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by LyndsySimon
2219 days ago
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> We don't really need to worry about those people. Let's just build enough housing for those who want housing. That at least shrinks the problem. I’m not sure it does shrink the problem, though. LA is a city, and people come to cities for opportunity. That extends to the indigent as well, and public spaces have a capacity in the same way that traditional housing has a capacity. Logistics aside, if you were to successfully move 80% of the homeless population of Skid Row into permanent or semi-permanent housing is there are reason to believe that more homeless people wouldn’t simply move in to fill the void? To be clear, I’m not arguing against charity or even against providing state resources for these people (at least, not in this post). I’m narrowly challenging the implicit argument that doing so is an effective way to reduce the number of homeless people on the streets in a defined area. If the problem you’re trying to solve is “help those who need and desire help”, the solution is straightforward. If the problem is “change the fact that a large number of homeless people are living on publicly-accessible land in a major city”... I’m honestly not sure there is a viable solution. The options seem to range from accepting the situation and ignoring it to forcibly removing people from those areas and continuing to use to force to prevent them from returning. |
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And you are more or less cherry picking which comments of mine can be misinterpreted to mean "just build more housing in LA in specific and this solves homelessness in LA in specific." I stated elsewhere that we have been under building housing nationwide for decades. Obviously, we need more housing generally to make headway here.
It won't solve the problem entirely. But it is a crucial step that needs to happen to have any hope of solving the problem. We need more housing generally so we can stop having insane housing prices and stop pushing people out into the streets to begin with because homeless prevention is vastly more effective, cheaper and better in most cases than "helping the homeless."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304857