<1% of homeless Portlanders found permanent housing in 10 months of city sweeps | Hacker News Reader

<1% of homeless Portlanders found permanent housing in 10 months of city sweeps

oregonlive.com

41 pointstrynewideas47 comments

"Sweeps" without the offer of reliable and private shelter are little more than pointless cruelty. "Out of sight, out of mind" is not a rational way to approach any kind of problem.

Slight tangent story: While overall I think open carry laws are not the best idea, one positive use case I've seen manifest in Texas is mutual aid groups. Usually they run unofficial soup lines and things like that, but they also started lining up conspicuously armed with rifles and body armor around a homeless camp whenever police try to "sweep" the people living there. Not making threats or pointing their weapons - behaving perfectly legally per Texas legislation and case law - just being present and offering to happily leave if the city provides a written and signed one year apartment lease to everyone in the camp, or something in that vein.

It's usually effective in at a minimum getting the police to buzz off, and sometimes at getting real help to these people since "casually bully and push them around" is taken away as an option.

This is because Portland's homeless (like SF and Seattle), are not like Houston or NYCs homeless. They are much happier being homeless than housed, on meth instead of opiates (like the rest of the US), and generally reject the system and have no interest in being a part of it.

Baltimore was just able to significantly reduce their homeless population by giving them housing. Portland needs the Portuguese "rehab or jail" mentality. What they're doing now is NOT working.

Rehab and jail won't teach them to pay bills and prepare dinner, will it? There's a basic nurturing element missing in all this.

Rehab is nurturimg, moving those afflicted with substance use disorder into inpatient treatment for a month or two, then onto a sober house (with government subsidy for 3 to 5 months) with outpatient treatment during that time.

Everett, WA has good inpatient treatment services like what I describe available to everyone. King County (containing Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, etc) & Pierce County (Tacoma, etc) have no equivalent, just terrible programs like Seadrunnar.

Thanks for sharing this.

Rehab only works for those willing to do the work. For those that cannot or are unwilling, they should be offered the choice of jail or a work camp (keep on abusing but you're spending 4 hours a day picking up garbage).

We need to have compassion but it doesn't mean these people get a free pass to literally trash our commons and steal to sustain their habits.

It would be a good idea to stop the prohibition. It’s a lie to say ”we need to have compassion” when we are actively suppressing the same people with state-sanctioned violence just for trying to exist in a profoundly anti-human corposcape.

Wouldn't that make for a great incentive to make a chemically dependant slave class? If the fines are less than the profits it's be great business.

Many star trek episodes were written about this.

Most rehab places hire people who have gone through the experience and been homeless to teach and support just these sorts of things. Many places make people take turns cooking/serving/cleaning so they learn those skills. I feel like you are discrediting some amazing people who are barely out of homelessness themselves, who make minimum income, and are already treated very poorly by the clients they try so hard to help. There are some amazing people that truly do care. It's not all soulless. And this is from someone who forcibly went through and hates most of the system.

> They are much happier being homeless than housed

Having been chronically homeless and still having strong ties to the community in my area, big fucking citation needed boss.

People don't generally like to be homeless or want to be. If they're choosing it over the options you're offering them, that's a good opportunity for some serious introspection about what exactly you're offering, and on what terms.

Unstable shelter based housing can be godawful. People need housing that lets them work (even if they are evening or night shift), store their possessions safely, have privacy, dignity and separation to prevent the spread of colds and such.

Seattle and Portland don't offer much shelter like this, the Union Gospel Mission is a hot mess and so are many of the other shelters.

The capacity in Portland isn't there regardless of quality: 615 shelter units available for adults at 98.7% daily utilization, up from 84.8% in August and 90.1% in October.[1]

1: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/johs/viz/ShelterUtili...

One-third of those swept accepted offers of shelter. Half of those couldn't find a path to even temporary housing.

Without even considering the point of jailing or rehabbing 1,100 homeless people in a city that has neither the jail nor rehab capacity for its housed population,[1] the city is failing to help even the half of the fraction of homeless people who want and accept help.

1: https://www.mailtribune.com/top-stories/2022/01/29/oregon-is...

1/3rd is pathetic. That means that 2/3rd prefer the way they live now over reintegration.

Maybe because they’ve already had the other third’s experience. Or do you think it’s a moral failure on their part?

I think at the very least it casts doubt on the validity of classifying their situation as "homelessness", which strongly suggests that all they require to be ok again is shelter.

There is widespread violence and sexual abuse in homeless shelters. They may be acting on past or shared experience.

more importantly, you're not allowed to use your drugs in the shelters

Correct. They’re drug addicts, who need rehab. In Portland they’re seen as saintly figures who reject capitalism.

If even 1/3 cannot find proper housing why would anyone want to accept the offer of temporary shelter?

Isn’t it much better to setup a tent somewhere where you may be able to live for weeks, months, or even years without being kicked out, as opposed to the temporary housing where you will be kicked out in 14 days max.

The homeless don’t make decisions in a vacuum. A large part of the reason they declined is because they knew that if they accepted they were only delaying the inevitable.

The most abused substance in Portland is fentanyl. Absolutely no comparison by volume. They are referred to as "blues" and readily available for $0.50 a pill

> Two-thirds of people swept from camps declined the offer of temporary shelter

This is not terribly surprising. People are regularily preyed upon in shelters, suffering abuse and having their things stolen.

A few years ago when many homeless were camping in Strathcona Park in Vancouver, I was speaking with a person there and they said that they were offered housing in an apartment owned by a slumlord and he stayed there one night and left to sleep in the park again, because the situation in the apartment was worse than staying in the park.

I don't doubt his story but it is absolutely remarkable in that it speaks to the incredibly low quality of shelter and housing that is offered to people. I am not at all surprised that people would feel safer and healthier sleeping outside.

most of the time the actual reason to decline the shelter is that they're not allowed to use their drugs there.

How do you know that statement is not false?

This is very often the case. Some places in Oregon have a lax policy of tolerating substance abuse as long as it's not on premises, but many places that offer shelter are faith oriented and they often have a more hard lined approach in addition to allowing open substance abuse usually comes with many other issues (more fights, etc)

I donate my time on the weekends at The Arches Project which is basically a (failed) effort to reduce the impact of homelessness in Oregon. We spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars to build facilities to provide some beds and daily meals and the overall impact it has on solving the problem is insanely minimal.

If you go to the website to volunteer you'll find a PDF that basically dials back their stated public mission from "reduce homelessness and promote permanent housing / stability" to something closer to "have less people die from cold weather and starvation".

Those are great goals, but I think if the vast amount of people knew we were spending hundreds of millions of dollars and accomplishing so little they would (a) be more motivated to reallocate that money better and (b) be less convinced the problem is being solved inspiring alternative solutions.

It is my opinion that the word “homeless” is used to describe so many different kinds of people, with so many different lifestyles, situations, illnesses and/or contingencies, that I find it difficult to even comprehend what a “solution” could look like, and how housing might even fit into that solution. It is a failure on the part of society and our leadership to try to use one word to describe the whole problem.

From my experience talking with some people who work in housing for those on income assistance that would be homeless without subsidized housing, there are indeed so, so many different situations that a broad variety in different housing is required!

Some housing is effectively not terribly different from seniors homes, for seniors who simply have run out of money and have nowhere to go.

Some housing is women's only for women who have escaped dangerous abuse situations and do not want to be around men.

Some housing is "dry" for people who previously had addictions issues and are trying very hard to stay that way.

Some housing for people who are "hard to house" and who require a great deal more help and attention than other groups.

It's all important and needed.

My main takeaway is like many deeply complex problems, you have to start to break things up in chunks and tackle things independently. Some aspects easier than others, and others will take more time and money and attention.

If you try to treat everything the same and lump everything together it'll never work.

Ya, there are also visibility problems: it is easy to notice (and hard not to notice) the hard to house segment, who become the problem everyone sees. This gets all the attention, and the public’s empathy gets drained quickly as the problems arise.

That is a good point. It's like trying to solve poverty or illness.

These numbers point towards a failing in the process not a failing in the people who are homeless. If you offer someone a place to live no strings attached they’re going to take it. Once housed it’s orders of magnitude easier to treat the causes of homelessness.

Every time you complicate or add a restriction you lose people out of the system. Sounds like there are about twelve restrictions or hoops to jump through in the Portland system.

Housing first programs in Salt Lake City showed phenomenal success. Get people houses and then take care of the other things like medical care, mental health care, addiction treatment.

Know why the phenomenally successful program isn’t around anymore? Republicans pulled funding to it out of a weird and broken ideological belief. Not based on the facts of its effectiveness.

At a certain point if your ideology doesn’t allow for the value of facts it’s just broken.

>>> If you offer someone a place to live no strings attached they’re going to take it.

There are multiple articles that show the homeless do infact refuse shelter based on a number of reasons so the whole predicate you base your reasoning on should be reexamined.

"permanent housing"

Ok, so what exactly is permanent housing in modern society? If you have housing, you have rent, taxes, utilities. If those aren't paid then that housing isn't so permanent. I'd hazard that the "permanent housing" has a lot of rules and requirements that homeless people may find challenging, and also therefore isn't so "permanent".

Even if the housing is free, then it is sponsored, subject to the line item whims of local politics and funding. So is that "permanent"?

If you're permanent, do you become subject to harassment by other neighbors and police?

Is the "permanent" housing contingent on serpentine regulations, paperwork, applications, etc? Reviews, checkins, etc? Not so permanent then.

I don't know about Portland specifically but in most places there's a massive correlation between the homeless and hopeless drug addiction.

Good hearted people think that if only the homeless had a chance at housing, they'd live a normal life but it's generally backwards - they are homeless because they are unfortunately really screwed up and just giving them a chance to live indoors isn't going to fix that.

People are homeless because they don’t have a home. There’s all sorts of reason why but usually it’s because housing is expensive. More expensive cities see more homelessness.

No doubt many people who can’t afford housing lost their money to addiction, and giving them housing will not solve the addiction.

That being said: getting clean is way more likely in a stable living environment than in an unstable one.

I’d also add that homelessness can exacerbate an existing addiction. It’s a stressful and traumatic experience.

So yes, giving them housing will not solve addiction. Addiction is hard to overcome even for wealthy people with loving, supportive family.

// why but usually it’s because housing is expensive

Is that really true? "Housing is expensive" suggests that these people are working but the rent is too high, and that's not what's happening in most cases. The druggies had dropped out of working a long time ago.

// More expensive cities see more homelessness.

Are folks living in tent cities natives? A lot of them migrate as part of their homeless experience because these cities are better for being homeless than wherever they are coming from.

You might find this interesting: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/employment-alone-isnt-enough...

>usually it’s because housing is expensive

I'm sure you don't mean that as an endorsement of giving people bus tickets as a "solution".

Can you explicitly state why that is not helpful, to educate people?

Bus tickets are unhelpful because it further uproots their lives. People (including homeless people) have support networks, communities, etc that get destroyed by being forcibly relocated.

They’re human and like all people they build a life over time, they have neighbors and friends and possibly family nearby that love and support them.

There are also annoying logistical challenges to moving that are harder if you’re homeless. Finding a new doctor is hard, harder still if you’re restricted to free or reduced cost clinics. Finding a food bank or getting a PO Box or a church or a job.

If you look at greyhound popular destinations (SF, LA, Seattle), busing is already very popular, into those cities. It isn’t really a thing society does, rather Texan prisons will give releases inmates open bus tickets if they have no one picking them up, and they go to cities where they’ll survive.

I took a greyhound as a kid from Vicksburg to Seattle (along the southern then northern route, over 4 days), and got to witness this first hand.

Anyways, you just don’t survive being homeless in Great Falls Montana, so either you are dead or you first wind up in Spokane, then eventually in Seattle.

>Bus tickets are unhelpful

I see where "bus tickets" sounded like "sending people on an odyssey to a huge metropolis a thousand miles away" but I wasn't thinking of that so specifically.

Five miles can make a drastic difference in the cost of housing.

No “good hearted person” thinks that all you need to do is provide them with a house. There is real hard evidence that people can do much better if they’re provided with housing and support services. But the permanent housing needs to come first for recovery, which includes recovering from the PTSD caused by living so many days without a shelter.

Well yes, because “sweeps” are intended punish and criminalize being homeless, not actually doing anything to fix it.

Step 1 is the seizure of property (which questionably constitutional)

Step 2 is to not provide them anywhere to actually live

Step 3 is to arrest them when they break the law now that they have no shelter at all, and so inevitably break some law.

Then the private prison owners get money from the government, and in a bunch of states you get slaves. Win-win for everyone who apparently matters.

With a cursory web search I found that Oregon does not use private prisons [1] and that Multnomah County Jails are operated by the sheriff's office [2], not a private company.

[1] https://www.oregon.gov/doc/about/pages/history.aspx#:~:text=....

[2] https://mcso.us/site/corrections/jail-overview

Homelessness is a symptom. The actual diseases underlying it at mental illness and addiction (and under them are deep social disfunction). Sadly none of those core issues are really treatable.

Lee Kuan Yew found a way to get rid of addiction back in the 60s/70s...

You can look at the epidemiology of what's happening there and it's actually amazing. Thousands of lives saved every year just from overdoses, let alone the social damage caused by drugs.

That seems like bullshit to me, seems to me that homelessness is mostly a symptom of not having a house. You can perfectly well be addicted and mentally ill in your own home.

You probably don't live in portland. Guaranteed 100% of homeless there are heavy drug addicts.

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