[freddybobs]

There is an episode of the "you're wrong about" podcast, that discusses homelessness. In that episode there are several discussion about several projects in California around homelessness. Those projects provided housing. The studies based on those projects showed that overall the cost was less that not having some housing and services. The podcast goes into more details, but as I remember this was because

* It removes much of the medical and police cost

* If people who are struggling don't have a roof over their head, it makes it incredibly hard for them to get a job. Having some stability meant that many could pick them selves up and get a job and so forth.

The end of the episode points out even though the programs were a success by most metrics - including being cheaper overall to tax payers - they were shut down.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/youre-wrong-about/id13...

Here's the one on homelessness

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/homelessness/id1380008...

Theres a good one about the "wellfare queen" that is related and rather eye opening

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ronald-reagan-and-the-...

[hnarn]

The strategy is called “housing first” and has been proven to work in Finland: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...

The idea that homeless people need homes to be able to advance further seems to trigger some people — after all, most of us pay for our housing, so why should they get it for free?

What people don’t consider is that when “we”, the people with houses, don’t spend our dollars housing homeless people, we pay sooner or later in other ways whether we want to or not when society around us partly disintegrates and additional effects start stacking up: substance abuse, violent crime, healthcare costs etc.

[aeternum]

The way 'housing first' has been implemented in SF is terrible. It is operated as a lottery helping a very tiny percentage of the homeless with a house/apt worth $1mil+. Those numbers will never solve the problem.

If I saw a reasonable housing first program where it actually provides cost-efficient housing for all that need it, I'd be a strong proponent.

The current system is not that, it's incredibly unfair, a tax-payer funded lottery in which residents provide accolades to homeless advocacy groups in return for inclusion on lists that make them more likely to win a spot in the residences. Huge amounts of tax-payer money is siphoned off into these non-profits throughout the process.

https://sfstandard.com/politics/san-francisco-nonprofits-con...

[adeon]

Around year 2009-2010, I worked in public sector in Helsinki in the real estate department. I worked the phone handling tenants calling and needing repairs. A large portion of the tenants were people from the homeless program. At the time I did not know this program was unusual.

My understanding of how it worked was that if you were functional enough and willing, you could walk into a certain building and they'd get you an apartment very quickly, although not sure if on the spot (I didn't work that part, just repairs part). I sometimes moved big bundles of keys for newly vacated or repaired apartments from the real estate building to the social workers in the homeless building they can then give out to new tenants.

I've now lived San Francisco for 5+ years and Helsinki basically does not have homeless people compared to what I've seen here.

I wondered a lot why California seems to be failing at the homeless problem. I see at least one comment here in threads that is saying that homeless are drug addicts and should be forced to go into rehab as a condition to give a home. While I was working for Helsinki I rarely heard anyone suggest the people being given homes needed to pay that back somehow, it was seen as obvious that the main problem is not having a home and the other problems can be dealt with later, and it's inhumane to make demands.

I don't know if "housing first" would actually work in California. Housing is super expensive, and I think California also has a lot more homeless than Finland ever did.

The ex-homeless tenants tended to need more repairs and care. I remember some funny/weird stories like we had a woman who could not use the toilet in her apartment because it was bright green and that caused her panic attacks. And some other tenant who painted literally everything (ceilings, windows, cabinets, furnite, floors, etc.) black.

[jandrese]

It's very hard to work around human nature and the whole "why am I paying rent like a sucker when the drug addicts on the street are getting free apartments?"

I also think that people who point out that a huge percentage of the people on the street are on drugs, so the drugs are the problem are not entirely correct either. The drug use is a symptom that also exacerbates the problem. One of the big contributing factors to California's homelessness problem is that wages have not kept up with rents, and it is not even close. If you're working two full time minimum wage jobs in SF you won't be able to afford an apartment, and that's a fundamental problem. Either bring rents down or wages up, neither of which are popular with the people who have political power.

[suzzer99]

I think the biggest thing these programs fail to take into account is that a significant portion of San Francisco's homeless population is not from San Francisco. I've met kids on Haight Street who said they'd rather be homeless in SF than in an apartment in Cleveland. Are you housing all the homeless people who migrated to SF, and then keep housing all the new people who show up?

The other problems are the severely mentally ill and hardcore drug addicts, who tend to get kicked out of any free housing that gets provided to them.

[seanmcdirmid]

In Finland, it is housing first with a live in social worker. Also, for many, they never get a job or anything like that (their mental illness or substance abuse problems are never cured), it’s just that it is cheaper for the Finnish government to house these people than not.

[AYBABTME]

Solving the housing problem at a municipal, county or state level doesn't make any sense, without adding internal passport controls and internal visas. Housing is a national problem that needs to be handled by the federal.

I have no problem using my Federal taxes to house the homeless. But I can't stand when my city tries to house people using my property taxes. It doesn't make any sense, they have no control over the inputs. It's creating an incentive at the national level to relocate to my city/county/state.

[oh_sigh]

They don't get it for free in Finland - your link says it is important that they are tenants, have a contract, and pay rent(possibly with housing assistance).

Homelessness can be caused by a variety and combination of factors. Plain bad luck, drug addiction, mental illness, etc, and Finland may have a different distribution of causes of homelessness than, say, San Francisco. It's possible that housing first works for the plain bad luck types, but will just enable the drug addiction types.

[meowtimemania]

I like the idea, but I don't think a homeless person should be entitled to free housing in one of the most expensive real estate areas of the world. Why work full time at mcdonalds to pay rent when you could just be a drug addict with a free house? Maybe we could create free housing communities where real estate is a bit cheaper.

[shepardrtc]

> why should they get it for free?

They shouldn't get it for free. They should be required to be in recovery programs and have jobs. Create state or federal jobs for them if necessary.

[bobthepanda]

There was a recent study that, like everything else with the homelessness problem, Housing First is most successful in places where housing is not ridiculously expensive to find, so the costs of implementation are low and housing units to place people in actually exist.

The exact same things that burden the private housing sector in the US (excessive land cost, overly restrictive zoning, neighbors suing and constantly throwing roadblocks) also restrict the public housing sector, since the public dollar goes less far, and the public sector has to comply with the exact same laws.

[35997279]

The other hesitation with “housing first” is that it’s associated with housing projects, aka ghettos. I’ve seen The Wire (2002-2008). Is what they’re going to build for the homeless going to be like that? Is it going to be where my kids play? Is it going to be where I walk my dog at night?

It’s called NIMBYism in the Bay Area and elsewhere.

[acchow]

On a national level, Housing First will help a lot.

If California tried this, it would probably attract too many people to the state and run out of money.

[chinchilla2020]

> Proven to work in Finland

Finland, a tiny baltic nation that has almost nothing in common with the USA.

[x0x0]

What people do consider is that it's extraordinarily unfair for many people who struggle with housing costs -- imagine what eg SF-area rents do to a cook or cleaner earning even $50k annually -- if we're going to provide that for free to junkies.

Until there aren't large segments of SF who work very hard and are housing insecure anyway, it's just going to be politically impossible to provide homeless free housing.

[diogenescynic]

It's not a housing problem, it's a drug and mental health problem. Many of the unhoused people you see could stay in shelters but don't--often the areas near shelters have the most camps near them. They simply don't want to follow any rules and now conditions are so accommodating that being outside in good weather is better than staying in a shelter with a curfew.

[dangwhy]

Why are all the lofty examples from countries that are hostile to refugees/immigrants like Scandinavian countries.

Would love to hear examples of great public welfare/healthcare programs from countries that accepts 6 million refugees / year like USA. In my head these are two opposing goals but curious to know if there are counterexamples.

[vondur]

There are some housing near my house that was simply repurposed motels. Seems to work, I don't notice any people just hanging around. Seems to work better than the standard homeless shelters we have here, that are pretty restrictive and they force the homeless to leave during the day and return at night.

[delusional]

> What people don’t consider is that when “we”, the people with houses, don’t spend our dollars housing homeless people, we pay sooner or later in other ways whether we want to or not when society around us partly disintegrates and additional effects start stacking up: substance abuse, violent crime, healthcare costs etc.

There's a different way to look at it as well. I don't so much pay for housing as I pay for my choice of housing. If I couldn't afford housing I'd just get whatever was deemed enough for me, the system would essentially make the choice. What i pay for is the privilege of choosing something that I want, instead of what's convenient for the system.

[jonhohle]

What happens when there is failure to launch?

There are a lot of social programs. So many, in fact, it seems like an increasing number of people find it better to live off those than pursue traditional methods of earning income to support themselves.

Among my extended in-laws, there are several groups gaming the welfare system, scamming family, and doing whatever they can to live on the dole and they become downright sinister when something threatens their benefits. They have no interest in becoming productive citizens. To the best of my knowledge, they are only parasites, provide no value to society or family, and their offspring are following in their footsteps.

I’d be more than happy to cut people like that off, but how so without potentially harming those in need who want to improve their lives and the lives of those around them. Is it reasonable to expect adults to attempt to, minimally, live a life with neutral utility?

[nelox]

Helsinki is vastly different from San Francisco in many ways, which makes the comparison difficult. One obvious difference is the provision of universal healthcare in a coordinated and multidisciplinary approach, in order to care for the varying and often complex needs many homeless people require. Housing First is the merely the first step from which all other care follows. Unless San Francisco and society is prepared to provide something closer to what is delivered in Helsinki as a whole, then they may as well be pissing in the wind.

[anonygler]

It doesn’t trigger me. But the idea that you can give them housing without judgement or constraints is absurd. Drug use is bad and is the overwhelming cause of their problems. The ones who succeed with this approach are also the ones not abusing drugs.

In addition, I’m not convinced you need to buy them housing in the worlds most expensive region—and one that’s deeply permissive about drug use and theft.

[nonethewiser]

> society around us partly disintegrates and additional effects start stacking up: substance abuse, violent crime, healthcare costs etc.

Sure, if the alternative is “do nothing.” But if you committed the mentally ill who are endangering themselves and others to mental institutions (not jail) then 90% of these problems go away.

[BurningFrog]

I imagine "housing first" works best when there is any housing to have.

SF, like much of California, has refused to build housing for half a century, while the population has kept increasing.

To house a homeless person there, someone else pretty much has to move out.

[michaelcampbell]

Kind of a tangent, but perhaps not. This clause:

> has been proven to work in Finland

could be parsed in 2 different ways.

> (has been proven to work) in Finland

or

> has been proven to (work in Finland)

Which has radically different meanings for applicability to the US.

[fwungy]

You cannot have a welfare state and a liberal immigration policy.

Sure, if you do nice things for poor people their lives improve, and so does society, not only because we are kinder, but also because their problems don't become problems for unrelated people.

But, if you do nice things for poor people as a government and open the door we have the objective truth that there are billions of poor people in the world who would love to be taken care of too. You will attract them and, like the Tragedy of the Commons, everyone will be poorer and less happy.

Before anyone says "this isn't the right topic" I must point out that the population of the US has doubled since the 1950's, but the infrastructure has not. The rise in population is immigration, not native. There is a cost of immigration that is borne by the local population outside of the government for immigration if the housing stock does not keep pace with population, and if immigration is used to attack prevailing wages. What happens is that housing costs increase and income goes down, i.e. the native population gets poorer.

[bandrami]

Canada has a more comprehensive welfare state than the US and a higher percentage of the population are immigrants than in the US. So there may at some point be a required tradeoff but the US isn't there yet.

What Canada doesn't have is a "homelessness-industrial complex" of NGOs and nonprofits that soak up billions of dollars in public money without actually providing significant housing for homeless people: instead, the government just does it.

[throwaway98211]

Homelessness isn't a monolith.

It's a spectrum of people who face housing insecurity due to economic circumstances, to people who resist/actively shun societal contacts that help us all function (often fueled by serious substance addictions.) While the solutions that have been embraced by San Fransisco's current electorate (free cash/housing/no rules) could make sense for the former, that doesn't mean it's a good solution for the latter. And unfortunately it's the latter side of the spectrum that exerts hugely outsized impact in terms of both resources spent and negative draw on the rest of society.

So yeah... more housing would be great, but affordability shouldn't be used as societal gaslighting to excuse the current mess we have in San Francisco. Until the city finds the resolve to enforce some minimum standards of accountability, the problem will only get worse, and the rest of us will just vote with our feet.

[el_nahual]

I can tell you about the experience with "housing first" approaches in Chicago and some of the hidden subtleties that make us all have a bit of dunning-kruger here.

There are a few hotspots in Chicago that have resulted in "encampments" in major pedestrian thoroughfares.

In some of these, every single resident has been offered housing in exchange for leaving. Most of them refused housing.

Why? Because the one condition of getting housing was to join a drug counseling program.

There is an entire line of thought that goes something like "what? why are you putting conditions to housing? That's not housing first! What do you care if they go to drug counseling? That's you being a puritan! Be more compassionate!"

It turns out there's a very good reason why you want people that get off the street to get drug counseling before they move into an apartment...because if you don't, a large percent of them will die.

They will drug or drink themselves to death in an apartment with nobody around to save them (where do you think those cost savings your podcasts reference come from? fewer ambulance trips!). Almost every dangerous thing a person can do on the street, they can do worse in an apartment. Think, for example, of a couple living on the street in which one partner is physically abusive. Now imagine them in private.

So a measure that at first glance seems stupid, counterproductive, and inhumane, like conditioning housing, is actually the compassion maximizing measure, even though it may seem like the opposite.

This isn't to say that "housing first" is wrong...merely that it's not actually as simple as one would think.

[dmix]

A lot of full-on junkies will essentially trade their public housing apartments to dealers who use it as as safe spot to deal out crack/heroin. The dealers don't operate our of their own house for safety so they hire junkies and use their places as distribution centers in exchange for 'free' drugs, while still letting them sleep in their bedrooms.

Then the apartments eventually turn into crack dens. Eventually the door gets kicked in by police and the dealers find another person willing to exchange free drugs to let them use their place. Plus the junkies going in/out of jail and their apartment gets used when they aren't there.

This sort of thing puts a ton of pressure on the normal families trying to live in those apartment buildings. A small group can definitely ruin entire floors of those apartments.

[theshrike79]

Just the fact that you can have a safe place to store your belongings and sleep in peace is a huge improvement. A fridge to store food so it doesn't spoil and a place to cook food.

No need to sleep with one eye open hugging your boots and bag so that nobody steals them in the shelter's open housing.

[Aunche]

Looking at the transcript, I barely see any mention of California, and when it's mentioned there is nothing about their policies.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270/3883985-homelessness

[screye]

I am skeptical of podcasts which reach a conclusion that is always within the overton window of the era. "This incredibly complex question has a solution that perfectly fits within the moral-mores of this decade." It is the John Oliver phenomenon, that starts with a pre-determined conclusion and then exclusively looks at evidence supporting the pre-determined conclusion.

In SF you're either a local or a transplant. A person who gets evicted, is by definition financially insecure. A local when evicted, can always move back in with family/friend unless their community disowns them. A transplant in a low-income job, has no reason to continue living in SF if they moved here for work. They can always move back.

SF's homeless crisis (last 20 years) is entirely due to a rise in homeless people with mental illness & substance abuse. [1] The key issue is drugs. 100%. Housing is the 2nd most important issue, no doubt. But, any blindly adopted housing first policy from a place without the same drug issues will fail, and will fail miserably.

[1] https://dynomight.net/img/homeless-crisis/coc/CA-San%20Franc...

[makeitdouble]

If you're that interested in the question, why not give the podcast a fair listen and check their arguments directly ?

It's not some over the top over produced podcast like Last Week Tonight, and they're transparent about their sources and their opinion. The point of the show is to engage with verifiable information.

[frankfrankfrank]

What all, and I mean all of those measures miss, often even intentionally, is that homelessness is a symptom, not the problem.

People like throwing money at homelessness because it is a subconscious absolution for their own guilt in causing it by being part of a machine that defrauds the mass of humans through money printing, i.e., fraud, that sees the value of someone’s labor diluted in order to provide ever more worthless currency to the decadent neo-aristocratic class that is also heavily represented in this forum, including myself.

Want to end homelessness? I know you don’t, but if you did, because that would mean you wouldn’t have all the money you have that was pilfered from others through deception and fraud. But if you did, then we would stop the massing theft through fraud that is money printing, aka inflation, aka fraud; selling one thing, delivering something of lesser value, dilution, theft by deception.

Then our benevolent government wouldn’t have to spend any money, because the value of labor for the homeless would allow them to have dignity that our class steals and robs them of, regardless of the government alms we throw them. Even the government money is not even our own money, but overwhelmingly also yet more of other peoples money that was stolen and defrauded through debt, taxes, and money printing.

We are all no different than Escobar that was relatively generous with his money to keep the vile enterprise going on the backs of people’s suffering.

Yes, I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about people who do not actually want to solve a problem, they just want to feel good about themselves.

[mr-ron]

This is a very nihilistic, hyper libertarian take on all of this.

This comes off as just a rant against the boogyman fed which prints money and creates inflation.

[ntonozzi]

The episode focuses on Utah’s housing first program, not California. They also bring up that it wasn’t a panacea and in practice it took more time than expected before the cost to the public went down.

[commandlinefan]

> overall the cost was less that not having some housing and services

This is always the justification for socialist-style programs. It makes for a great red herring, but it's always misleading. What it ignores (willfully or not) is that if you start to incentivize homelessness, you're going to suddenly find yourself with a lot more homeless than you used to have. Your studies assume a stable population of homeless, but, as we've seen with these programs, putting them in place just invites more homeless.

[jlawson]

Otherwise known as, "If you subsidize something you get more of it."

[supercheetah]

Can you cite any studies on that?

[makeitdouble]

I think you're arguing for a central government taking things in their hand and push a common social policy across all states.

"Government should do its job at the country level" shouldn't be some taboo or undefendable position.

[ericmcer]

I’m all for housing and support to help people get back on their feet. I just don’t understand why that housing has to be in SF/Oakland.

It is a crazy dense and expensive area. There are cities that would gladly take in low skill workers who are subsidized by the government. Do they offer them transfers and housing in other cities?

[toddmorey]

Thank you for these recommendations. Can’t wait to listen to both episodes.

[Zemtomo]

"homeless people need houses"

Vs.

Every one of us needs a roof over their heads.