>I'm not sure what would solve things for Andre now, but what would have helped him in childhood was having a home and not being driven to sell stolen property to make ends meet. Some of the deepest solutions to societal problems take a long time to really see the results of.

This is one of the most difficult things to get across with solutions like this. The GP is a prime example of this kind of thinking; it's a refusal to look at systemic problems and apply systemic solutions and only focusing on the individual. The implication that if you gave someone a house they would turn around and stop stealing the next day is mindboggling for everyone. No one (should) advocate for housing as a magic wand to undo 20 years of rot.

Andre's "problem" isn't going to be fixed by anything other than likely expensive therapy and/or apprenticeships. The system has already failed him and it will be very expensive to fix. A cheaper solution is to not create "Andre" in the first place - a homeless 14 year old cannot possibly be expected to get an education or even begin integrating into society.

When Andre is caught stealing, put him on house arrest in his apartment, allow him work release with training and education for an appropriate job, when he violates the conditions of his gentler conditions, send him to jail for a while.

Remove people from society who steal instead of contribute, give them the opportunity and tools to rejoin productively repeatedly until they can.

But a lot of people do advocate for exactly that. They say that to solve homelessness we should just give people a place to live and that it's ultimately cheaper than any other solution (implying that all their other problems, such as addiction and criminal habits will just go away if they have a place to live.

Again, you are missing the point, or the people who are advocating that are misleading you. I do believe if you give people a place to live it is cheaper than any other solution. On 20 year time frames.

The homeless people who cause problems are now are, for a lack of a better word, fucked. It would cost tons of money to get these people the rehab, therapy, and education they need to reintegrate into society. It would be politically impossible (and probably financially unfeasible) to implement these changes. A better solution is just not creating these people in the first place. That is what housing first policy tries to achieve.

The vast majority of these people stories are the same - due to systemic poverty issues they weren't able to have stable housing and could not go to school or land a stable job. It was then they started petty crimes like doing drugs/stealing, and once they had a dependency on that lifestyle, they became a regular criminal over 10-15 years. Anyone who tells you they are going to undo 15 years of trauma within the next 3 years is selling you a lie.

I agree. These people are going to give birth to kids. How do you ensure these kids are not going down the same path?

Who out there advocates for "give them a house and them stop, that's it, nothing else" ? I've never seen that, ever.

EDIT: Never mind I misread someone's comment and it is too late to delete since I got a response.

I don't read it that way at all. They're very clearly criticizing the idea that it would.

Oops, you are right. I read that again and I misread it the first time.

There is a lot of evidence that it's very effective and cost-efficient just in practical terms, but that is not why I support those policies. I support them because everyone deserves a home. Choosing not to provide one to someone who needs it when we have the ability is vicious and immoral.

What they do after that isn't really relevant to be honest. I'm not trying to polish people into perfect rule following members of society and anyway homeowners get addictions and commit crimes all the time as it is. We don't generally leap to questioning their right to have a place to live though.

If giving homeless people houses solved no other problems it would still be correct and morally necessary.

people like Andre have more kids, creating new Andre's. you need to help people like Andre to prevent it from continuing. Also "too expensive" is a pretty poor reason not to help. regardless whatever is being done is not working, its time to try new things (and imho that is UBI so people like andre have enough to have shelter and food if they so desire, or whatever they need)

Children are significantly influenced by their parents, but not 100%. How many children of religious conservative parents become liberal atheists? A lot, because of their environment, and that's despite the parents deliberately trying to prevent it. I doubt that thieving parents would deliberately try to prevent their children growing up into good productive jobs.

Having housing (whether prison or an apartment) is a prerequisite to get Andre to stop stealing, but it's not sufficient alone. If our prison system was rehabilitative in the slightest, it would be a good place to keep Andre from harming society. Instead, it's a highly expensive way of temporarily keeping him from harming society until he gets out, and returns to stealing.

The left doesn't seem to have any well formed ideas on actually replacing/reforming the current prison system with something that doesn't have horrible recidivism rates. Obviously there are alternatives but they don't seem politically viable in America. Instead, cities have focused on prosecuting less, which avoids inflicting more cruelty but allows other injustice to persist. At least in the short term, ignoring the problem uses a lot fewer tax dollars than actually implementing solutions.

Or have a minimum basic income. + free addiction services/drugs. Probably too far for almost everyone but I think it'd solve a lot of problems and be cheaper in the end.

Maybe not UBI but anti-prohibition for sure would be cheaper

I didn't say that. I said he was "driven to sell stolen property to make ends meet". Your disingenuous argument is insulting at best. Take your inflammatory rhetoric elsewhere.

You wrote "You do what you need to do to survive". That seems to imply he needed or needs to steal to survive.

I wrote that in reference to "if I [grew up] homeless and poor". You're making a straw-man argument against two unrelated statements I wrote about different things.

"I grew up pretty privileged and never felt the need to steal things and steal them. However, I can easily determine that if I was homeless and poor I absolutely would have. There's no question. You do what you need to do to survive." I wasn't talking about Andre.

Oh, I see. You were just making a completely unrelated comment about what you personally would do if you were in Andre's situation. You never meant that to be read as a justification for Andre's actions - of course.

If you didn't mean to defend or justify Andre's behavior, or minimize his guilt and responsibility for his crimes, then you and I are on the same page. He is a criminal who should be held responsible for his crimes. If you disagree with that then I suggest that's a more meaningful disagreement between us than whether or not you meant to say that Andre had to steal to survive.

A 14 year old is a child. Children are not known for coming up with well thought out long term plans, especially in trying circumstances.

Is food the only thing you need to survive?

I suppose you also need water, shelter, healthcare, and clothes - but these things are all provided free to people who can't afford them.

I think people who blame "the system" are basically ignorant and harmful. They are ignorant because they ignore all the services, benefits, and charities that currently exist and remove the "I had to steal to survive" defense. They are harmful because they distract well intentioned people who believe their nonsense into not solving the problem and they leave the drug addicted and mentally ill to decay in the streets causing problems for the rest of us.

You need status. A place in a criminal hierarchy gives that.

If you get status from being a drug addicted vagrant reselling stolen merchandise and living off of charity then I suspect you could get "status" from a wide variety of things - many of which are legal and preferable.

I don't believe there is a "criminal hierarchy" here. It's not like this guy is a level 2 fence working a theft team. I assume it's a loose association of drug addicts, drug dealers, petty thieves, dumpster divers, and resellers with lots of overlap on every category.

He may want status, but nobody is entitled to it. Some people are born into circumstances that gives them undeserved status, which is unfortunate. But for those born without status, earn it if you want it. You aren't owed status by society.

> To shift it the other way, I grew up pretty privileged and never felt the need to steal things and steal them. However, I can easily determine that if I was homeless and poor I absolutely would have. There's no question.

OK, and I grew up the complete opposite and neither did I.

Do you actually believe that the under”privileged” simply can’t help stealing? That the poor are innately thieves? I find this astounding.

The problem is parenting and lack of family values, plain and simple.

No, I don't believe that at all. Your straw-man argument is disrespectful and not a productive addition to the conversation. You've fabricated a narrative I didn't communicate nor suggest.

Would you mind, then, further explaining what you meant when you said there was “no question” you’d resort to stealing if you were poor, and how you can “easily determine” this? To me that implies one of two things: either you believe the only thing stopping you from stealing is not being poor - or you believe the same, but for everyone else who is poor as you observe them from afar in your state of comfortable privilege, to use your own term. (It also strangely implies that stealing is the only option for the poor in this country.)

Either way your statement as it stands is highly disrespectful of the millions who are fully capable of being dirt poor without resorting to theft and other crimes.

> The problem is parenting and lack of family values, plain and simple.

So we agree that Andre is blameless and should be given assistance, not punishment. Or is your position more like "obviously this guy's parents didn't love him, why should I?"

Perhaps I missed something in the article, but I believe Andre is already being assisted, which is simply resulting in his criminal behavior being subsidized by you and I. (Because we didn’t give him a basketball court too or something.)

The justice system simply needs to play the role his parents never did, disciplining him for his actions and then assisting him in making the right choices when his sentence is complete.

But blameless, no, he is not a child, much as you might like the system to treat him as one.

Do you mean real "family values" or is that the code-word version?