• conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    There’s a number of other studies that show that, overall, letting people go unhoused is far, far more costly than just fucking housing them. It’s not just paying for the cops and demo teams to chase them around, you’re also paying for excess use of medical services that wouldn’t be taking place otherwise, lost revenue because of people wanting to avoid the homeless, and a bunch of other things that all just pile up. It doesn’t help that some startups have entered this space and you’ve got cities like San Francisco paying them something like 40 or 80 thousand a year to keep the homeless in a fenced off area in a tent grid. It doesn’t really fix anything, it’s just another shitty, expensive band-aid whose funding could have gone to fixing the problem but didn’t.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Yes. They should do it like NYC, where it’s basically illegal to live on the street. The city is required by law to offer free housing at a certain quality level for anyone who needs it. It’s not amazing but you get a door that locks and a security team, plus a bathroom.

      If you don’t want to sleep inside, you literally have to leave the city. It’s not cheap but it works much better than letting people live in tents.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Why the illegal part, though? People don’t really need an incentive to have shelter. It just punishes people who are struggling with even deeper issues.

        • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          People don’t really need an incentive to have shelter

          Not necessarily true. For example if the place has “no alcohol and no being drunk” policy, some of them will rather stay out.

          • Soup@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Right but that’s a choice the shelter can make and not a point against the idea that people, ultimately, won’t really refuse a place to sleep. It’s a more complex issue that takes more time than an evening so rules like “no being drunk” which sound fine don’t really help anyone.

            • Zorque@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              I’d imagine it’d help make the unhoused who don’t want to have to deal with drunk people feel a lot safer about using them.

              • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                and if you want to use public money on it, then the goal has to be to help them get back to society, to which dealing with problematic behavioral patterns, like substance abuse, is a necessity…

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      you’ve got cities like San Francisco paying them something like 40 or 80 thousand a year to keep the homeless in a fenced off area in a tent grid

      Star Trek DS9 predicting the future yet again