This article basically says 'these 5 common claimed causes do not correlate with homelessness, while housing does correlate with homelessness'. Also I suspect there is a bit of world play here with the terms 'chronically homeless' and 'homeless'. If you showed me a 'chronically homeless' person and a 'non-chronically homeless' person I would likely only detect one homeless person. What percentage of homeless are chronically homeless? And if we ignore non-chronically homeless people what happens to the 5 non-causes?
I've read before that the most common amount of time for someone to be homeless is one day. Temporary homelessness is comparatively common. If they are grouping the temporary homeless with the chronically homeless, that would totally invalidate arguments like, "only a third of homeless people have serious mental illness".
In a lot of places this article says something like "cause X only occurs 33% of the time, cause Y only occurs 20% of the time ... so they are not the primary cause of homelessness"
It would be interesting to me to see how many homeless people have none of the problems discussed; I'm guessing it's very few. IOW, each cause individually may not be the primary cause of homelessness, but if a person has a few of these problems, they might end up homeless.
On the other hand, the case for reverse causation is particularly strong. Sleeping on the street is very likely to cause anxiety and depression. Being around lots of people using drugs 24/7 makes it a lot easier to pick up a drug habit.
People who believe homelessness are a result of a single issue are making an awful argument. Very few human behaviors can be broken down into a single cause-effect.
This article throws out the baby with the bathwater; it's almost certain that multiple factors come into play here, and indeed may be correlated if not mutually causative.
I would like to see a legitimate reason someone would flag this before very much HN intelligence can be brought to bear, at least in civilized discussion.
Flag the uncivilized, not the controversial subject.
Not everyone who loses everything (even repeatedly) is actually uncivilzed.
I'm not financially much different than the SF tech workers who started out very conservatively staying in their vans, who it looks like now would be more well-prepared to maintain their "lifestyle" after being layed off through no fault of their own compared to those renting a place at local market value.
I admit having lifestyle issues myself, I'd have to get a life and get some style :)
Natural disasters, especially in series can set you back more years than you may have left as a senior citizen.
SF just lucked out this century having fewer earthquakes than we had hurricanes here.
Anecdotally I observe the much more desperate homeless camps in Houston doubling every year since before covid. Countless thousands who are not homeless (yet) have not recovered at all from Harvey, and that's just the most recent one.
But Houston in particular is not what I'm here to discuss.
It's the cost of housing relative to what kind of roof can be kept over the head without a job or a job that pays much less than a "living wage".
It's not poverty alone, increased poverty levels just put more people than ever near the brink. As a result the vast majority of impoverished work even harder putting every one of their resources into avoiding going over the cliff. Way more than was necessary in the past. Regardless, more than ever can not prevent eventual descent without the much more common personal safety nets that used to exist before such extreme income inequality and the resultant excessive rent-seeking overall.
The further back you go, the more likely it was for someone with little or no income to remain housed if they ever were beforehand.
Barring the huge percentage of those too mentally outlying or deficient to maintan domestic life, added to the non-overlapping cohorts of drug & alcohol seekers too severe to dedicate any funds to housing given the choice. That does total more than the 33% identified in the article whom it is expected low-cost housing would not be anything near a complete solution. For decades this was handled with an institutional approach which highly motivated this 33+% to remain invisible on their own lest they become dragged in unwillingly.
IIRC the 1970's which figure prominently in the discussions, is also when the value of the dollar plummeted at the same time labor and resulting housing costs began to rise exponentially, from what had often been insignificant compared to what 21st century jobless could maintain for very long at all now by comparison. Institutional reductions were not really so much compassionate, that was more like an excuse when costs rose so rapidly politicans could no longer afford to continue making taxpayers bear it.
That's politics through the years with gradually much less consideration for all constitutents than it was supposed to be. Homeless don't vote and I can't either from only a PO box.
As we can see now, this was kicked way into the next century, and if taxpayers can be made to pay now it will be orders of magnitude more dearly.
It's been widely said that "the rent's too damn high" and that is really the problem from top to bottom. Every tier of housing cost needs to come down dramatically, not just "low income" properties, or there will never be dramatic reductions in the excess of unhoused who would otherwise be capable of domestic stability.
People are not really counting the upcoming generations having middle-class heritage who will not be inclined to locate into low income housing if it becoes available, even if that is the only thing financially realistic for so many.
Plus those who have become property owners, especially if that ends up being their only significant asset, present enormous pressure for property values to rise also in many locations as exponentially as possible or they will not be able to keep up with the financial rent-seekers who have had the benefit of exponential growth even earlier, enough for it to be locked in by comparison.
It is even far less likely that the value of the currency will recover enough for the few dollars a beggar or charity case can muster to re-domesticate those who have had to do without, and would otherwise succeed with an afforable home of some type.
The laborers who actually build housing simply need to make so much more relative to the charity cases than it was before the 1970's, just to keep the head above water themselves. Otherwise no new housing at all. And the laborers are near the bottom of the income inequality totem pole themselves. The real cost is simply too great for average workers to afford anything like it was back then, so everyone has to settle for less unless previously accumulated resources (like generational wealth or merely safety net) can be drawn upon, and eventually they run out for the least privileged who more & more can no longer realistically consider domestic life whatsoever.
Vehicles have even recently escalated out-of-reach for those who were close just a couple years ago, now requiring at least an additional few years of stability before consideration can be realistically made.
Homelessness correlates directly with the abysmal and inflated house prices that are caused by artificial scarcity by government, real estate developers, and landlords, local or foreign ones.
Canada housing is probably the worst globally, and the only way to fix it is a radical government intervention -like how japan gov did- to correct things, but every government just duct tape the issue hoping the disaster won’t happen during their term and be historically recorded as it happened during their term.
Very hard to achieve when majority of your voters actually own a house, and a significant amount of retirement funds are based on these house prices. People simply won’t vote for an actual fix until there are more renters than owners.
100% agree, that's why nothing will change significantly until a gov take an authoritarian approach to fix it, or waiting till the disaster to happen when the majority won't be able to afford rent, obviously no government want to be portrayed as an authoritarian one, so let the snow ball slide.
There are plenty of homeless on and around Pine Ridge Rezervation in SD. You can rent a nice 1br for 500 a month. There are plenty of opportunities to put down a 10k used doublewide or live in a large ranch bunkhouse yet people are still homeless.
To simply put it -but there are a whole a lot of other factors and details-, they have a centralized government control over housing, zoning, permits and everything to maintain a flat price, so a landlord in Tokyo would rather demolish his house to build a building with X numbers of units instead, resulting in more supply, and lower prices, additionally, the government allow more permits to the population ratio," In 2014, Tokyo issued permits for 142,417 new housing units. In contrast, the entire state of California — which has three times the population of Tokyo — issued permits for only 83,657 new housing units." (1), as a result, housing in Japan generally speaking, are a depreciated value, compared to north America for example, where landlords live almost completely from collecting tenants' rent. these articles probably explained better than I do too.
The main barrier to change is a widespread attitude problem: neglect rather than translating intent into action. The average American doesn't know anyone lacking housing and won't get personally involved to help "a stranger".
Furthermore, social workers and aid agencies generally don't take any proactive steps to get out to where unhoused people are or ask what they need. They're usually employees with performance standards and grand initiatives unrelated to practical and meaningful assistance.
Finally, the social safety net in America is a disgrace. Even in so-called liberal states, it treats recipients like criminals and doesn't respect them or their time while delivery inadequate resources to lift anyone out of dire situations (averaging $140 in cash and $225 for food per month). The recent debt hostage crisis engineered by far-right Republicans to attach punitive restrictions on ABAWDs and non-ABAWDs is a further punitive, collective attack on the poor for the crime of being poor.
Items 1 to 5 and a general demand to be in a place drive homelessness.
I dont belive housing costs really have much to do with it.
Since the 70s places like SF were destinations and cultures people flocked to without being prepared for.
Detroit and Mississippi dont have a homeless problem because desperate I'll prepared youth are not going to these places to try to rediscover themsleves.
The neauvous destinations like some cities in Texas will be the next hot spots as people flock there hoping to be saved.
Some of the difference is that Texas likely does not give a rat's ass about them unlike the hotspots in the 70s to 90s.
I lived in SF in a dining room on a 1 bedroom apartment. People can make SF work.
My wife moved to SF from the midwest with 100 bucks in her wallet and no job prospects. She was one hairs breath from being homeless. That had nothing to do with the availability of housing and everything to do with the romance of the deatination.
Austin will get it's due in time if it continues to be the rosey destination.
Your arguments aren't even supported by the data. Why do Hawaii and Alaska find themselves in places with high levels of homelessness? How do you even get to either of those places without a significant up-front investment? You're not exactly hitchhiking to Juno.
Similarly, by your logic, how does Illinois have such low homelessness per capita? Chicago is romanticized plenty.
Moreover, as the post points out, the majority of people who are homeless in cities like SF have been there for a very long time and had been there before becoming homeless. The anecdote about your wife would suggest that she would have been well in the minority.
I dont know anything about Hawaii but Alaska and many other places with high Native American populations have high homelessness because substance abuse, mental health issues and poverty are a plague on them.
Homelessness is a problem on Pine Ridge in South Dakota where you can place down a used double wide for 10k.
I appreciate that I am not an expert in this area and that my wife and her group of friends living on the edge of homelessness could be an anomaly but my lived experience of SF tells me otherwise.
> I dont belive housing costs really have much to do with it.
I find it difficult to believe that a conscious human being wrote this, and much less actually believes it. I frankly think you're just completely full of shit.
Why not point out why you disagree instead of just insulting someone? If you want to change minds, or even be tolereted in conversation, this is not the way to do it.
Such opinions only come from out of touch rich people. They don't come from people whose minds can be changed about them with a reasonable effort. It's simply not worth even trying. These people are extremely rare anyhow, except for on venture capital forums like this one.
I have family that works on a Reservation. I have family that have been homeless not just almost homeless. I have relatives in the service and friends who have been assaulted even murdered on the street. I have relatives on disability and relatives on food stamps. I have relatives who can never afford to retire and relatives who live in government housing.
Am I personally rich? Now yes but both my parents died before I finished college and rather than any kind of inheritance, their final proceedings cost me my life's savings.
I lived in someone's livingroom and in someone else's dining room to avoid being homeless myself.
I rode a used bike to work even in the SF rainy seasons as I could not afford an alternative.
I feel I have a good sense of the cycle of poverty and dependence from my personal lived experiences.
Saying lack of housing causes homelessness is like saying lack of life causes death. It is a tautology that glosses over the real issues. If we shipped homeless Californians to Detroit where houses can be purchased by bartering a phone or sit abandoned are you suggesting the housing crisis would be solved?
I'll give you four examples from my family two who ended up homeless and ultimately dead as a result and two who did not.
My dad and his brother both served in the Vietnam War. His brother came back with mental health issues that lead to substance abuse issue. My dad did not. We tried for years to get my uncle off the street including paying for apartments. He would live in one about two weeks before walking away from it declaring that when he stayed put for too long, the government would be able to find him. He ultimately died in a fight over a lighter.
My wife's parents were both teachers with masters degrees however her mom had substance abuse problems and ultimately they divorced over them. Not long after, she was fired for being drunk in the classroom. We moved her anyplace she wanted to live in CA, AZ and TX paid for her housing and gave her an allowance. She was unable to quit using and unwilling to go to treatment. She could not hold down a job and was constantly being evicted for her actions including building a campfire inside her apartment. Again, we paid all the bills. She ultimately ODed.
Two sets a relatives with similar experiences. Two sets of dead homeless family members who had essentially free housing.
Without addressing what I believe are the true root causes of homeless, substance abuse and mental health we cannot solve the homelessness crisis.
I want to be clear, I know there are some people who are homeless or essentially homeless and just need a safe reliable bridget to self sufficiency and that bridge housing could be an important part of that. My wife being a perfect case.
The chronically homeless need much more than more affordable housing.
When people suggest me me that all the homeless need is for us to build more affordable housing it makes me want to vomit frankly.
The chronically homeless can have trouble keeping a phone let alone an atm card or a bank account, a job or even a PO box. They are never going to assemble the down payment for even a used mobile home.
