[sweeter]

I think it is an understandable reaction. They're a long history of articles like "man saves multiple orphans from the orphan crushing machine" and people go "ahhh that's so sweet" and nobody stops to ask "why do we have an orphan crushing machine and why can't do anything about that?"

I think it's important to do both.

[optimalsolver]

HN readers might be interested to know that the machine's codebase was recently ported to C++ 17 from Fortran. It was a nightmare to maintain!

[red75prime]

> why can't do anything about that

Maybe because it's not the orphan crushing machine, but the lack of the low functioning orphan saving machine. Or a mix of both.

[rsktaker]

Wonderful analogy

[aprilthird2021]

We don't have anything like a machine that causes homelessness though. Homelessness has existed for thousands of years if not all of human existence and we are probably the closest any society has gotten to eradicating it entirely. We are dealing with probably the hard last 10% of a hard problem. It's just not at all as if we have a terrible system that leads to these outcomes. On the contrary, we've built many systems to successfully prevent these outcomes. They're just not perfect

[tsimionescu]

If you were talking about disease or poverty, you might have a point, but homelessness has never been as big of an issue as it is in certain parts of California or more broadly the USA today, except for certain refugee crises.

And a very basic part of it is simply geometry: the more people you have in a limited area, the harder it is to build homes for all of them. Historically, there simply were FAR fewer people, and so finding place for homes was never a huge issue. The cost of housing is mostly property, not construction costs.

[ninalanyon]

> the more people you have in a limited area,

The US is huge with a low population density, why not just expand the cities a bit or build a few new ones? Is there some reason why this can't be done?

[tsimionescu]

Unfortunately the majority of the USA, even where people don't live, is valuable private property one way or another. Back when there were fewer people and especially agriculture was much more manual labor intensive, it simply wasn't possible to work every last bit of land, so building new houses at the edge of town was not generally a huge problem (not that people didn't care about ownership, of course, but they cared less - i.e. it was cheaper). Today it is, since every bit of land you build houses on means removing that land from some other economic purpose.

[c0redump]

This is more or less what the trump administration says they want to do

> Throughout his campaign, Trump focused on deregulation, tax cuts and reducing mortgage rates. In speeches, including one at the Economic Club of New York in September and a press conference in August, Trump reiterated his promise to reduce regulatory barriers and vowed to make federal land available for extensive housing projects.

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/trump-housing-build-fed...

[johnnyanmac]

So, how we funding this while getting less taxes, especially for the rich?

[c0redump]

Funding what? What are you asking? They are selling the land to developers, there is no need for the federal government to fund anything. They will be the ones receiving money.

[johnnyanmac]

We do, but it's not as opaque and obvious as an orphan crushing machine. There's still systems in place that at best ignore and at best accelerate such homelessness issues.

[aprilthird2021]

Like what systems?

[presentation]

lol you make it sound like SF is the normal state of things when it’s one of the only places in the developed world with these issues

[lazide]

SF is the left wing version of the headline ‘nothing can be done about school shootings, says the only nation where this regularly occurs’.

And while it is a magnet for this kind of problem, San Jose and Los Angeles have similar issues.

Part of the problem being, they’re one of the easiest places to be/exist if you’re homeless. Not that it’s necessarily easy or pleasant, but compared to Chicago, New York City, or some random suburb? You bet.

[screye]

Nyc has more homeless people, but they're sheltered. [1] California homeless have higher rates of mental illness and drug abuse.

It's this trifecta that people complain about - unsheltered, mentally ill and addicted. If we can solve any one, that feeling of abject squalor goes away.

[1] - https://open.substack.com/pub/dynomight/p/homeless

[aprilthird2021]

SF is one of the only places in the developed world that battles homelessness? What are you talking about. I'm talking about humanity generally. For almost all of human history there has been homelessness and vagrancy. We, as a global human population, are doing better at solving this problem than basically any time before in human history, long term, even if things may have declined since COVID in SF

[mordae]

No, we have a system that needs low degree of poverty to scare everyone into compliance.

That's why they say capitalism is based in fear. That's why we have dreams of Star Trek.

[username332211]

I get the impression that the reaction right now is more likely to be caused by someone in government turning off a lot of those orphan crushing machines recently.

And the only thing to show for it is gangs of feral orphans raping and pillaging. (If I can stretch the metaphor a bit too much.)

I suspect if someone did a survey, they'd find that most places in the internet have grown consistently less empathetic in terms of social policy since mid 2020.

[vlovich123]

Did you read the article? It seems like the cycle of doom these people are in where a) there’s an impossible to navigate beauracracy b) the beauracracy is setting up zero tolerance policy to kick them out when they’re just starting to try to make their way. It doesn’t sound like the orphan crushing machines were ever truly turned off.

[username332211]

I did. The main zero-tolerance policy referred to in the article is someone getting into a fight with staff and roommates at a social care facility.

You condemn that policy, so I suppose you think this should be tolerated to a degree?

Let's say that a homeless shelter abolished it's zero-tolerance policy. Staff and other occupants can now be assaulted a few times, before someone gets kicked out.

Who'd work at this facility? At this point, you aren't looking for social workers, you're looking for prison guards. They'd treat their charges with the same love and compassion that correctional officers are known for.

Who'd go into this facility? Would a non-violent peaceful person even want to be sheltered there?

Do you really think a facility like that will help anyone?

Suddenly a zero-tolerance policy towards violence isn't such a bad idea, is it? Maybe, just maybe there is no orphan crushing machine, is there?

[vlovich123]

You’re seeing up a false dichotomy. For one, the fight wasn’t with staff, it was with a random roommate he was paired with. Your equating the two when they’re not equal at all. I don’t know about you but I’ve always gotten to pick my roommates.

> Ronnie was always very clear about his needs. He knows he’s a volatile person. He doesn’t want to be in a shared room, especially with a stranger

So perhaps listening to what the people need instead of forcing them into unwinnable situations is the right answer. If your question is how you scale personalized care in a way that’s financially sustainable I don’t know. But pretending like the orphan crushing machine was turned off, to use your words, isn’t capturing the picture as I’m seeing it. Seems pretty crush happy.

[username332211]

Read the article again. There was a violent incident with the staff as well. The system did listen to that man's needs. It provided him with a hotel room all to himself. Here's the result:

> All seemed to be going well. But in September, Morrisette got into a fight with staff at the Monarch and was evicted. “It was devastating,” Barrows said. Because she was out of town dealing with a family crisis, she couldn’t intervene or help him lodge an appeal.

> It angered her that one bout of bad behavior could cost him so dearly. Given his background and mental health issues, the Monarch should have cut him more slack, she thought.

[bombcar]

It’s always easy to volunteer others to be assaulted.

Prison guards get extra pay compared to the work they do, and great benefits, to compensate for the assaults.

Hotel staff do not.