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The US chooses not to end homelessness. We have the highest GDP in the world. We could end it if we wanted to. I was in Japan recently. A choice was made ther

The US chooses not to end homelessness. We have the highest GDP in the world. We could end it if we wanted to. I was in Japan recently. A choice was made there as well.

ipaddr 2y ago
The US could end homelessness but would need to stop immigration and change the constitution which could force people in shelter. Not sure it's the outcome we all want.
- barbazoo 2y ago
  That's your assumption. Instead, mine is that it would require some kind of wealth transfer to pay for the social services.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    Paying for the social services is possible. The difficult issue is some people don't want to go to a homeless shelter because they want to maintain a level of freedom while others fear they will be robbed/raped at the shelter. Do you force them inside?
    - barbazoo 2y ago
      > The difficult issue is some people don't want to go to a homeless shelter because they want to maintain a level of freedom while others fear they will be robbed/raped at the shelter. A bit of a strawman, social service doesn't have to mean homeless shelter, so no, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Problem is in many places at least where I live, there just isn't enough money to serve all the people that need the various levels of help.
      - ipaddr 2y ago
        Homeless people go to homeless shelters from that point they could go into secondary housing or other programs. In my city they wanted to end homelessness 25 years ago. They had enough money to do so and went ahead. They found a 1/3 refused to come in even on the coldest days for various reasons. The fight became do you let them stay and sleep on the street or do you force them into shelters/jails. What is more humane? The let's leave them on the street but send people to feed them approach won over the forcible removals. So homelessness remained. When people say they want to end homelessness I don't think they realize they need to jail some of them.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  Simpler than that: just roll back the restrictive zoning codes which have been making sufficient development infeasible for many years, thus creating a steadily growing housing deficit. When laws have turned the housing market into a game of musical chairs, someone is guaranteed to be left outside.
  - mywittyname 2y ago
    I'm often skeptical of simple solutions like this. They tend to assume that the regulation causes the problem, but when looked at more critically, it's clear that the regulation is a formalization of a combination of consumer & business preference. For example, Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations. If you get into the gritty details, you'll find that they have a whole bunch ofloopholes that seem to favor larger trucks & SUVs. Many people will point to these regulation as causing people to buy light trucks & SUVs, but the data seems to suggest consumers prefer to buy these vehicles and auto manufacture prefer to sell them (they are extremely profitable). I postulate that, if CAFE requirements were eliminated, the best selling vehicle in the USA would continue to be the F-series and other trucks and SUVs would continue to dominate the top 10, because the regulations are influenced by consumer preference, not the other way around. I think the same logic applies to zoning. People largely want to own single family homes (SFH) in the suburbs; builders largely want to build SFHs in the suburbs. There's no reason to believe that changes in zoning will cause a meaningful shift in consumer and business preference. In the handful of ultra expensive metro areas, sure it might move the needle because economics trump preference, but in most of the USA, there's plenty of space to build housing. It's hard to imagine a developer in Pittsburgh choosing to build housing in an industrial area in the city over some empty land on the outskirts.
    - marssaxman 2y ago
      I appreciate your skepticism! The proposition that rates of homelessness are primarily driven by housing costs has actually been well supported in research - this Pew article contains many useful references: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/08/22/how-housing-costs-drive-levels-of-homelessness https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... As per econ 101, high prices are a function of scarcity relative to demand: we can reasonably claim that regulations which restrict housing development, which by their nature must increase scarcity and therefore housing costs, therefore also lead to increased rates of homelessness. > In the handful of ultra expensive metro areas, sure it might move the needle That's a good point, but those are exactly the places which have significant homelessness problems. In general, this is not a housing preference issue, because opposition to upzoning does not come from people who aspire to live in single-family homes, but from people who already own them. This is a typical example: https://www.change.org/p/whittier-neighbors-against-seattle-upzoning-proposal https://www.change.org/p/whittier-neighbors-against-seattle-... As usual with these things, the complaints include a cloud of nitpicky nonsense surrounding a central concern over "neighborhood character", which is a polite way of saying "we don't want apartment-dwelling poor people coming to live near us".
- JamesLeonis 2y ago
  There are 10 million empty homes [0] and ~700,000 homeless. No matter how you slice those numbers you still have more empty housing stock than homeless right now. [0]: https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf (page 4)
  - EA-3167 2y ago
    You're assuming that the major challenge is the lack of a home, because the term we choose to use as an umbrella implies that. For some people it's even true, but they tend not to be CHRONICALLY homeless, and that's the population of major concern. Chronically homeless people have extremely high rates of mental illness and substance abuse; depending on how you slice it, a third or more are schizophrenic or something similar. Those are not people you can just stick into a house and wish them well, they need serious help for many years. In most cases that help isn't there, or comes with strings (no drugs, no alcohol) that they refuse to accept. Homelessness in the US is in many respect a mental health and substance abuse issue, exacerbated in the post-Reagan era when our mental health system was gutted and weakened. If you want to reach those people and keep them off the streets, you need more than just empty houses.
    - itishappy 2y ago
      Chronically homeless make up about a quarter to a third of the US homeless population. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-AHAR-Part-1.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-...
      - EA-3167 2y ago
        That's true, but they make up a disproportionate number of the "visible homeless" that people encounter in camps, taking drugs on the street, etc. A lot of homeless people are at a low point in their lives, but use the systems offered to them and dig themselves back out. That's why they aren't CHRONICALLY homeless. They don't represent the same kind of societal problem that poor students, broke divorcees, and people moving through rough patches do. They also don't represent a single population that needs help they aren't provided with already, unlike the chronically homeless.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > US could end homelessness but would need to stop immigration and change the constitution which could force people in shelter Immigrants are a tiny fraction of the homeless [1]. And we’ve tried criminalising homelessness; incarceration is forced shelter and incredibly expensive. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30739834/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30739834/
  - stevenicr 2y ago
    according to that 'adults participating in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions' .. It also says foreign born is 1% vs native at 1.7% - so they are both 'a tiny fraction' Whether or not a large percentage, or a large number or small number of immigrants are homeless or not, one must assume that if 11 million people left the US next month, the price of rent in many places may go down a bit, and some currently unhoused people might be able to afford a cheaper place. Of course another side is that wages in some industries will rise, and that may put more people into a position where they can afford an apartment. What I'd like to see is how inexpensive optional housing can be made.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    In Canada the majority of shelter beds go to refugee claimants. I believe it is highly like many illegals in the US are homeless and make up the majority of homeless people. They are not part of the numbers you provided.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > In Canada the majority of shelter beds go to refugee claimants. Is there data someplace that shows it? > I believe it is highly like I believe that angry gods cause rain. What does it matter?
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        In 2022, the majority (90.3%) of shelter users were Canadian citizens, which has been the case for all years of analysis since 2015. The proportion of refugees and refugee claimants in the shelter system was 2.0% in 2022, up from 2021 (0.9%) but down compared to pre-pandemic (2019, 4.1%). Pandemic travel restrictions in 2020 and 2021 may have contributed to a decrease in the number of asylum claims, with a partial recovery in 2022. https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/homelessness-sans-abri/reports-rapports/data-shelter-2022-donnees-refuge-eng.html#toc_5 https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/homelessness-sans-a...
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
How could the United States end homelessness? It is a mix of federal government, state governments, and local/county/municipal governments. The level of government best suited to do the actual work is hamstrung... if any one city fixes homelessness (somehow), more homeless will show up. If they do that again for the new arrivals, more homeless show up. The first to solve it is punished with tens of thousands of newly arriving homeless who, as you might imagine, will find a way to get there if it means not being homeless anymore. But budgets are finite and the cost per homeless must he higher than zero, but in a practical sense the number of homeless aren't entirely finite. If you start from the other end, with the feds, then you might as well hold your breath. Homelessness is so far down the list of priorities, that even if it somehow did bubble to the top, the polarization in Congress will sabotage any effort, and we'll end up with boondoggles that both sides can criticize and that won't really help any homeless at all. This isn't a choice being made, it's just the complexity of the real world that some are still blind to even after graduating college and (theoretically) turning into grownups. There's actually a technical solution too, but since it's dry and boring, most leftists (and quite a few of the rightists) find it too boring to ever want to try. Obviously the solution is either love and compassion (from the left) or maybe "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" (from the right).
- wormlord 2y ago
  This argument is so lame. "Actually the overall structure of the USA is designed so that its basicalyl impossible to solve the crisis". You're not wrong in the fact that America is a shit country designed to intentionally to use homelessness as an implicit threat against the working class. You are wrong in the sense that all the things you listed aren't reasons, just excuses to cover up the intentionality of homelessness, and that homelessness could be solved if there was the political will to do so. Which there will never be in the USA because again, the homelessness crisis is intentional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
  - enaaem 2y ago
    Yeah if you really want to end homelessness you will find a way, if not, you will find excuses.
nostromo 2y ago
It's funny how every westerner visits Japan and comes home thinking we can "solve crime" or "solve homelessness" or "have clean subway stations." Japan's culture is why those things are the way they are. It's not due to funding. It's because people raise their children differently than we do in the west. The family's obligations are also greater. And, yes, there are homeless people in Japan. But they typically are invisible by choice because of their cultural norms around discretion.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  It’s definitely cultural. I’ve been to every major city in the US and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a homeless Indian. Some groups have broken familial cultures that does not churn out good citizens. Did the US in the past play a major role in breaking down those groups and surrounding them with abject poverty that makes it hard to escape from? Absolutely.
  - m2024 2y ago
    That's because it's very affluent Indians who have been granted citizenship historically. Homelessness goes down in places where housing is cheap and also in places where the government intervenes sensibly.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Mental illness is a major factor that makes it hard to help people. A majority of homeless people don't have mental illness, but a large fraction do, but those are the hardest to help. I have a friend right now who is in a precarious housing situation who has schizophrenia but does not have a DX and has no insight into her condition. If my wife tries to set a time to pick her up and take her out to our farm, odds are 1/10 that she will really be there, will really get in the car, will not get out of the car for some hare-brained reason or otherwise not make it out. You've got to have the patience of a saint to do anything for her. If she had some insight into her condition she could go to DSS and get TANF and then get on disability and have stable housing but she doesn't. No matter how I try to bring up the issue that she does have a condition she just "unhears" it. Indians and other people from traditional cultures have stronger "family values" and won't wash their hands of intractable relatives the way people who grew up in the US monoculture will. (Or if they do it, they'll do it in a final way)
IncreasePosts 2y ago
How do you end homelessness, when some percent of homeless people will, if you give them a place to stay, smoke meth all day and make their apartment and nearby apartments health hazards? Many drug addicts don't want to be addicted, and would try to go through treatment if provided. But some are inveterate, and don't want to quit. What do you do with them?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- yard2010 2y ago
  Not all homeless people are dangerous drug addicts.
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Notice how I never said they were.
    - Groxx 2y ago
      You do however seem to be implying "this won't work because some won't go along with it, therefore we should not do it". In which case you're essentially saying "meth users decide everyone's housing status".
      - IncreasePosts 2y ago
        No, that is not what I'm saying. Notice, I never said we shouldn't do anything. I'm saying reaching the state of "no homelessness" is dependent upon finding something to do with the worst of the homeless. For a tech analogy, imagine you've architected a system that has 99.5% uptime. You might be able to imagine a way to get to 99.9% up time. With enough resources, you might even be able to get to 99.99% uptime. With laser focus and a giant dedicated team and an immense budget, maybe you can get it to 99.995%. But what would you do if some exec came in and said we need 100% uptime, and we are a failure as a company unless we reach that?
skirge 2y ago
US and Europe have different reasone for homelessnes. Give free houses in US and next day you will have +400mln people from South America. In EU (I can speak for Poland) most homeless have alcohol and violence problems - people removed from homes for domestic violence by court (divorce). You must be quite bad person if no one takes care of you, in a country with a) strong family tights and b) many people owning a home.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > Give free houses in US and next day you will have +400mln people from South America. I don't know that at all. People in public housing that I know and see are not especially from South America.
  - skirge 2y ago
    yet
  - asdf6969 2y ago
    Good bait
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  Now consider that most homeless in Poland are male. There _exist_ people who never had family, or ruthless real estate grabbers who'd rather have real estate for themselves and a homeless family member. > people removed from homes for domestic violence by court (divorce) This is classic why the husband moves out, have you ever dealt with family courts as a male in Poland, nothing rings the bell for you? So a male homeless must be violent alcoholic, right? I'm happy that your life and family are doing okay. Once your life will turn more difficult, Polish society will dismiss you as a violent alcoholic and no help or support will be awaiting. Will reveal you one more secret, Polish male homeless are in Germany and Netherlands. Occasionally you hear about them in media when someone beats them to death or sets them on fire.
  - skirge 2y ago
    there are many organisations and individuals who will help you, if you are sober and non-violent, actually everyone will like cheap workforce - I know few cases like that, someone taken from street to farm or similar.
patatero 2y ago
Japan has plenty of homeless people but you don't see them because they're staying in cybercafés.
- skirge 2y ago
  Is cybercafe free?
- weberer 2y ago
  I've seen a bunch just camping out under an overpass just outside of Akihabara station.
throwawayq3423 2y ago
> I was in Japan recently. It's funny, I was as well and saw homeless everywhere, for the first time ever. I was recently in Scandinavia and while i've seen homeless there as well, there was a noticeable increase.

The US chooses not to end homelessness. We have the highest GDP in the world. We could end it if we wanted to. I was in Japan recently. A choice was made there as well.

ipaddr 2y ago

The US could end homelessness but would need to stop immigration and change the constitution which could force people in shelter. Not sure it's the outcome we all want.

barbazoo 2y ago
That's your assumption. Instead, mine is that it would require some kind of wealth transfer to pay for the social services.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Paying for the social services is possible. The difficult issue is some people don't want to go to a homeless shelter because they want to maintain a level of freedom while others fear they will be robbed/raped at the shelter. Do you force them inside?
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    > The difficult issue is some people don't want to go to a homeless shelter because they want to maintain a level of freedom while others fear they will be robbed/raped at the shelter. A bit of a strawman, social service doesn't have to mean homeless shelter, so no, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Problem is in many places at least where I live, there just isn't enough money to serve all the people that need the various levels of help.
    - ipaddr 2y ago
      Homeless people go to homeless shelters from that point they could go into secondary housing or other programs. In my city they wanted to end homelessness 25 years ago. They had enough money to do so and went ahead. They found a 1/3 refused to come in even on the coldest days for various reasons. The fight became do you let them stay and sleep on the street or do you force them into shelters/jails. What is more humane? The let's leave them on the street but send people to feed them approach won over the forcible removals. So homelessness remained. When people say they want to end homelessness I don't think they realize they need to jail some of them.
marssaxman 2y ago
Simpler than that: just roll back the restrictive zoning codes which have been making sufficient development infeasible for many years, thus creating a steadily growing housing deficit. When laws have turned the housing market into a game of musical chairs, someone is guaranteed to be left outside.
- mywittyname 2y ago
  I'm often skeptical of simple solutions like this. They tend to assume that the regulation causes the problem, but when looked at more critically, it's clear that the regulation is a formalization of a combination of consumer & business preference. For example, Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations. If you get into the gritty details, you'll find that they have a whole bunch ofloopholes that seem to favor larger trucks & SUVs. Many people will point to these regulation as causing people to buy light trucks & SUVs, but the data seems to suggest consumers prefer to buy these vehicles and auto manufacture prefer to sell them (they are extremely profitable). I postulate that, if CAFE requirements were eliminated, the best selling vehicle in the USA would continue to be the F-series and other trucks and SUVs would continue to dominate the top 10, because the regulations are influenced by consumer preference, not the other way around. I think the same logic applies to zoning. People largely want to own single family homes (SFH) in the suburbs; builders largely want to build SFHs in the suburbs. There's no reason to believe that changes in zoning will cause a meaningful shift in consumer and business preference. In the handful of ultra expensive metro areas, sure it might move the needle because economics trump preference, but in most of the USA, there's plenty of space to build housing. It's hard to imagine a developer in Pittsburgh choosing to build housing in an industrial area in the city over some empty land on the outskirts.
  - marssaxman 2y ago
    I appreciate your skepticism! The proposition that rates of homelessness are primarily driven by housing costs has actually been well supported in research - this Pew article contains many useful references: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/08/22/how-housing-costs-drive-levels-of-homelessness https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... As per econ 101, high prices are a function of scarcity relative to demand: we can reasonably claim that regulations which restrict housing development, which by their nature must increase scarcity and therefore housing costs, therefore also lead to increased rates of homelessness. > In the handful of ultra expensive metro areas, sure it might move the needle That's a good point, but those are exactly the places which have significant homelessness problems. In general, this is not a housing preference issue, because opposition to upzoning does not come from people who aspire to live in single-family homes, but from people who already own them. This is a typical example: https://www.change.org/p/whittier-neighbors-against-seattle-upzoning-proposal https://www.change.org/p/whittier-neighbors-against-seattle-... As usual with these things, the complaints include a cloud of nitpicky nonsense surrounding a central concern over "neighborhood character", which is a polite way of saying "we don't want apartment-dwelling poor people coming to live near us".
JamesLeonis 2y ago
There are 10 million empty homes [0] and ~700,000 homeless. No matter how you slice those numbers you still have more empty housing stock than homeless right now. [0]: https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf (page 4)
- EA-3167 2y ago
  You're assuming that the major challenge is the lack of a home, because the term we choose to use as an umbrella implies that. For some people it's even true, but they tend not to be CHRONICALLY homeless, and that's the population of major concern. Chronically homeless people have extremely high rates of mental illness and substance abuse; depending on how you slice it, a third or more are schizophrenic or something similar. Those are not people you can just stick into a house and wish them well, they need serious help for many years. In most cases that help isn't there, or comes with strings (no drugs, no alcohol) that they refuse to accept. Homelessness in the US is in many respect a mental health and substance abuse issue, exacerbated in the post-Reagan era when our mental health system was gutted and weakened. If you want to reach those people and keep them off the streets, you need more than just empty houses.
  - itishappy 2y ago
    Chronically homeless make up about a quarter to a third of the US homeless population. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-AHAR-Part-1.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-...
    - EA-3167 2y ago
      That's true, but they make up a disproportionate number of the "visible homeless" that people encounter in camps, taking drugs on the street, etc. A lot of homeless people are at a low point in their lives, but use the systems offered to them and dig themselves back out. That's why they aren't CHRONICALLY homeless. They don't represent the same kind of societal problem that poor students, broke divorcees, and people moving through rough patches do. They also don't represent a single population that needs help they aren't provided with already, unlike the chronically homeless.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> US could end homelessness but would need to stop immigration and change the constitution which could force people in shelter Immigrants are a tiny fraction of the homeless [1]. And we’ve tried criminalising homelessness; incarceration is forced shelter and incredibly expensive. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30739834/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30739834/
- stevenicr 2y ago
  according to that 'adults participating in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions' .. It also says foreign born is 1% vs native at 1.7% - so they are both 'a tiny fraction' Whether or not a large percentage, or a large number or small number of immigrants are homeless or not, one must assume that if 11 million people left the US next month, the price of rent in many places may go down a bit, and some currently unhoused people might be able to afford a cheaper place. Of course another side is that wages in some industries will rise, and that may put more people into a position where they can afford an apartment. What I'd like to see is how inexpensive optional housing can be made.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  In Canada the majority of shelter beds go to refugee claimants. I believe it is highly like many illegals in the US are homeless and make up the majority of homeless people. They are not part of the numbers you provided.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > In Canada the majority of shelter beds go to refugee claimants. Is there data someplace that shows it? > I believe it is highly like I believe that angry gods cause rain. What does it matter?
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      In 2022, the majority (90.3%) of shelter users were Canadian citizens, which has been the case for all years of analysis since 2015. The proportion of refugees and refugee claimants in the shelter system was 2.0% in 2022, up from 2021 (0.9%) but down compared to pre-pandemic (2019, 4.1%). Pandemic travel restrictions in 2020 and 2021 may have contributed to a decrease in the number of asylum claims, with a partial recovery in 2022. https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/homelessness-sans-abri/reports-rapports/data-shelter-2022-donnees-refuge-eng.html#toc_5 https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/homelessness-sans-a...

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

How could the United States end homelessness? It is a mix of federal government, state governments, and local/county/municipal governments. The level of government best suited to do the actual work is hamstrung... if any one city fixes homelessness (somehow), more homeless will show up. If they do that again for the new arrivals, more homeless show up. The first to solve it is punished with tens of thousands of newly arriving homeless who, as you might imagine, will find a way to get there if it means not being homeless anymore. But budgets are finite and the cost per homeless must he higher than zero, but in a practical sense the number of homeless aren't entirely finite. If you start from the other end, with the feds, then you might as well hold your breath. Homelessness is so far down the list of priorities, that even if it somehow did bubble to the top, the polarization in Congress will sabotage any effort, and we'll end up with boondoggles that both sides can criticize and that won't really help any homeless at all. This isn't a choice being made, it's just the complexity of the real world that some are still blind to even after graduating college and (theoretically) turning into grownups. There's actually a technical solution too, but since it's dry and boring, most leftists (and quite a few of the rightists) find it too boring to ever want to try. Obviously the solution is either love and compassion (from the left) or maybe "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" (from the right).

wormlord 2y ago
This argument is so lame. "Actually the overall structure of the USA is designed so that its basicalyl impossible to solve the crisis". You're not wrong in the fact that America is a shit country designed to intentionally to use homelessness as an implicit threat against the working class. You are wrong in the sense that all the things you listed aren't reasons, just excuses to cover up the intentionality of homelessness, and that homelessness could be solved if there was the political will to do so. Which there will never be in the USA because again, the homelessness crisis is intentional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
- enaaem 2y ago
  Yeah if you really want to end homelessness you will find a way, if not, you will find excuses.

nostromo 2y ago

It's funny how every westerner visits Japan and comes home thinking we can "solve crime" or "solve homelessness" or "have clean subway stations." Japan's culture is why those things are the way they are. It's not due to funding. It's because people raise their children differently than we do in the west. The family's obligations are also greater. And, yes, there are homeless people in Japan. But they typically are invisible by choice because of their cultural norms around discretion.

dyauspitr 2y ago
It’s definitely cultural. I’ve been to every major city in the US and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a homeless Indian. Some groups have broken familial cultures that does not churn out good citizens. Did the US in the past play a major role in breaking down those groups and surrounding them with abject poverty that makes it hard to escape from? Absolutely.
- m2024 2y ago
  That's because it's very affluent Indians who have been granted citizenship historically. Homelessness goes down in places where housing is cheap and also in places where the government intervenes sensibly.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  Mental illness is a major factor that makes it hard to help people. A majority of homeless people don't have mental illness, but a large fraction do, but those are the hardest to help. I have a friend right now who is in a precarious housing situation who has schizophrenia but does not have a DX and has no insight into her condition. If my wife tries to set a time to pick her up and take her out to our farm, odds are 1/10 that she will really be there, will really get in the car, will not get out of the car for some hare-brained reason or otherwise not make it out. You've got to have the patience of a saint to do anything for her. If she had some insight into her condition she could go to DSS and get TANF and then get on disability and have stable housing but she doesn't. No matter how I try to bring up the issue that she does have a condition she just "unhears" it. Indians and other people from traditional cultures have stronger "family values" and won't wash their hands of intractable relatives the way people who grew up in the US monoculture will. (Or if they do it, they'll do it in a final way)

IncreasePosts 2y ago

How do you end homelessness, when some percent of homeless people will, if you give them a place to stay, smoke meth all day and make their apartment and nearby apartments health hazards? Many drug addicts don't want to be addicted, and would try to go through treatment if provided. But some are inveterate, and don't want to quit. What do you do with them?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
yard2010 2y ago
Not all homeless people are dangerous drug addicts.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  Notice how I never said they were.
  - Groxx 2y ago
    You do however seem to be implying "this won't work because some won't go along with it, therefore we should not do it". In which case you're essentially saying "meth users decide everyone's housing status".
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      No, that is not what I'm saying. Notice, I never said we shouldn't do anything. I'm saying reaching the state of "no homelessness" is dependent upon finding something to do with the worst of the homeless. For a tech analogy, imagine you've architected a system that has 99.5% uptime. You might be able to imagine a way to get to 99.9% up time. With enough resources, you might even be able to get to 99.99% uptime. With laser focus and a giant dedicated team and an immense budget, maybe you can get it to 99.995%. But what would you do if some exec came in and said we need 100% uptime, and we are a failure as a company unless we reach that?

skirge 2y ago

US and Europe have different reasone for homelessnes. Give free houses in US and next day you will have +400mln people from South America. In EU (I can speak for Poland) most homeless have alcohol and violence problems - people removed from homes for domestic violence by court (divorce). You must be quite bad person if no one takes care of you, in a country with a) strong family tights and b) many people owning a home.

mmooss 2y ago
> Give free houses in US and next day you will have +400mln people from South America. I don't know that at all. People in public housing that I know and see are not especially from South America.
- skirge 2y ago
  yet
- asdf6969 2y ago
  Good bait
lifestyleguru 2y ago
Now consider that most homeless in Poland are male. There _exist_ people who never had family, or ruthless real estate grabbers who'd rather have real estate for themselves and a homeless family member. > people removed from homes for domestic violence by court (divorce) This is classic why the husband moves out, have you ever dealt with family courts as a male in Poland, nothing rings the bell for you? So a male homeless must be violent alcoholic, right? I'm happy that your life and family are doing okay. Once your life will turn more difficult, Polish society will dismiss you as a violent alcoholic and no help or support will be awaiting. Will reveal you one more secret, Polish male homeless are in Germany and Netherlands. Occasionally you hear about them in media when someone beats them to death or sets them on fire.
- skirge 2y ago
  there are many organisations and individuals who will help you, if you are sober and non-violent, actually everyone will like cheap workforce - I know few cases like that, someone taken from street to farm or similar.

patatero 2y ago

Japan has plenty of homeless people but you don't see them because they're staying in cybercafés.

skirge 2y ago
Is cybercafe free?
weberer 2y ago
I've seen a bunch just camping out under an overpass just outside of Akihabara station.

throwawayq3423 2y ago

> I was in Japan recently. It's funny, I was as well and saw homeless everywhere, for the first time ever. I was recently in Scandinavia and while i've seen homeless there as well, there was a noticeable increase.