Your empirical claims are extremely incorrect, but regardless this whole discussion will be shut down. Shame -- it really was a good article :(
https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/addiction-s...
https://www.samhsa.gov/communities/homelessness-programs-res...
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R44302#_Toc437336722
It’s not exactly a cryptic relationship, and it implies the need for more than just housing, people need serious inpatient care or structures outpatient programs and those are hard to fund. It’s doubly challenging because of how the US mental health system changed in the 1980’s… very much for the worse.
At least you didn’t assume I was arguing against housing.
The internet is full of places to pick a dumb fight and declare your moral superiority, this doesn’t need to be one of those places.
your first source says verbatim: "One of the main causes of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing". it also doesn't link addiction or mental illness as a cause - it describes that the rates are higher in unhoused populations
a brief thought experiment: if you were unhoused, living on the streets, barely enough money for food and water, your body exposed to the weather, knowing that society looks down on you at worst or ignores you at best, how would your mental health fare?
well, according to your second source:
> It can be more challenging for people who are homeless to stop using substances, because they may not have easy access to treatment, often have smaller social support networks, may have decreased motivation to quit drugs or alcohol, and may have other, higher priorities, such as finding housing or food
it's almost like being unhoused itself causes cycles of addiction because at least the drugs take the pain away for a short stint?
your third source similarly contradicts your initial claim:
>For years, ending chronic homelessness was thought to be a multi-step process, with individuals receiving treatment for addictions and illnesses, perhaps while living in transitional or temporary housing, before being found capable of living on their own. However, the strategy for ending homelessness has changed, largely due to research pioneered by housing providers. Instead of requiring chronically homeless individuals to be "housing ready" by first addressing issues thought to underlie homelessness, the new strategy allows chronically homeless individuals to move into permanent supportive housing without preconditions.
either find better sources or actually read the research you're citing, learn from them, and stop making unfounded and ludicrous claims you can't even back up
I'm sorry, but the idea that having a place to sleep is enough to save a life is sorely mistaken. A third of chronically homeless people have at least a serious mental health issue and those don't go away. Likewise substance abuse is a hard thing to kick EVEN WITH A HOME. It's doubly so these days when drugs are routinely cut with fentanyl, designer drugs, and worse. A good friend of mine died three years ago very much homed, but almost totally unable to find meaningful, quality, and lasting treatment. In the end after a DECADE clean someone abused her, tricked her, and she was gone three months later.
PUTTING PEOPLE UNDER A ROOF IS NOT ENOUGH.
I'd love to live in a utopia where our money doesn't go to murdering hundreds of children in an elementary school in another country and instead provides fully funded and socialized longterm treatment programs for people who need it, with strict regulatory and auditing guidelines to prevent abuse and non-evidence-based practices
it's a fucking shame how far we are from that ever becoming reality