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Comment by noahtallen | Hacker News Reader

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings.

This can’t be true. Just look at the homelessness situation across the US. No shelter, no income, no sanitation. That is certainly worse quality of life than a king.

You must starting your definition of poor quite a ways up the income scale. Maybe you could make make an argument for solidly middle class and above?

Even then, there are even a lot of benefits to being a king which probably outweigh having basic modern amenities like running water and a nice bed. Who needs plumbing when you have a servant to bring you whatever you want?

Beyond that, quality of life is also significantly emotional. There’s a lot of stress to life unless you’re rich, and you also don’t have very much control over things around you. A king has a significant amount of control by definition, and that probably contributes a lot to their quality of life.

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The homeless issue in the US is much more of a drug addiction and alcoholism problem than a down on one's luck problem. Something like 90% of the homeless are in that category.

> Who needs plumbing when you have a servant to bring you whatever you want?

I like hot showers. I bet you do, too. Besides, what do you think happens to kings when they get a toothache? No anesthetic, nothing to be done except an idiot with a pair of pliers and filthy hands. I doubt many kings had teeth after 35 or so.

> There’s a lot of stress to life unless you’re rich,

I'm afraid that's pretty presumptuous. The rich just have different problems.

> and you also don’t have very much control over things around you. A king has a significant amount of control by definition, and that probably contributes a lot to their quality of life.

When you're the king, everyone wants to kill you. Including your own brothers and sisters and kids. You have no friends. The losers in the game of thrones are always killed.

> The homeless issue in the US is much more of a drug addiction and alcoholism problem than a down on one's luck problem. Something like 90% of the homeless are in that category.

Where'd you hear that? I've been watching a lot of Soft White Underbelly, interviews with people on Skid Row, and that doesn't really seem to be the case in general although there are a few [1]. Invisible People also does interviews with homeless people more widely and it's even rarer there [2]. Most of the time it just comes down to them not being able to afford to not be homeless and not having anyone to turn to. Without a home, they have no way to keep clean, receive mail or do anything else they need to do in order to keep a job. So it's a catch-22 for most. Without security, they are assaulted, get robbed (of even their basics), arrested and never get to rest, so there's a lot of positive feedback loops that can quickly make things even worse.

1. https://www.youtube.com/c/SoftWhiteUnderbelly

2. https://www.youtube.com/c/InvisiblePeople

It's more like 50%: https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaign...

And 30% have severe mental health issues (same source).

Treating those issues solves only ~half the problem though (though that's probably 90% of the visible problem). The rest (to your point) is that it's really hard to afford to get a home when you don't have one.

I'd blame zoning as the biggest issue here. Boarding homes and micro-apartments are effectively banned in most cities. Meaning that the hurdle to go from homeless to not homeless is way higher than it should be. Instead of having to scrounge up a couple hundred bucks for a month's worth of housing, you're looking at a thousand or more.

> I'd blame zoning as the biggest issue here.

I blame private property as the biggest issue here. Empty dwellings outnumber homeless people at least 10-to-1 in the Global North (France, UK, USA..). The fact that media and corporations pretend that's not a problem and the only solution to homelessness is to build more housing tells a lot about what's wrong with "our" approach to problem.

If we lived in a democracy where people can decide for themselves locally, homelessness would be a non-issue. As a former squatter myself, i know for sure if we voted in my neighborhood for/against cracking empty housing to provide housing for all, over 90% of people would support it. If the people in power had the will to do anything about homelessness, by simply ordering police not to evict squats (unless someone squatted a person's residence while they were on vacation, which under french law is a "house theft" crime, not "squatting") in less than 72h we could rehouse all the homeless people and give them proper sanitation.

The problem is the political class and their watchdogs (media, police) are only interested in protecting banks, corporations and wealthy individuals. They couldn't care less about homelessness or people who can't afford to eat.

This is a survey of drug use, not cause of homelessness. Many people use drugs after they've become homeless because of how terrible and pointless it is. Check out the interviews.

This reminds me of a survey that was done in Seattle about of homeless were from out of the county or not, and the data collected found most of them squad they were housed in pioneer square before becoming homeless. Anyone who knows Seattle would find that very fishy (it would be like most homeless in LA saying they were housed in skid row).

Surveys in the homeless community are extremely unreliable, but I guess that makes sense (better to claim you started drugs after being homeless than admit you did them before, more sympathy that way). Even outside of the homeless context, self reported surveys aren’t considered reliable (see https://www.verywellmind.com/definition-of-self-report-42526...).

You should check out the interviews, hear it directly from the source.

I sympathize with the OP, the source is unreliable.

In a similar vain, a lot of US residents do not believe the numbers China is pumping out in regards to COVID-19, just another example of how the source can be unreliable.

Being homeless changes your attitude and perspective on life. It's unlikely these people can be truly honest with outsiders, especially strangers because then they don't receive any aid or help.

Personally, I can't take those interviews as a gospel of truth because I don't believe the authors.

I think if you watched enough of the interviews, it'd shift your perspective. You're just begging the question at this point.

Surely the trauma of homelessness itself is a severe mental health issue.

The percent of chronic homeless in the drug/substance abuse bucket is pretty high, but it’s like comparing the people visible on the streets (chronic) vs someone who ran out of money is and is crashing on a couch or living in their car.

The problem is treating both kinds of homeless equally: they have completely different problems with completely different solutions. Give the chronic homeless just housing and they’ll more than likely just trash it or figure out how to support their habit with it, the latter will use the housing in the way it was intended as help.

We should throw as much help as possible to those who aren’t in the drug and substance abuse bucket simply because it is very difficult to help them effectively once they move into that bucket.

> The percent of chronic homeless in the drug/substance abuse bucket is pretty high

That's true, but correlation does not equal causation. Many rich people have drugs/mental issues, too. Some drugs are basically a social status symbol in some circles (cocaine, champagne and some other fancy alcohols, for example).

Many people become homeless due to reasons unrelated to drugs. Once you're homeless, basic survival becomes an every day struggle and it's not hard to see how mind-altering substances can be very appealing in this situation.

> Many people become homeless due to reasons unrelated to drugs. Once you're homeless, basic survival becomes an every day struggle and it's not hard to see how mind-altering substances can be very appealing in this situation.

For some definition of “many” sure, but many become homeless because of drugs, driving their families to give up on them as they are not able to deal with their problems. Still some are independent but lose their apartments as their $2k/month drug habit eats into rent money. Alcoholism is another problem.

The fact that you claim substance abuse is so pervasive among those who aren’t homeless should provide some evidence that ya, people do fall into homelessness because they aren’t lucky enough to remain high functioning or have the support network that would allow them to abuse while remaining housed.

> For some definition of “many” sure

Good, then we agree chronic homelessness is not entirely due to drugs, as i often read on HN :)

> Alcoholism is another problem.

I think it's the same problem. Alcoholism is a drug addiction problem and can be just as bad as any other addiction. That some cultures believe alcohol to be tolerable/encourageable is irrelevant. Alcohol was historically weaponized against indigenous people (not only in the US) and to this day some revolutionary indigenous movements such as the zapatistas in Chiapas consider it this way. Much like crack cocaine was weaponized by CIA against black/brown communities in the US (to finance their counter-revolutionary covert wars in South America).

> people do fall into homelessness because they aren’t lucky enough to remain high functioning

Exactly, but drugs is far from the only reason to become non-functioning according to capitalist standards. Depression/burnout, physical health, workspace/job closure, and *many* other factors can lead to homelessness.

> Where'd you hear that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw

"60 Minutes" did a segment on that, too, and went interviewing Seattle homeless. Everyone they interviewed turned out to be a drug addict or an alcoholic, even though they initially fooled the 60 Minutes crew.

Lots of them will say they were homeless because they lost their job, which is technically correct, but digging deeper reveals they lost their job because they were drug addicts and alcoholics.

While you’re partially right that chronic homelessness is related to drug abuse, most of them are mentally ill. Unfortunately due to legal changes in the 1980’s, you can no longer help the mentally ill unless they provide consent. The end result is they stay homeless, while the other 80% of the homeless end up recovering in less than a year.

Mental illness is indeed a cause of some of the homelessness. But this isn't a poverty down-on-their-luck problem, it's a mental illness problem.

Yes, if I wasn’t clear enough that was my point with chronic homelessness, unless you meant to respond to someone else.

As Pinker points out in Enlightenment Now, progress is devilishly hard to measure. I enjoy more air conditioning than the Rothschilds. But I feel like they perhaps enjoyed other things that I can never aspire to…

>The homeless issue in the US is much more of a drug addiction and alcoholism problem than a down on one's luck problem.

This is more like a convenient truth. How many of those people become homeless, then turn drugs? It's not like the US's social safety net is particularly robust, and even just being on the street for a week can expose you to the violent way the homeless are treated.

Drug addiction leads to homelessness, as the addict's priority is always getting the drugs. Things like jobs, friends, family, sense, are all sacrificed for the drugs. Everything is sacrificed, and so they wind up on the street.

Treating a homeless drug addict as a victim of poverty is like giving cough medicine to a person with lung cancer. It does not work.

That is a very simplistic view of addiction; High functioning addiction is the norm - Purdue made billions creating them. I'm sure - at your workplace in a major city like SF or NY you have worked with people addicted to Benzos, Cocaine, or Alcohol. Most of them will tell you they can "quit any time" (they can't), but are still capable of taking a shower and showing up to work.

>Treating a homeless drug addict as a victim of poverty is like giving cough medicine to a person with lung cancer. It does not work.

How do you rehab someone who does not have stable shelter? Are they supposed to battle withdrawal on the street? Housing first policies have demonstrably worked in Finland and Austria.

> How do you rehab someone who does not have stable shelter?

Put them in a drug rehab facility.

It's still not an economic problem, it's a drug addiction problem.

> Put them in a drug rehab facility.

Sure why not, but what after that? If you think helping them overcome addiction then throwing them back out on the streets is gonna have any positive effects, i can say with 99% confidence you haven't spent more than a day being homeless.

Once they're dried out, they'll be able to get a job. Jobs are currently going begging.

The homeless who aren't addicts or alcoholics tend to do well with programs to help them back on their feet. The former, nope.

This isn't a video game or a d&d session.

"Housing first policies have demonstrably worked in Finland and Austria."

>Put them in a drug rehab facility.

So give them housing? Please analyze what you are saying. What is a drug rehab facility if not housing with nurses on staff?

What I'm asking you to consider is that housing first policies are cheaper to scale and have shown to work. If people's basic needs are met with safety and dignity they are less likely to run away to drugs and alcohol.

So the 40 million Americans living below the poverty line with zero access to health care or dental services are living like kings? Really? May I suggest that you talk to some of them and ask if they feel like Kings/Queens?

They still have better health and dental care than medieval kings, who had zero of both. They didn't even have toothbrushes or any notion of dental or medical hygiene.

BTW, those miniseries on the lives of medieval royalty that are popular today are romantic fantasies. For example, the only warm place in a castle in winter is right next to the fireplace. They had no concept of central heating, not even an iron stove. Do you want to live through a winter in England with no heating?

How about being around people who never, ever bathed? What do you think happened to all the poop in the castle? Did the cooks ever wash their hands? Most of your kids are going to die before they're adults.

>Most of your kids are going to die before they're adults.

If they survived and if your wife surviived, a large number of women would have likely died giving birth, possibly at an age of 15 or 16 or so.

Just consider antibiotics. A medieval king could die for a banal infection.

There's a fallacy at play here. Some kings died due to lack of knowledge how to treat them. In the US, poor people die from diseases we know how to treat but society refuses to treat them because they don't have money.

Measuring the increase in possible outcomes is irrelevant if you don't take into considerable how accessible/affordable those outcomes are. It's just like if you said "but medieval kings didn't have space travel" because you see Jeff Bezos going into space as a sign of social progress for the rest of us.

There is no way that modern poor have worse health care than medieval kings, because those kings HAD NO HEALTH CARE, and in fact, what doctors they did have did harm to their luckless patients. For example, they would bleed a person to try to drain out what was making them sick. For another, they did not wash their hands or their instruments.

I'm not arguing otherwise. All i'm saying is you can't compare apple to oranges: it's fine if you can't walk on the moon. Except when every one else is doing it because it's become trivial and you're denied it because of your caste/class or social status.

That many Americans die due to illnesses we know how to treat for cheap for decades is unbelievable. And don't even get me started on long-term conditions, like insulin or HIV-medication prices skyrocketing for zero reason (well, there's one: profit) decades after their first commercialization.

In much of the world, the USA is (rightfully) derided for being so backwards when it comes to health care. I would even go so far as to argue that some traditional medicines (plants, kine/ostheo, acupuncture...) are/were far more advanced than the medical treatments available to poorer US citizens (i.e. none), but i'm not versed in medical sciences so don't take my word for it.

You are absolutely right. When I lived in Europe, the US was often used as an example of how bad things can get when you prioritise profits more than people. The US culture is brutal to the less capable/unlucky citizens.

Source? Why don't they have medicaid? It covers everyone under the 140% the poverty line.

> Why don't they have medicaid? It covers everyone under the 140% the poverty line.

No, it doesn't; in states that have expanded, it covers up to 138% of the FPL, but in some states for adults without dependent children who are neither aged, blind, disabled, nor pregnant, it covers nothing, and for parents of dependent children the limit is still not 138%.

How about the millions of people who are just above the poverty line but can't afford private health/dental?

140% of the poverty line doesn't even reach $20,000.

> 140% of the poverty line doesn't even reach $20,000.

Median household size is around 2.5. Poverty line for household size 2 is $17,420, for 3 is $21,960.

And for an individual is 12,280.

The homeless issue is in the name. It's people without a home. The solution is to provide people with a place they can call home, like a house or an apartment.

Why focus on drugs? Do you believe that some people deserve to have no home if they have a drug problem?

With the security and comfort of having a home, becoming a productive member of society becomes much easier if that's what you care about.

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