Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

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The US copied that approach (it's used in several countries now) with immense success. [1] We call it the Housing First program. The concept is very simple: give them housing, and then work on everything else. It dropped the overall US homelessness rate by 17% against the backdrop of the great recession [2], while unemployment more than doubled. An outcome like that had never happened before in US history (not even remotely close in fact). It may also cost a lot less than operating shelters by comparison, based on some studies.

San Francisco has intentionally avoided this wonderful, easy solution because the city is filled full of fake liberals and progressives.

[1] "In August 2007, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that the number of chronically homeless individuals living on the streets or in shelters dropped by an unprecedented 30 percent, from 175,914 people in 2005 to 123,833 in 2007. This was credited in part to the "housing first" approach; Congress in 1999 directed that HUD spend 30% of its funding on the method."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First

https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/the-ast...

> It dropped the overall US homelessness rate by 17% against the backdrop of the great recession [2]

It's practically tautological that if you give homeless people homes, then the number of homeless people decreases ( unless there was a time limit on the house and the measurement was done long-term).

Not all homeless people are capable of keeping homes. I know a couple, their demons torment them too much to simply function as a neighbor.

I wouldn’t believe it myself if I wouldn’t have seen it. The worst bunch of them are the homeless that don’t want to be helped, yet keep causing trouble with their undiagnosed psychological afflictions.

My impression of the Housing First movement is that they believe that housing more people is in itself a good thing and people without housing is a bad thing.

I would probably agree to some degree.

So you could say of course homelessness decreases if you give homes, but that's like saying of course feeding hungry people decreases if you give them food.

The question of effectiveness, at least from the housing first perspective, here is whether or not this can be done in a practical manner and whether this has bad side effects.

This does make it a little harder to rely on data from housing first advocates if you do not share their assumption.

That being said my impression is there is some data that suggests better outcomes in terms of decreased drug usage and better employment, although I think there are some people who dispute this.

So I think there's a settled consensus that giving people houses can be done in a practical way, the extent of the benefits outside of housing is less settled, although on-average positive.

I'm not an expert though.

I think the article I read a few years ago was mostly using employment as a sign of success instead of just the decrease in homelessness.

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