- cross-posted to:
- urbanism@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- urbanism@slrpnk.net
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12369426
the purpose of a system is what it does
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12369426
the purpose of a system is what it does
California is building housing at $1000/sqft, the city of San Francisco spends $100,000/year per homeless person
If it was somehow just as easy to build public housing, why wouldn’t they?
The tweet only talks about the cost of housing homeless people. Homeless people have other needs like mental and medical care. And $1000/sqft isn’t the norm and the tweet is generalizing about housing costs throughout the country, not the CA. You just seem dead set and making public housing seem untenable. And they don’t build public housing because it lowers rent for all renters. There’s no floor to housing so every renter can be implicitly threatened with the specter of complete destitution, holding them ransom for the ridiculous rents we have now.
The state is dead set on making public housing untenable through its inability to execute, even if given the money.
CA has the biggest homeless problem, with nearly 30% of country’s homless. They spend the most, and get the least results.
Le tweet is just some garbage dormroom study, even if it’s well meaning, it’s nonsense. SF doesn’t even house most it’s homeless and spends $100k/person, there is no way to bridge the gap between that and $10k/person just for housing, at least on average.
Market build high density vs star build high density will not lower the price of rent, the only way is to increase true supply (build more housing than the market can bear, which the state can’t afford to do at $1k/sqft) or decrease true demand (fewer people to house).
Your held hostage to rent where you live? Move. I did, it’s been great. It really solves several issues with one stone.
Housing First is the correct way to reduce homelessness. The main cause of homelessness is being priced out of the housing market, because the vast majority of housing in America is entirely privatized. Plus most public housing in America is not done nor funded well, until our European counterparts
https://www.pdx.edu/homelessness/housing-first
This has worked famously in Finland
I don’t want to just dismiss that entirely, especially not in it’s approach to the problem, but I’m not really sold.
In this study you have: 150 hand selected people, who are “chronically unhoused” not long term homeless ( at least that’s how I’m reading it) A big town in a low population state A small total chronically unhoused population (est 513 in addition to the 150 included in the program) 18 year time difference, with 56% inflation since then A 23% dropout rate (which is probably better than it sounds) A small 15% decrease in substance abuse and increase in seeking employment
This really does not inspire confidence in its efficacy in America, more specifically California or New York where more than 50% of of the countries homeless are located.
The studies and examples in America are small because they are only done on a State level with no to little federal funding. You’ll need to look into how Housing First has been put in practice in European countries to get a better idea about how they can function with federal funding and support.
Yeah, that was the only issue, definitely.
Europe having a rate of homelessness of ~1/835 as opposed to the US ~1/507 is a quite a bit better, but I’m honestly suprised it’s that high, and leads me again to doubt supposed value. With all the social services available in the EU, that really isn’t the difference I was hoping for.
The US has so many areas that are dirt poor and being pumped with drugs (both legal and illegal) as well as a super predatory renter and lending market. I’m just not sure what could drive those numbers in Europe.
Not everywhere is equal in Europe, while homelessness is lower across the board because Europe overall has better social services available, Finland is far ahead because of it’s implementation of Housing First.
You also need to look at the definition of homelessness. Finland counts first-stage homelessness, known as couch surfing (which leads to car-camping and eventually the late-stage homelessness of living on the streets) in that calculation. The US ignores 1st and 2nd stage and only calculates homelessness with the late-stage. If the US uses the same calculation as Finland or other European countries, our homelessness rate would be even higher.
Drug addiction is a symptom of late-stage homelessness, not a cause. The cause is almost always the private housing market pricing people out of affording even rent. In the US, housing is first and foremost an investment, not a necessity.
Housing is a human right: How Finland is eradicating homelessness - CBC
Here’s how Finland solved its homelessness problem - WEF
Doesn’t Finland have socialized medicine? We don’t have that in the US. So anyone in an addiction or mental health crisis has to jump through hoops to get help. A large percentage of our homeless are schizophrenics and addicts. It’s a sad sad state of affairs.
Access to mental health and addiction services is an important part, yes. Both are important and both help homeless people. I’d say Housing First is more important, since you need a stable living situation in order to stabilize the rest of your life.
I’m an advocate for both Housing First and Socialized Medicine
Where is this “$100k/person” statistic coming from? SF hates homeless people, so I kind of just don’t believe that.
That’s great, I’m glad for you. Not everyone can do that. If 2/3 of your income is going to rent alone, where are you gonna get the money for moving costs? You’re going to need storage and/or shipping if you’re moving far enough that your rent is going to drop significantly, you’ll also need first month’s rent, last month’s rent, deposit, setup fees for utilities, termination fees for old utilities, and maybe even termination fees for your existing contract which usually just means paying the rest of the rent for the term of your contract all at once. Then you need a new job, new community, new resources, new doctors, etc. And don’t forget people who are unable to move to certain areas due to marginalization. Some areas are literally deadly to live in if you’re queer or a person of color, and some areas are completely unlivable if you’re disabled. What about people who are already homeless? They can’t move because social services are tied to the city where they last had residence.
Earlier in the thread you asked “If it was somehow just as easy to build public housing, why wouldn’t they?”. The answer to that is almost always “lobbying”, or “anti-homeless sentiment”. Why aren’t they building public housing? Because people with beliefs like yours are pushing back against it. You’re arguing that it doesn’t work because it doesn’t happen, and it doesn’t happen because it doesn’t work.
Why don’t Americans have healthcare? That would definitely be cheaper with that level of purchasing power.
What does purchasing power have to do with anything? Genuine question.
There are a third of a billion people in America. If the government bought the medication in bulk they should be able to get a really good deal on that quantity. That’s how it works in other countries. I was watching Bernie talk about it recently. I can try to find the interview if you want but if you just look up his recent interviews he’s probably mentioned it in them all.
I’m not sure that would actually help given the medication is produced in America, or by American companies at least.
From what I understand, almost all medication is produced in batches of a fixed quantity, and the tested and shipped out. Batches have fixed costs associated them, both by law and by business practices.
I know I’ve read articles describing how some drugs are being made through continuous manufacturing now and that it has lower costs associated with it, but it was like 2.
Basically, I’m not sure if buying the whole countries worth of a medication would help given the way the FDA has gone about certifying meds and the cost structures that has created. If you all of a sudden had to recertify most medications, many of them would stop being produced all together.
Another to consider is that under FAR, you must amortize the entire cost of an item, including testing and development, when selling to the federal government.
Wouldn’t those costs be absolutely insane? Wouldn’t that effectively turn big pharma into the new MIC?