
Medicine Hat becomes the first city in Canada to eliminate homelessness - graeham
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3074402/medicine-hat-becomes-the-first-city-in-canada-to-eliminate-homelessness-1.3074742
======
minikites
> I even said some dumb things like, 'Why should they have granite countertops
> when I don't.' However, I've come around.

This sort of "crab mentality" makes even discussing things like basic income,
minimum wage, or projects like this so difficult, let alone implementing them.
People come to believe they deserve their position in life when so much of it
is due to advantages/disadvantages outside their control:
[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business-jan-
june13-makingsen...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business-jan-
june13-makingsense_06-21/)

> The rich players are determined randomly by coin toss, the game rigged so
> they cannot lose. And yet, says Piff, despite their presumably liberal bent
> going in, [w]hen we asked them afterwards, how much do you feel like you
> deserved to win the game? The rich people felt entitled. They felt like they
> deserved to win the game. And that’s a really incredible insight into what
> the mind does to make sense of advantage or disadvantage.

Successful people believe they deserve to be successful and they believe that
unsuccessful people must have acted in a way to deserve it, because
attributing your success and their destitution to factors outside anyone's
control is scary and difficult.

~~~
Red_Tarsius
I'm all for basic income and minimum wage, but I think the _luck_ mindset is
quite detrimental. It strips men of their own agency and fosters cynicism.

> I even said some dumb things like, 'Why should they have granite countertops
> when I don't.' However, I've come around.

Unfortunately, he ends with _However, I 've come around to realize that this
makes financial sense._ Silly me, I thought the change of mind was about
empathy.

~~~
learnstats2
> Silly me, I thought the change of mind was about empathy.

It's important that it's economic.

If I work my median job, and live my median lifestyle, and I observe that
people who don't work are getting more than I am, that's very challenging. I
immediately feel resentful about the fact that I had to work for this when
others didn't.

It makes it seem like the economic system is broken and unfair. As soon as
that happens, there's no chance you will feel empathy to those people who are
benefiting more.

Recognising that the economics is OK is therefore very important - it allows
you to start to have empathy.

~~~
knodi123
> I immediately feel resentful about the fact that I had to work for this when
> others didn't.

I _already_ feel this to a shameful degree in regard to wealthy scions like
the Walton kids, or children of mega hollywood stars. The economic system _is_
broken and unfair.

~~~
learnstats2
Ah, yes, I agree the economic system is broken and unfair.

Unfortunately the way to fix this is not by giving you the wealth of the
Waltons.

It's by bringing everyone else up to the level of personal security that you
already have.

------
beloch
My first reaction when I started reading this was, "Yeah, but what do you do
with the crazy people who prefer sleeping on the streets?". Their answer was
to just keep picking them up and taking them to their new home, until they
chose to live there. Medicine Hat is not a big place, but doing that 70 times
in some cases showed commendable perseverance.

I'd like to see this approach in other cities in Alberta, but there are some
pretty big obstacles to overcome. Calgary, for example, presents the choice
between very high property values in the core and remote suburbs that aren't
very pedestrian friendly. Relocating someone from downtown to a likely site of
affordable housing could mean a 30 minute drive. If most people they knew were
downtown, this would cut them off pretty effectively, and that's a long way to
take someone 70 times too! Perhaps situating affordable housing near a train
station and giving residents free transit passes would help.

There are several months out of the year when living outside in Alberta is
basically impossible. Some of the homeless go to shelters, but many wind up
sleeping inside of derelict buildings or hiding in office buildings. The
security guards working those buildings sometimes let them sleep there (the
result of kicking them out on some nights is likely death), but security
guards aren't the most uniformly humane and caring bunch. Some of them treat
the homeless very badly. Getting these people into housing and treating them
with a modicum of dignity could really help their mental state improve.

Hopefully Medicine Hat's program can prove that housing the homeless is an
economically viable approach, even in bigger cities.

~~~
digi_owl
In the end it seems to come down to housing as shelter vs housing as
investment. And in this day and age, the investment wins...

------
asuffield
It's kind of interesting that this is seen as a major achievement. To the best
of my knowledge, under the standards set here (no more than 10 days on the
street or in an emergency shelter), we've long had this in most of the UK and
various other parts of Europe. It's almost true in London, modulo some people
with mental health issues. Homeless people get picked up and moved into
temporary housing about that quickly. Having everybody able to afford their
own housing is a much harder problem - we're nowhere near that. But getting
them into council-owned "temporary" housing? That problem's more or less
solved. It's crowded, costs more than it should, and most families don't have
enough space, and there's all sorts of things about the system which aren't
very fair, but it's housing.

(There's a guy who lives under a road bridge, not far from my flat. He's been
there for years. He wants to live under that road bridge. He's obviously
crazy, but he's not a danger to himself or others, and it turns out that it's
not illegal for him to live there. So he's a +1 to the permanent homelessness
statistics, but he's perfectly happy with this - the standard as written will
never be achieved in London because of cases like this one.)

------
ChuckMcM
I think this is an excellent data point. The article quotes an economic cost
of $20,000 vs $100,000 for giving them a home vs having someone homeless. Is
there a writeup somewhere on the methodology for doing that calculation? San
Francisco claims to have 7,500 homeless people so that would be $750M vs
$150M. I'm pretty sure the city supervisors would go for a half billion annual
reduction in their expenses.

~~~
bayesianhorse
Homeless people are very "epensive" for their society, because of the effects
of that homelessness. They aren't as productive as they could be, they require
a lot more medical attention, they tend to vandalize more, or even steal. I'm
not saying they are bad people, it's just the situation nudges or forces them
to "cost" more.

Society also can't really choose not to pay the cost. If they break stuff, it
may have to be replaced. If they commit a crime, they have to be housed in
prison (which is expensive). And if they require urgent medical attention,
doctors won't refuse not to help them even if they can't recuperate the
cost...

In San Francisco the situation is a bit different. Housing is more expensive,
so 20K won't be enough, and homelessness in SF is a bit more of an
economically issue, rather than a mainly psychological one.

And even if SF could save money, they would have a hard time creating such a
program, for various political reasons. Also it would mean investing tons of
money up front, without the cost reductions being easily visible afterwards.

~~~
fredkbloggs
It's also important to note that SF is already a destination for homeless
people from other cities in the US. In some cases that's by choice; in others
it's because the local authorities send them there simply to get rid of them
(several noteworthy stories have come up just within the past few years). So
it's quite likely that such a system would serve primarily to foist the cost
of homelessness in other cities onto the citizens of SF, where, ironically,
it's most expensive to address. If I were a citizen of SF, this would be my
primary objection to such a plan. It's not clear how to prevent this kind of
abuse in a fair manner.

This aspect was not mentioned in the article. Perhaps Medicine Hat is viewed
as a less desirable place to live than, say, Vancouver, and therefore this
hasn't been an issue. It's also possible that the Canadian legal system is
more effective at preventing this kind of inter-provincial abuse.

~~~
bayesianhorse
Homeless people prefer to go to bigger cities and frequent areas where they
can beg for money or scavenge trash. So yes, small communities tend to not
have many of them.

The trick with San Francisco, if the city chose to try it, would be to find
housing in commuting distance which is cheaper. Such housing wouldn't
necessarily need to be in San Francisco, especially if these people don't have
work or other ties there...

~~~
Kalium
Getting homeless people to accept housing that's any useful distance from
where they panhandle or scavenge trash ranges from incredibly difficult to
functionally impossible.

Which is to say that no, the homeless aren't likely to accept free housing in
Walnut Creek. Not if their living patterns center on Van Ness.

~~~
bayesianhorse
I'm not saying San Francisco _should_ try that. But if they were to try it,
they should coordinate their services. I also think the idea behind this
housing is that the previously homeless people are encouraged to find new ways
of living, and have it easier to stop drinking and get a job. Or start on
medication, get treatment for PTSD etc.

~~~
Kalium
It's a good idea. The intentions are laudable.

The basic problem is that you're asking people who are _extremely_ risk-averse
to take what they will see as _huge_ risks with lifestyle change.

------
bayesianhorse
Turns out, less social welfare is often more expensive for society.

I hope that over time, the social sciences will get a better (data based) grip
on what works and how beneficial it is, and thus more of these problems can
get solved.

~~~
abandonliberty
I think there are many unknowns that will be revealed through implementation.
Yes, it is better and more cost effective when you only consider the homeless
individuals. The net impact on greater society could be more positive or
negative and is particularly sensitive to implementation details and the
specific type of homelessness occurring.

Britain is in the middle of a jobs miracle, attaining their highest employment
levels in history. Cutting taxes on low income earners has increased the
upside of joining the workforce. [1]

In my city we have youth who refuse to work the available entry-level roles
and prefer to beg downtown with signs requesting beer and weed. I imagine the
lifestyle would become more popular if it came with free, opulent housing
further reducing the incentive to work.

[1][http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9475222/the-
coalitions-j...](http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9475222/the-coalitions-
jobs-record-is-miraculous-why-wont-they-talk-about-it/) (third paragraph
contains figures)

~~~
bayesianhorse
I think it is very short-sighted to assume that wages (or their taxation)
affect the "decision" to join the workforce. It just doesn't work that way.
Most people on welfare really don't get jobs paying above the welfare limit,
so it can't be that they are refusing to work, get some extra money, and
higher social status because the wages are so low.

For that matter, most welfare agencies, and certainly the German one with
which I am most familiar, won't let them refuse such a job...

~~~
abandonliberty
Hi,

I don't fully understand this sentence:

>Most people on welfare really don't get jobs paying above the welfare limit,
so it can't be that they are refusing to work, get some extra money, and
higher social status because the wages are so low.

My best guess is that you may want to familiarize yourself with the concept of
a welfare trap.[0]

As for the German system of forcing welfare recipients to take work when
offered, I'm not sure how it would apply to these free housing initiatives.
Also I believe that if the system is appropriately structured the desired
behavior should be naturally emergent rather than forced.

How does the German welfare agency not allow people to refuse jobs?

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap)

~~~
bayesianhorse
Yes, I know about "welfare traps". And I don't believe it. The assumptions
behind welfare traps is that people who don't get a job stop trying to look
hard enough for one. To make that a significant factor, companies would have
to have large amounts of unfulfilled positions, where in turn a significant
amount of eligible workers are unemployed. At best, this happens when the
wages for a particular job are so low, that they end up costing society rather
than saving them money compared to full welfare payment. State subsidized
work, effectively.

In Germany, welfare payments are reduced by some amount when poeple refuse to
comply. That can be things like refusing an education program or a job offer.
These sanctions may not be enough to overcome psychological factors, but it is
enough to rule out financial reasons for refusing.

~~~
abandonliberty
I'm afraid your answer makes it very clear that you in fact do not understand
the concept of a welfare trap. They exist in many countries, whether you
believe in them or not. It's existence was documented in Germany just two
months ago. [0]

Let's be honest here: we're talking about low paid unskilled labour. The first
rung on the ladder out of welfare. Such an abundance of those positions exist
that the US imports Mexicans, Canada imports Filipinos, and Germany imports
Turks.

The type of solution employed in Germany is essentially forced labour.
[0][https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/11/germ-m11.html](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/11/germ-m11.html)

~~~
bayesianhorse
You seem to have a very low standard regarding "proofs". The article you cited
derives broad macro-economic conclusions from storified anecdotes. In the
particular case of a "masseuse course" the agency just doesn't see it as a
valuable and accredited program. Such courses prefer taking money from
participants directly rather than trying to make bureaucracies believe in
them.

And yes, then the participants have to pay to attend. They might even have
illusions on their employment prospects. If they were to attend an actual
physiotherapy course, things may be different. The problem with these types of
programs in Germany is that they are mostly privately funded. That is a
problem yet to be addressed.

People tend to attribute the "being stuck" in welfare to the welfare system
itself. That may happen, I just don't see it as a significant factor. The
subsidizing of low-skilled labor is a different problem, and is partly
addressed by the recent minimum wage.

The US is an entirely different place. Lower unemployment, but there, even
many employed workers have a much harder life and live in poorer conditions
than jobless Germans. Full Healthcare, and mostly free education, for
starters.

------
monk_e_boy
I'd never heard of Medicine Hat before. What a strange name for a city!

~~~
graeham
As many Western Canadian cities, it has Native origins [1]. The unusual part
is that its an English translation, at least instead of an Anglicized spelling
or pronunciation.

Its a small city, probably about 6th in Alberta by population. Its probably
most famous for sitting right on top of a lot of natural gas, immortalised by
Rudyard Kipling as having "all hell for a basement" [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Hat#Name_origins](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Hat#Name_origins)

~~~
goodcanadian
Some other place names based on translations: Moose Jaw, Battle River

Some other place names based on anglicization: Athabasca, Waskatenau,
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

~~~
tonyarkles
Awesome! I grew up in Moose Jaw and now live in Saskatoon! Not too often
people talk about us!

------
jkot
Czech rep. had something similar for some time. There are two problems:

One has to prove to be homeless. Have some distant relative or had income a
few years ago? Too bad, not homeless.

And some people will demolish their own house. It is expensive to buy
firewood, floor and walls can be used instead. House gets eventually
destroyed, owner become homeless, gets new house...

~~~
quadrangle
That's why _all_ these programs that have a cut-off are bad. We need
_universal_ Basic Income. We need socialized access to certain things: minimal
food, water, shelter. These things cost less than it does to deal with a world
that lacks them.

If we could have public housing regardless of income, people with higher
income will choose to forgo it to get something better. The problems come with
the perverse incentives and bureaucracy connected with proof of status and
arbitrary cut-off points.

~~~
dllthomas
I would rather say, "That's a bad thing about all these programs that have a
cut-off." I don't think it's _clearly_ such a bad thing as to make every such
program net out negative.

~~~
quadrangle
Absolutely. The _quality_ of having a cut off is negative and actually
expensive as it creates bureaucracy. But it certainly doesn't negate the
positive value of these programs today.

------
ohitsdom
Really interesting program. Does it have any effect on the local real estate
market? I would imagine it would have at least some impact on
renting/purchasing prices.

~~~
sospep
> Does it have any effect on the local real estate market?

\- a quick look at real estate sales/prices over the last 4 years from the
local real estate board[1], doesnt look like its had any negative impacts

period | # unit sales | avg $

2014 - 1708 - 274,655

2013 - 1446 - 263,223

2012 - 1539 - 255,538

2011 - 1322 - 247,850

1] [http://www.mhreb.ca/market_update](http://www.mhreb.ca/market_update)

EDIT: formatting

~~~
ohitsdom
Good data, thanks. I'd bet the bigger impact would be on rental prices (which
data would be harder to find).

There aren't many details listed about the program in the article, so I wonder
how they prevent lower-income people from just taking the free housing instead
of paying for rent.

------
j_baker
I'm skeptical. I mean, it's not as though the idea of public housing is new,
and it has been used in places far more liberal than the US who have not
eliminated homelessness.

My first question is "Where are they keeping all these people?" Previous
attempts to just build enough housing for everyone[1] haven't turned out all
that well, and they became cesspools of crime.

Beyond that, are the conditions in Medicine Hat such that they can be
replicated everywhere? Perhaps Medicine Hat just has an abundance of housing.

And lastly, it doesn't seem clear to me that they actually have eliminated
homelessness. Other news sources claim that they will eliminate homelessness
"soon"[2] or that they have "almost" eliminated homelessness[3].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe)
[2] [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/14/medicine-hat-
homeles...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/05/14/medicine-hat-homelessness-
end-2015_n_7280232.html) [3]
[http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/medicine-hat-has-
al...](http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/medicine-hat-has-almost-
eliminated-homelessness-by-giving-homeless-people-the-keys-to-their-own-
apartments)

------
philh
What happens when the homeless from other cities start making their way to
Medicine Hat?

I'd like for this to work out long-term, but it strikes me as unrealistic.
Here's hoping I'm wrong.

~~~
minikites
Homeless people aren't as mobile as you think. When someone is homeless they
depend on a very specific set of municipal services and it's a huge risk to
move somewhere else and not have a way into those services or even a way to
find out about them.

To put it another way, why are there any homeless people in Canada or the
northern USA at all when they could just move to Florida where it's warm?

~~~
mpdehaan2
While I like the concept of this article, I think there's enough mobility that
this may occur. However, I'd much rather someone get a house than move to
another city just to live in the street, so ultimately I'd hope more areas
adopt something similar if they see this as effective.

San Francisco and Portland both SEEM to have a problem with destination
homelessness, in particular, Portland was known to have strong city services
and may have led to that.

Given, the job industry there is recovering from a major source of industry,
so I could be massively wrong, but it seems like the case.

Ultimately SF and the Bay Area seem to have enough wealthy corporations that,
if someone were able to support it, it _could_ totally work. Though I recently
remember reading an article from the Slack CEO, where he justified taking a
large investment round he didn't need because the VCs were _not_ going to
spend it on homelessness.

Unfortunately we still incentize the wrong things in seeking profits.
Obviously, we can't call a single case out, but in the end, there's enough
funding here to completely fix it if people rallied together and the Medicine
Town thing could probably be done at SF or Portland level scale.

It would be crazy expensive, yes, but would also greatly improve those cities.

~~~
notahacker
> Ultimately SF and the Bay Area seem to have enough wealthy corporations
> that, if someone were able to support it, it could totally work.

Isn't central SF - presumably the location that homeless people for various
reasons prefer to be located in - so expensive that even software developers
employed by these companies on salaries north of $100k per annum feel they're
being priced out of it?

~~~
wbl
There is a unique area known as the Tenderloin which only has SROs, and is
much cheaper.

~~~
fredkbloggs
The TL does not have _only_ SROs, and SROs do exist elsewhere. SROs are also
not especially cheap; for example, the Adrian Hotel rents SROs for $700 a week
([http://sfhomeless.wikia.com/wiki/Adrian_Hotel](http://sfhomeless.wikia.com/wiki/Adrian_Hotel)).
Of course many SRO residents also receive subsidies of various kinds.

------
celias
Reminds me of this Washington Post article about Pathways to Housing founder
Sam Tsemberis

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-
life/wp/2015/05/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-
life/wp/2015/05/06/meet-the-outsider-who-accidentally-solved-chronic-
homelessness/)

------
powertower
> _With money chipped in by the province_ , the city built many new homes.

You can temporarily improve anything by getting an even larger entity or group
to pay for it.

The problem is this eventually runs into issues of scale.

~~~
ColinDabritz
I don't see it. $100k per person costs drop to $20k per person costs, they
should want to scale this as fast as they can. They may have had to invest a
little up front, or redistribute some of the costs back to where the funding
came from before, but it sounds like this scales spectacularly and is a huge
win all around.

~~~
powertower
Estimates of exogenous costs, and the implied savings, are usually highly
uncorrelated to any actual savings of costs.

If this was as you claim, then an entire nation or larger region would not
have to chip in to pay for a program of a small city.

That small city would just simply balance its own books and ledgers - since
they are saving 100K with a 20K investment!

~~~
ColinDabritz
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I'm not sure that I agree. This is
more than just some people estimating off the cuff, there are many studies in
the US, and more instances and evidence world wide. Fortunately it's an
experiment that is being run, so we will be able to see more hard data in the
coming years.

[http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/cost_of_homelessness](http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/cost_of_homelessness)
[http://usich.gov/usich_resources/research_and_evaluation/cos...](http://usich.gov/usich_resources/research_and_evaluation/cost_effectiveness_studies)
[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2012/mar/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2012/mar/12/shaun-donovan/hud-secretary-says-homeless-person-
costs-taxpayers/)

The biggest costs are pretty concrete. They are 'after the fact' emergency
services like emergency room hospital care (vs cheaper preventative care) and
jail (instead of housing). It's clear that these costs are higher for the
homeless than average, but that leaves the question of housing changing that
for this specific group of people (e.g. maybe they are just inherently more
likely to end up in an emergency room) which is a valid question.

The evidence is that people with housing are more able to get the help they
need earlier (such as preventative care), and are less likely to commit crimes
out of desperation, because they have housing. This leads to a much lower rate
of using these expensive services, leading to a clearly lower cost to provide
housing vs concrete cost of emergency services.

That's why I believe this approach is both humane and effective. This is why I
believe housing first is better for everyone.

~~~
abandonliberty
I agree with you: the costs of a homeless person are reduced when we house
them. There's a glut of evidence to support this.

What I haven't yet seen is evidence of the impact on society at large.

What is the impact on society, and those who have worked hard for their
housing, financially and psychologically? While it may make financial sense,
humans are emotional creatures very sensitive to perceived fairness. In the
ultimatum game, people refuse 'unfair' offers to their own detriment. [0]

Do the number of people on these services grow or shrink over time? Free
housing enhances the welfare trap[1], where people may be better off not
working. It is not a silver bullet and needs to be paired with appropriate
policy to be effective.

Britain reduced their welfare trap by raising the first tax bracket, fired
half a million government employees, and now has their highest employment rate
in history.[2]

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game#Experimental_res...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game#Experimental_results)
[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap)
[2][http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9475222/the-
coalitions-j...](http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9475222/the-coalitions-
jobs-record-is-miraculous-why-wont-they-talk-about-it/)

