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Has "housing first" worked?

In LA, they have spent $5B on the approach since 2016, and are now entertaining a proposal to spend $837K per unit. They are building about 200 units a year, and there are over 40,000 homeless people in LA.

https://economicprism.com/feeding-las-homeless-industrial-co...

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Yes, housing first is extremely effective at getting homeless people off the street. It's also the cheaper option.

In San Francisco and LA, it is not.

It would be better if they just shipped them all off to Atherton.

Housing First on the West Coast (in addition to Harm Reduction and Support Services) needs to be coupled with a massive expansion of housing and construction so that prices can be brought down to a manageable level.

Homelessness on the west coast doesn't really have much to do with the market pricing of housing, its all about drugs.

Harm Reduction is a sham, its why SF is the way it is.

Simply giving people access to free needles does nothing for the actual problems - unabated drug use.

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