS, and while housing is definitely cheap, it’s not free, and you can’t really survive there if you can’t make any money at all. So you either die or move.

It's kind of helpful to think of the world in percentages, rather than "1 or 0, black or white".

Some people with drug problems are able to hold down some minimum wage work or part time jobs or something that brings in money.

In Mississippi, that might be enough to keep you housed. In Los Angeles, it's not.

Also you're more likely to be able to stay with a friend or relative with some extra space if housing isn't so tight:

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-housing-shortages-cause...

Yes, that’s totally true! I think this is a much more interesting problem when we get rid of the drug addiction component. It is just sad that drug addiction is consuming all of our social resources that could otherwise go into solving housing problems.

A lot of kids from Vicksburg also move to LA and don’t make it because of housing costs, so they move elsewhere. But should they have made it? Should LA be affordable enough for everyone who wants to live there to live there? If not, but we want to subsidize housing for some segment of the American population to live in LA, how do we prioritize? If yes, how much housing do we need to build to satisfy all American and international demand to live in LA?

> drug addiction is consuming all of our social resources that could otherwise go into solving housing problems

What is that based on? Also, why are people with a drug problem less deserving than people with housing problems.

Finally, what I understand from experts is that the first step to helping people with drug problems is to get them stable housing.

Not OP, but

> What is that based on?

This is based on the fact that we have finite resources. Any resources that go to housing drug addicts could have been used for something else. There is a real opportunity cost there.

> Also, why are people with a drug problem less deserving than people with housing problems.

There are a few issues with housing drug addicts:

1. Understand, these people aren't just run-of-the-mill addicts. They are so addicted to drugs that they'll live in unimaginably horrid conditions to support their addiction. Any housing they receive will be destroyed and made uninhabitable.

2. Housing them makes the system more miserable and undesirable for everyone else. If you're a parent with children and you're facing homelessness, are you really going to use a resource where close contact with heavy drug addicts is possible?

> Finally, what I understand from experts is that the first step to helping people with drug problems is to get them stable housing.

That's actually the second step. The first step is getting the addict to want to quit drugs. Many addicts don't want to stop using, and giving those people housing is not going to be an effective way to combat their addiction if they aren't first interested stopping their addictive behavior.

The problem with that is that they're also a problem when they're on the streets, sometimes even more of a problem. Someone who's not a problem and generally minding their own business is less of an threat than someone who's drug addiction is driving them to commit violence. We can't arrest them before they do anything violent, and after they've harmed someone else is too late.

> We can't arrest them before they do anything violent

Why not? Using drugs is illegal.

Where are you? Surprisingly that's jurisdiction dependent and it's often not.

I'm in NY. Possession of a controlled substance is a class A misdemeanor here[0], which can carry a maximum prison sentence of 1 year.

0: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/220.03

You said using, not possession, and after you've used it, it's no longer in your possession, externally. That distinction does not matter in New York, however, as it's not one of the places where it's illegal to posses but legal if you've just used it. (Unless it's weed.)

I feel like we're talking about semantics here. You must posses drugs before / while actively using, and heavy addicts use multiple times a day.

> The problem with that is that they're also a problem when they're on the streets, sometimes even more of a problem. Someone who's not a problem and generally minding their own business is less of an threat than someone who's drug addiction is driving them to commit violence.

That applies to every criminal act, so why are we signaling out people addicted to drugs? Plenty of people on Wall Street commit crimes daily, stealing money from innocent people - do we worry about how to preemptively stop them?

The answer, IMHO, is that some have effectively demonized people with drug addictions and people who are unhoused, to legitimize hate and violence in our society (and to get rid of people they don't like). 'I hate/fear unhoused / mentally ill people, so it's ok to choke one to death or lock them away without trial.'

It's not only hurts and oppresses those individuals, but it lays the foundation for the next stages - progressive protestors, and soon mass detention of immigrants. It's either human rights for all or for none.

Again, what is that all based on? It disagrees with most of what I read from researchers and people on the ground, especially that quitting is the first step before housing.

I've seen where many people with those problems live, and the places aren't horrid, just lacking in money and social services.

It just seems like demonization of yet another group - this time, people who have drug addictions. Why is it important to demonize them?

> This is based on the fact that we have finite resources. Any resources that go to housing drug addicts could have been used for something else. There is a real opportunity cost there.

And anything spent on other things could have been spent helping people addicted to drugs. Why is one more important or deserving than the other, other than the demonization?

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