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Comment by xphos | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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