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Comment by Brushfire | Hacker News Reader

I'm struck by two things while watching this video:

1 - Those tents seem pretty nice.

2 - This is pretty shameful for a society that is right now bailing out executives.

I'm generally very libertarian in my beliefs, but tent cities are where I draw the line and agree with social assistance / intervention. They seem to be relatively small right now, but if they grow to large hundreds, or thousands of people, this will become a critical issue.

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The lack of a roof over your head isn't the cause of homelessness, it is the symptom. Addressing it in a more permanent manner would probably require you to compromise on a lot more of your libertarianism than just offering more social assistance.

For example, a huge percentage of the homeless are mentally ill. If we institutionalized them, which is a nice euphemism for "confined them against their will", they would no longer be homeless. Are you willing to do that?

Another major portion prefer camps to shelters or traditional housing arrangements because they just fundamentally do not want to accede to societal norms like "You should work for a living and pay rent", and necessary prerequisites like "In order to maintain that job, you will probably find it necessary to come in to work almost every day, and be sober for the duration".

Empirically, a significant portion of the homeless population will trade comfort for autonomy. Living in a shelter means a loss of autonomy, and some people prefer a largely-unsupervised tent or, in a pinch, the streets. NYC used to have significant excess shelter space and tried to force it on a homeless encampment by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The church and homeless advocates sued to protect the homeless' right to live outside of shelters.

So, again -- are you OK with agents of the state having to physically restrain people to get them into shelters? Because that is what will be required to alleviate this symptom.

You are talking about the structural homeless crowd which will exist regardless of the circumstance. They exist here in Denmark, where they could have a nicer home than I currently have if they could be bothered to go ask for it at the social center.

However, at the point where the homeless population becomes camps, it has grown beyond the mentally ill or critically inept.

I do not believe living inside a piece of cloth raised on the bare earth without sanitation (or anything else really) is a choice sane people would make, just to avoid work.

Some homeless people are mentally ill but this isn't a reason to not have a social safety net. There used to be a term 'noblesse oblige' where the more fortunate are duty bound to look after those less fortunate, to my mind this is where a social security net is required.

Some people will for one reason or another, whether by bad luck or plain old stupidity will end up at some point in there life out on the streets. If these people have kids then the kids end up on the streets and no longer receive an education, so they'll end up as criminals or on drugs or something like that. If this cycle is allowed to continue you end up with large areas of slums in cities. If instead when bad things happen there is a security net that allows you to wipe yourself down, get up and move on then the cycle is avoided, or at least it's depth is less. It can become a social welfare problem, but at least you don't have children dying in tents from exposure, and there's always the chance that when things pick up, they'll be able to get a job or at least the children do.

Some homeless people are mentally ill but this isn't a reason to not have a social safety net.

To be effective, it would have to be a social safety cage. Reasonable people can differ on whether that is a good idea.

Why would it be a cage? Isn't the idea of a free society is that it is a society? A group of responsible adults could agree that events could occur which result in people having to live on the streets for no reason of their own. I agree with some forethought these events could be planned for, but this is the sense of noblesse oblige. It recognises that not all people in the community are able to plan with the same level of forethought, and that the resources they have to work with will forbid this level of planning. And so a wealthy society can afford to look after all people if they so desire. If they wish to opt of the safety net then that is fine, I don't see how it's a cage.

> I agree with some forethought these events could be planned for

Really? One of the things that Hayek is well known for, the 'socialist calculation problem', states that too much central control is bad because it's simply impossible to 'calculate' an economy - it's best left as a dynamic system with millions of independent actors. However, doesn't that also apply to individuals? You can do your best to make plans, only to run into things beyond your knowledge or control.

I agree that it's not possible to calculate an economy. I was talking on a personal level, a rational person in a situation where at any time they may lose their job and be thrown on the streets will save and put aside enough money to survive for a reasonable amount of time. However if you're already living hand to mouth, you lose your job, the bank forecloses on your house and you're out on the street, well it seems in the US it's tent city here I come. Many of the people are victims of an economic event out of everyones control. A social security safety net would prevent tent cities from happening. Which is the greatest cost to a society - having citizens living in tents without any sanitation or health care, which will increase crime and health care needs - or provide all citizens with a safety net of a subsistence wage?

I agree - which is my point, that it's more or less correct to point out that a government, with everything available to it, is unable to 'calculate' an economy, but by the same token, individuals can try their best and miss the mark too. There ought to be something there for them to help pull them up and get them going again.

You are ignoring Pat's point, which is that many of the homeless choose to be homeless. So you must answer the question: should we force homeless people into shelters?

I never said anything about forcing people into shelters. My point was by providing a basic level of social security the tent city could be avoided. In Australia there are still some homeless living under bridges and so on, this can't be prevented, but we have no tent cities (except for the occasional political protests).

There are some shelters run by charity groups for the remaining homeless, who provide food and shelter for the night if so required. Most of these people have mental disorders / drug problems / or homeless kids who've left home, and there are mechanisms that help these as best as possible, but it's not 100% successful. Most of them choose to find a shelter for the night.

This situation is different from the one that creates the tent cities. From the interviews these are people who lost their jobs because of the economic collapse. Shouldn't a 21st century society provide some sort of safety net for these people so they can maintain some diginity?

About the homeless with mental illness...

These days we have advanced medication which can cure I'd say 95% of all mental illnesses. So these people would only be in hospital a few weeks to get onto the right medication.

Then get them into temporary housing - not a shelter where they have to beg/pray to eat, but just a normal house.

They should ideally be on social security while ill, but work if they are able.

While I'm not a psychiatric professional, I do associate with several people in that field, and I'm calling shenanigans on your numbers. I'd say:

"These days we have advanced medications, which can help with some of the symptoms of perhaps 25% of mental illnesses. Effectiveness will dramatically vary by person, and only works if the person continues to take the medication as directed (something that is very often outside the ability of a mentally ill person on their own). Also, many of these medications can cause health issues, addiction, toxicity, interactions with other medications and drugs, and need to be monitored on a frequent basis by a medical professional in order to fine tune the dosage, and look out for early warning signs of serious side effects."

Which isn't nearly as helpful. Unfortunately.

Okay, the number was based on how many people I knew in hospital who got better.

I'll admit that my statistic is made up, but I think the rest of my comment is reasonable.

Tent cities are going to be preferable, in some cases, to the sort of hideous social housing available (especially here in the UK). At least you can up sticks and walk down the road with a tent.. in social housing, if your neighbor's a drug addict and kids are pissing in your letterbox, you're screwed.

This is outrageous nonsense about UK social housing. There is a small amount of truly awful social housing but the vast majority of it is perfectly sound, full of ordinary decent people. I have council flats in front of me, and to the right of my house and they are full of good people.

My brother is a professor of General Practice (a GP/local MD in US parlance) who was on sabbatical in San Francisco 2 years ago. He pointed out to me THEN there were more homeless rough sleepers in Golden Gate Park alone every night than there were rough sleepers in London. Los Angeles had, at that time, 250,000 rough sleepers.

The UK (and the rest of Europe) have social (and drug) problems like anywhere buy nowhere are things as bad in the US which effectively has no functioning social security and where whole communities are 2 wage packets from destitution.

That wasn't the point. The point is that if you have minimal money, some freedom, and plenty of free space, you can just about function (as the tent cities, favelas, and so forth demonstrate). Those are dire places to live but at least you have mobility when the jobs come back.. whereas if you're stuck in social housing you are screwed.

The US is full of mobile, resourceful people who have a freedom over the land Europeans could only dream of. They'll get through this however bad it gets. Lazy, dole-riding Europeans? I'm not so sure.

(note: I'm not saying "all Europeans are X" but using an adjective to describe a group of Europeans.. sadly some people are stupid enough to think <adjective> <noun> means all <noun> are <adjective>)

libertarianism and capitalism are not at odds with social consciousness and charity. as a libertarian I object only to the mandatory nature of government sponsored regulation and subsidy. instead of having a government sponsored safety net let startups compete to monetize the homeless market. As mentioned a lot of these people are doing day laborer jobs and other miscellaneous things. there is probably a lot of potential there that is only being stifled by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws prevent anyone whose labor isn't worth at least $x an hour from finding employment. "but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?" $3 an hour is better than $0 an hour, and the defining feature would be that everything was entered into as a voluntary contract. Nothing would be forced on anyone. It would simply be giving homeless people an option that doesn't exist now.

Imagine: Better Living Inc. offers housing, counseling, and vocational training to the homeless. In the interim the homeless person works for $3 an hour until he has enough saved up to jump start a real life again. I'm betting the numbers add up.

Voluntary? In an absolutist sense, yes. In practice, no. In theory all work in voluntary, assuming you can leave job and still afford to pay for basic amenities like food, housing, transportation, and still provide for your family, etc until new employment is secured. If you cannot do these things, it ceases to be voluntary.

"but paying homeless people $3 an hour is barbaric, what do you want, homeless sweat shops?"

Well according to this logic, $2.50/hr is better than $0/hr; $2/hr is better than $0/hr; $1/hr is better than $0/hr, and so on. Everything you describe is a race to the bottom in terms of wages. There would have to be a very strong deflationary pressure to bring prices to the point where the above is capable of really purchasing anything. In such a case, the economy would be in shambles anyway, so employment in general would be a huge issue.

What you describe is not new and, at its core, totally exploitative. Living in a company town is strikingly similar to this. The employer actually "pays" the worker, $7/hr, but keeps the $4 majority the payment of ground rent, food, etc. Of course, you leave any time--that is until your meager savings are depleted by a raised cost of living--one manufactured by the benevolent boss/mayor!

you're talking about a monopoly situation. I'm talking about a startup that competes for low wage/low skill time and then contracts this work out. It really isn't much different from the prison work programs, except the homless can leave anytime.

Look, I'm pointing out what has historically existed. Competition was around at that time as well, and these things still happened. You're the one putting forth this idea and I am criticizing it. If you cannot defend it, then it probably needs work.

" I'm talking about a startup that competes for low wage/low skill time and then contracts this work out. It really isn't much different from the prison work programs, except the homeless can leave anytime"

Considering prisons, for the most part cost money, I would like to see how this would be profitable.

I love how you justify this kind of behavior by qualifying anything you say with something to the effect of "but they can leave at any time".

BTW This sounds like the same system (Gang System) employed by the English agricultural industry in the mid 19th century. It was one step above slavery, because "they could leave at any time", although their wages were so pitiful this was realistically an impossibility. And yes, there was a lot of competition. Same thing with domestic labor. When you're an unskilled laborer, your options are pretty limited by default.

These are not new ideas, they're just horrible ideas from the past that people for the most part have forgotten about.

why do you keep comparing the homeless to people who were trying to actually make a living and raise families?

the situation is totally different.

When you're an unskilled laborer, your options are pretty limited by default.

and you want to limit those options further. I'm not grasping how giving someone an additional option makes their situation worse.

Say it was as bad as you say and these places were horrible.

Homeless person in city A options: normal homeless options

Homeless person in city B options: normal homeless options + low wage job offer

how is the person in city A magically better off?

You neglect option C: A charity and/or social program that provides a safe, albeit spartan environment in which the person can live for a temporary period, while receiving instruction on life skills, resume preparation, interview conduct, and if all goes well, job placement. These kind of programs already exist for parolees (a similar type of at-risk population) and they are, for the most part, effective.

And you don't need to exploit someone that already has a hard enough time adjusting to society.

how is that not included in normal homeless options? you're talking about taxpayer funded programs. I'm talking about a business.

Besides the problems mentioned in the other comments, there are many homeless people who aren't really fit for any job, due to severe mental illness or drug abuse issues.

Or, alternative scenario: "Better Living Inc" charges the homeless it's "helping" various fees for all that housing and assistance, meanwhile keeping wages low enough such that employees remain in debt, effectively guaranteeing "Better Living" a pool of cheap labor, much like the days of the old company store... Of course, since there would be no regulatory oversight, there would be no way of rectifying this situation.

and why would homeless people volunteer for this if it was the case? what's worse?

being on the street with no prospects

being on the street but having the option to work for basic amenities if you choose?

i think a lot of these criticisms are being unrealistic about how horrible being homeless is. Especially in cities where it SNOWS. Homeless people freeze to death every winter. Hell, if i was freezing to death I would rob someone just to get thrown in prison. At least prisoners have food and shelter.

_and why would homeless people volunteer for this if it was the case?_

People are often duped and/or coerced into doing all sorts of things not in their best long term interests interests.

and you think homeless people have a low time-preference? a homeless person by definition doesn't have long term interests. The whole point is to give them a short term solution so that the IMMEDIACY of not freezing to death doesn't prevent them from making longer term plans.

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