
"It costs about $40,000 a year for a homeless person to be on the streets." - jashmenn
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/12/shaun-donovan/hud-secretary-says-homeless-person-costs-taxpayers/
======
bunderbunder
Great to see some attention going to this.

Speaking as a relative of someone who directs an inner city emergency room:
Americans, a not-insignificant part of the reason why your health care costs
are so high is because your legislators' refusal to allocate money for
providing cost-effective care to people with mental health and substance abuse
problems means that they instead end up getting cost-ineffective care from the
caregiver of last resort - hospitals - instead. Of course they can't pay for
that service, so the hospital gets stuck covering their costs by jacking up
rates. In a nutshell, what comes off of your tax bill goes onto your health
care bills, and then some.

America's approach to dealing with with the less-fortunate is, if nothing
else, penny wise and pound foolish.

~~~
yzhengyu
It is an evolutionary trade off due to how human beings instinctively handle
cognitive dissonance.

It is very amusing and somewhat depressing on how the most intelligent of
individuals can be reduced to a frothing reactionary if you know his/her life
history and deduce their biases.

~~~
warpedellipsis
I can see the just world bias there, in the idea that "you should be able to
afford it, tough luck if you can't". I don't see cognitive dissonance; how
does that come in?

------
abbott
what most people don't realize, some or most of the vagrant do not wish to
have regular dwellings or homes. Usually due to mental illness or social
irregularity, they feel more at home on the streets, than being provided
housing by the state or city. I have heard testimony from the founder of Glide
church in San Francisco on this very issue. "most of my people choose not to
live in the beds we provide, because they simply want to be left alone."

There are so many levels of homeless, some by choice, others not. Help the
ones that want to be helped, and find a solution for those who don't.

"We trip over them on the sidewalk every day. We curse, hand them a dollar, or
don't. We feel pity, guilt and rage at their presence. The city spends $200
million a year trying to get homeless people off the streets and into a better
way of life - but over 20 years, the problem has only gotten worse.

The more able of the homeless find their way into shelters, counseling and
housing programs. But the most chronically indigent, called the hard core,
steadfastly refuse most help and stay outside. These 3,000 to 5,000 homeless
at the very bottom are the most visible, and they give the city its dubious
distinction of having what many call the worst homeless problem in the
country."

<http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/>

