[swearwolf]

People are downvoting this, but it’s true. There’s a little more nuance here as well. In addition to fully tolerated public drug possession and consumption, there is also the tolerance of street camping, and the extremely low prices of meth and fentanyl on the West Coast at play here. However a person enters the drug addiction spiral, once they’re in it, it’s easier by far to stay in active addiction here. In Oregon, where I live, people can either scrounge enough cans to take to the recycling center - about 20 will do - or use their EBT card to buy bottles of water, empty them and then recycle the bottles to get the cash deposit. Either way, less than $10 will buy enough meth to stay high for days here. I assume it’s similar for fentanyl. No one will stop you from setting up your tent or RV on street, and at least in Portland you can steal bikes or cars to earn extra money. There’s a chop shop within sight of my house doing exactly that, all day every day out in the open. You can get enough food from the many homeless services organizations and tents are given out by the city. Essentially everything a person needs to completely destroy themselves with drugs is available for free or nearly free, and law enforcement stopped bothering to try to keep things under control. These conditions are fairly unique to Oregon, Washington and California, so I think the high housing price correlation is true, but also incomplete.

[comte7092]

People downvote it because the base premise is not true.

The claim isn’t “there aren’t large drug problems I. California/Oregon” which is what you are correctly stating is true, the claim is “drug problems are not the primary driver of homelessness, housing costs are”.

Saying “California and Oregon have effectively legalized drugs so that’s why there is homelessness” just isn’t an accurate statement. As noted in other parts of the thread, people who use drugs will happily rent a place of it is cheap.

Now is it a contributing factor? Probably a minor one, yes. But the primary driver of the size of the homeless population is housing costs, and for the unsheltered population it’s definitely weather. New York actually has a very sizeable homeless population, the difference with California is that people are much more likely to be living in shelters there.

[ryanSrich]

> But the primary driver of the size of the homeless population is housing costs

You're flat out wrong here. It's drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness and in some cases a complete lack of a social safety net. There is free housing, subsidized housing, shared housing, and more available to low/no income people all over California, Oregon and Washington. The majority of the homeless population does not take advantage of these programs because they require addiction therapy. They stay on the streets because drugs can be legally consumed and purchased without consequence. The sooner we listen to the police, fire fighters, and first responders who are on the ground dealing with these issues every single day, the better. Doing yet another study to prove it's housing costs and not the rampant out of control drug problem is worthless.

[dragonwriter]

> The sooner we listen to the police, fire fighters, and first responders who are on the ground dealing with these issues every single day, the better.

Listening to the police on this is why there are federal drug, alcohol, and criminal restrictions on federally funded public housing programs, and why most public housing authorities impose even stricter rules than the federal requirements, which serve as a bar for many of the people who need help.

But, sure, lie and claim its that homeless people with current or past drug problems choose not to avail themselves of programs they are banned by official policy from.

[Apocryphon]

The West Coast has temperate weather which makes them a desirable destination for the houseless, as well as other jurisdictions to send their populations over. You don’t see that level of homelessness in fairly liberal drug policy states of Illinois or New York, and I’m sure there are even more examples.

Also, the previous rebuttal makes no sense. If an area has a high amount of drug use, what does it matter whether if the law there are legal or illegal, with respect to how that affects homelessness? Was the GP claiming only the well-to-do housed are using drugs there?

[lostdog]

Why is the drug overdose rate so much lower on the West Coast than the East? It sure looks like drug usage is at least as bad in other states, so it doesn't really make sense that the unique West Coast housing issues are due to drugs alone.

[comte7092]

People are at an elevated risk of overdose after getting out of prison, they are forced to stop cold turkey and when they get out they don’t have the same tolerance as they used to so they end up misjudging the dose.

The west coast is more lenient on drug use, im guessing that leads to fewer overdoses as a result.

[ryanSrich]

At least where I live (Portland) it's the availability of narcan. Ask any first responder. They show up, administer narcan, and before they can even get the person's name the person is gone.