I have a problem with the first question. My wife works at a transitional housing program for the homeless in Madison, and it’s rarely the case that just one factor is involved. For example, the vast majority of them have a dual diagnosis of mental illness and substance addiction. Most have dealt with real trauma in life that a lot of privileged people either have not or can afford to get help for. All of them are down on their luck, mostly since birth.

I have a problem with the first question. — Noah Te Stroete

Thank you for being informed and suggesting a possible blend of the options.

Is it possible for you to still entertain the other questions?

I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all solution. Some of them could maybe work, some can’t. I think mini-home communities would be preferable to a lot of them, and I think it is also humane. Homeless people are generally in need of extensive healthcare, and we should be working to fix our healthcare system before talking about putting them to work.

A personal note: after not taking my medications for a couple of days, I became extremely agitated and my wife took me to UW hospital where I stayed on the psych ward for two nights. I knew I couldn’t stay long because of the cost, even though I probably should’ve stayed for a week or two. I have Medicare which pays 80%, and my bill was still over $1000. So not only did I not get the help I needed, but I also had a large bill I couldn’t afford to pay. See the problem?

As an aside, during this state of agitation I coined the term “Ronald Reagan’s Paradise” as a descriptor of the state of affairs in our country.

I'm thinking there were jobs programs in the 1930s. Respectable work for folks who could do it. Something similar, now, government subsidized. I don't know what the military budget is this year, but I know that even just a mouse-sized nibble from it could go a long way towards providing some real solutions.

And Noah's anecdote is (imo) emblematic of a deeper problem. Our whole system is geared to our getting the most money we can out of our fellow citizens, beyond reason. It's something like a bunch of people in deep water: the stronger push the weaker down, and soon enough they drown. The only remedy I see is state-run reallocation of wealth. Recent increases in minimum wage a start. That is, when society becomes grossly, disproportionately, destructively avaricious, then some admittedly socialist practices seem necessary - which we already have to some extent.

As to rents, I think landlords should be able to charge as much as they want, and the renters pay as much as they want - that is, no maximum. BUT: rent should not exceed some well-defined percentage of the renter's income, and anything over immediately payed to government as a form of tax. And no reason not to have some housing subsidies for rental properties in which revenues do not cover expenses.

In sum, imo, most homeless are that way because they were f***ed one way or another, directly or indirectly. Society, writ both large and small, did it. It's time and past time for those to be part of the solution. That, or soon enough the desperate will include those whose recent and latent sense of entitlement and justice will find ample grounds for themselves to do something about it! .

That, or soon enough the desperate will include those whose recent and latent sense of entitlement and justice will find ample grounds for themselves to do something about it! . — tim wood

Everyone feels entitled. Some just get more out of their sense of entitlement than others.

I'm thinking there were jobs programs in the 1930s. — tim wood

Unemployment in the US was at least 25% during the Great Depression. Job programs helped some, but by no means did the programs help 25% of the working population.

The cause for homelessness in California, where between 25% and 50% of all US homeless live, is a severe shortage of affordable housing. Why do all these people live in an expensive state like California? Because it's -1ºF in Minneapolis right now. The minimum estimate of homeless in California is 130,000 (the 25% of US estimated total).

People become homeless through several routes--everything you listed, plus poverty and rising rents.

The solution that makes the most sense to me is HOUSING FIRST. Get people into good quality SRO rooms with services or small apartments with services. Once people have a warm, secure place to sleep, take a bath, keep dry, and so forth they start doing better. Provide services with the housing: addiction treatment, assistance with medication (obtaining and administering), and access to adequate food.

Housing First with services reduces ER visits and expensive treatment (county expense) for neglected disease. It improves the quality of life for those now housed, and also improves the quality of lie for everyone else.

At $50,000 for a built-to-purpose unit of SRO or efficiency apartments, California could house 130,000 people for about maybe $7 to $14 billion. Isn't that a lot of money? Yes, it is but Bill Gates could buy 130,000 units of housing and afterwards still be among the richest people in the world. Ditto for several other billionaires in California and elsewhere in the US.

Arranging affairs for the benefit of the rich and property owners is one of the reasons why there are so many homeless people. It's only reasonable to claw back some of those dollars -- about, oh, maybe $20,000,000,000 worth--for housing first across the country.

Cities used to have skid row areas where men (usually) could find the cheapest possible housing: warehouse floors divided up into small rooms with plywood and chicken wire with a lockable door. It was a step up from sleeping on the street--not a big step up, but slightly better. Cities used to have a lot of ratty apartment buildings where poor people could live -- with water, toilets, heat, and privacy. Probably plenty of cockroaches and bedbugs too, but it was a step up from living in the warehouse box-rooms.

Some cities used to have SROs -- single occupancy hotel rooms. You got a bed, a window, a radiator, and a lockable door--quite possibly a sink. The bathroom was down the hall. These were also a step up from living on the street or in warehouse-boxes.

These poverty-linked housing options are pretty much gone in most cities--torn down, redeveloped into loft spaces, turned into condos (provided the building bones were very good), and so on -- but no longer available as cheap housing. So, that's another reason why people are homeless.

BTW, the GDP of California is $2.751 trillion -- bigger than the GDP of the UK. California has one of the biggest economies in the world.

Active drug addicts might as well be classed as mentally ill, especially long time meth users. I can see how housing these folks would be an intractable nightmare.

Am dealing with a squatting (in tent) meth user. There is a bit of a social network of the underclass where I live which makes me nervous about using the police to evict them for fear of retaliatory property damage. Would have left them alone except for evidence of trespassing.

Pretty much this exactly, and as you've mentioned when wealthy people face issues of substance abuse or trauma it's just a different case. I grew up down the street from a family of multi-millionaires and when one of their adult children fell into substance abuse he just got sent to a nice rehab resort and paying for the care or his rent was never really a concern. I recently watched a documentary on homeless women in Great Britain and it just seemed like they had basically no real family or much of a support network. If that's how it is for the women I'd figure it's much worse for the men.

Asking that question in my welfare country would be quite different. Because the homeless people here are:

a) people from other EU countries (mostly from Romania) that have come here to beg.

And basically nobody else.

However, if we look at the problem more carefully, you can see that earlier there were a lot of homeless men in Finland. Absolute poverty had been basically eradicated in the start of the 20th Century, so it wasn't abject poverty anymore. One of the largest groups was at first basically WW2 veterans that didn't fit into the society, couldn't get a job or stay in a job. Then there were the ordinary alcoholics. Hence response of them "having a dual diagnosis of mental illness and substance addiction" would come closer to an universal definition.

(Famous Finnish Cartoonist's take on homelessness in the 1960's. "Puistotäti", 'Park Aunt' refers to a Kindergarten teacher taking care of children in a park. "Puistosetä", 'Park Uncle': those men who spend all of their times in public parks.)


Now the country has become more wealthier homelessness has basically been eradicated, except of the travelling beggars that have found a lucrative niche.

Some cities used to have SROs -- single occupancy hotel rooms. You got a bed, a window, a radiator, and a lockable door--quite possibly a sink. The bathroom was down the hall. These were also a step up from living on the street or in warehouse-boxes. — Bitter Crank

You're describing today's extended stay hotel. In the US all hotels have bathrooms in the room, but in filthy Europe, they don't care. Hostels over there are pretty cheap, but I don't think they rent to homeless people, although the back packers I met in Europe stunk to high hell.

I do think you understate the mental issues of the homeless, at least those I've seen in balmy Atlanta. It's not like they're a clean bed and good meal away from ending the endless rambling conversations they have with themselves.

The question is what do you do for those who can't do for themselves? The answer is that you hope there's someone to do for them, which is in best case a family member, but usually an underpaid, overworked, and maybe not fully qualified government worker who is herself one paycheck away from eviction.

I do think you understate the mental issues of the homeless — Hanover

I may not have emphasized the severity of mental illness in my response, but MI certainly is a factor in helping homeless people. The point of housing first programs is that the assistance which can be provided seriously mentally ill patients is much more effective IF they live indoors. Like most people, the mentally ill do better if they have a secure, fixed place to live, everything else being equal. It is very hard to provide service to people who are living on the street (because of the stresses involved in homelessness and because of their movement from place to pace.

The same goes for addiction; the same goes for homeless people who do not have the complicating factors of MI or CD.

You're describing today's extended stay hotel — Hanover

True, lots of people are living in motels--which even if it is a ratty, run-down operation is still a relatively expensive option. There were a few SROs in Minneapolis, up to... maybe 20 years ago, when the last of them were converted back to upscale operations or torn down, and yes, they had bathrooms. But I've read of SROs in NYC, for instance, where they didn't have baths. These were, obviously, old buildings and the dates of operation were a while ago.

The question is what do you do for those who can't do for themselves? The answer is that you hope there's someone to do for them, which is in best case a family member, but usually an underpaid, overworked, and maybe not fully qualified government worker who is herself one paycheck away from eviction. — Hanover

Indeed! Housing with services isn't a cheap option. Housing costs money, and adequate staffing (in terms of pay and qualifications) is also expensive. If you are going to have one staff per 100 homeless, MI/CD clients, you might as well not bother, even if that one staff is a combination of Florence Nightengale, Mother Teresa, and Wonder Woman.

First question lacks the reasonable answer: housing is ridiculous overpriced (due largely to rent-seeking activity on the part of the rich). Even average people can barely afford temporary shelter. Most people don’t own their homes, and it’s increasingly difficult for an increasingly large fraction of people to have any hope of ever doing so. By that standard most people are “homeless”, it’s just that most of them manage to barely scrape by to afford temporary (rental) housing better than some others can.

Many in this thread speak of mental illness coupled with drug use.

In Canada, drug addiction, including alcoholism, is classified as a bona fide mental illness.

And if it is coupled with a mental illness of the classic sense, then the condition is called "comorbidity".

Shelter living is not what it's all cracked up to be. It's worse than jail. You get stolen of everything you own, and you can be beaten for fun and raped for sex all night long.

So a lot of homeless avoid shelters. It's safer in the streets. That, even when given that you can freeze to death or run over by a run-away streetcar. Not to mention being ushered constantly to go to some other place. And begging is not much fun either, it is a boring job, not much in benefits, and the chicks hate you. Your co-workers will constantly try to backstab you.

I am not even sure if you have to pay any protection money for a good stand to beg, like those pedestrian islands in the divider lines by intersections.

If you are going to have one staff per 100 homeless, MI/CD clients, you might as well not bother, even if that one staff is a combination of Florence Nightengale, Mother Teresa, and Wonder Woman. — Bitter Crank

Plus Xaveria Hollander. Don't forget Xaveria.

Did the Happy Hooker have a special interest in social services for the homeless? After all, wasn't she a high-end service provider?

Did the Happy Hooker have a special interest in social services for the homeless? After all, wasn't she a high-end service provider? — Bitter Crank

Those who could afford her needed her the least; those who couldn't afford her, needed her the most.

Do you know, that on the average, how many times a street person gets laid on an annual basis? The answer is zero.

how many times a street person gets laid on an annual basis — god must be atheist

I can sympathize. I haven't gotten laid in a long time. Seems like there should be an initiative to provide safe and effective annual visits to a... service provider for under-served populations. Something -- a massage and a hand job at least.