How America moves homeless people around the country

Re:How America moves homeless people around the country by no_moms_no_hugs on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @11:43AM (#38099814)

If this was true, you would expect to see high rates of homelessness correlate with high rates of drug and alcohol use, no? It seems like in the US, states with high rates of overdose deaths [0] don't seem to have correspondingly high rates of homelessness [1], but do have much cheaper housing [2]. It's obviously a contributor, but I really don't think it's a silver bullet - you could 'solve' drug addiction today and you'd still have a homelessness crisis.

Obviously both are problems - but I think there are many people who would remain housed in spite of their addictions if housing was, on the whole, much cheaper.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mor...

[1] https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-have-the-highest-...

[2] https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/median-home-price/#medi...

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Re:How America moves homeless people around the country by culopatin on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @12:29PM (#38100680)

Isn’t it possible that if you’re ODing in the middle of a city someone will notice you, vs you ODing in your trailer all alone?

How do you expect addicts and mentally ill people that can’t hold a job to hold housing? How do you reinsert them into the society?

I think it would be easier to create incentives for people to find work, support and housing in cheaper areas so they can get on their feet. It’s unrealistic in todays reality to expect new affordable housing in the most expensive cities in the country.

I also want to live cheap in SF or manhattan, unfortunately it’s not possible. So if I want that, I have to go to a Kansas, central Florida, etc. what is lacking in those places is accessibility, support and how to get there.

If that’s expected of me as a rational solution, should also be an option for a homeless person. What I cannot expect of a homeless person is for them to make it there and find something to do, secure a house, etc.

How much housing would you have to build in NYC, SF, Oakland, Seattle, Portland, Boston for it to be affordable? Doesn’t make sense to expect “housing” to pop up at levels that bring rent down from 4k to welfare levels in todays reality. We can talk about utopia all you want, but it’s not happening.

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Re:How America moves homeless people around the country by nightski on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @11:46AM (#38099872)

I suspect some confounding variables there. States with high homeless and drug use are more likely to have better ability to respond to a crisis like overdose no? It's likely that states with cheaper housing, such as the state I live in, have less options for drug addiction treatment and overdose response.

I don't know, I am just a skeptical person when it comes to making decisive causal inference from statistical data. That is very difficult.

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