[HN Gopher] <1% of homeless Portlanders found permanent housing ...
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<1% of homeless Portlanders found permanent housing in 10 months of
city sweeps
Author : trynewideas
Score : 17 points
Date : 2023-02-18 19:55 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.oregonlive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.oregonlive.com)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Homelessness is a symptom. The actual diseases underlying it at
| mental illness and addiction (and under them are deep social
| disfunction). Sadly none of those core issues are really
| treatable.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Lee Kuan Yew found a way to get rid of addiction back in the
| 60s/70s...
|
| You can look at the epidemiology of what's happening there and
| it's actually amazing. Thousands of lives saved every year just
| from overdoses, let alone the social damage caused by drugs.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| This is because Portland's homeless (like SF and Seattle), are
| not like Houston or NYCs homeless. They are much happier being
| homeless than housed, on meth instead of opiates (like the rest
| of the US), and generally reject the system and have no interest
| in being a part of it.
|
| Baltimore was just able to significantly reduce their homeless
| population by giving them housing. Portland needs the Portuguese
| "rehab or jail" mentality. What they're doing now is NOT working.
| silverwasthere wrote:
| Rehab and jail won't teach them to pay bills and prepare
| dinner, will it? There's a basic nurturing element missing in
| all this.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Most rehab places hire people who have gone through the
| experience and been homeless to teach and support just these
| sorts of things. Many places make people take turns
| cooking/serving/cleaning so they learn those skills. I feel
| like you are discrediting some amazing people who are barely
| out of homelessness themselves, who make minimum income, and
| are already treated very poorly by the clients they try so
| hard to help. There are some amazing people that truly do
| care. It's not all soulless. And this is from someone who
| forcibly went through and hates most of the system.
| simfree wrote:
| Rehab is nurturimg, moving those afflicted with substance use
| disorder into inpatient treatment for a month or two, then
| onto a sober house (with government subsidy for 3 to 5
| months) with outpatient treatment during that time.
|
| Everett, WA has good inpatient treatment services like what I
| describe available to everyone. King County (containing
| Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, etc) & Pierce County (Tacoma,
| etc) have no equivalent, just terrible programs like
| Seadrunnar.
| silverwasthere wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > They are much happier being homeless than housed
|
| Having been chronically homeless and still having strong ties
| to the community in my area, big fucking citation needed boss.
|
| People don't generally like to be homeless or want to be. If
| they're choosing it over the options you're offering them,
| that's a good opportunity for some serious introspection about
| _what_ exactly you 're offering, and on what terms.
| simfree wrote:
| Unstable shelter based housing can be godawful. People need
| housing that lets them work (even if they are evening or
| night shift), store their possessions safely, have privacy,
| dignity and separation to prevent the spread of colds and
| such.
|
| Seattle and Portland don't offer much shelter like this, the
| Union Gospel Mission is a hot mess and so are many of the
| other shelters.
| trynewideas wrote:
| The capacity in Portland isn't there regardless of quality:
| 615 shelter units available for adults at 98.7% daily
| utilization, up from 84.8% in August and 90.1% in
| October.[1]
|
| 1: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/johs/viz/ShelterU
| tili...
| trynewideas wrote:
| One-third of those swept accepted offers of shelter. Half of
| those couldn't find a path to even temporary housing.
|
| Without even considering the point of jailing or rehabbing
| 1,100 homeless people in a city that has neither the jail nor
| rehab capacity for its _housed_ population,[1] the city is
| failing to help even the half of the fraction of homeless
| people who _want and accept_ help.
|
| 1: https://www.mailtribune.com/top-stories/2022/01/29/oregon-
| is...
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(page generated 2023-02-18 23:02 UTC)