> What kind of society is this?

In a society with some measure of respect for individual choices (freedom) we have apparently decided that we cannot physically force homeless people (a very large portion are heavily addicted to drugs and/or have massive mental health issues) to seek help.

As things stand, either we have to violate the homeless peoples' rights to free choices, or cities must accept having a plethora of mentally ill people around their families.

This creates a situation where neither outcome is socially acceptable and is what inspires attempted solutions like building voluntary housing for the homeless on an island. I actually have to admire the ingenuity of the proposed solution, allowing homeless people to VOLUNTARILY (that's key) go on an island with no assistance is obviously a recipe for disaster for them, but in and of itself is a solution that actually cuts through this particular impossible conundrum.

PS: I'm not necessarily advocating for one kind of society or another in this post, merely giving my attempt at explaining what inspires these kinds of solutions.

You (Americans) have decided that you don't want to give homeless people help. If the availability of actual no-strings-attached help in the US was more than a footnote, homeless people would come flocking to get it.

While there certainly are individuals whom it is very hard to help, that is the minority.

We give them plenty of help. What we don’t do is force them into shelters or mental hospitals, so many voluntarily choose to the live on the street. I remember one particularly cold Chicago winter where I made a couple dozen sandwiches to give to the homeless. I drove up to one of the large encampments under a bridge in my neighborhood where a guy was begging for money from cars passing by. I pulled up and offered him the sandwiches, and the guy smiled and said “no thanks, we just ordered a pizza!”. Mind you, these people were living in tents in the dead of winter!

I remember another time when I bought a few different food items from a convenience store and offered them to a couple homeless guys sleeping in the sidewalk in the middle of downtown. They picked through the five or six items and each grabbed one thing. Nothing wrong with having preferences, but it astonished me that they didn’t want all of it.

These people are not being deprived of their basic needs. They just don’t want to live in shelters.

How comes that in the US people "voluntarily choose to the live on the street" when in most other countries people are happy to move into temporary houses when provided?

> These people are not being deprived of their basic needs. They just don’t want to live in shelters.

Or maybe shelters are very dangerous or too noisy to sleep or too difficult to access without enqueuing for hours every day or too far from places where people can earn some money with odd jobs or begging.

It is not like you have enough shelters and/or mental hospitals for all those people anyway, and you certainly don't have anyone paying for admitting homeless people to a hospital.

I think what your experience shows is that food is not that hard to come by in the US, the local shelter or soup kitchen may have sandwiches that are superior to yours. Pizza once in a while is way cheaper than a home, not to mention access to medical care, so they get the luxury they can afford.

First, saying "you Americans" is fairly pointless (and inflammatory) given the autonomy and policy differences between states.

Second, difficult to help individuals being in the minority will require a very good citation. The difficult to help ones are likely causing the biggest issues - shooting up on street corners and deficating in public.

You Americans, as opposed to blaming logicalmonster for all the misery. And while there are differences between states, none of them have anything close to western European countries.

As for homeless people, you can't tell that someone is homeless just by looking at them. Your personal statistic include only those very visible people who in addition to being homeless have tattered clothes and are incapable of personal hygiene. The majority look like ordinary people.

This sounds like pointless nationistic chest beating as Im certain you are not familiar with programs across the entirety of the USA.

What a ridiculous argument tactic (“since you can’t reckon with the totality of a system according to my arbitrary standard you can’t critique it”).

Furthermore, complaining about the use of “you Americans” is childish tone policing and something one does when they are unable to address the merits of an argument. Maybe if you had an actual argument you could think up something else to share, rather than attempts to stymie discussion because it appears to make you uncomfortable.

Lastly, you brought up nationalism. From my vantage point (as another American) it looks like you’re just trying to shut down debate instead of face the reality of the outcomes we Americans have engineered for our most vulnerable populations.

I'd like to understand your perspective better. Can you give some examples of the strings attached to the help that are a problem? For instance, homeless shelters might have rules like "don't get drunk or high in the shelter". Is that what you're referring to?

Those are strings, yes. And while it is perfectly understandable that shelters may need such rules, they do ultimately cut some people off from help.

Other typical strings include strict bedtimes, including getting awoken early and told to leave. Mandatory religious activities. And a lot of homeless people will report being talked down to at shelters, and generally not being treated well.

The good shelters are always filled, if it is cold enough, the bad ones are as well.

Homelessness is mainly a result of poverty, if you want fewer homeless people you should do something for the poor people, so that they may stay or return to being homed. What government programs exist for this purpose are generally woefully inadequate.

Another example of strings attached is SNAP/food stamps. You set up a bureaucratic system in order to give money to poor people that can only be used for food. Those poor people then wonder how they are going to pay rent.

Houston, TX is a great example of this. First, they give shelter without condition, then they have counselors to help.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-...

So yes - literally "no strings attached". They go around to homeless people and say "would you like a place to live?" and provide it. There's no requirements for sobriety, faith, counseling, etc.

Are they allowed to cook meth in the place they are given? What about renting it out so they can get some money to buy drugs? Do they have to ever clean it to avoid bug and rat infestations? What happens when their dealer comes to collect? And will neighbors tolerate a dramatic uptick in porch piracy and prowling needed to get money to buy those drugs?

There are just so many ways no strings attached housing can and does go wrong when substance abuse is ignored. Around here, they sure to couple it with at least an equal amount of social services since many of these people can’t live on their own. Costs are around $10k/month.

The nice thing about no drug shelters is that it really works for those that aren’t on drugs anyways. We can’t just assume all homeless are on drugs and can stand being in permissive shelter/housing environments (which can be quite dangerous for the above reasons and more).

>Are they allowed to cook meth in the place they are given? What about renting it out so they can get some money to buy drugs? Do they have to ever clean it to avoid bug and rat infestations? What happens when their dealer comes to collect? And will neighbors tolerate a dramatic uptick in porch piracy and prowling needed to get money to buy those drugs?

Most of the comments here makes me incredibly upset and disgusted just by their nature of inhumane scape-goating and denigrating from a privileged position. But its not just that, I lost some hope that people here would be curious enough not to bring up these shitty panels. But these questions are especially wrong, not just by the attitude but also because it is totally irrelevant to homeless of Houston.

All these questions you ask apply to sheltered people with addiction, or sheltered people dealing to people with addiction, and mind you old people (elders, grandparents, who you might think much of and respect [rightly so!]) who can not take care of themselves anymore, as well.* Why would you need to differentiate let alone lump all of homeless people under the label of "addict." Some are addicts yes, however have you thought that this might be not the cause but the effect of their state? They are easy targets for blame, wouldn't you agree that it is intellectually quite an easy way out of interacting with part of our society? Why would you point fingers at those who lose for the whole slew of issues with how modern societies are priced and functioning? For me your comment comes off as an example of ignorant and narrow-minded attitude: assuming the worst and pointing out all the why-nots. I encourage you to study this issue and read upon it, just here for example on HN if you search for homelessness there is a nice study on how Finland provides for them. I hope you can develop some empathy towards these people who are behind the veneer of urban filth just the same as you or me or ancestors from 500 years ago.

Disclaimer: I have been homeless while sober and have been an addict while sheltered and working.

* As far as I know, the contract between old people and society is to move them to homes for the elderly. Which makes me think that while there is more love and money involved, the motives and solutions are the same to both problems

I’ve had neighbors with substance abuse problems and it was hell until my lease expired and I could get out. I’m glad you were functional when addicted or homeless, but that is the exception, not the rule.

I get it, I’m just another NIMBY becuase I’ve experienced someone trying to cook meth in their apartment next door, or a rat infestation overflowing from a hoarder. There are simply a lot of people out there who can’t live alone without lots of help. To think otherwise is insanity.

Houston’s approach is going to have blowback (I f it hasn’t already) if they are just throwing people in housing in the community. Again, housing first simply doesn’t work, you need to throw in a lot of additional social services if you don’t want the place to burn down. We also want to avoid slums where we just concentrate all the unhoused together, making the problem even more difficult.

I get the ideal that everyone deserves housing regardless of their lifestyle choices, implementation is much more complicated than that.

"In 2019, 20.4 million people aged 12 or older (or 7.4 percent of this population) had an SUD in the past year, including 14.5 million who had an alcohol use disorder and 8.3 million who had an illicit drug use disorder (Figure 46)."[1] How many cook meth do you think? Probably you had neighbors whose substance abuse problems didn't affect you.

Housing 1st doesn't mean no social services. Providing social services is easier when people have homes actually.

[1] https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/2019-nsduh-annual-nationa...

> I get it, I’m just another NIMBY

No need for strawmanning.

> There are simply a lot of people out there who can’t live alone without lots of help

You seem to keep labeling people as being intrinsically "homeless", "addicts", "unable to live alone".

This can happen to anybody, just like mental and physical illness can come without warning and without asking for permission.

"housing first" does not automatically imply "housing first and zero social services".

> There are simply a lot of people out there who can’t live alone without lots of help. To think otherwise is insanity.

> housing first simply doesn’t work, (...) implementation is much more complicated than that.

Thanks for sharing your experiences as well which helps understanding your position. However by your comment you seem to be arguing with yourself. I totally agree that they need support that's what I'm advocating for. You are the one in our discussion advocating against (or, at least, pointing out fairly hypothetical and broad-scoped reasons for possible failure) any advancement on giving that "lots of help" (eg. basic human decency). Surely you can't mean that leaving these poor people on the street, or moving them to an island for some zoning law schenanigans or just general sociopathic disregard (if they need it -- shouldn't they be consulted what is that they need?) looking through them or commenting here how giving them housing won't work, is a way towards giving them that?

Just for the fun of it you might try to imagine a situation where your home gets broken into you are robbed of your posessions, your sense of security but worse follows, a misinterpreted word on your interview with the kind insurance guy, or a mail never delivered makes them mark you suspicious and stall on paying you. You have no friends or ones you have are out of town, your parents can't pay for your accomodation, you spend a few nights at a hotel but then you might not have more cash, you are out of options and spend a few nights strolling or staring in a McDo, stressed out and tired. US has this stupid no-notice firing thing, so let's say after a week of no-show you get to charge your laptop to see you have been terminated. Now imagine how would you like others and the society to handle you and your situation. In one world you are now described as an addict, homeless person that might be unable to live alone on some webforums.

Thanks for the info. Worth looking into Houston's approach further.

One thing I'm concerned about with this Houston solution is sort of "The McNamara Fallacy". If you're just focusing on one variable "how many people don't have a home?" it's easy to get these numbers very low if you ignore all qualifications for homes and just give homes out as quickly as resources allow.

But a problem is that the statistic of low homelessness doesn't necessarily measure the overall quality of life for the general population. In fact, this solution (depending on how its implemented) might cause untold misery to normal communities who are now dealing with an influx of homeless.

You might go from a homeless person sleeping on a bench outside of an apartment complex (not a good situation), to them having a key to the door and being able to wander down the hall, in the laundry room, at the mailbox, etc. For average working people, this situation isn't necessarily progress even if the homeless statistics are officially better.

It’s an off shoot of police containment tactics. Generally, when homeless and vagrants congregate in specific neighborhoods, the cops round them up and move them to another neighborhood or part of town where they are essentially out of sight. This is urban studies 101, and The Wire’s ‘Hamsterdam’ is depiction of the tactic.

That’s roughly the plan here. Move them out of sight (site? No pun intended).

As for actually how to solve the mess? Eh, just tuck the dirty laundry under the bed. Clean room in seconds. The society needs a refactor in certain parts of the codebase, but few have the courage to take on a legacy codebase.

If anyone is interested in a historical example: https://web.archive.org/web/20220121014127/https://www.nytim...

I heard a podcast recently talking how the police do the same thing to the homeless population in LA, and they described it as "trying to clean your floor by sweeping the dust in a circle"

> It's quite obviously not beneficial to the homeless people to segregate them.

Lol what?

There’s a lot of different world views out there. The prominent world view throughout the world is that society forms to protect itself. Pretty basic reasoning: we band together to protect other people stealing our stuff.

Homeless are in effect stealing. They are living beneath the society often selling drugs, on drugs, committing crimes, leaving excrement on the street, screaming wildly, etc.

The homeless are not part of society and are not contributing members. They are living off the society and causing a net negative effect. You could potentially reverse that by getting people into shelters, etc. - how’s that working SF, LA, etc?

The common world view (in Asia, parts of Africa, parts of Europe, etc and historically everywhere) is to push the homesless out of the cities. It’s safer for the society and allows the society to be more prosperous.

Society can care about the homeless, empathy is good. But it’s empathetic to everyone to separate them from the society. People that can conduct themselves can join the society, otherwise your hurting everyone.

That said, the island:

> The program calls for the construction of 50 to 100 “tiny homes” on Virginia Key, an 863-acre barrier island.

Seems like a decent option. They get a home and have the option to rejoin society after they pull themselves together. Although, it’s a barrier island… and I can’t imagine that’ll end well.

Like many decisions in life, it may just depend on the spirit with which a plan is carried out. If it's intended to help the homeless, even a bad plan will likely do good. If it's only intended to get the dirty people out of my eyesight, then it will probably do harm. How do we know the spirit with which a state-level plan will be carried out? Not sure. The plan will not dictate how they would be treated on a personal level once on this fantasy isle.

My experience with the homeless has instilled that it can be very difficult to help them in a way that I would consider helping. I always accuse my wife of believing that each homeless person is just one protein bar away from becoming a contributing member of society. But if I convince you that many homeless people have a best case scenario of net negative to society, what do you propose then? Probably just help them as much as we can? I think there are probably best paths, but no total wins.

This is all based on my experience volunteering at homeless shelters (in SF) and trying to interact with the homeless near me (now in NC). 100% anecdotal. But now I'm just another member of society shrugging at the homeless. I suspect most of us here are. Lots of strong opinions, but not much action. I'm guilty of that too now.

"Homeless are in effect stealing. They are living beneath the society often selling drugs, on drugs, committing crimes, leaving excrement on the street, screaming wildly, etc."

That seems to describe Floridian frat boys...

Remove the excrement and you'll be describing billionaires and big landlords. But they are above and not below society.

This is a miserable and venal way of looking at society's most needy. The fact that their needs are visible to you does not eliminate their humanity or their presence in society; it makes it all the more pressing that we integrate them and address their needs rather than burying them.

If you really think this, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Homelessness is a problem caused by society, not really a problem to society, but homeless people are a GREAT scapegoat for asshole politicians and people like you are more than willing to jump on that bandwagon. Disgusting.

I don’t know all of the forces surrounding the causes of homelessness. I believe in a country as wealthy as the U.S. everyone deserves food, shelter, and medical care. I live in a city with a homeless problem and it is a problem. They are, by and large, a menace and living around them is unpleasant. Do you live near an encampment and have trash all over the place near your home?

the entirety of your post assumes that homelessness is a moral failing of individuals when the entirety of what we know about community development and psychology shows that that is not the case; you can believe in this plan, but you are supported by money and ego, not by actual fact friend

> Homeless are in effect stealing. They are living beneath the society often selling drugs, on drugs, committing crimes, leaving excrement on the street, screaming wildly, etc.

This has to be satire, right? Poe’s law. I can’t believe anyone would honestly hold this opinion, let alone be willing to voice it publicly.

Unfortunately, satire often pales in comparison to reality. People do hold these opinions. It's largely why progress in society is as slow as it is.

Please define progress. To what end are more "social" policies progressing?

By progress, I mean a higher percentage of the population having a higher quality of life.

Welcome to this user’s mind. You should read his blog diving into a pillow merchant’s totally legitimate election fraud investigations, his advocating that state legislatures should ignore state constitutions and overturn election results as they see fit, and his comments repeatedly calling abortions infanticide. Unwrap enough layers of libertarian technobabble and you’ll find that the most prominent hn users are just out-of-touch boomers who haven’t realized this community hasn’t had an innovative bone since before Airbnb was incorporated.

A society where politicians tout "empathy" and "kindness" only to score political points, but have no appetite to do the hard work of identifying how to pay for all the consequences of being "empathetic"?

In another news today from NYT: New York City is now straining under the load of illegal immigrants after the Texas governor simply took all the sanctuary cities by their word: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/20/nyregion/nyc-migrants-tex...

jacknews - I have no idea where you live but one day, busloads of migrants may end up in your city. Would love to see what you actually do at that time. Words of "kindness" are cheap.

Would you ask this if sick people are moved to a hospital where they can get care?

Homeless are moved to a place they can find shelter. It is the compassionate thing to do.

I don’t understand societies that support the rights of the homeless to live outdoors and take over the commons rendering it useless for its intended purpose.

Fascists think up this kind of plan; this kind of society is a fascist society

No people that done want shit all over their streets, constant breakins, assaults, junkies shooting up in their back yard think this up. You should Google San Fran homeless or Philadelphia Kensington Ave.

This is like putting a bandaid on skin cancer. What you're describing is a symptom of social inequality and a terrible attitude to public health, both physically and mentally. Hiding the symptoms doesn't solve the problem.

Then by all means, tell us the solution. Because progressive meccas like San Francisco and Seattle, despite spending more and more money on the homeless every single year, can’t seem to figure out what to do either.

Because progressivism has more than one axis. SF is full of rich NIMBYs that prevent dense housing from being built.

Some ""conservative"" cities are better because "pro-business" laws allowed more units to be built so less people fall into homelessness. There are still examples like Houston though which has always had homelessness problems in spite of trying to build as hard as possible. Obviously it's not a probably with a single answer as there are people that are homeless for different reasons.

So let me flip the script on you: What conservative states and cities have solved the problem then?

"Flip the script" seems like a fancy way for you to deflect from answering the question.

I can tell you locally we put people in jail when they defecate in the streets or shoot up in public. We also offer space at shelters for people that can follow basic rules - no drugs, no fighting, etc. In addition, our local food bank is fairly well stocked and funded, and several churches in the area have outreach programs. The end result is that I can walk downtown and never have to dodge human feces and rarely see a panhandler.

I can almost guarantee you that other people in or around your city will likely have the opposite opinion, especially if they live in an area of town that has homeless encampments. I've lived in Texas and that's been my general experience. Even deep blue Austin takes a more conservative approach to dealing with the homeless population and the end result is simply pushing their problem onto other people because said homeless population and their camps move further out of the city core.

The reality is that you see downtown being clean but don't see the other people you've pushed your problems onto. And that's a consistent trend of trying to solve the homeless issue in America through things like bussing initiatives, relocating homeless camps and so forth. No conservative or progressive city has solved this problem because it's a societal issue with the US in general.

Sounds like Bellevue WA. They don’t have much of a homeless problem because Seattle is right across the lake where the police aren’t as strict.

Texas is pretty successful with banning "urban camping" despite progressive cities like Austin objecting. It might not be the result you approve but I enjoy not having panhandlers and people drugged out of their mind wondering into the traffic on every intersection near a highway and being able to walk under an overpass without dodging piles of junk and aggressive crazies.

Florida. By shipping the homeless off to where they can’t escape and folks can’t see them.

The City of Miami and the area around it is a sea of blue in a swing state.

Buddy, I’ve got some bad news for you: if you want to move everyone you don’t like to an island so that you don’t have “shit all over your streets,” you are actually siding with fascism.

Fascism is marked by corporations and government joining forces.

I think this is just a police activity so far. No profit means no fascism.