Posting this because most people in HN have a warped view of what homelessness is, especially in california. First of all, when most people think homeless they think "fentanyl addict out of his mind living in squalor" and while there are certainly a bunch of those people in the homeless population, they aren't even a majority of the homeless.
In general, about 2/3 of the homeless are transiently homeless. They will be homeless for less than 12 months, they are likely employed while they are homeless at least in a part time capacity, or they are in college. These folks generally refuse to get services and spend their time sleeping in their car, crashing on friends couches, and in a pinch, sleeping in tents outside away from the wild areas. In general, these people are on hard times due to bad luck more or less, and are struggling to get out of it.
Another 1/3 of the homeless are people who used to be in the prior group, but are now "chronically homeless". They may have gotten into drugs or developed a mental issue in the first 12 months that they became homeless. These people are the "out of their minds" camp dwellers we think about when we think about the homeless. The biggest risk factor for being in this group is becoming homeless in the first place, and the best way to prevent people from becoming transiently homeless is to prevent them from losing their stable housing or getting them into stable housing within the first 12 months of them becoming homeless. It is much harder to "rehabilitate" someone who has been homeless for 12+ months than it is to rehabilitate someone who has been homeless for <12 months.
One issue we have now is that is very easy for people to move from "safely housed" to "transiently homeless" and one big way to prevent this downward trend in quality of life is to build more cheap housing so people in the precarious spot have alternatives to living in a tent. Its not going to be an immediate feedback loop but its the only sustainable way to prevent the growing numbers of homeless in US cities.
> one big way to prevent this downward trend in quality of life is to build more cheap housing
One pedantic quibble. It's not necessary to build cheap housing specifically. It's perfectly fine simply to build more housing of any type. Today's new expensive housing will indirectly create more cheap housing in the pre-existing housing stock, by pulling demand out of the market.
Throughout all of American history, new housing has almost exclusively been relatively expensive housing. The rich prefer to live in new housing stock, and the poor prefer to get discounts on old housing stock. The same way that a robust new car market creates a secondary market for cheap used cars.
A lot of people with good intentions will try to block any type of development that doesn't specifically include affordable housing. But this is the exact opposite of what's needed. The best way to lower the cost of housing is to increase the supply of housing. And the best way to do that is to unleash developers whatever is most profitable whenever and whoever they want without government regulation and NIMBY activists getting in their way.
> They may have gotten into drugs or developed a mental issue in the first 12 months that they became homeless. These people are the "out of their minds" camp dwellers we think about when we think about the homeless. The biggest risk factor for being in this group is becoming homeless in the first place,
One of the things that took me along time to realize was simply not having a safe, quiet and stable place to sleep for an extended period time would drive virtually anyone into drugs, alcohol and mental illness.
Apologies for reposting, but I think it matters and should be highly visible:
"In 2013 the Utah Housing and Community Development Division reported that the cost of emergency room treatment and jail time averaged over $16,000 per year per homeless person, while the cost of providing a fully subsidized apartment was only $11,000."[0]
Obviously, the numbers will change with the area. The cost of an apartment in the Bay Area or LA would be much greater, for example. But the book makes a good case that it'd cost society less overall to just take care of people than to ignore rampant homelessness. I'm inclined to believe it.
Related, there's an eye-opening limited series podcast on homelessness called "According to Need" that I found very compelling.[1] The host lives in the Bay Area, so there was a lot focus [t]here. I strongly recommend checking it out to learn just how stacked the system can be against people trying to overcome homelessness. For example, did you crash on someone's couch in the last thirty days? Doesn't matter if you've got nowhere to crash tonight, you don't qualify for a bed.
[0] The End of Policing, by Alex S. Vitale first edition pg 97
Whenever I see someone who is quite clearly very recently homeless I give them as much money as I can afford to, like $50-100, because I feel like it can get them out of homelessness. When I see someone completely out of their mind I don’t feel like anything I can do will make a material difference, just get them different levels of stoned for the next 3 hours.
That is well and all, but seems like a bit of a distraction from the OP. While 2/3 of homeless may be transient homeless, it seems incredibly unlikely that most of the people living in tents fall into that category rather than into the chronically homeless camp.
"[transient homeless] generally refuse to get services"
Is this because the services don't really offer effective help for this group?
I understand why mental illness or addiction might keep people from using services. But if someone is just down on their luck and won't accept any help (assuming they need it), something seems wrong with that picture.
I haven’t heard this side of the story. Would you mind sharing any sources you have on the proportions of people who are transiently homeless and those who are homeless permanently?
Would you mind posting the sources? Even if its anedotal or not authoritative, it would be good to inform where you learned about the 1/3-2/3 breakdown.
Its because HN is the silicon valley town crier whose readers are either transient, foreigners, or people coming from privilege already in the area. Groups so far removed from the problem that they have no idea what's going on.
They'll latch on to any contrived empathic half-solution and then leave the area.
> the per-tent cost covers services, meals, sanitation and staffing
OK, so $2600 gets a fair bit.
Also looking at the report [1] this rate is calculated by dividing the total cost of the pilot by the duration and number of clients. So that is including one-time set up, planning and evaluation in the cost, which is probably a decent fraction of the cost as it's only an 8 month pilot. The recurring cost for extending may be lower.
I think it's misleading to compare that dollar amount to the monthly cost of an apartment.
As long as the local government has tons of money doing nothing in their budget, they are going to find a way to spend it, and they're not going to care if they overpay because what else are they going to spend it on? In coastal California, the rule is never ever give that money back by lowering taxes. Taxes only go up. If there's too much money being generated by the taxes to spend, start spending it on homelessness or whatever utopian goal sounds good.
Some problems though, like healthcare and homelessness don't get better if you spend more money on them. The prices of healthcare just go up, because there is limited supply of doctors and drug companies charge whatever they want, and more homeless people show up to take advantage of the great services.
$31,000/yr is already pretty shit, and it’s even worse when you consider the opportunity cost of not using that space on a person who’s actually going to gain a productivity benefit from living in SF.
This is NPR reporting. Why would they mislead on an issue like this? I think they're a very credible source, given their progressive bent, to be asking these questions.
I think the main takeaway here is government, as usual, thinking short term and spending more money on bandaid solutions.
Yes, the $2600 gets you services, meals, sanitation and staffing. But in reality, you can get a decent 1BR apartment for $1500 that is waaay bigger than a tent, sanitation for free since it is an apartment, and have almost $1000 for groceries left over. And, you can fit more people in the apartment than a 12x12 tent. I know that this calculation is an over simplification of costs, but it still gives you a decent perspective on what can be done with that kind of money.
And I disagree this will save money long term or elsewhere. When you don't address the root cause and spend money wisely, you only leave room for more spending in the future.
"In 2013 the Utah Housing and Community Development Division reported that the cost of emergency room treatment and jail time averaged over $16,000 per year per homeless person, while the cost of providing a fully subsidized apartment was only $11,000."[0]
Obviously, the numbers will change with the area. The cost of an apartment in the Bay Area or LA would be much greater, for example. But the book makes a good case that it'd cost society less overall to just take care of people than to ignore rampant homelessness. I'm inclined to believe it.
Related, there's an eye-opening limited series podcast on homelessness called "According to Need" that I found very compelling.[1] The host lives in the Bay Area, so there was a lot focus [t]here. I strongly recommend checking it out to learn just how stacked the system can be against people trying to overcome homelessness. For example, did you crash on someone's couch in the last thirty days? Doesn't matter if you've got nowhere to crash tonight, you don't qualify for a bed.
[0] The End of Policing, by Alex S. Vitale first edition pg 97
Last year I went from making $20K/mo to <$2K/mo, for quite a while. As my money was drying up, I didn’t have a lot of options. I had credit but I didn’t want to use it. I had a kid, but I couldn’t promise him future school supplies. I was a “professional” type, so I could get house sitting gigs (via online) far and wide. I drove 10 hours for some of them and gigged online, still collected $1900/mo pre-tax from a client — I’d have to make good on the taxes eventually. Eventually I found a gig back in SF, starting salary was $200K. Then I landed a consulting gig at $250K. I finally took an FTE role at $200K with a 20% bonus and strong promotion probability. I made it. That part of the story took 18+ months and I struggled to make sub-rental deposits.
I’m 50 years old. I had no one to draw from, I had no more debt I could create, aside for obscene %APR credit card options.
Now imagine that I can’t draw 6 figures, I still pulled $2K in my worst months, I still had to move out of my home and live in my car and visit my partner who crashed on couches from friends who could only reasonably accommodate one of us… my ex- let me visit my kid as much as possible and sleep in his bedroom, but I couldn’t land a 6 figure job at the end of the narrative. The options aren’t awesome, nor sufficient, and the cruelty and neglect, even from other friends, is mortifying. It was really fucking hard for me, but I’m fine again. I don’t see how it’s humane for the likes of those who don’t have my arc as their probability. My European friends shake their heads and know the US is really broken.
This comment, including the part about Europe, prompted me to research this issue a bit. I Googled 'European homelessness' and came across articles[0][1]that suggest that while there are a few cases of success in cities like Helsinki (or Salt Lake City[2]) with 'Housing First' policies, homeless is getting worse in Europe. Denmark and Finland seem to be doing well[1][3], and could serve as a model.
I'd like to learn more about if Europe overall is doing better than the United States. I couldn't find comparative numbers with solid data. Thank you for sharing your story, I am glad you found a light at the end of the tunnel.
Homeless is getting worse and illegal immigration compounds the problem. The more advanced countries (like the UK) have center for homeless who are not drug addicts. That means the majority of homeless on the street are either ignorant or drug addicts. I always remind them there are tax funded centers.
Other countries are not so lucky (especially in Southern Europe) and you see all sort of homeless, from drug addicts, to youngsters without a job, to illegal immigrants.
A professional making 200/250k in Europe is also incredibly rare but you could live with 2k/m in a lot of places (which is true in some places of the USA as well - certainly not SF).
Real estate is also more expensive in Europe, so getting your own house is generally easier in some places in the USA (certainly not SF).
So digging into the report that is linked from the article and other commenters here (link below, search for "Pilot Safe Sleep Site" in that article), some relevant points:
1. The "$2600" number is calculated from the $1,491,410 total cost / 70 spaces / 8 months.
2. Regarding staffing, "The staffing plan Urban Alchemy recommends for a successful program is a minimum staff-to-participant ratio of one (1) to 12." So included in the price tag is at least 6 paid staffers, and I'm assuming 24 hour coverage is needed (or at least 16 hour coverage).
3. Regarding the price, "Given the program’s high cost, we recommend that the data outcomes/effectiveness of the program
be reported on by the CAO and LAHSA before initiating additional sites. "
I think this all highlights what a mistake it was regarding the basic shutdown of federal mental hospitals in the early 80s [2]. If it turns out that the cost for dealing with homeless is this high for a simple tent encampment in a parking lot because of the cost of support services, why not provide that support in a more permanent medical facility (obv. not all homeless are mentally ill but many/most of long term homeless are).
Deinstitutionalization was a mistake. While the advent of psychiatric drugs in the 60s reduced the need for these massive long term care facilities, there are still (and always will be) mentally ill people who require long term care. The community mental health facilities that were to replace asylums never materialized, and now a majority of these people now spend their life on the street. Some will argue that these facilities were inhumane, but I think it's far more inhumane to just kick severely mentally ill people out on the street with no support resources.
The mental hospitals were bad. When something is known to be bad in California, it is made illegal, thus solving the problem completely (/s).
There was a similar thing with the foster care system; I'm not sure if it was state-wide or just my county, but they banned foster care group homes (which had worse outcomes than typical foster families[1]). Of course everyeone already knew that it was better to place these kids in a typical foster family, but there was nowhere else to place them. Now there are plenty of "Theraputic residential treatment centers" which seem to be roughly the same thing, just with a different name.
(Side note: if you can, become a foster family; there aren't enough)
1: Even the whole "outcomes are worse" is a bit dubious since usually kids don't end up in group homes until they've been kicked out of one or more foster families, so these kids were already being failed by the system before ending up in group homes.
The title of this post has been editorialized to be more provocative. The NPR article is actually titled “High Cost Of Los Angeles Homeless Camp Raises Eyebrows And Questions” and is far less inflammatory than this title suggests.
If anything the marginal cost per unit would be a better metric. The fact that big bureaucracy is expensive at small scale isn't that surprising.
There is also a major fallacy here, that this money could be simply used to put people into homes dollar for dollar. If they are this inefficient getting people into tents, whats to say that the inefficiency isn't magnified with a more complicated project.
There is no magical box that you can go drop cash into that pays rent for someone who was previously homeless. It comes with it's own set of logistics.
Monthly rent for a furnished apartment at my university (i.e. already overpriced and in demand) is $1049.
Why not buy these people a ticket and a year's prepaid rent to somewhere with a much, much cheaper cost of living. It would save the city money and these people would have a real place to live (i.e. not homeless anymore, instead of homeless in a tent).
Problems with homeless is deeper than finding a place to sleep. For example, some homeless people voluntarily choose to sleep on the street even when they have homes (like one man I knew who refused to go home after his wife death after many years of struggling with cancer). Some people would destroy that property that would be given to them, and will be thrown out by the building administration. Homelessness is partially mental health problem, it cannot be solved just by handing out free apartments.
States have a unfavorable opinion of having another state's homeless population shipped to them. I'm aware that Nevada been sued several times by California cities for busing their homeless one-way to California.
You had to apply and be accepted to the university, and their confidence that you won't turn your apartment into a crack den is factored into the monthly rent.
This article takes the $2,600/tent at face value (maybe bc it’s click bait?) and never digs in: •what does it cost a jurisdiction to clean streets and parks of human feces when there are no portapotties?
•what does it cost charities to run a soup kitchen when people have no means to store or cook food?
•what cost the homeless when they are robbed and victimized?
All these costs -and much more- are external to the equation as presented.
Throwing money at a corrupt bureaucracy didn't solve a complex problem? Shocker.
Proposition HHH allocated $1.2 billion towards the problem and essentially nothing was accomplished.
Comparing this to regular rents is not really fair isn't it? Even if the government chooses to pay rent instead of providing this camp, getting landlord's to rent to a homeless person cannot be counted on. On top of that they still need to find work and food. Granted may be not a daunting task if the housing and security is taken care of.
Won't these programs just expand ad infinitum if we don't address the root causes of homelessness? I'm glad we're helping the homeless, but the lack of housing is a symptom and less so a cause. LA has way more homeless people than it used to. Why don't we address that?
I'm not an expert and I admit my views on this are pretty extreme...but surely there's inefficiency there. What if we didn't judge what they were doing (it occurs anyway so we "tacitly approve" in effect), but instead provide the same service for them: tents on the street, muck-about area, access to food, drugs, but do so in an efficient way but at a better price. It seems the quality of things they get and the outcomes for the general public represent a pretty low ROI for 2600 a month/tent. A providor model might also enable a measure of control not in the sense of "controlling them" but more in the sense of we're able to maybe "improve" some things (maybe better food, better tents, better drugs, better outcomes for other non-vagrants who share the streetspace).
edit: I should have read the article. That's exactly what they were doing. I incorrectly assumed it was a "measured cost" of homelessness. I suppose what I imagined tho was less like a refugee camp with fences and guards, and more like a re-use of some of the old port/industrial area close to where many of the LA camps used to be anyway. A more NGO/adhoc style approach. But maybe the current model is working, apart from cost, I don't know :p :) xx
Frustrating that we never hear about the costs of the status quo, of doing nothing and having the "solution" be that people sleep outside. Do folks think that's healthy? We pay for this in the incredible expense of highly trained (and paid!) EMT, fire and police.
Isn't 2600 enough to pay rent for a studio apartment + food in the US? why would you spend the money on tents and whatever rather than paying for proper housing? I don't get it.
$2663/mo untaxed is a decent chunk of change. But let’s assume that is the cost to temporary house someone that has no other option. My question is, why is there no standardized process in California to address someone who is unhoused?
I like to say make the solution like the Apple Store in the sense that for 99% of people, there is a possible researched path to recovery, housing, and employment.
For $32k, 64k, 96k — 3 years, can we build a process using our modern knowledge of social work, psychology, addiction, etc. to get an individual back on their feet, or at least in a holding pattern with less misery?
[+] [-] 0xB31B1B|4 years ago|reply
In general, about 2/3 of the homeless are transiently homeless. They will be homeless for less than 12 months, they are likely employed while they are homeless at least in a part time capacity, or they are in college. These folks generally refuse to get services and spend their time sleeping in their car, crashing on friends couches, and in a pinch, sleeping in tents outside away from the wild areas. In general, these people are on hard times due to bad luck more or less, and are struggling to get out of it.
Another 1/3 of the homeless are people who used to be in the prior group, but are now "chronically homeless". They may have gotten into drugs or developed a mental issue in the first 12 months that they became homeless. These people are the "out of their minds" camp dwellers we think about when we think about the homeless. The biggest risk factor for being in this group is becoming homeless in the first place, and the best way to prevent people from becoming transiently homeless is to prevent them from losing their stable housing or getting them into stable housing within the first 12 months of them becoming homeless. It is much harder to "rehabilitate" someone who has been homeless for 12+ months than it is to rehabilitate someone who has been homeless for <12 months.
One issue we have now is that is very easy for people to move from "safely housed" to "transiently homeless" and one big way to prevent this downward trend in quality of life is to build more cheap housing so people in the precarious spot have alternatives to living in a tent. Its not going to be an immediate feedback loop but its the only sustainable way to prevent the growing numbers of homeless in US cities.
[+] [-] dcolkitt|4 years ago|reply
One pedantic quibble. It's not necessary to build cheap housing specifically. It's perfectly fine simply to build more housing of any type. Today's new expensive housing will indirectly create more cheap housing in the pre-existing housing stock, by pulling demand out of the market.
Throughout all of American history, new housing has almost exclusively been relatively expensive housing. The rich prefer to live in new housing stock, and the poor prefer to get discounts on old housing stock. The same way that a robust new car market creates a secondary market for cheap used cars.
A lot of people with good intentions will try to block any type of development that doesn't specifically include affordable housing. But this is the exact opposite of what's needed. The best way to lower the cost of housing is to increase the supply of housing. And the best way to do that is to unleash developers whatever is most profitable whenever and whoever they want without government regulation and NIMBY activists getting in their way.
[+] [-] wnevets|4 years ago|reply
One of the things that took me along time to realize was simply not having a safe, quiet and stable place to sleep for an extended period time would drive virtually anyone into drugs, alcohol and mental illness.
[+] [-] alsetmusic|4 years ago|reply
"In 2013 the Utah Housing and Community Development Division reported that the cost of emergency room treatment and jail time averaged over $16,000 per year per homeless person, while the cost of providing a fully subsidized apartment was only $11,000."[0]
Obviously, the numbers will change with the area. The cost of an apartment in the Bay Area or LA would be much greater, for example. But the book makes a good case that it'd cost society less overall to just take care of people than to ignore rampant homelessness. I'm inclined to believe it.
Related, there's an eye-opening limited series podcast on homelessness called "According to Need" that I found very compelling.[1] The host lives in the Bay Area, so there was a lot focus [t]here. I strongly recommend checking it out to learn just how stacked the system can be against people trying to overcome homelessness. For example, did you crash on someone's couch in the last thirty days? Doesn't matter if you've got nowhere to crash tonight, you don't qualify for a bed.
[0] The End of Policing, by Alex S. Vitale first edition pg 97
[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/need/
Edited to format
[+] [-] spoonjim|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baby|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fastball|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway98797|4 years ago|reply
1/3 would over time vastly out number the 2/3 group unless the two third group is growing exponentially.
[+] [-] chmod600|4 years ago|reply
Is this because the services don't really offer effective help for this group?
I understand why mental illness or addiction might keep people from using services. But if someone is just down on their luck and won't accept any help (assuming they need it), something seems wrong with that picture.
[+] [-] thealienthing|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] systemvoltage|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] homelesssjw|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] vmception|4 years ago|reply
They'll latch on to any contrived empathic half-solution and then leave the area.
[+] [-] advisedwang|4 years ago|reply
OK, so $2600 gets a fair bit.
Also looking at the report [1] this rate is calculated by dividing the total cost of the pilot by the duration and number of clients. So that is including one-time set up, planning and evaluation in the cost, which is probably a decent fraction of the cost as it's only an 8 month pilot. The recurring cost for extending may be lower.
I think it's misleading to compare that dollar amount to the monthly cost of an apartment.
[1] https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2020/20-0841_rpt_cao_03...
[+] [-] narrator|4 years ago|reply
Some problems though, like healthcare and homelessness don't get better if you spend more money on them. The prices of healthcare just go up, because there is limited supply of doctors and drug companies charge whatever they want, and more homeless people show up to take advantage of the great services.
[+] [-] wyager|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darth_avocado|4 years ago|reply
Yes, the $2600 gets you services, meals, sanitation and staffing. But in reality, you can get a decent 1BR apartment for $1500 that is waaay bigger than a tent, sanitation for free since it is an apartment, and have almost $1000 for groceries left over. And, you can fit more people in the apartment than a 12x12 tent. I know that this calculation is an over simplification of costs, but it still gives you a decent perspective on what can be done with that kind of money.
And I disagree this will save money long term or elsewhere. When you don't address the root cause and spend money wisely, you only leave room for more spending in the future.
[+] [-] alsetmusic|4 years ago|reply
Obviously, the numbers will change with the area. The cost of an apartment in the Bay Area or LA would be much greater, for example. But the book makes a good case that it'd cost society less overall to just take care of people than to ignore rampant homelessness. I'm inclined to believe it.
Related, there's an eye-opening limited series podcast on homelessness called "According to Need" that I found very compelling.[1] The host lives in the Bay Area, so there was a lot focus [t]here. I strongly recommend checking it out to learn just how stacked the system can be against people trying to overcome homelessness. For example, did you crash on someone's couch in the last thirty days? Doesn't matter if you've got nowhere to crash tonight, you don't qualify for a bed.
[0] The End of Policing, by Alex S. Vitale first edition pg 97
[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/need/
[+] [-] browningstreet|4 years ago|reply
I’m 50 years old. I had no one to draw from, I had no more debt I could create, aside for obscene %APR credit card options.
Now imagine that I can’t draw 6 figures, I still pulled $2K in my worst months, I still had to move out of my home and live in my car and visit my partner who crashed on couches from friends who could only reasonably accommodate one of us… my ex- let me visit my kid as much as possible and sleep in his bedroom, but I couldn’t land a 6 figure job at the end of the narrative. The options aren’t awesome, nor sufficient, and the cruelty and neglect, even from other friends, is mortifying. It was really fucking hard for me, but I’m fine again. I don’t see how it’s humane for the likes of those who don’t have my arc as their probability. My European friends shake their heads and know the US is really broken.
[+] [-] mamurphy|4 years ago|reply
I'd like to learn more about if Europe overall is doing better than the United States. I couldn't find comparative numbers with solid data. Thank you for sharing your story, I am glad you found a light at the end of the tunnel.
[0]https://www.euronews.com/2019/03/22/homelessness-in-europe-a... [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-46891392 [2]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-homelessness-housing/... [3]https://archive.thinkprogress.org/four-countries-the-united-...
[+] [-] Kneecaps07|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jokethrowaway|4 years ago|reply
Homeless is getting worse and illegal immigration compounds the problem. The more advanced countries (like the UK) have center for homeless who are not drug addicts. That means the majority of homeless on the street are either ignorant or drug addicts. I always remind them there are tax funded centers.
Other countries are not so lucky (especially in Southern Europe) and you see all sort of homeless, from drug addicts, to youngsters without a job, to illegal immigrants.
A professional making 200/250k in Europe is also incredibly rare but you could live with 2k/m in a lot of places (which is true in some places of the USA as well - certainly not SF). Real estate is also more expensive in Europe, so getting your own house is generally easier in some places in the USA (certainly not SF).
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|4 years ago|reply
1. The "$2600" number is calculated from the $1,491,410 total cost / 70 spaces / 8 months.
2. Regarding staffing, "The staffing plan Urban Alchemy recommends for a successful program is a minimum staff-to-participant ratio of one (1) to 12." So included in the price tag is at least 6 paid staffers, and I'm assuming 24 hour coverage is needed (or at least 16 hour coverage).
3. Regarding the price, "Given the program’s high cost, we recommend that the data outcomes/effectiveness of the program be reported on by the CAO and LAHSA before initiating additional sites. "
I think this all highlights what a mistake it was regarding the basic shutdown of federal mental hospitals in the early 80s [2]. If it turns out that the cost for dealing with homeless is this high for a simple tent encampment in a parking lot because of the cost of support services, why not provide that support in a more permanent medical facility (obv. not all homeless are mentally ill but many/most of long term homeless are).
[1] https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2020/20-0841_rpt_cao_03...
[2] https://sites.psu.edu/psy533wheeler/2017/02/08/u01-ronald-re...
[+] [-] klondike_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|4 years ago|reply
There was a similar thing with the foster care system; I'm not sure if it was state-wide or just my county, but they banned foster care group homes (which had worse outcomes than typical foster families[1]). Of course everyeone already knew that it was better to place these kids in a typical foster family, but there was nowhere else to place them. Now there are plenty of "Theraputic residential treatment centers" which seem to be roughly the same thing, just with a different name.
(Side note: if you can, become a foster family; there aren't enough)
1: Even the whole "outcomes are worse" is a bit dubious since usually kids don't end up in group homes until they've been kicked out of one or more foster families, so these kids were already being failed by the system before ending up in group homes.
[+] [-] anthony_romeo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] texaswhizzle|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] anm89|4 years ago|reply
There is also a major fallacy here, that this money could be simply used to put people into homes dollar for dollar. If they are this inefficient getting people into tents, whats to say that the inefficiency isn't magnified with a more complicated project.
There is no magical box that you can go drop cash into that pays rent for someone who was previously homeless. It comes with it's own set of logistics.
[+] [-] morpheuskafka|4 years ago|reply
Why not buy these people a ticket and a year's prepaid rent to somewhere with a much, much cheaper cost of living. It would save the city money and these people would have a real place to live (i.e. not homeless anymore, instead of homeless in a tent).
[+] [-] lightgreen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BayAreaEscapee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkhorse22|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reader_x|4 years ago|reply
All these costs -and much more- are external to the equation as presented.
[+] [-] meiji163|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sixdimensional|4 years ago|reply
I think LA is talking with Pallet to implement their temporary housing, which would be amazing.
[1] https://www.palletshelter.com
[+] [-] yalogin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ravenstine|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beervirus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graderjs|4 years ago|reply
edit: I should have read the article. That's exactly what they were doing. I incorrectly assumed it was a "measured cost" of homelessness. I suppose what I imagined tho was less like a refugee camp with fences and guards, and more like a re-use of some of the old port/industrial area close to where many of the LA camps used to be anyway. A more NGO/adhoc style approach. But maybe the current model is working, apart from cost, I don't know :p :) xx
[+] [-] kiba|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chakhs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdx6|4 years ago|reply
I like to say make the solution like the Apple Store in the sense that for 99% of people, there is a possible researched path to recovery, housing, and employment.
For $32k, 64k, 96k — 3 years, can we build a process using our modern knowledge of social work, psychology, addiction, etc. to get an individual back on their feet, or at least in a holding pattern with less misery?
[+] [-] thenoblesunfish|4 years ago|reply