Coding Lessons Don't Cure Homelessness | Hacker News Reader

Coding Lessons Don't Cure Homelessness

dissentmagazine.org

59 pointsnols19 comments

> "Homeless people in these stories, it is worth noting, are almost always referred to by their first names, while their tormentors, or benefactors, are afforded the dignity of a surname."

Unfortunately an incredibly moronic story on a serious issue.

What sort of asshole would put someone's full name on the internet forever that they were once homeless.

I understand your sentiment.

The author’s intent refers to study of politically repressed population: women, domestic help, low-level employees and before that slaves were referred to with only their name. That conferred a dignity to using a fuller civil name. It can seem petty when your issues are showering, fighting rabid dogs and pissing not in public but it appears to matter overall too.

Therefore, when privacy is concerned, changing the name is often a more considerate practice that removing it.

That part was moronic. The rest was good.

The main cause of homelessness is a lack of political will to fix the issues. When Utah does a better job on a social issue than California or even Oregon, it's not because of a lack of resources ( CA, OR and WA all have greater GDP ) it's because we can't for all our vaunted liberality bring the resources together with the people who need them. Whether it's providing "wet beds" for people who aren't able to stay clean or just a straight up housing subsidy until everyone who needs a place is taken care of; it's not that hard. Except at the level of convincing voters to approve it. In many cases a direct housing subsidy would save taxpayers money on multiple levels, but we have large segments of the electorate that are emotionally driven by a refusal to help the indigent. Often framed as a disgust for moochers. A disgust which oddly never gets applied to bankers and lawyers the real parasites on the body politic.

Actually it's not as easy as that. Granted, subsidies do help. But for example in Germany, where virtually anybody could get a social welfare which covers housing, we still have homeless people.

Homelessness is also quite often a problem of mental health, which prevents them to seek help they are entitled to, or to improve their situations on their own, when they are otherwise capable of that.

After living in France for most of my life, I can confirm this is true: underinvestment remains the main choke-point though. Homeless shelters can be violent and unsanitary places; before making them psychiatrically sound, you need to increase their ability to separate visitors.

I am not in Scandinavia, were homelessness can not be a year-long issue (-30°C day round). There are far less beggars even in Summer because the State is not just more generous, but seemingly a lot less focused on red-tape. Most cases of denying help that I’ve heard (from charity work and working at a teacher in jail) were related to not ticking the right boxes, something for which mental health is a big handicap, but being sane isn’t remotely enough.

For instance, what appears to be the main trigger for homelessness is a couple separation: the less motivated employee, gets fired and can’t pay for his temporary accommodation anymore. That is a classic case where leniency in proving you can’t live in the house in which you are registered helps.

>Homelessness is also quite often a problem of mental health

Provided that you've already set up a system to help the people who merely need economic assistance. Germany vs America right now are two very different situations, precisely because Germany provides more economic assistance for the mentally sound.

IMHO this article is pretty one sided.

In general, homelessness is terrible, there are very few people who will dispute that. What is in dispute is how to deal with it. There are undoubtedly people who "want" to live on the street, and there are absolutely people who desperately do not want to be there.

I grew up in San Francisco, and while not completely immune to the plight of the homeless, I don't really have a ton of sympathy anymore for the folks who refuse help and just want to skate by. There are actually quite a few problems that are exacerbated by "outsiders" who try to help but really make the problem worse by supporting the habits of addicts and chronic bad actors.

If homeless people make you feel bad, donate money to the organizations that help care for them, anything else is just not really that helpful in the long run.

I think the issue I often see here is that both sides have a one sided sense of exactly how many people "want" to live on the street and don't. Either they're all lazy or they're all victims of the system. This [1] perhaps helps illuminate the issue.

We see that 66% have drug, alcohol, or mental health issues. That's a large fraction; about two in three homeless individuals have these issues. However, one in three is a significant fraction who don't. More upsetting is that 40% are veterans. So, I think it's fair to say that we have a slight edge on the interpretation that its "their fault" (although I am extrapolating a lot from a single number here). Still, one out of three individuals there out from nothing more than misfortune is just unacceptable, so I think something should be done.

But clearly, what we are doing isn't enough; something more needs to be done. A lot of this can be alleviated by the other things, you know, fixing the rent problem, addressing the minimum wage, etc. In fact the article suggests a few fixes, like better public housing design.

[1] http://www.statisticbrain.com/homelessness-stats/

Deleted comment

Look in the back seat

How do you know?

The author took 23 paragraphs (with outlandish detours that equate technologists sleeping in cars and participating in CrossFit to "fetishizing the homeless" and trying to make a connection between that and libertarianism) to basically say that the tech community should get mad at institutions that lead to homelessness instead of the homeless individuals themselves. No concrete advice was provided on how to improve said institutions except for a quick mention of how Salt Lake City and Phoenix have helped reduce homelessness by giving away homes -- of course the caveat that those places have far more affordable housing and far more units to actually give away was not at all mentioned even though ~22 paragraphs previously the author was talking about how expensive 1 bedroom apartments are in SF and other tech hubs.

>'There is no "solution", obviously'

Apart maybe to look at the many countries outside the USA that do not have the problem to the same degree and copy some of their policies? Coming from Europe the US homeless situation seems kind of bizzare.

>of course the caveat that those places have far more affordable housing and far more units to actually give away was not at all mentioned even though ~22 paragraphs previously the author was talking about how expensive 1 bedroom apartments are in SF and other tech hubs.

Then I would imagine that this is an issue where we can help both the homeless and tech-workers alike by building a bunch more housing.

I'm spending the winter in Melbourne Australia right now and am surprised at how few homeless people there are here. I don't really know why, but there appears to be more homeless in my home base of Boulder, CO (pop. 100,000) than here in Melbourne (pop. 4,000,000). I'm assuming there are better social safety nets here. It's quite nice that you aren't constantly panhandled and you can walk through the parks at night without fear.

I was doing OK with this rant and was following it until the burning man people are all libertarians section. No they are not. The whole piece smacks of the same dumbass world versus tech bullshit I see around. Super tired of it at this stage. Probably all typed on a Mac Book Air in a coffee shop somewhere. Fuck off.

"This tendency to glamorize the primordial man is an extension of libertarian ideals; it assumes that people are more naturally cut out to hunt, gather, and organize themselves than they are to abide by rules imposed by a coercive, misleading government."

wat

Well reasoned and researched, the author solidly frames the moral conundrum. There is no "solution", obviously. To recognize that the homeless person and the successful entrepreneur are outliers on the same sliding scale, in their essence both disruptors of the status quo, is a step towards an adult perspective on the goals we pursue. I'm glad that Silicon Valley is feeling it too.

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