[JoshTriplett]

> That Venn diagram is pretty close to a circle

False, and harmful. US HUD says it's ~16% of homeless people, other sources give different numbers, but it's certainly not a majority, let alone anywhere near 100%.

The biggest problem, unsurprisingly, is housing cost. The US GAO states that a $100 increase in median rent correlates to a 9% rise in homelessness. Rents have gone up a lot more than that.

[ipsento606]

> US HUD says it's ~16% of homeless people, other sources give different numbers, but it's certainly not a majority

"Homeless people" is a broad category that includes people temporarily living in vehicles, bouncing between family members, or sleeping on a friend's couch. It also includes people who are about to lose their home, young people living alone.

But when everyday people use the term, they usually mean, specifically, visible homeless people - i.e. people who are homeless long-term, sleeping rough on the streets or in parks, etc.

The two groups are pretty different to each other. I would be very surprised if the rate of drug addiction in the second group was the same as the rate of drug addiction in the first group

[queenkjuul]

The people you think are "temporarily" living in vehicles are not doing so temporarily.

[Taek]

I personally have close to a dozen friends who have spent between 2 and 6 weeks of their life (but not longer) living out of their car in a state of actual temporary homelessness. Almost always due to financial issues.

Temporarily living in vehicles is absolutely a thing.

[Dylan16807]

> I would be very surprised if the rate of drug addiction in the second group was the same as the rate of drug addiction in the first group

But that's a far far weaker claim than the one above.

If the rate is 90% or higher in the second group, then we get close to the claim being true. (Though still a subset rather than the circles being the same; lots of people with drug problems have homes.)

[fourseventy]

Walk down the makeshift tents on the sidewalks of downtown San Francisco and tell me with a straight face that only 16% of those people are addicted to drugs.

[cwmoore]

This is a textbook example of a biased observation. The conversation on this topic is so basic.

[cyberax]

> False, and harmful.

Sorry. But you're either misinformed or actively malicious here.

> US HUD says it's ~16% of homeless people

It absolutely is close to 100% of _unsheltered_ people. Some social workers helping the unsheltered homeless are now saying that they have not seen anybody who's _not_ on drugs or who is not mentally ill.

If you want authoritative source, here's UCLA study from the blessed pre-COVID era: https://capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Health-Co...

> The biggest problem, unsurprisingly, is housing cost.

No, it's really really not.

> The US GAO states that a $100 increase in median rent correlates to a 9% rise in homelessness.

And the correlation disappears when you look at the states with cold climate.

[JoshTriplett]

> If you want authoritative source, here's UCLA study from the blessed pre-COVID era: https://capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Health-Co...

Which specifically leads with a page saying:

> Hundreds of studies - including our own - show economic pressures are the primary drivers of homelessness, that housing people ends homelessness, and that targeted financial assistance helps people at risk of homelessness stay stably housed

Also, the cited study blatantly does not show the numbers ("close to 100%") you claim it has, even leaving that aside. You're also now equivocating between drugs and mental illness, as well as between drugs and alcohol. And you're not taking into account the direction of cause and effect (e.g. which came first, the homelessness or the addiction).

I understand that you're also referencing anecdata from social workers. In those cases, there's an inherent bias: people with a drug problem are going to be harder and more memorable cases, which makes them feel like a larger proportion than they are. People homeless for economic reasons are likely to loom less large in people's minds than the times they dealt with someone who had a drug problem.