Re:Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless
by btilly on Thursday September 13, 2018 @03:00PM
(#17981372)
This is selection bias of two kinds.
First, you are going to a known location which increases the concentration of one type of homeless person in space.
Second, you are looking at a particular point in time, which will increase your odds of seeing chronic homeless people versus people who have had a brush with homelessness.
Mental illness and drug addiction are absolutely a big part of the chronic homeless problem. Either as a cause (schizophrenic people are more likely to wind up homeless) or as a negative feedback loop (extended extreme stress can made addictive escapes more tempting, and can cause a psychotic break).
However drug use and mental illness are not the main things determining whether temporary homelessness becomes chronic homelessness. And programs that attempt to solve that should look very different than ones which try to help the chronic homeless.
First, you are going to a known location which increases the concentration of one type of homeless person in space.
Second, you are looking at a particular point in time, which will increase your odds of seeing chronic homeless people versus people who have had a brush with homelessness.
Mental illness and drug addiction are absolutely a big part of the chronic homeless problem. Either as a cause (schizophrenic people are more likely to wind up homeless) or as a negative feedback loop (extended extreme stress can made addictive escapes more tempting, and can cause a psychotic break).
However drug use and mental illness are not the main things determining whether temporary homelessness becomes chronic homelessness. And programs that attempt to solve that should look very different than ones which try to help the chronic homeless.