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Comment by baggy_trough | Hacker News Reader

Unless there's some kind of enforcement mechanism, free public transit becomes the abode of the homeless.

This is Spain not Silicon Valley.

For a country of 48 million people, there is a calculated total of homelessness of 40,000. And they have social services to support them.

By contrast, 40,000 is the amount of homeless just in the San Francisco Area...

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

When free buss passes were issued in Bucharest, Romania, to people over 65 years old there was a major problem with some of these people taking the bus across town for most of the day during winter and turn off the heating at home. Others were crossing the town for several hours a day because they were bored at home. It was reported in local newspapers and even national TV. One does not need to be really homeless to figure out it is convenient to occupy a bus or a train.

Public transport has been free for people over 66 in Ireland for as long as I remember, without a plague of old people living on the train. That seems more like a local problem.

Why is it actually a problem, unless they're stopping other travellers with more genuine needs from being able to use said buses?

Old people would do that in my town too and they had to pay for the ticket. I don't see anything wrong with it. Loneliness among the elderly is a problem that needs to be addressed though.

> It was reported in local newspapers and even national TV.

But did you also experience it IRL? Usually the things that are newsworthy are not the common standard that everyone is actually experiencing in day-to-day life.

Correct, my statistical experiment with a sample of 1 is more relevant than several, independent journalists doing investigations. I will better myself.

If your journalists are calling something a “major problem” and you’re not seeing a single instance of it, I too got some independent news for you.

I did see that with my own eyes, I was just telling this is not mandatory for me to believe it, I heard it from too many sources, some quite reliable. I can know things that I did not personally encounter, it is a human characteristic.

There's a difference between (1) a statistical survey, (2) "the news found it somewhere and needed clickbait to stay in business", and (3) regular people are reporting seeing it. Of course, properly collected statistics is best, but short of that, I'd be more inclined to believe it's widespread if ordinary people are reporting it's around them. It's the news' job to go around and look for a story, so they're likely to find it somewhere. Neither is proper proof, only statistical survey would be, but a combination of 2 and 3 is close enough for me and you've already said it was on the news, thus my question.

Should not be an issue in Europe. Usually homeless people have other options than sleeping in public transport here.

Do you live in europe? I do and it being europe does not mean I haven’t seen homeless in public transport.

Still a big issue in Berlin.

Berlin is not an example of a well run city by western European standards, despite the well paid tech sector and being a capital city of Europe's strongest economy.

Maybe good by Eastern European standards.

It helps that they have less civil rights in Europe. Or less civil liberties. In America the state is very restricted in how it can deal with the homeless.

I'm not sure exactly what sort of "dealing with" you're imaginging, but the lack of homeless folk on our public transport isn't because they've been locked up, it's because they're (for the most part) sleeping in a building. For reference: https://www.gov.scot/publications/homelessness-scotland-upda...

Only 1% of Scotland's homeless were intentionally homeless, and 4% reported sleeping rough the previous night -- a total of 690 across Scotland. Which is still 690 too many.

And yes, it's not free of charge to the public purse, but it's significantly cheaper than not providing support and then needing to deal with the consequences.

While it'll obviously vary by country, in general the state "deals with" homelessness by offering free or subsidised housing (preferable) and/or temporary and emergency accommodation. Not sure what's particularly anti-civil-liberties about that.

Please explain. You may give the idea Europe can deal with the problem through some unclear authoritarian action.

The U.S., specially certain states, has what other countries would call extreme limits on its ability to deal with mentally ill vagrants. An inability to involuntarily institutionalize them, or even throw out the stuff they abandon on the sidewalk. It isn’t from lack of money spent on these people.

So you see them riding the BART in San Francisco, making a nuisance of themselves, while also, the city spends a ton of money and has homeless shelters.

Also, the basic ability of police to hassle people is less.

Social safety net == "less civil rights' and "less civil liberties"? Wow, I'd love to hear how one could ever arrive at that conclusion.

What are you even talking about?

Trying to use a ticketing system as a solution to the inconvenience of having to see people without homes is a particularly awful take.

Solve the problem of homelessness by making homes and putting the homeless people in them, don't use a public transportation ticketing system as a means of driving them out of sight.

Physical mobility is one of the most limiting factors for economic mobility.

So if some homeless people on trains can reduce the total number of homeless it seems like a policy win.

Not if it drives regular citizens from the trains. They would become an extremely expensive housing supply rather than transportation.

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