I’m guessing there’s a bit of breathing room at the lower end of the system - there will be people who become drug addicts or have major mental health breaks and lose everything.
And ideally we have good safety nets that find these people and give them resources and treatment, but some people will refuse everything and end up in bad situations of homelessness due to their drug and/or mental health crises.
And even in a society that forces those people into attempted treatment programs, there will still be a bit of time in between their issues manifesting and them going into treatment/therapy/confinement.
To have “zero homeless” you’d need to preventatively intercept these people before they become homeless and force them into confinement in treatment facilities and mental hospitals essentially. And that’s a dangerous game because you’re essentially taking away someone’s freedom preemptively before they become homeless
This is along the lines I mean. Or when shared households break up, and some stay, some leave, which one should you send to the asylum forever and why not both? Or to jail for the fights they both participated in? What of the deaths by a thousand cuts and no one at fault for the murder?
But the idea that jails are an unadulterated societal good, or that they are the natural only option to police, is a crazy religion. Why on earth do we have no timely resolutions but through handcuffs and jail? There is expediency, and then there is externalizing the whole of the troubles to the smallest number of people, who could never overturn a majority, even if they had the vote.
I suggest the ability to put certain people in a metal box, at least partially for losing their grasp of a better role in the world, is a big, boldface moral hazard, and self-perpetuating, but with leering cheerleaders.
Some people are wild and out of control sometimes. Treating them all as permanent bad apples is just as animalistic.
You could also have "zero homeless" if you had a certain amount of cheap housing that even drug addicts and mentally ill people could afford. Or where the cost of helping them is not too much.
Like some housing that was built to be closer to "indestructible" than "nice" and was small, like 200 - 300 sq ft.
Some homeless people choose to not make use of such facilities, for example because they don’t want to get into fights with the other (ex-)homeless living there, or because of anxiety issues and the like.
>if you had a certain amount of cheap housing that even drug addicts and mentally ill people could afford.
That was absolutely free, $0?
>Like some housing that was built to be closer to "indestructible" than "nice" and was small, like 200 - 300 sq ft.
We already have those housing units. They have concrete "beds", toilet-sink combos made out of stainless steel, and a thick steel door that can't be burned by arson. Nothing flammable is allowed within them (save the non-homeless person). The technology exists, and the homeless are actually welcome there. People get mad when they are homed thus, though.
Mental illness, drug addiction and homelessness all exist in a range. There are many people who are homeless, mentally ill or addicted to drugs who still have some amount of income of one type or the other.
I would try to target rent under $1,000 per month for such housing
Has anyone studied why homeless people refuse help? It's usually because the "help" isn't help. E.g. "you can sleep here but only if you haven't used drugs in the last week, so we'll test your blood before we let you in"
That is help. A drug addicted homeless person has two serious problems, and it's not generally viable to try to solve the homelessness problem without solving the drug addiction. Even if you were to straight up give each drug addict his own house, a lot of them will wind up selling the house to buy more drugs because it's that hard to resist the temptation when you're addicted. So, in order to help with the homelessness, you generally have to help with the drug addiction at the same time.
So an enterprising drug-dealer can buy the house for a little baggie, hire the junkie to shovel the sidewalk, and rent it out, now everyone is employed, housed, and the free market actually absorbed the cost. The dealer will pay property taxes, to keep eyes off of the other business, the junkie will be safe and motivated to contribute, what else? Oh, social services jobs don't get to practice measured goodness to Skinner Box Volunteers, and it might hurt the cause to see photographs of the yard.
So don't let them sell the house. I recommend that for all homelessness solutions. You won't capitalism yourself out of a problem you capitalismed into.
How are you supposed to help a person like that thought?
I understand that you cannot reason too well with an addict, so it might be surprising to some that somebody would refuse shelter if it meant being clean.
Still, what should be the approach then? Unconditional help?
I think it's a tough problem to solve: how far should we help drug addict in their addiction? Is the goal to help them survive, help them stop using drugs, help them find a job?
Honestly this isn't the right conversation to be having at all.
In the United States, ~40% of the homeless are employed. A deeply non-trivial percent either are kids or have kids. Everyone should volunteer at a support center for homeless youth some time.
Sure, there may be some kind of Pareto principal in play for the hardest 20% of cases to crack. Who cares? Let's eliminate 80% of the existing problem and worry about the rest when we get there.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the median HN reader has very little appreciation of the human reality of homelessness in the United States, and primarily see it through the lens of people at the extreme, visible margins. I know I used to until I got involved.
edit: I mean all of this in a very boring, matter of fact way, not some kind of holier-than-thou virtue signaling way. The 80% problem of homelessness is a tractable economic problem. While it's true that the United States has an almost dizzying level of propaganda demonizing poor people, it's also true that real homelessness is hard to spot because people have a natural instinct to preserve their and their family's dignity. The first time I came to terms with this was coaching debate in highschool. I had a varsity debater who couldn't afford pants to meet the dress code. Incredibly bright, academically successful kid. His father was an unemployed teacher working menial jobs, his mother was taking care of three kids. They lived in a tent at campsites. I had absolutely no idea. We obviously bought him pants and paid all his travel/etc. fees (he'd been making excuses to not go to events requiring travel). That's a very boring, normal case.
That family should have had a free or nearly free housing option. They did not. They still wouldn't.
To be clear, I agree with you. I was making a point to the person that I replied to who wanted zero homeless people.
My point was that there is a bottom some-percent of homeless people that can’t immediately be helped.
But yeah I think I made my point clear in the second paragraph that we need the resources to provide housing and basic necessities for the majority of homeless people who are able to receive it, though I probably should’ve clarified that those benefits should be tiered and someone who just goes through a terrible point in life and is otherwise in a reasonably healthy place should have easy access to something decent.
And then there are people who aren't families, without the knack for conveying a moving story, or exceptionally good in every way but unfair circumstances.
Many of these people, and not just the really, really bad nuisance ones people use as excuses to superiority, are literally slaves, performing the scarecrow work of deterrence as living examples, for "society", for no pay.
I think this is an injustice, subverted by its own cruelty, and one of the more compelling arguments for UBI.
That's the plain truth, and I think it's unfortunate that we need to use sympathetic examples as a bridge. I guess I've accepted the premise that the privileged gestalt is profoundly distorted and that "charismatic macrofauna" are a necessary ladder to be kicked away.
The example is true, but to your point, isn't representative... and that doesn't matter.
>I’m guessing there’s a bit of breathing room at the lower end of the system - there will be people who become drug addicts or have major mental health breaks and lose everything
So? Why can't a 21st century country provide them with some at-least pod-like homes, so they are not fucking homeless?
Because there are places, where it's safe and reasonable to remain without a permanent home for an extended period of time.
Warmer areas of Australia come to mind, or Dominic van Allen (https://www.theguardian.com/society/audio/2023/sep/20/from-t...) from the UK.
It's a very fine line, between authoritarianism and the freedom of someone (whatever their mental state/ability is) to chose to not have a permanent place to live, while going through a difficult or promising phase of life.
See also "The Pursuit of Happyness"
I knew someone who worked at some sort of homeless services clinic, and I asked how many people they were able to help get back on their feet in a sustainable way. The answer was 1; I don't know what the denominator was, but the takeaway is that most of the visibly homeless people you see are uncoachable and you really can't protect people from themselves. With a huge caveat that the visibly homeless is a subset of the homeless/impoverished population.
The implication (given that the US is an outlier here) is that prevention is much better than cure here; that means reform of healthcare and social housing so people are less likely to wind up in that trap.
