Hacker News Reader

Comment by ciguy | Hacker News Reader

How many homeless people do you interact with daily? Because I'm forced to interact with many of them on a daily basis to simply go about my life in the Bay Area. And almost all of them, with very very few exceptions are both mentally ill and drug addicts. I used to think like you, but being forced to deal with them in real life on a daily basis has a way of killing preconceived convenient notions.

View on HN

A large percentage of the homeless population is just living on the margins, waiting and hoping for their prospects to improve. They may be living in a car, on half on the street and half on someone's couch, waiting for job applications that could give them a livable wage to come back, and so on. About half [1] of the homeless adult population of working age is employed for at least part of the year!

Like you, I have lived in areas experiencing a lot of homelessness. I've stepped over sleeping people and drug needles because there was no other way to get to work or where I needed to go. On the other hand, I think that combining this with the statistical facts gives us a picture of the true size of the problem. The mentally ill and addicts are the visible part of an iceberg of Americans slowly being priced out of affordable housing and access to healthcare.

[1] https://news.uchicago.edu/story/employment-alone-isnt-enough...

I would say more than one on average daily, and these are just the ten percent of homeless people I see that will say hello and interact with me rather than simply go about their own business

Selection bias is a strong effect here.

I'm confused. Are you interested in evidence-backed policies that get people off the street? Or not?

The reality is that you don't actually KNOW most homeless people or even know they are homeless, because they are living out of their car and still have a job. The majority of homeless people are simply priced out of homes, not having their entire lives fall apart in a crisis. They are people who were barely making ends meet for a decade, but as rent inexorably rises a couple percent every year and their basic job's hourly rate doesn't, they eventually just run out of options.

The people you are interacting with are not typical. The study I’ve seen shows about one third with untreated mental health issues, and one third with drug problems. I would assume a large overlap in those two groups.

The folks without those two problems just aren’t the ones in your face every day.

They're not homeless because they were mentally ill drug addicts. They're mentally ill drug addicts because they're homeless.

People without a stable living condition experience severe stress and mental illness as a result. People without necessities to live turn to drugs to alleviate the pain and suffering they experience.

This study is one example of how giving money to people to alleviate their conditions can improve their lives and enable them to further engage in self improvement.

The tone and energy you are sending is kinda sus.

You are arguing you would rather treat them worse. Cruelty for the sake of it... because anything else would be 'undeserving burdens' on the 'honest working class folk'. If helping one group hurts another (in your mind), of course that's how you would think. Powers that be conditioned you to think (falsely) it's a zero sum game.

People that have mental health issues need help they are not getting on the streets, there just isn't enough to go around.

Addiction is a weird one for me. people call it a disease, your brain undergoes physical changes. disease is a loosy-goosy word I've come to learn (psychological disorders count as diseases apparently?). Addiction doesn't have to start with 'a choice (on the user's part)', but commonly does - which is why I comprehend that some people blame the user for their addiction.

But the core reason people turn to stuff on the streets is: the streets suck. Get people off the streets... suddenly their outlook improves. Funny that!

And yes, the reduced crime/asset rate probably is worth $X coming from taxes spend on this. That's an easy calculation - human live /comfort should be priced fairly high.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com