Hacker News Reader

Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Yep the article shows a photo of a neatly kept room, the reality would be a bare mattress on the floor, piles of dirty clothes, trash, and hoarded posessions.

Drug-addicted and mentally ill people do not know how to keep even a moderately organized living space. Our city has tried "housing first" and it's been a disaster. The units are filthy, damaged, and the buildings don't pass minimal standards when the housing department inspects them because the "tenants" and their associates have destroyed them.

I do believe most SROs had a "no visitors" policy so that might help somewhat but there would have to be strictly enforced requirements about not trashing or abusing the property.

View on HN

One of the last SRO left in Chicago is about 2 blocks from my house. They have extremely strict cleaning requirements and a no visitors policy. It seems to keep the damage to a minimum. I think the biggest issue there is how many of the residents really need aged care but can’t afford it.

Where are you? I think Salt Lake City did "housing first", and I seem to recall that it worked fairly well.

> Yep the article shows a photo of a neatly kept room, the reality would be a bare mattress on the floor, piles of dirty clothes, trash, and hoarded posessions.

This is exactly the kind of fact-free demonization the article described as responsible for the elimination of SROs which caused the explosion in homelessness.

The average drug addict and the average person with mental illness is employed, well-dressed, and financially stable.

All cows are brown.

Dirt is brown.

Therefore, dirt is a cow.

Those aren’t the ones who housing-first advocates are building units for. The theory is the crazy people on the street will suddenly be not-crazy when they get an apartment

Well, two things.

First, I'm challenging the statement:

> Drug-addicted and mentally ill people do not know how to keep even a moderately organized living space.

Which is nonsense and a damaging stereotype. Drug addicts and mentally ill people exist in all areas of life and many are successful - more so than you or I.

Secondly, I'm challenging you on:

> The theory is the crazy people on the street will suddenly be not-crazy when they get an apartment

Because in fact there is now a great body of evidence that shows that housing-first, that is providing housing with no pre-conditions, is in fact extremely effectively at treating both uncontrolled addiction and untreated mental illness.

The vast majority of homeless people are homeless for economic reasons, like the loss of a job or household income, and the largest growing population of unhoused people are entire families.

Proposed housing units are literally for them.

The ones built in my town were for the “chronically homeless” these are people who are likely addicted, mentally ill, or very antisocial. They have burned every bridge they may have had and even their family has written them off. You can’t give someone like that an apartment and expect they will take care of it without extremely close supervision.

The lack of the ability to sleep securely and the lack of a place to store your possessions are enough to drive someone crazy. Sure, some people might be homeless because they're incurably insane, but plenty of people are insane because of homelessness.

The average/median/typical recipient of EBT or welfare or whatever only receives it transitionally for less than a year. Yet at any one time the system is 90% lifers or at least long term users. Because anyone who isn't a lifer is in and out quick. Same problem mental institutions have.

I pulled those numbers out of my ass and you can play with the numbers to change the proportions but the problem still stands. At any one time the system is going to be somewhat saturated with the "problem people".

Now, I don't think that's a problem. If someone thinks they can develop and profitably run SRO housing with a bunch of those people then good for them. But that makes some people feel icky about it.

I think it’s clear the context is homeless people. The people you’re talking about have a place to live.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com