[HN Gopher] Housing First [pdf]
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Housing First [pdf]
Author : idworks1
Score : 35 points
Date : 2021-09-03 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hcd.ca.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hcd.ca.gov)
| djrogers wrote:
| Ok, it's been 5 years. At this point the state _should_ be able
| to point to quantitative and qualitative improvements in the
| homeless population. Can they? If so, where are those studies?
| seibelj wrote:
| What if you offer a homeless person free housing and they
| decline? If there is housing available but they still choose to
| camp on the sidewalk, should the police then move them away?
| frankbreetz wrote:
| I would expect this would be a small number of people and
| therefore be a non issue.
| mindcandy wrote:
| You would be mistaken. I'm no expert. But, I've been in SF
| long enough to talk to many homeless people there and read a
| bit on the subject.
|
| Paranoia, drug dependence, coping self-delusion, self-
| destructive pride and sometimes genuine personal need cause a
| huge number of homeless people to outright refuse housing
| when offered.
| zardo wrote:
| Depending on the housing situation being offered.
| abeyer wrote:
| This article had some stats of recent outcomes from offering
| shelter (and towards the better end of what's available) to
| displaced encampments: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
| news/homeless/57-people...
|
| Far from the worst uptake and outcomes, but also far from
| great.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| FWIW, while buying them food I've met a few homeless people in
| Seattle.
|
| What I learned from those conversations was that while "enough
| beds" exist and are provided, not enough of them are in "sober
| shelters" and it's apparently very very hard to get into sober
| shelters.
|
| Right now we talk about it all as "all housing is the same". We
| probably need more housing for the homeless that exist for the
| ones who want/can't help but to use, the ones who are validated
| as sober but also the ones who want to be sober but aren't
| verified as sober yet. I'm sure all of these exist, but we
| definitely need to be a better job tracking those buckets
| differently, allocating resources better, and talking about
| them as separate things.
| abeyer wrote:
| You also pretty commonly hear the opposite, too, though --
| that there are too many sobriety/no on premise consumption
| rules that people are unwilling or unable to comply with so
| won't even consider shelters assuming that to be the case.
|
| I think you're right that tracking those better and better
| communication of what's available are both needed.
| outside1234 wrote:
| In my opinion, perhaps not popular, they should be
| institutionalized. This is not sane behavior.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| Having worked with the homeless, declining free housing may
| be the _most_ sane thing to do depending on the offer.
|
| An example from the past year in the bay area: A woman was
| offered a free room in a house with other homeless people.
| The doors did not have locks, and a someone who had raped her
| was living there. Some of the beds had bedbugs.
|
| I know this sounds over the top but there's basically no
| oversight for a lot of these programs. Many are run by people
| just looking to get homeless people out of the way. A
| _shocking_ number of free housing offerings are worse than a
| good camping setup.
| babyshake wrote:
| Don't want to get into an argument, but it may be worth some
| caution to consider it insane to just want to exist in the
| world as most other animals do. The film Leave No Trace and
| to some extent Nomadland touch on this concept pretty well.
| abeyer wrote:
| > just want to exist in the world as most other animals do
|
| Any wild animal causing the same level of danger,
| disruption, and nuisance in cities would promptly be
| hunted/poisoned/trapped. Not sure that's a great direction.
| idworks1 wrote:
| If they decline, you can't force them. The goal is not to
| reduce the metric to 0 homeless on the streets. The whole
| attempt is to help people who are homeless get back on their
| feet. When you have food, a place to stay, and support then you
| can start thinking about improving your situation.
|
| There will be a number that will reject any help. But the
| overwhelming majority will want to improve their lives and
| programs like this will give them an opportunity.
| majormajor wrote:
| That's not the goal according to whom?
|
| I think there's multiple sides of the argument that getting
| everyone off the streets _is_ the goal:
|
| From one angle, if someone's in such a bad state that they
| refuse shelter, is it really better from a "help them get
| back on their feet" to leave them there?
|
| From another angle, we treat very few other civic obligations
| as "optional." If you don't want to pay sales tax, you still
| have to, for instance.
| zndr wrote:
| Often, it's not the simple. Some times it takes months of
| trust building. Sometimes the person is part of a
| community, a community they may have been part of for
| months or years. Yes their life isn't easy, but putting
| them in housing might remove them from that support
| network. Often times people are terrified to move away from
| the only group of people they've known.
|
| this is deeply on display in the "According to Need"
| podcast series released by 99% invisible recently.
| https://99percentinvisible.org/need/
|
| Ideally everyone would see the benefits and realize this is
| better, but these people have a lifetime of other issues
| and being houseless is only part of it.
| majormajor wrote:
| Certainly I think the first priority of any homelessness
| agenda should be to _keep people from falling into it_
| and _treat existing issues before they ruin someone 's
| life_ and sidestep many of those problems in the first
| place.
|
| But I am deeply skeptical of arguments that, having gone
| that far down an unsuccessful path, you now should gain
| extra rights and freedoms that override the wishes of the
| rest of the people in the city you're in. Though I could
| see this be on a scale - for instance, I think Seattle
| owes less to people who move to Seattle without housing
| than they do to people who had housing in Seattle who got
| priced out.
| coryrc wrote:
| SCOTUS interpreted[0] the right of free movement to make
| "owes less to people who move to Seattle without housing"
| illegal.
|
| We can't fix chronic homelessness because the remedies
| are either illegal at a federal level (privileging
| locals, asylums) or against the sensibilities of voters
| in the regions where it is concentrated (prosecuting
| illegal drug use).
|
| [0] I can't remember the ruling now, was a city in the NE
| IIRC
| mchusma wrote:
| Agree with all you are saying. The thing that baffles me
| is how the homeless can just take over a public space and
| it's just supposed to be, ok?
|
| It's like some strange eminent domain situation. Seems
| obvious that I should not be able to just claim a public
| space for myself.
|
| It also seems obvious to me that people don't have some
| kind of right to live wherever they want (like the heart
| of Brentwood in LA has been transformed from a beautiful
| fun place to a sad wasteland).
|
| My solution to homelessness is basically reducing housing
| costs by dropping minimum parking requirements, height
| restrictions, min sizes units, etc.
|
| And mental health treatments.
|
| I'm generally su
| m0llusk wrote:
| This frames the issues in terms of rights and freedoms.
| Left alone the homeless tend to cause property damage,
| commit small crimes, and generate calls to emergency
| services because of their behavior. On average these
| emergency responses alone cost around $100k/year. Given
| that money matters it can make sense to give out some
| free benefits in order to reduce other negative impacts.
| This frames the situation in terms of costs and benefits
| for different alternatives.
| kaspern wrote:
| FWIW, legally you _can_ force them off the streets if you
| offer them housing:
|
| https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/our-
| programs/advocac...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan_v._Carey
|
| This is a legal judgement, not a moral one
| omegaworks wrote:
| No, police involvement and sweeps don't help.
|
| What helps is continued outreach and trust-building. Homeless
| people can experience traumatic conditions in shelters that can
| cause them to avoid social programs.
| natalyarostova wrote:
| Yeah. The safety and peace of the tenderloin is an attractive
| alternative.
| omegaworks wrote:
| You can thank the Sacklers and the judges that dispossessed
| them of all blame for the addictions they've peddled before
| you come for my people. You can thank the NIMBYs for
| refusing to build housing in their neighborhoods forcing
| people to concentrate here.
|
| Fuck your negative peace.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >"Tenant screening and selection practices promote accepting
| applicants regardless of their sobriety or use of substances,
| completion of treatment, or participation in services"
|
| This is such an important piece of a complex puzzle. It easy to
| see from the outside that substance abuse is self-destructive
| behavior. The problem is that these abusers, consciously or not,
| feel that the substance is the only thing that helps them and
| keeps them from totally losing their shit. The authoritarian
| approach of "quit abusing substances or no housing for you" has
| failed spectacularly.
|
| Getting these people on the path of recovery requires the lower
| tiers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (like safety, food, shelter,
| etc...) to be securely in place first.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and:
|
| Emphatically agree with you.
|
| Substance abuse contributes to homelessness AND homelessness
| contributes to substance abuse. It's a downward spiral.
|
| (When living rough, a lot of people turn to self medication.
| Someone already suffering (eg chronic pain) loses access to
| proper meds will then use whatever's available. Etc.)
|
| Expecting people to be clean and sober before getting housing
| is imposing inappropriate morals and standards onto an already
| terrible situation.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| 2017?
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20171219035611/https://www.hcd.c...
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(page generated 2021-09-03 23:03 UTC)