11 ms·

Permanent Housing is the only solution. Shelters are at best temporary to survive a cold night, but they are not a solution for a sustainable life.

notyofriend 3y ago
How can someone pushing themselves to the limit of heroin od have anything sustainable.
- notfed 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - recursive 3y ago
    How? Why? It seems like a reasonable question to me, so maybe I'm prejudiced too. That's entirely possible. What's the prejudice? How do I stop? Why is this a bad question? Does it have an answer?
    - notfed 3y ago
      The stereotype here is that every drug user is pushing themselves to the limit of od.
      - recursive 3y ago
        Maybe some are, maybe some aren't. But it seems likely that the ones in the worst condition that need the most help probably skewed towards out of control. And they will probably be hardest to help. I'm in favor of helping those that need help that can be helped. But that will probably come with rules. There are comments all over this thread that shelters are under-utilized because of these rules. I don't know what the answer is.
- InSteady 3y ago
  Kind of valid. In Portland "housing first" has been all the rage, but having lived with pretty severe addiction for some years, and spent lots of time around fellow addicts in considerably worse circumstances, it's pretty hard to imagine that a house on its own is some kind of solution. Especially when compared to a support network and high quality addiction treatment, medical care, and mental health services. In terms of sustainable recovery, the former is a luxury, while some combo of the latter are essential requirements. Of course, having all of them is by far the best.. man, addiction is a bitch.
  - etchalon 3y ago
    "Housing first" isn't the belief that providing a house "on its own is some kind of solution". It's the belief and practice of not refusing to provide housing support until people meet certain criteria – which is often how governments approach the problem. "We only help those who help themselves", etc. You get people a safe place to sleep and then provide them with resources to become re-integrated into society, not the other way around.
    - PeterisP 3y ago
      If someone is very much not ready "to become re-integrated into society" then they can't be independently entrusted with a house (because they'll screw up life for others around them and the house itself with various asocial and illegal acts), that "safe place to sleep" has to be in an institution controlled by others with some enforced rules - until they become capable of following the rules on their own, which generally requires treating the addiction, and is the point when they can become re-integrated into society.
      - etchalon 3y ago
        1. They can generally be "trusted" with a house. It's a house. You sleep there. 2. The idea they need constant monitoring comes from the same outdated approach that believes we shouldn't help people unless they deserve it and we can make sure they deserve it. That model has not proven effective and either reducing homelessness or reducing homelessness' external costs on society. It has proven even less effective at improving long term mental health and addiction issues. 3. We have not found a long-term solution to chronic mental health and addiction issues. No approach, yet, has shown outsized performance over any other. Housing First approaches, however, have shown an improvement in homelessness, medical services and criminality – which might be the best we can hope for.
antisthenes 3y ago
People who are addicts and have other mental issues are not well-equipped to maintain housing. Whatever housing you'd give them would very quickly turn into a slum. Even just cleaning is a lot of work, not to mention additional maintenance (e.g. filter changes, landscaping, etc.), regularly taking out garbage, not flushing trash down the sewer, etc. Unless you also want to hire staff to do that for them, in which case, sign me up. I want to live for free too and not have to work and do drugs whenever I want.
- InSteady 3y ago
  I tend to agree. But for the sake of fleshing it out, > I want to live for free too and not have to work and do drugs whenever I want. Here's the rub: When you get to the point of needing free housing, you are usually more or less already at the, shal we say, 'mature' phase of your addiction where there is hardly an ounce of joy left to be had from it. The daily grind of figuring out how to get high is basically just your hellish normal, and the best rush you might get here and there in your average month is akin to eating a nice meal, having a good (but not great) conversation, or a satisfying workout. Compared to good sex? Get out of here. That phase of drug use is long gone. If you want that back even for a fleeting moment you have to go through the hell of withdrawal first. Even doses that put you dangerously close to OD don't really reach that anymore unless you risk them after a period of abstinence (which is where most opiate addicts used to die, back before fentanyl was the norm). However, with all that said, I'd argue a functional addict is better equipped to deal with the stuff you mention above better than a severe addict who is trying to get sober after years of active addiction. Obviously acute withdrawal is an absolute bastard, but so are the following months of post acute withdrawal (aka your brain and body re-learning how to function at a completely new level of physiology). If we were doing it right, sobriety would be a hard requirement up front, followed by a good deal of support during the transition back into housing. True, it's much easier to get sober in stable housing. But you know what's even easier still? Continuing to use in a more comfortable and secure environment. Or worse yet, when free housing is still pretty scarce, using your pad as a commodity to score perks from your friends who are still homeless, or worse, using it as a safer and more secure place to stash and deal quantities of drugs to support your addiction directly. Anyone in active addiction will consider these possibilities the moment the lock is turned and they are alone in their new home (not all will act on it, of course). Housing yes, but probably not 'housing first.' You don't take a patient with a gunshot wound and make sure they have a long term care bed to lie in comfortably while they bleed. You get their ass to the ER and fix the bleed before worrying about the long term stuff.
dylan604 3y ago
The only solution to what? While it might get the off the street, it will not cure the addiction. Are you then going to say that someone must be sober before receiving housing? So, again, what is it solving that it is the only thing that can solve it?
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  You solve homelessness directly by giving people housing. Free housing paid for by people like me, and ideally others, who are more than happy to take what I make and give it to people who need it more than I do. And you don’t need to be rich to do it. It’s a decision on how much money etc you actually need to be fulfilled. If that takes a zombie proof bunker and multiple houses and first class flights and…and… then that’s on your head that you prefer to comfort yourself than take care of others.
  - huytersd 3y ago
    Your thought process in commendable but years of this has made me cynical. No one wants to live in the same apartment complex as junkies. If you put them all together it turns into a crime filled cesspool. A hard drug addict is essentially toxic to any situation you drop them in. The solution is to forcibly treat them in rehab centers and then maybe follow up with free housing. This is followed up by drug testing for atleast a few years otherwise you lose your free housing. If the person relapses, the worst that can happen is they are back in forced rehab and at the very least are off the streets, out of sight and not bothering regular people.
    - morelisp 3y ago
      > No one wants to live in the same apartment complex as junkies. You sound like you'd be shocked at how many high-functioning junkies live in most apartment complexes in most major cities. Upper-middle-class guys, holding down jobs - at least until a run of bad luck hits.
      - lupusreal 3y ago

notyofriend 3y ago

How can someone pushing themselves to the limit of heroin od have anything sustainable.

notfed 3y ago
[flagged]
- recursive 3y ago
  How? Why? It seems like a reasonable question to me, so maybe I'm prejudiced too. That's entirely possible. What's the prejudice? How do I stop? Why is this a bad question? Does it have an answer?
  - notfed 3y ago
    The stereotype here is that every drug user is pushing themselves to the limit of od.
    - recursive 3y ago
      Maybe some are, maybe some aren't. But it seems likely that the ones in the worst condition that need the most help probably skewed towards out of control. And they will probably be hardest to help. I'm in favor of helping those that need help that can be helped. But that will probably come with rules. There are comments all over this thread that shelters are under-utilized because of these rules. I don't know what the answer is.
InSteady 3y ago
Kind of valid. In Portland "housing first" has been all the rage, but having lived with pretty severe addiction for some years, and spent lots of time around fellow addicts in considerably worse circumstances, it's pretty hard to imagine that a house on its own is some kind of solution. Especially when compared to a support network and high quality addiction treatment, medical care, and mental health services. In terms of sustainable recovery, the former is a luxury, while some combo of the latter are essential requirements. Of course, having all of them is by far the best.. man, addiction is a bitch.
- etchalon 3y ago
  "Housing first" isn't the belief that providing a house "on its own is some kind of solution". It's the belief and practice of not refusing to provide housing support until people meet certain criteria – which is often how governments approach the problem. "We only help those who help themselves", etc. You get people a safe place to sleep and then provide them with resources to become re-integrated into society, not the other way around.
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    If someone is very much not ready "to become re-integrated into society" then they can't be independently entrusted with a house (because they'll screw up life for others around them and the house itself with various asocial and illegal acts), that "safe place to sleep" has to be in an institution controlled by others with some enforced rules - until they become capable of following the rules on their own, which generally requires treating the addiction, and is the point when they can become re-integrated into society.
    - etchalon 3y ago
      1. They can generally be "trusted" with a house. It's a house. You sleep there. 2. The idea they need constant monitoring comes from the same outdated approach that believes we shouldn't help people unless they deserve it and we can make sure they deserve it. That model has not proven effective and either reducing homelessness or reducing homelessness' external costs on society. It has proven even less effective at improving long term mental health and addiction issues. 3. We have not found a long-term solution to chronic mental health and addiction issues. No approach, yet, has shown outsized performance over any other. Housing First approaches, however, have shown an improvement in homelessness, medical services and criminality – which might be the best we can hope for.

antisthenes 3y ago

People who are addicts and have other mental issues are not well-equipped to maintain housing. Whatever housing you'd give them would very quickly turn into a slum. Even just cleaning is a lot of work, not to mention additional maintenance (e.g. filter changes, landscaping, etc.), regularly taking out garbage, not flushing trash down the sewer, etc. Unless you also want to hire staff to do that for them, in which case, sign me up. I want to live for free too and not have to work and do drugs whenever I want.

InSteady 3y ago
I tend to agree. But for the sake of fleshing it out, > I want to live for free too and not have to work and do drugs whenever I want. Here's the rub: When you get to the point of needing free housing, you are usually more or less already at the, shal we say, 'mature' phase of your addiction where there is hardly an ounce of joy left to be had from it. The daily grind of figuring out how to get high is basically just your hellish normal, and the best rush you might get here and there in your average month is akin to eating a nice meal, having a good (but not great) conversation, or a satisfying workout. Compared to good sex? Get out of here. That phase of drug use is long gone. If you want that back even for a fleeting moment you have to go through the hell of withdrawal first. Even doses that put you dangerously close to OD don't really reach that anymore unless you risk them after a period of abstinence (which is where most opiate addicts used to die, back before fentanyl was the norm). However, with all that said, I'd argue a functional addict is better equipped to deal with the stuff you mention above better than a severe addict who is trying to get sober after years of active addiction. Obviously acute withdrawal is an absolute bastard, but so are the following months of post acute withdrawal (aka your brain and body re-learning how to function at a completely new level of physiology). If we were doing it right, sobriety would be a hard requirement up front, followed by a good deal of support during the transition back into housing. True, it's much easier to get sober in stable housing. But you know what's even easier still? Continuing to use in a more comfortable and secure environment. Or worse yet, when free housing is still pretty scarce, using your pad as a commodity to score perks from your friends who are still homeless, or worse, using it as a safer and more secure place to stash and deal quantities of drugs to support your addiction directly. Anyone in active addiction will consider these possibilities the moment the lock is turned and they are alone in their new home (not all will act on it, of course). Housing yes, but probably not 'housing first.' You don't take a patient with a gunshot wound and make sure they have a long term care bed to lie in comfortably while they bleed. You get their ass to the ER and fix the bleed before worrying about the long term stuff.

dylan604 3y ago

The only solution to what? While it might get the off the street, it will not cure the addiction. Are you then going to say that someone must be sober before receiving housing? So, again, what is it solving that it is the only thing that can solve it?

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
You solve homelessness directly by giving people housing. Free housing paid for by people like me, and ideally others, who are more than happy to take what I make and give it to people who need it more than I do. And you don’t need to be rich to do it. It’s a decision on how much money etc you actually need to be fulfilled. If that takes a zombie proof bunker and multiple houses and first class flights and…and… then that’s on your head that you prefer to comfort yourself than take care of others.
- huytersd 3y ago
  Your thought process in commendable but years of this has made me cynical. No one wants to live in the same apartment complex as junkies. If you put them all together it turns into a crime filled cesspool. A hard drug addict is essentially toxic to any situation you drop them in. The solution is to forcibly treat them in rehab centers and then maybe follow up with free housing. This is followed up by drug testing for atleast a few years otherwise you lose your free housing. If the person relapses, the worst that can happen is they are back in forced rehab and at the very least are off the streets, out of sight and not bothering regular people.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    > No one wants to live in the same apartment complex as junkies. You sound like you'd be shocked at how many high-functioning junkies live in most apartment complexes in most major cities. Upper-middle-class guys, holding down jobs - at least until a run of bad luck hits.
    - lupusreal 3y ago