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Comment by hector126 | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is that countries who have "solved" homelessness either -

• Societally and culturally produce so few individuals who would behave the way America's most problematic homeless do that direct 1on1 intervention is feasible. There are school districts in the US where the truancy rate exceeds 70%. There are other countries where this is not the case. Switzerland and Norway come to mind.

• Involuntarily commit or arrest individuals who are mentally unfit to function in normal society. Institutionalization, basically. China and Russia come to mind.

If there was a silver bullet which was politically acceptable to "solve" America's homeless problem I ensure you, folks in California would have tried it.

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1. Yes, it's cultural and we keep encouraging people to be selfish. Our influencers, the media, this push of "make it in your own" despite no one in history truly being self made. And if we're being frank, prejudice is still alive and well which underfunded certain kinds of areas. We don't want to help those people. And we have 50 mini countries to balance this between.

2. Almost. They don't use for profit prisons who are incentivized to punish. Other countries actually focus on minimizing recidivism. But America keeps falling for "Hard on Crime". Again, that selfishness: "I would never do that, that person deserves to suffer".

>If there was a silver bullet which was politically acceptable to "solve" America's homeless problem I ensure you, folks in California would have tried it.

I agree. But politically people treat reformation as "free handouts". With that attitude nothing will change.

>But America keeps falling for "Hard on Crime". Again, that selfishness: "I would never do that, that person deserves to suffer".

We really need to repeal the 93 crime bill. We have the most incarcerated population in the world by both ratio and total numbers. Way too many offenses are felonies and once people get marked by the system, they will most likely never excel in society, much less get by.

> Involuntarily commit or arrest individuals who are mentally unfit to function in normal society.

Finland, the poster child for housing first, does this as well.

Students graduate high school in Finland and are ecstatic if they can get a job at a restaurant. I have a lot of family there…

And what happens if they don’t find a job? Do they become homeless? I know a few Americans who moved to Finland. They accepted lower wages for a better quality of life.

At a certain point after decades of low wages, the “quality of life” you speak of has been eroded severely. But hey, at least there aren’t any rich people around.

There is homelessness and then there is America with people using drugs in broad daylight and setting up tents on the side walk...

California, like most of the USA, contains a very broad spectrum of political opinion. There are plenty of conservative right wing folk there, it just so happens that the current state of things there leads to them not holding huge amounts of power at the level of the state legislature or governor's office.

This is marked contrast to, for example, most European countries (particularly the two you've mentioned) where the number of people who simply do not see a role for non-carceral government action (i.e. the first solution you've described) is quite small.

Combine that with a referendum process, and you've got a situation in which there are lots of things that could theoretically be tried but will not be, even in California.

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