[AxiomaticSpace]

I live in LA and my girlfriend worked for a long time in homeless services and in her experience you have the causality wrong. Often people either start drug habits or their existing drug habits become worse in response to homelessness. As an example, she's met half a dozen people who live on the street and smoke meth specifically to stay awake so their stuff doesn't get stolen. And I agree on your point about LAHSA being way over budgeted, much of what they're doing is a complete waste of money.

[lostmsu]

> smoke meth specifically to stay awake so their stuff doesn't get stolen

And you seriously believe that?

[Supermancho]

It also sucks to be homeless. paired with self medication, yes. this is one of the reasons. survival mode will cause extreme behaviors for anyone.

[Auracle]

It just doesn’t make sense.

Meth can keep you up longer but you’ll still need to sleep eventually.

People like to justify “bad” behavior. We all do it all the time. I just ate some potato chips even though I knew I had enough food today because I have a long day tomorrow and told myself it’d help me sleep.

[Supermancho]

Who said all the time? Thats a strawman you construct just to knock down. Obviously that isnt practical. This is a bad faith assertion.

We could take a moment to think abiut how it starts and why. Lets suppose you get into an altercation or proximity of a known bad actor and have concerns. Someone offers you a small bump so you can take shifts. happens everyday to the homeless. Day to day problems are highly contextual (eg students taking adderall to cram similarly). Addictions evolve from innocent actions.

[lostmsu]

Yes, I'm sure it went like:

- Oh jeez, I need to stay awake so people don't steal my stuff. Does anybody here have coffee? No? Only meth? Oh well.

And no other way.

[Supermancho]

> And no other way.

This was never mentioned.

Let's remember:

Homeless person. Coffee on the street at 3am every night, or hauling your...we'll say cart of stuff for simplicity; to some coffee shop, is not realistic.

[loco5niner]

So instant coffee is less obtainable than meth?

[Teever]

I often see comments like this on HN and my first thought is if the person writing them has any sort experience with drug use.

Have you ever taken any sort of hard drug ever in your life? Or been around the people who do?

What is your experience with drugs and how does it shape your perception of the people who do them and the reasons why they do them?

[lostmsu]

Is the addiction much different from severe alcoholism? If not different, than my comment relatively accurately describes the logic. I've seen many hopeless alcoholics.

What's your take?

[vineyardmike]

It's funny, because every homeless person I've seen carries a coffee pot with them.... but I've never once seen someone able to buy meth on a city street corner at night.

[snapplebobapple]

There's room for both your gf and the op to be right and wrong because the system isn't a one way path of causality, it's a repeated game with lots of feedback loops. I would say of course higher housing costs increase homelessness, of course a drug problem gets worse or gets started when one becomes homeless, of course drug addicted homeless go to where it's the easiest to be drug addicted homeless, of course increasing homeless spending will increase a certain subset of homeless,etc.