
Homeless explosion on West Coast pushing cities to the brink - mgdo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/homeless-explosion-on-west-coast-pushing-cities-to-the-brink/2017/11/06/ae0e5274-c2b2-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_story.html?utm_term=.3c553f4467a8
======
RingwormOne
This is not a result of prohibitive housing prices or anything like that.
Through my work in the homeless community I've seen and heard first hand that
chronic homelessness is almost always a result of mental illness and/or drug
use. Those two problems have always existed, but opiate abuse is much worse
now than it has ever been.

Of course there are sad cases of people unable to find jobs who are otherwise
'normal', but these cases are in the minority. Many people unable to find jobs
or hold down jobs beyond the most menial sort have mental illness that
prevents them from doing so.

~~~
supercanuck
>This is not a result of prohibitive housing prices or anything like that

The counter example is in the article is one of a couple who receive $1500 a
month and can't find a residence? You're argument is this is an anomaly?

I don't understand the mental gymnastics some people have to go through in
order to convince themselves the problem in articles is not the problem. It
happened in the Susan Fowler thread too.

There is also increasingly more evidence that drug use is more attributed to
escapism or a learned behavior of happier times and should be treated as a
societal issue and mental illness seems to be a catch all for all the societal
ills we don't want to deal with. I'd probably be addicted to drugs and have
mental illness too if I had to shit in a bucket everyday in my shit filled RV.

~~~
DigitalJack
Why should anyone value your opinion on this? The person you responded to
cited personal experience in working with the homeless. I have a reason to
give weight to their opinion.

~~~
bobwaycott
They weren’t exactly sharing an opinion. They called to the claims of the
article that contradict the other’s experience. They mentioned—admittedly un-
cited—recent evidence that also contradicts the other’s claims of anecdotal
experience.

------
User23
It might have something to do with this chart:
[http://i.huffpost.com/gen/926781/thumbs/s-COLLEGE-
TEXTBOOKS-...](http://i.huffpost.com/gen/926781/thumbs/s-COLLEGE-TEXTBOOKS-
PRICES-480x360.jpg?6) (not just textbooks). Remember of course that median
incomes have been almost exactly flat over the same interval.

~~~
m777z
US median income from 1984 to 2016, adjusted for inflation:
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N)

~~~
dredmorbius
Against C-S median housing price (seasonally adjusted):

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N#0](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N#0)

------
aorloff
The cost of housing cannot go below the cost of servicing the debt required to
construct the housing, otherwise that capital will flow elsewhere to find
returns and no housing will be built. Realistic solutions will focus on ways
to lower the cost to bring units to market and finding new low-cost sources of
capital to fund it.

~~~
busterarm
Is that a bad thing?

Maybe we should be increasing the efficiency of the existing housing
inventory. Second homes, timeshares, empty neighborhoods (...Las Vegas...),
AirBNB properties show pretty clearly that there's an excess, or at least
strange market incentives.

------
mmoche
Why don't we build public housing in the US anymore?

~~~
logfromblammo
Because as it turns out, the way public housing was being built concentrated
all the poverty in the city into a tiny area, which drew the predators out of
the woodwork, drove away investment, and made the housing development nigh-
unlivable. Additionally, the architecture has often been hostile to the
residents, and the city neglected maintenance.

The best way to build public housing would be to make it a part of the
gentrification process. Build where the revenue from property taxes is
increasing, and in proportion to the development for more affluent housing.

Some municipalities get a lame approximation to this by requiring that
developers build housing for poor people in exchange for regulatory variances,
but it just isn't the same.

But the short explanation is that the US is overwhelmingly run by rich people,
and the rich people in the US hate to see poor people get something at or
below cost without them sweating on it first, because they believe that
welfare dollars are overwhelmingly coming out of _their_ pockets, and they
_earned_ them by their hard work. They may be delusional, but they still get
elected to fill the public offices.

~~~
ihsw2
Rich property owners (or those looking to become rich from high-value
property) would counter with concerns about their property value being
destroyed, but personally I am satisfied with this as it is an indirect means
of progressive taxation.

Wrenching the general populace above bottom-barrel poverty was done on the
back of twentieth-century prosperity (ie: progressive taxation) but there is
no such progressive taxation scheme for property tax (ie: property taxes are
exceedingly complicated and many deductions are available). It is only prudent
that other (new and exotic) means of wealth redistribution are attempted.

------
Boothroid
Perhaps a little inland from the coast, but I was in Palm Springs 10 years
ago, and then again this year and was struck by what seemed like a general
deterioration in the town, as well as the number of homeless people - I don't
remember seeing a single homeless person on my first trip. Very sad to see.
These intertwined economic/social problems seem to be the most difficult to
solve, or is it just lack of willingness to do something about it by elites or
society as a whole?

An idea that has crossed my mind before is: how expensive would it be to
provide the homeless the very bare minimum of survival i.e. food, shelter,
most basic healthcare, even free alcohol? Why don't we just accept that some
people are going to fall through the cracks and save ourselves the delusion
that we are going to be able to get them off drugs/reintroduce them to
employment etc., and take care of their needs in the simplest and cheapest way
possible?

The current economy is pretty good at casting aside those it deems
economically worthless. Is it really so tricky to just accept this and pay to
look after them?

~~~
cwal37
You're not alone in thinking that. It works[1], and it's cheaper than the
current revolving door of policies and support systems. The problem seems to
be that people have a strong negative reaction to "undeserving others" getting
things "for free".

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-
chroni...](https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-
homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how)

~~~
Fauntleroy
It's sickening to me that most US citizens seem to prefer watching people die
on the street than give them things they "do not deserve".

~~~
User23
I have good news for you. US citizens don't actually like watching people die
on the street, not even the ones on the right.

~~~
geogra4
Right, they close their doors and avert their gaze

~~~
ShabbosGoy
That's very easy to say on your very comfortable chair.

------
dredmorbius
I find Google's Ngram viewer a useful tool for getting a sense of the
emergence of issues and trends.

Here, "homelessness", "homeless crisis", and "housing crisis". Emerging during
the 1980s.

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=homelessness%2...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=homelessness%2C+homeless+crisis%2C+housing+crisis&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chomelessness%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chomeless%20crisis%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chousing%20crisis%3B%2Cc0)

------
PatientTrades
This is the result of population growth. Even if housing is built specifically
for poorer and lower income individuals, middle class families looking for
housing will inevitably trickle in causing demand and prices to rise
naturally. Once again poor individuals will be on the street. The same cycle
keeps occurring in cities across America. Properties designed for the poor end
up getting bought by middle and upper class individuals, seen this in
Washington D.C. and New york firsthand. Other than full blown capping prices
that can be charged for rent, I don't see a long term solution.

~~~
rukittenme
Weird how New York City housed millions of poor immigrants at the turn of the
century but we can't support natural population growth and urbanization today.

~~~
PatientTrades
> Weird how New York City housed millions of poor immigrants at the turn of
> the century

Are you really comparing housing standards for the poor today vs 100 years
ago? Unless your solution is to throw all poor people in filthy slums like its
1902 I don't see the point of your comment.

~~~
rukittenme
Better to let them live on the street then?

------
dredmorbius
Duplicate (same AP source)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642394)

------
indubitable
Something I find amazingly prescient here is Past Tense [1].

Past Tense is an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. It was filmed going on 25
years ago - in 1993. It told a story of increasing disparity eventually
culminating in "Sanctuary Districts" starting in the early 2020s as a means of
providing 'sanctuary' for the unemployed, mentally ill, and those otherwise
unable to make it in society -- and the dystopia that followed. Everything
down to the timeline and location (the story focused on San Francisco) is
again just quite prescient.

It's just a story, but one to keep in mind when deciding how to try to deal
with problems like this. The ideas of Sanctuary Cities are incredibly
appealing, and it's for that reason that I think we're highly likely to play
out this story to its natural conclusion. It offers no alternative, and it's
entirely possible that there is none. But it's certainly a thought provoking
episode tying together all the issues we're facing today, while considering
how good intentions can go very wrong.

[1] -
[https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/st...](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/star-
trek-deep-space-nine-past-tense/542280/?single_page=true) (the episode itself
is far more on point than this article - and is only provided for those who
cannot access the episode)

