The cost is for providing basic social services; one of them is shelter.
All you have to do is to get someone, who lives on the street, to agree to move to West Virginia. SMH
I think there is an interesting discussion of what is and is not owed to people, and where it is owed.
But my point is is there an obligation for society to not have to make people move if the economic conditions change and labor supply and demand curves move? What are the long term effects of these incentive structures?
Perhaps the answer is to just keep going more dense, if one’s position is that within a country, anyone is allowed to live anywhere, either via their own means or government assistance. But I do not see that being politically popular with many, and I can envision a few feasibility concerns with that approach.
Another option is that the location where you get a social safety net is not guaranteed, and so desirable land is distributed according to one’s wealth (which I know is highly dependent on one’s ancestry).
Homeless people move to places with mild winters, because they don't see housing as an attainable goal. Maybe they'd move somewhere with free housing -- or maybe they'd assume that any such program wouldn't survive an election cycle, so would rather stay put than get their hopes up.
Sometimes returning people to their support networks in other states can be a solution, but “banishing” doesn’t sound legal or ethical.
If they were not helped, were they any worse off? That question wasn't answered.
Again, shelter is only one social service. The $60K covers all the other ones too. Could that be done more cheaply elsewhere? I wonder - cities have an economy of scale. They also have more opportunity for people to move out of homelessness, into jobs, apartments, etc.
> The city has six so-called “safe sleeping villages,” where homeless people sleep in tents and also receive three meals a day, around-the-clock security, bathrooms and showers. The city created these sites during the pandemic to quickly get people off crowded sidewalks and into a place where they can socially distance and access basic services.
> The department is now asking the city for $15 million in the upcoming fiscal year for a similar number of tents, which amounts to about $57,000 per tent per year.