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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

Almost 20 years ago I spent two years trying to get a homeless person off the street and made a movie about it:

It's an incredibly complicated problem, but if there is one message I can share it is this: homeless people are, first and foremost, people. They span the full range of human experience (the main subject of my movie had a masters degree in psychology) and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Homelessness is not one problem, it is a symptom of at least half a dozen different problems, all of which need different solutions. (And, BTW, some homeless people voluntarily choose the lifestyle. It's definitely a minority, but it's not zero.)

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Yea, I'm a regular HN reader and I've been stuck on the street for going on 7 years. Used to be commended for persevering against the odds and the like, as a child and young programmer at 15 onward, home owner at 22.

I've left SF and landed in a college town in Sac Valley last year. Rent is $750/mo here. Been working in a kitchen for a year. Am I housed yet? Nope. Just gotta save a few thousand dollars. I have about the same amount of bills as a housed person, between gym + storage + take out food + car insurance.

But then the social aspect, my old relatives and network need to distance themselves from me. Any kind of old reference or something, non starter.

I will beat this. I only keep posting here on these threads because as you say, we span the full range of human existence. I like to think I'll use my approach as a template to help others. Get out of the big metro and into a peaceful place with cheap rent and lots of opportunity, yadda yadda.

Cheers.

That is really interesting, do you mind sharing more info about how you went from a skilled engineer (skilled enough to get a house at 22) to homeless? If you make it back up you will have a pretty fascinating life story.

> Get out of the big metro and into a peaceful place with cheap rent and lots of opportunity

This always comes to mind when I see folks on the street here in NYC/Brooklyn. Is it too simple a solution? Is a dense metro better in some ways?

You just need to remember that homeless people have most of the same constraints and ties to location that you do. Everyone grew up somewhere, a lot of homeless people had relatively "normal" lives before the street and most have some connections lingering from that time.

So they probably still have family connections there, friends, maybe a church or AA group, case worker, friendly coffee shop owner, etc. They aren't any more eager to break these ties than you would be.

I think it's hard to imagine someone who prefers homelessness to living somewhere cheap. I understand there's a lot of nuance and for the majority of homeless folks, $750 rent isn't necessarily more realistic than the $3000 rent I remember in NYC, but for the people for whom cheap living _is_ a viable option, I'm struggling to believe that their AA group or a friendly coffee shop owner are their reasoning for choosing NYC over a highway town outside of Rochester.

I actually think it's a bit infantilizing to suggest that any otherwise capable person would choose sleeping on the streets or in shelters over a basement apartment in a cheap, boring town.

Speaking personally, I'd prefer living in quite literally any town in the entire country if it meant a roof over my head.

I'm not speaking out of my ass, I was homeless myself on and off for nearly twenty years, and have relationships with homeless people in my community still.

Almost no one "prefers homelessness" to anything else per se, but they may decline the terms on which housing is offered. For example "break all your social ties and move away from the only city you know" is extremely hard for anyone to accept.

Look at some other conversations in this comment section! A lot of people want to "solve homelessness" but a lot of them also don't care what happens to the homeless people on the way. "Come with us, to a place you've never heard of and know nothing about, where all your needs are met"? No thanks my man I have read Maus.

Truthfully, for all intents and purposes, I'm the one speaking out of my ass on this topic. These are some really good points. You describe a real-life experience which I clearly lack; I definitely concede my previous point. My apologies.

FWIW I think it's really admirable of you to maintain those community connections, not everyone would do the same.

Can you explain what is so difficult to move to another place? I mean choosing homelessness or new life where you don’t know anyone but have roof over your head makes me pick only one choice here… I am an immigrant and changed my locations several times.

Yeah, I should have made this clearer. When I wrote, "some homeless people voluntarily choose the lifestyle" I did not mean to imply that they prefer it to all other possible lifestyles, simply that they could get indoors if they wanted to, but that would come with downsides that they choose not to accept. But I did meet one person who explicitly said, "I have a home but I have no desire to live in it." But much more common was the sentiment that they could get a place to live but then they'd have no money left for anything else.

Manhattan is great to be homeless in. free food available every couple of blocks, lots of social services. can sleep in hospitals, on the subway or elsewhere. good free transportation in the form of the subway. subways not a bad place to sleep, certain comedians did it getting started in new york. I do it.

cold isnt a big problem if u know what ur doing. during the summers u can spend all day at the beach and that makes up for it.

spend the day at the library working on the computer. police and security are relatively lax so long as you know how to blend in, some homeless people are less socially adept and dont take care of themselves so they are magnets for reprisals in a manner of speaking.

Goodluck and Godspeed my friend

Have you looked into joining the merchant fleet? They need people working in their galleys as well, and you'll have no bills to pay.

Good luck, sincerely.

Does that mean we need some kind of big brother/sister program but for the homeless? Would having one capable volunteer who met with them for an hour a week or something and could advocate and help them navigate the system make a big change?

I really struggle with this because it feels like helping as much as possible is the only moral stance to have, but I also question what level of responsibility the homeless have for their own situation. If we keep approaching them with these 0 consequence strategies does that encourage failure? Would the second guy who was smoking meth have benefited if he got thrown in jail for two months, forcing him into sobriety and then released into some kind of temporary housing with strict work and curfew rules?

We balk at the idea of limiting someones freedoms, but it seems like a mercy to take someone who is killing themselves and endangering others and putting them through some kind of rehabilitation that forces them to get physically and mentally healthy. It might be a relief to have a schedule and safety and some kind of guiding hand.

The fully honest answer is that I don't know. I have some first-hand data but no actual expertise in this area. But my personal advice is this: one of the best things you can do for a homeless person is simply to talk to them, to make them feel seen. One of the worst things about being homeless is that you become invisible. For many people that's almost as bad as the physical hardship.

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