[philwelch]

There is a way around this dilemma that solves everyone’s problems. People who go around smashing windows etc. are arrested and thrown in jail. If they repeatedly offend, they receive longer and longer sentences, perhaps at some state penitentiary in a more cost effective location. If they are addicted to drugs, they are enrolled in mandatory treatment programs while in prison. This person is hence housed and separated from civil society, with much less incentive to cheat the system.

This even solves the other problem that you haven’t brought up: the person who sleeps on the street smashing windows all day is likely to wreck the free apartment you end up giving them, too.

[drcode]

I mean, there's more complexities here insofar as it seems the prisons need to be run a lot better than they currently seem to be run, and we need to get better about prosecuting petty crimes.

Since we currently aren't doing those things, people are searching for alternate solutions, but there don't seem to be any that show much promise (though I'm sure people can cite a study that "proves" I'm wrong and can explain why the $17B spent by California doesn't count as counterevidence, even though a lot of that money was spent on "housing first" friendly policies)

[philwelch]

> we need to get better about prosecuting petty crimes

Yes, that is exactly my proposed solution.

[kodah]

We've done that for a long time and it doesn't change the outcome. You either pay exorbitant rates for them to sit in jail or you pay exhorbitant collective insurance rates. Worse off cities will usually incentivize those people to stay out of certain areas and in other areas, which also causes equity issues.

We're better off actually helping people. Getting to the root of what's wrong and what threshold we declare someone needs help and of what type is what we're trying to figure out.

[philwelch]

> We've done that for a long time

Have we? For every 1000 broken car windows in SF or LA, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there?

[fzeroracer]

I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them, New York has them, Austin has them. For decades leading up to the 2010s we were convicting and throwing every homeless person we could in jail, but the problem is that it just becomes a revolving door. Either you accept that an entire class of people need to be jailed for life for the crime of being homeless, or you try and fix the revolving door.

Some cities have tried and failed, others haven't tried and also failed. Trying to solve a national problem on a state level is almost always bound to be a failure because the problem has to do with things that occurred 10-20 years ago with Purdue Pharma starting off the whole opioid epidemic. We're just now seeing the height of the problem they kicked off.

The other 'unspoken truth' about this issue is that people in the rust belt and such have just as many problems with drugs and crime. The difference is that they have homes and these issues aren't visible until someone dies from suicide or an OD.

[philwelch]

> I mean SF or LA aren't the only cities with homeless problems. My home city Seattle has them…

I mentioned SF and LA because TFA is about California. You can ask my question about any city though: for every 1000 broken car windows, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there? I know that number is extremely low in Seattle as well.

> Either you accept that an entire class of people need to be jailed for life for the crime of being homeless, or you try and fix the revolving door.

It’s not for the crime of being homeless, it’s for the actual crimes they’re committing. What you’re doing here is you’re setting up the homeless as some sort of protected class that’s allowed to victimize the rest of us with impunity. That’s been the cornerstone of policy in cities like Seattle for years and that’s why those cities have the biggest problem.

> Trying to solve a national problem on a state level is almost always bound to be a failure

It’s definitely going to be a failure if you make your city one of the best places in the country to be homeless and commit crimes.

[_ktx2]

> You can ask my question about any city though: for every 1000 broken car windows, how many convictions (or even arrests) are there? I know that number is extremely low in Seattle as well.

There's two reasons this type of crime occurs: gang activity and homelessness. People turning to gangs represents a crisis in opportunity. Things like hate groups, gangs, etc do not generally occur in places where peoples needs are met and when opportunity to change your circumstances if desired are bountiful.

> That’s been the cornerstone of policy in cities like Seattle for years and that’s why those cities have the biggest problem.

The problem is actually both. Progressive policies fail because progressives are allergic to enforcement, conservative policies fail because conservatives are allergic to addressing underlying causes. It's a tale as old as time.

If you want to improve things you need to address underlying causes like the housing and opportunity crisis. Enforcement can be used in a way that changes their circumstances rather than putting them in a box. You need both.

[seanmcdirmid]

Conservative policies can succeed if there is a progressive city just across Lake Washington. Why smash windows in a place where the police will harass you if you can be in a place where they don’t? Well, it works locally at least.

I see how treating underlying causes would help, but people are mobile, so doing it with local resources is never going to be a winner. So conservative solutions will show more effect locally than progressive ones, unfortunately, and local voters want to see improvement, not futility.

The other problem is that we are still conflating a drug crisis with a homeless crisis, the people busting your car window and stealing your Amazon packages are more likely in the former category even if they might be in the latter.

[philwelch]

Let’s set aside the gang question for a bit and stick to homelessness. Homelessness isn’t the root cause of the crimes committed by homeless people. The “invisible homeless” who sleep on a buddy’s couch, sometimes even have jobs, and never smash car windows or anything like that are a silent majority of homeless people.

Instead, for the criminal minority of homeless people, the root cause of their homelessness isn’t a housing shortage or a lack of opportunity; it’s extreme untreated drug addiction or mental illness. This is also the root cause of their criminal behavior. If you try to give those people housing, they will just end up destroying it. These are not functional human beings acting rationally.

If you want to address the root cause here, you’re going to need to involuntarily commit these people to drug rehab or psychiatric treatment. Enforcement and addressing underlying causes go hand in hand here: if you arrest drug-addicted or mentally ill people for the crimes they commit, you already have them in state custody and you can just transfer them into involuntary commitment. We need to build and staff the facilities to do that, but that’s the solution.

[bombcar]

I suspect that when a city gets too dense or too expensive to have really cheap trailer parks is when it starts having homeless issues.

[singpolyma3]

Literally the Scrooge solution "are there no prisons?"