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Comment by burner556 | Hacker News Reader

This is just obviously not true. Sure, there are people that sleep in their car and could probably use somewhere to stay. However the visible majority of homeless in California, let’s say the “dramatic” homeless, are absolutely not just a house away from normalcy.

Tale as old as time, California charters a hotel to house the homeless and it turns into a drug orgy smearing shit on the walls paradise.

Yeah yeah, the only difference between the aggressive homeless person screaming and smashing water bottles against plate glass store windows and me is that I have a roof over my head. Look around and give me a break with that nonsense.

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In just a few years, several countries went from "lower middle class can afford housing" to "lower middle class can barely meet wage requirements to be allowed to rent". The typical lower middle class job is still the same serviceable white collar job it was before, including many junior-medior software developers outside the SV bubble (read: anywhere age 20-35). There are very little signs momentum will slow down. From my understanding, things aren't much different in the US.

Sounds like the problem isn't as easy as "just get a better job bro".

Lol at developers anywhere in the US being lower middle class.

> The typical lower middle class job is still the same serviceable white collar job it was before, including many junior-medior software developers outside the SV bubble (read: anywhere age 20-35).

Where in US junior-medium level software engineers make $35k/year? This is around median individual income, so should square put one in lower middle class or above.

I'm sympathetic to the argument you're making, but temper that position with the knowledge that the rates of homelessness aren't the same everywhere -- they're higher where housing is more expensive.

Most things aren't monocausal. Drug addiction causes people to make bad choices that result in loss of employment and isolation from more stable friends and family. If that happens to you in a place where you and all your addict buddies can pile into a trailer on a plot of land nobody cares about, then you won't be homeless. If it happens to you in the middle of a high-COL city like San Francisco, then you might find yourself on the street.

Does that mean "high housing prices" put you on the street or was it the result of your addiction?

Surely it's both, in some sense.

Very late follow-up: https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1504619986580557829

>let’s say the “dramatic” homeless, are absolutely not just a house away from normalcy.

Yeah, coz these people got into a vicious spiral of homelessness -> drugs -> crazy -> drugs -> crazy that played out over many years.

They're not a house a way from normalcy but a housing is still a prerequisite for them slowly returning to normalcy and to prevent others from joining their drug fueled nightmare.

It's absolutely not a coincidence that San Fran has the highest property prices and the craziest homeless.

The difference between you and that person is one of material circumstances. You are not fundamentally different from them.

Ah, the old "there's no such thing as moral failings" canard. I.e. "you didn't choose to not ruin your body with hard drugs and STDs, nor did the crack hobo shitting in the crosswalk over there choose the opposite, it's solely a result of economics/racism/$(popular politics of the day). Now stop complaining and give us your tax money."

> homeless person screaming and smashing water bottles against plate glass store windows and me is that I have a roof over my head

I am sorry, but you are part of the problem because, whether realising or not, you are perpetuating the. toxic idea that you must be a highly productive, psycologically stable member or society before you 'deserve' a roof over your head.

I've lived in a poor country, we had plenty of alcoholics, drug addicts, wife beaters and other assorted assholes as neighbours, none of them were homeless becauae housing was cheap.

It also does not take a PHD in psycology to realise that if you take one of them, and make them live on the street for a few years, their condition will deteriorate.

The fact thay you have to prove that housing and housing-less are connected just shows how deep our collective head is up the arse of this new, late-stage-capitalist, neoliberal bullshit. I am not sure any CCP propaganda can be as effective.

The system is plain self destructive - half the population reports that they can't afford to have kids, and the #1 expence is housing. How are you gonna have evil capitalist paradise if all the wage slaves die out? Oh, wait, what do we care, the whole planet is gonna burn up regardless.

People call Chinese government evil, byt as least they have a plan that goes beyong the next quarterly report.

You don't have to be highly productive to deserve a house, you just have to be net positive productive.

I don't think anyone (well some people) is against society extending a credit to help people get back on their feet, but the issue is that historically it just becomes net negative producers now being even more negative by virtue of having a living space paid for with little signs of improvement. The credit just gets written off as a compounding loss.

I suggest watching Soft White Underbelly on YT, he does tons of homeless interviews and outreach trying to get people back on their feet. The solution is definitely not "just throw houses and therapy at the problem"

Kicking grandma out onto the street because she isn't meeting her quarterly Key Performance Indicators and is not net positive productive

"net negative producers now being even more negative by virtue of having a living space paid for with little signs of improvement"

I will accept this argument the day we finally remove net negative producers from society, like Wells Fargo, which comes up with new financial fraud every year, and gets away with it.

Or snake oil salesmen that sell supplements that don't even contain whats written on the package, polluters, Tabacco and other assorted merchants of addiction and death that are all net negative to society to make a tidy profit.

Additionally - if you commit murder, you get food and housing, but if you refuse to work, you starve to death?

What would it cost us to make sure everyone has access to basic food like rice, 0.3% of GDP?

>What would it cost us to make sure everyone has access to basic food like rice, 0.3% of GDP?

If a homeless person trades their rice for money/drugs, do you propose giving them even more rice, or just letting them starve?

So because 20-30% of homeless people have drug problems we should let the rest of them suffer so as not to waste resources?

I never said that? When that 20-30% use of a vastly disproportionate amount of the resources then I think we should create solutions that are more focused on those who actually need it, instead of blanket "just build more houses bro" solutions.

No, we should focus on 'lets dismantle the financial pyramid scheme" because it would help 70% of homeless people and 90% of society as a whole.

Also because eventually this mug's game will collapse and make us all miserable. We've already been forcing people back into offices just to prop up fantasy property values in city centers.

Responding to you… just because. So somebody deserves housing because they are net positive to society? Bob here sells lemonade to thirsty Bitcoin miners so we must appropriate the labor of society via taxes and build him housing? Can’t get behind that idea. Nobody deserves housing at the expense of another person’s forced labor aka taxes.

Nobody? What about people who are permanently disabled, orphans and abandoned children? Is your sence of right and wrong coming from 18th century britain?

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