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Comment by imgabe | Hacker News Reader

> people living in them should just try not being to poor to have real housing

Yes, unironically, they should. And most would be trying to do exactly that.

I don’t know why some people treat economic status as some immutable property outside of your control. People move up and down in economic status all the time. And most people move up as they get older and get more work experience and higher paying jobs.

Having a stable place to live with a physical address instead of a tent, and possibly being around other people who are trying to improve their lives instead of a bunch of drug addicts would absolutely help people “not be poor”.

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Most homeless have "mental issues". On a good day they will try, but they have bad days often enough. Sometimes mental issues are caused by 'hard drug' use, but there are plenty of other causes. Society has not found a good answer to these people (many of the things tried have been worse than living on the streets - despite a few freezing to death)

Some of the homeless could live in a roommate situation. Others are "so far gone" that no reasonable person would want to live with them, and they would destroy a room if allowed in one without supervision.

Homelessness is a hard problem. Anyone claiming they have a solution is wrong. However that doesn't mean we shouldn't try - just because you can't solve the problem doesn't mean you can't make things better for a subset.

I appreciate not being defeatist just because people might be homeless because of drugs or mental issues. I agree that there is a good chance they might destroy a room but I think SROs as a step up from shelters would be respected by like 80% of the people in that situation at that point you can start to price in and adjust the costs of things. Common area's can be managed reducing the overall risk not to zero but even in full appartements you can get really bad tenants that can pay.

My uncle once had a tenant smear feces on the wall before leaving it was nasty but that person was homeless and I don't think think that had mental illness beyond having a break down. I think they lost there job and it was a hard time for them. Still the wall was nasty.

Ultimately SROs do not solve homelessness hence the mitigating it factor if it solves 30% of the homeless problem that would be amazing

My town has built several "transition" apartment buildings for the homeless to give them a "stable" place to live while they in theory get their lives together. They quickly became shitholes, residents destroyed the apartments and especially the common areas/hallways/elevators. They also let any number of acquaintances into the buildings and the apartments, further contributing to the destruction. Half the units are uninhabitable as a result.

If they had to pay rent they would at least be filtering for people who have enough stability/responsibility to have some kind of job or income.

"Just give them housing" does not work for people who have no idea how or desire to live in a house.

Living/loitering/begging/shitting on the streets should not be permitted. Institutionalization may be needed if addictions or severe mental health issues are involved. But expectations need to be higher. Sympathy for and tolerance of antisocial behavior have been utter failures.

Instituions are full of terrible abuse. Freezing to death on the streets is better than institutions - that is how bad instituions end up being in practice.

I don't have a good answer to the problem.

It seems there has to be some amount of institutional supervision that would make them at least not as bad as freezing to death in the streets.

But one of the big problems is that almost all of them forbid drugs, the very high they want, so they're a non-starter.

You probably need something like "drug towns" in the California desert that provide comfortable places to overdose to death. Good luck running on that!

The thing with a boarding house is it's not targeted specifically at people who are currently homeless. It's just for anyone who wants to save money on housing. Maybe people who just moved to a new city and haven't found a place to live yet, or people who are just starting out and not making much money. It gives them a place to live before they become homeless.

It would also usually have the landlord living there, and they would be invested in the place because it's their source of income, so they aren't going to tolerate people smearing crap all over the walls or tearing out the wiring to sell for drugs or ranting and raving all night long.

>People move up and down in economic status all the time.

Entropy. The fact that change happens doesn't prove that we control it.

Your wealth and health are randomized when you're born. What you do later has miniscule influence.

Do you think you could deliberately become poorer if you wanted to? If you do, why do you think you couldn't deliberately become richer?

Imagine someone running on a long conveyor belt. The belt is just fast enough that they can keep up with it, but any small mistake, hesitation, or fall means they are dragged behind. On that conveyor belt falling behind is the default state. To stay in one place one must do the right things at all times and also be lucky enough that no bad things happen to you.

This is the experience of many. The speed of the conveyor belt is why people can easily imagine falling behind (thats the diffult state!) while moving ahead is almost impossible. (It doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. From time to time someone finds a jetpack and propels themselves onto places where the conveyor belt is working slightly differently, but thats not going to be the experience of everyone.)

In reality, you choose the speed of the conveyor belt. You choose what expenses you take on and therefore how much you need to make each month. To a large part, you can slow the belt down if you like. Options like boarding houses would allow people to slow it down even more precisely if they wanted without falling off entirely.

> To stay in one place one must do the right things at all times and also be lucky enough that no bad things happen to you.

"do the right things" is really not that hard. It mostly involves not doing things like getting arrested, getting addicted to drugs, or otherwise making bad choices. It's not some crazy delicate balancing act that you're making it out to be.

It's an almost immutable part of human nature to get into a position where you're "just getting by" - but if there's someone out there in a similar situation making less than you, you could match them dollar for dollar and have some to save.

Which means that for many it's not a financial problem, it's a self-control problem.

I can't afford to save, but I can afford to pay 10-20% extra on everything through credit cards.

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