My take on it (after living in SF for many years):
1. Many homeless people do have mental illnesses and/or drug addiction problems (for some, this is the result of their homelessness, for others it's in part the cause). California is very much against involuntarily putting people in psychiatric hospitals or drug treatment programs. This largely due to backlash over abuses from decades ago, where people were put into horrible conditions in mental institutions.
2. I think a housing-first program would absolutely work, but it's politically infeasible. Most people would seemingly prefer to have homeless people all over the streets and sidewalks when the alternative is to give them free housing, because it's "not fair" to the people who've worked to pay for their own housing.
3. The option of busing/flying homeless people out of a high-cost city like SF and into a lower-cost region where their needs can be met is also politically fraught. There are (voluntary) programs that help homeless people travel to a place where they have family who can help them, though I don't think it's used as a solution as often as it could be. But the idea of forcibly moving homeless people to a random place or places where they have no connection or support network is considered inhumane and a violation of rights.
I think #2 would be more acceptable to people if #3 could be used more, since presumably people could be housed in a location where housing is much cheaper. As much as I'm not super comfortable with the idea of just forcibly moving people to a different location, I think it overall can be better for the people involved, if it's done well. But that's the trick: can we actually ensure that the people relocated elsewhere will have their needs met, and will end up in clean, well-maintained housing?
Beyond that, I think we need to get over our aversion toward requiring people to go into (and stay in) psychiatric care or drug rehab. This shouldn't be a requirement for receiving housing; it should happen concurrently with being housed, though a live-in rehab program is probably appropriate for many people, at least to start. But I think refusing treatment should just not be an option.
And as a public health issue, and just an issue of keeping our spaces a nice, clean, safe place for everyone to live, ultimately I think we should make homelessness illegal, as long as we can provide a good alternative for every single person in that situation.
This. I am old enough to remember those bad old days. We have simply replaced one form of inhumanity with another. There are people who need our compassion and help. We should give it to them. We also need to protect against abuse of and/or by the system. Why is this so hard to accomplish?
No need to deal with the high housing prices of the bay area, and you're ensuring the person has a place to live when they get to where they're going. Definitely don't do this involuntarily, but I imagine many people (once such a program proves itself) would voluntarily sign up.
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Random miscellaneous comment- I found it really challenging to get a part time job around where I lived without a car. One of the interview questions was typically "how will you get to work" and I could see a change in the interviewer's demeanor when I responded that I would walk or have someone drive me. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to get a job without a permanent address on top of that.
Maybe you could revitalize and absolutely dying city somewhere by hiring everyone who lives there to support the incoming population.
Finland had a massive homelessness problem after WW2. Many homes were destroyed in the war, and many people from lost territories had to be resettled. Most working age men were veterans, and mental issues were common.
The problem persisted even after the "deserving" homeless had been housed due to popular attitudes. Vagrancy laws were still in force, making homelessness effectively a crime if you didn't behave. It wasn't until the 80s that the society started seeing homelessness as a problem that should be solved.
If you don’t fix any of the other issues then you just end up throwing money in a bottomless pit on housing
After all the entire country of Finland has fewer people than the SF metro area (5m vs 7m).
Having experienced drug addiction, even with a strong support system of relatives and friends rallying around you with love but also holding you accountable for your recovery and dragging your arse to therapy three times a week, making sure you stick to the program and take your medications, with all that it is still very hard to get out, particularly if you are on stuff like heroin and meth.
I just don't see how the homelessness problem in the US will ever be solved just by wishful thinking that by giving people a home, meals, clothes and clean needles they will by themselves get well and leave the streets.
It will never happen that way, and the right solution, which is forced rehab and medications, is ironically seen as inhumane.
What are those incentives? Asking as someone who never felt any desire to use. (Also never been to SF or US for that matter.)
> almost no incentives not to
Isn’t money a pretty big incentive?
You would be surprised what sort of drugs these people are using. They aren't paying for cocaine. They spend all day begging for pocket change to scrounge up $10 for some crap meth-like drugs who's sole purpose it to make you not feel anything. For the 4-8 hours after they take the drugs, they can forget everything they hate about their life and maybe fall asleep.
Realistically, strangers are quite happy to buy food for homeless people if they ask. So then the incentive is to get money to for "entertainment" and relaxation in form of drug use.
My understanding of how it worked was that if you were functional enough and willing, you could walk into a certain building and they'd get you an apartment very quickly, although not sure if on the spot (I didn't work that part, just repairs part). I sometimes moved big bundles of keys for newly vacated or repaired apartments from the real estate building to the social workers in the homeless building they can then give out to new tenants.
I've now lived San Francisco for 5+ years and Helsinki basically does not have homeless people compared to what I've seen here.
I wondered a lot why California seems to be failing at the homeless problem. I see at least one comment here in threads that is saying that homeless are drug addicts and should be forced to go into rehab as a condition to give a home. While I was working for Helsinki I rarely heard anyone suggest the people being given homes needed to pay that back somehow, it was seen as obvious that the main problem is not having a home and the other problems can be dealt with later, and it's inhumane to make demands.
I don't know if "housing first" would actually work in California. Housing is super expensive, and I think California also has a lot more homeless than Finland ever did.
The ex-homeless tenants tended to need more repairs and care. I remember some funny/weird stories like we had a woman who could not use the toilet in her apartment because it was bright green and that caused her panic attacks. And some other tenant who painted literally everything (ceilings, windows, cabinets, furnite, floors, etc.) black.