Comment by arp242 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arp242 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

There are certainly homeless people with serious mental illnesses, but from my experience with talking to homeless people on the street this is not most homeless people. They just fell by the wayside for one reason or the other, and once you're in that position it can be hard to get out – hard to plan for the future if you're worried about getting enough food for today (and/or enough drugs or alcohol) and the situation just seems hopeless.

Looking at SF specifically, the causes seem to be "job loss (26%), alcohol/drug use (18%), eviction (13%), argument/asked to leave by friend/family (12%), mental health issues (8%), and divorce/separation (5%)".

One thing that seemed to have worked in London a few years ago is to give people a bank account with £3,000 with no strings or obligations attached.[1] While the pilot was small (13 people) and time period relatively short (1 year), the results were promising. I seem to recall it's been tried elsewhere too, but I can't find the report on that right now.

Turns out that just giving people a chance and autonomy goes a long way. Unfortunately "free money for homeless people" is politically difficult, even though the alternative is far more expensive.

[1]: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/providing-personalised-support...

“but from my experience with talking to homeless people on the street“ - you are not going to get a good sense of someone’s mental state by taking to them once. Crazy people can present themselves as completely normal for quite long periods of time. It’s one of the many blockers for family members trying to get them help.

Sure, but the idea that the overwhelming majority of people are homeless purely due to mental illness related issues just doesn't bear out. It's the same as "most homeless people are addicted to something", which also just isn't true.

If there were a few studies, and it's overwhelmingly successful, why do you think it's difficult to find the results? SF spends something like 90k per homeless person, conducting an experiment with 3k per person sounds like a drop in a bucket. I bet, showing great results on a group of 100 people, would get more investments into this experiment.

> If there were a few studies, and it's overwhelmingly successful, why do you think it's difficult to find the results?

The internet is big and I just didn't look for it very long.

> I bet, showing great results on a group of 100 people, would get more investments into this experiment.

You'd think so, but policy is often penny wise and pound foolish. I think the biggest obstacle is that "free money" just doesn't fit in our culture very well (or maybe it just doesn't fit human nature).

> The internet is big and I just didn't look for it very long.

You'd think so, but for the majority of homeless programs I was interested in, I couldn't find any data. For example, I was trying to find efficacy of tiny villages, what are their goals, how they track graduation rate. What's even their success criteria? Nothing, despite my decent google-fu.

> You'd think so, but policy is often penny wise and pound foolish. I think the biggest obstacle is that "free money" just doesn't fit in our culture very well (or maybe it just doesn't fit human nature).

For policies, sure. What about non-profits? Why wouldn't someone who believes in the efficacy of such methodology organize something like that? Changing someone's life for the better with only 3k sounds like a no-brainer to me. I would personally contribute financially and direct other people to contribute.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com