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Comment by skwirl | Hacker News Reader

A 10 year old child has spent 5 months sleeping on the bus at night with her father. She's getting off the public bus and onto a school bus each morning.

I'm not saying that the adults deserve to be homeless, but can't everyone agree that no child should be in this situation? I can't even imagine how 10 year old me would have done in such a situation. I know kids are resilient, but it sounds absolutely terrifying.

According to a quick search, it is claimed that there are 1.6 million homeless children in America, with 1.1 million enrolled in public schools. That is insane. I can only hope that this number counts mostly children who were homeless for very short stints, and that most of them aren't doing anything like sleeping on a bus for 5 weeks straight.

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This is an anecdote, not data, but my wife spent six months of her time in high school living in the park. This wasn't in sunny California - she still has some medical problems from sleeping in the snow. Also, her pre-school aged step brother was also living under the same conditions.

To answer the obvious questions to follow, the family did try the two homeless shelters. The government ran homeless shelter was quickly abandoned, as it was a haven for rape. There was a non-profit, privately ran homeless shelter for women which did not have the same level of trouble, but they turned my mother-in-law away because she would not convert to their religious beliefs.

I'm not doing reporting this as some sort of pity party. My mother-in-law is a terrible human being and she made many poor decisions that resulted in her being in this situation. I just wanted to make it clear that five weeks on a bus is in no way an outlier among those 1.6 million homeless children.

for very short stints,

Well, yes. Look at the last sentence:

As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week.[36][37] Most were homeless temporarily. The chronically homeless population (those with repeated episodes or who have been homeless for long periods) fell from 175,914 in 2005 to 123,833 in 2007.[38]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Stat...

The people who put these statistics together seem to have an interest in bucking up the numbers. I'm guessing "homeless" could include all manner of things like switching jobs and so being without an apartment for a few days.

The problem is she's with her father. The system is skewed towards mothers and there is a high risk of the girl being separated from her dad (and potentially her school and extended support system) if he sought help.

IMO it's a disgrace that this situation exists, but if she has good grades and nobody has figured it out yet, her dad isn't some sort of nut and is taking care of her. They will get through it. She's better off on the bus that rolling the dice with some foster situation.

I was under the impression that every state provides a foster home or group home for children in need. Is that incorrect?

(Granted, I'm under the impression that these systems suck. But it's not as if there is no effort to care for the children.)

Foster/group homes wouldn't take in the father.

Skwirl asked "can't everyone agree that no child should be in this situation?" As far as I know the father is not a child.

Yeah, and no child should be unnecessarily deprived of her father.

"Here's a home, we just have to rip you away from your loved ones" hardly seems like a better situation.

Many ideas have been tried over the years.

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Why do you think they suck? Not "why is that your impression", but granted they suck, why?

It would be better to provide support that makes the family successful rather than tearing it apart as our default approach.

Same reason homeless shelters suck - the other people in these places tend to be unpleasant to be around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_care#Abuse_and_negligenc...

All sentient life is suffering. Individuals choose to create life in spite of this inevitability, and society perpetuates and encourages individuals making this decision.

We are the product of a mindless evolutionary process, and for the most part societies also take shape mindlessly.

> but can't everyone agree that no child should be in this situation?

Prioritising basic guarantees of well being, above people living in the absurdly precarious situation described, above endless growth and winner-take-all game playing, is actually asking a lot of this world.

> but can't everyone agree that no child should be in this situation?

The problem is that you'll never get everyone to agree that the government needs to be involved in fixing the situation, even though there is no other entity which can be relied upon to solve it.

It's gone from being politics to being religion: Socialism is Evil. It isn't just bad policy, it's Evil and therefore must not be compromised with, for all the same reasons you don't compromise with Satan Himself. The people who believe that will spin stories about how private groups will step up to solve all of the problems, even though they never have in the past, simply to prevent Evil, which they call Socialism.

... even though there is no other entity which can be relied upon to solve it.

The government has shown that it, too, cannot be relied upon to solve it.

I certainly don't believe that the reason there are homeless children in American is because of people yelling "socialism."

Cries of "police state" have not stopped the formation and growth of the TSA.

When the government wants to spend money on something it seems to find a way.

The problem is that you'll never get everyone to agree that the government needs to be involved in fixing the situation

A lot of things happen despite a lack of public support. Do you think the public is cheering for the government to send billions to Pakistan?

You don't need everyone to agree. There would be enough people behind it.

This is a matter of political priorities.

> The government has shown that it, too, cannot be relied upon to solve it.

You might want to provide evidence to support this claim. Also, if that is the case, then to whom or what group does this problem fall into?

Or do you simply say it's unsolvable and go home to your comfortable bed at night?

> > The government has shown that it, too, cannot be relied upon to solve it.

> You might want to provide evidence to support this claim.

The evidence is that it hasn't.

> The government has shown that it, too, cannot be relied upon to solve it.

Except governments in other countries have a better solution for it than the US government does. Denmark, for example, has a very low homelessness rate:

http://www.english.umd.edu/interpolations/3466

Here's some more statistics on homelessness. You'll need to divide by population to get percentages, which are the only useful way to present this data:

http://www.homelessworldcup.org/content/homelessness-statist...

As for the rest of your post: I'm not saying it's a majority yelling "Socialism". I'm saying it's a minority which has the power to, for example, shut down the government by blocking certain legislation because they think a health care plan created by the Heritage Foundation is Socialism.

So:

> When the government wants to spend money on something it seems to find a way.

Not if a minority within the government has found a way to rig the game such that it can make the rest of the party in control of the House of Representatives terrified of being primaried unless they back Ted Cruz.

Our system is full of checks and balances to prevent a majority from running roughshod over all of the minorities. The converse to that is that you do need broad (near-universal, by comparison to some other systems) support, or at least broad acquiescence, to institute major change. A well-positioned minority can halt things, even to the point of disaster, by digging in its heels far enough.

Except governments in other countries have a better solution for it than the US government does.

Sure. But they haven't solved it.

My main point being the the idea that government is the sole entity that can be relied upon to solve it, as claimed earlier post is false. At best they will play a role along with other entities.

I'm saying it's a minority which has the power to, for example, shut down the government by blocking certain legislation because they think a health care plan created by the Heritage Foundation is Socialism.

But what actually happened? The government was shut down briefly, then all went back to as it was. The GOP looked like even bigger fools. The AHCA is still the law of the land. What was blocked?

A well-positioned minority can halt things, even to the point of disaster, by digging in its heels far enough.

Yes, but my belief (clearly not argued well, I concede) is that many times things get halted because the majority has, for political reasons, decided to acquiesce, not because they lack the means to overcome the resistance of the minority.

This is not always a bad thing, but it suggests that even if the government, in the abstract, has the means to accomplish something in practice they cannot be relied on to do it, because of political self-interest (including, for example, being beholden to their campaign financial sources).

> the idea that government is the sole entity that can be relied upon to solve it, as claimed earlier post

I presented my argument wrong. My position is that the government is the only entity that can be relied upon to solve it entirely, not the only one that can be relied upon to help solve it. Private entities are too small to institute the broad changes needed to solve this, as has been demonstrated in the past, when they had the chance and failed.

My complaint was against the people who are convinced that the government must not be involved in any of this at all, because Socialism Is Evil.

> But what actually happened? The government was shut down briefly, then all went back to as it was. The GOP looked like even bigger fools.

The GOP only looks foolish to the people who were against it to begin with. They look like Brave Freedom Fighters to the people who voted them in, and will vote for them again in 2014, simply because they stood up to the Black Muslim Fascist Socialist (who is Black, by the way).

> Yes, but my belief (clearly not argued well, I concede) is that many times things get halted because the majority has, for political reasons, decided to acquiesce, not because they lack the means to overcome the resistance of the minority.

If the non-Tea-Party majority of the GOP in the House decided to risk being primaried en masse they could, indeed, kill the Ted Cruz contingent. I agree with you there, sure. But that's an extremely hard road to follow; it's a classic Prisoner's Dilemma, something right out of a game theory textbook, and politicians are trained to be risk-averse. (Which, in other scenarios, can be a good thing.)

> even if the government, in the abstract, has the means to accomplish something in practice they cannot be relied on to do it, because of political self-interest (including, for example, being beholden to their campaign financial sources)

And here is where I disagree with the Libertarians (including the Tea Party, which are Libertarian on this issue): The Libertarians say that if the government isn't perfect, it can never be part of the solution. I say that if the government isn't perfect, it's time to improve the government.

The problem is that you'll never get everyone to agree that the government needs to be involved in fixing the situation

We already did agree that the government needs to fix the situation. As a result we have the foster care system which will provides homeless children with housing and care. As far as I'm aware, no remotely mainstream politicians advocate ending this system.

I get that you want to bait people into a debate about socialism. But if you want to argue for a change in policy, you need to do more than just criticize your ideological opponents (who don't disagree with you on this matter); you need to actually delve into technical details.

> criticize your ideological opponents (who don't disagree with you on this matter)

Yes, they do. The ones screaming about Socialism damned well do disagree with me on this issue.

Could you find me a politician who opposes the foster care system on the grounds of socialism?

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