[bnralt]

> edit: I should mention that I've seen fairly convincing cross-sectional evidence that homelessness is more related to the housing market than mental illness: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/homelessness-is-a-housing-prob... , https://www.nahro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/NAHRO-Summi...

The problem is that there are very different groups of people we're talking about, so much so that throwing them all under the "homeless" umbrella doesn't make sense. It's like saying car accidents are a traffic design problem, not an alcohol problem. Sure, both things can lead to traffic accidents, but they're pretty different problems.

People who temporarily need some assistance to get back on there feet are in a categorically different group than the people who are currently unable to function in society. These are fundamentally different problems.

I've seen how D.C. has tried housing first. It's given thousands of individuals free apartments, for life as far as I can tell, some in very expensive areas. It's been an enormous failure, since housing doesn't actually solve the very serious underlying problems that many of these people have. A lot of long-term residents to flee places that were once (comparatively) affordable because of rising crime and violence. The Washington Post has occasionally covered this [1][2].

I watched a neighborhood meeting recently about the issue. The city does wellness checks on the people in the program - but they can just completely ignore them, and nothing happens. Long term residents have been forced out after people in the program have attacked them or threatened to kill them and the city doesn't do anything, and doesn't even remove them from the program. A councilmember was taking part in the meeting, and had nothing to say other than he was looking into ways that the city could provide more help to people in the program.

The linked article is bordering on misinformation by not mentioning Finland's compulsory commitment, and also ignoring the failures of housing first in the U.S. like D.C.'s that haven't included that aspect. That's why a lot of these programs end up failing - people try to pick and choose the elements that they want, and ignore necessary elements that they find inconvenient. In the end, that doesn't help anyone.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-housed-t...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/08/dc-paid-h...

[dbspin]

Downright shocking that a policy like this would be adopted without the necessary social supports in place. There should be regular visits by care workers, addiction councillors, mental health professionals, access to education and jobs programmes etc. Even in the absence of mental illness and addiction (which are of course both rise in unhoused populations) living on the street leaves people with enormous unaddressed trauma, skill deficits and physical health issues.

[bregma]

The policy gets the street people out of the line of sight of the wealthy and vocal while minimizing their participation in society (ie. their tax burden). In other words it buys them their own peace of mind while letting them keep more for themselves.

An actual effective policy would mean the privileged giving up some of their privile. Keeping one's privilege is a far stronger motivator than ending someone else's suffering or doing good.

[verteu]

Agreed -- It also helps the rich by keeping rents & home values high (compared to the ideal solution of "allow tons of housing to be built, increasing supply and decreasing cost-of-living.")

[tiahura]

The problem is that one of the achievements of the counterculture has been the creation of a steadily increasing tranche of the population that has little ability or inclination for self-sufficiency.

As long as there is steadfast refusal to recognize what got us here, and instead focus on red herrings like speculators and crisis counselors, we’re going to be stuck with the problem.

Don’t feed the pigeons.