Although understandable from an economicals standpoint, substantial evidence points to housing first as a solution to homelessness.
Yes, some people stay indefinitely, that’s the point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First
Edit: herea is a great documentation including explanations why it works
Housing first just concentrates and distills the underlying problems that led to homelessness in the first place.
You have drug addicted and mentally ill people housed, but they’ll never be functional.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5610885-housing-first-policy-failure/
That’s just untrue and there is no science supporting this. A right wing opinion piece is not science. ;)
So? Not everyone is capable of, wants to, or needs to function in society. They’re still people who shouldn’t be turned away if we can afford to help them. If we became a truly impoverished nation that couldn’t support everyone, I can understand prioritizing the cooperative, but if we don’t have to live by the rules of the jungle, why would we lower ourselves by doing so?
Things cost money. If you want things like food and housing, you have to function in society.
Agreed that everyone should get the care they need, and that means universal health care + mental health care + addiction treatment.
But, again, the expectation there is that everyone contributes and everyone benefits.
If society can’t care for the people that can’t care for themselves, what the fuck is even the point?
Welcome to America! Where we can’t have nice things because the wrong (read BROWN) people might get them too!
Example:
https://www.history.com/articles/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits
If you’re being sarcastic or satirical, that’s not coming across in your previous comments.
We produce more than enough for everyone though. If we didn’t, I understand limiting it to those who cooperate, but that’s not the case.
I don’t understand why we should let humans go hungry and/or cold because they enjoy drugs or dislike holding a job. We would rightfully be upset about a dog without a home through the winter, and they don’t contribute to society (except by providing people with joy and companionship, which unemployed drug users also do).
Society can’t support too many people who want to sit around and get high without contributing.
The reason we produce more than enough is because of the people who do contribute. If they start opting out because they see other folks skating by then soon we aren’t producing enough.
If they start opting out because they see other folks skating by then soon we aren’t producing enough.
How many people do you honestly think will look at these tiny homes with the bare necessities and decide that’s better than working? During the pandemic, many people had, for the first time in their lives, financial support and no work. They took up hobbies and started businesses in large numbers, because people don’t generally enjoy being totally unproductive for long stretches of time.
If the number of people who don’t want to work gets to be too high, we cut the funding. I just don’t think it’ll come to that, because most people generally like doing more than subsisting.
I love threads where OP pulls a Hans Moleman with a local article that implies “Hello? Yes, we need a more progressive solution!” and then when the comments point to the obvious progressive solution they’re like “No no, that’s too progressive” and link to A FUCKING FINANCE OPINION PIECE in a national centist source.
Homelessnes leads to drug addiction.
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2025/02/429486/how-common-illegal-drug-use-among-people-who-are-homeless
“About 42% of all participants said they began using drugs regularly before they became homeless for the first time, and 23% said they began using drugs regularly after becoming homeless for the first time.”
Start using drugs > lose your job > lose money to pay for housing.
Pretty easy to see the progression.
One of the benefits of a housing first model is giving the homeless person security and safety. When that need is met they can focus on things like recovery. This “Alternative shelter” model is a joke. Sleeping pods? Basically glamping at this point and never viewed as a permanent home by the residents which means they never feel that security that comes from a permanent home.
I’ve never been homeless but I’ve spent a night or two on a park bench. The anxiety and fear of constantly being worried someone could assault you is real. The only way I could sleep is by getting black out drunk.
America needs to step up its housing first model and offer permanent living quarters with basically no strings attached, anything less will end up a failed experiment.
I bet it’s cheaper to house these people indefinitely than it is to imprison or institutionalize them indefinitely.
Yeah but the latter makes shareholders happy.
Maybe there’s subtext I’m missing, but this doesn’t seem that unreasonable.
Some points I gathered:
- It doesn’t apply to people with mental health issues.
- They’re given a warning if they don’t try to engage before they are asked to leave
- After 90 days out of the shelter they’re eligible to reenter another one.
Seems reasonable to me because:
- Some people do need the threat of consequences before making this large lifestyle changes and will hopefully end up better off in the end. By giving a warning, they have the opportunity to make more of an effort before they are asked to leave.
- If rotating out people who are not willing or able to engage you’re allowing people who are more likely to engage to have access to these resources that aren’t being used by the current residents.
I understand there are a lot of external factors causing homelessness, and we do need more shelter capacity but this seems like it would help more people in the interim.
Can only try to help unwilling people for so long that you have to consider that this kind of assistance is not limitless and has to be prioritized for people who are interested and willing to at least try to support themselves. Fill up shelters to use them, but when you’re at capacity based on what the local government and its policies by extension of the voterbase’s willingness to contribute financially can support, you have to make hard decisions.
Will these people end up on the street? Probably. If this feels unreasonable, support candidates pushing to increase/reallocate funding for the program, or volunteer your own time and money to contribute.
I mean, we could also adopt humane policies, my dude.
Humane policies only work with those willing to accept them.
For example:
Is it humane to leave a woman with an amputated foot and infected leg sitting in the dirt on the side of a freeway in 100 degree heat when she’s had not one but two wheelchairs stolen? Absolutely not.
“Vicky is known to our outreach workers, as well as teams who work with the city, all of whom have been attempting to provide services or engage for several weeks. At times, she has informed those teams that she has not been interested in care. But they continue to check in and try to work with her.”
The humane thing would be to tell her “We won’t let you die, come with us.” and get her hospitalized even if she doesn’t want it. If she were capable of taking care of herself, she wouldn’t be in this situation.
Oh, cool. Edge-case hypotheticals in place of an actual response.
Not an edge case, they’re all over Portland:
“Why would I want to become part of normal society, so I can complete counseling and treatment just to, f—ing, you know, be in a cell of life,” she said.
No, it is an edge case. There will always be edge cases. And when it comes to things like medical ethics there’s a reason why there are entire degree programs and jobs in that particular area. You only need experts in situations that require expertise.
Because when you get to the edge cases shit gets weird. I’m completely comfortable not having answers to deep ethical and moral questions, especially when they have to do with medicine or society. The vast majority of people just do not fall under that umbrella.
