Homelessness in Cities

Can’t speak for Houston specifically, but homeless in big cities is often a function of zoning.

When new developments can’t be done because zoning prevents it you get artificially high housing costs , with SF being the worst offender. By extension the income percentile threshold for homelessness shifts higher and thus you get more homelessness.

I am not in a city but I can see how the homeless situation could be getting very bad.  It is easy for white collar workers to work from home but you can't say the same thing about people in other industries that require being in-person.  Unemployment payments do not go on forever and I think the extra benefit due to COVID expired.  This is only one industry, but in NYC broadway will not be opening up until ay least mid 2021.  What are these people doing for compensation and/or work?

It is not only the drug addicts and or people with mental illness who are homeless.

I have lived in both LA and NYC before and other larger cities. This entire situation is indeed bad and, looking at research/papers, is about to get much worse.

Some councils are trying "tiny homes" to provide housing, others do have larger facilities for people who are temporarily displaced. However, there are specific rules everyone has to live by in these accommodations and sometimes people don't want to adhere to them.

Let's also not forget people who live in their cars, who are couchsurfing, or find alternative solutions.

This is a very large topic that needs consistent work from the entire society.

You'd like to assume every homeless person got there by abusing drugs and not working hard enough, but we know economic hardships are harder on lower rungs. Right now, small business closures and places like restaurants that employ lower income people has spiked, recently, and that tends to happen during economic hardship. This is going to have a huge impact long-term on some individuals. You can say that social movement, or people's ability to successfully go from poor to middle class to upper and the lack thereof, is not an indicator of social mobility, which is does it happen in general in society. But you can find studies done showing that places with the most upward mobility tend to quickly price those poorer earners out, and so there is a diminishing potential for upward mobility. Land is scarce and the economics of making housing naturally affordable becomes very costly after awhile.

People need to move, but in practice it's not easy to pick up and move, especially when someone may already be struggling to make ends meet. And that's not a healthy solution when rental owners rely on multi-month/long-term lease agreements for stable revenue. In many states, the high density cities with high upward mobility, generally are occupied by more well off high earning individuals at its core, and the outskirts are inhabited by lower income people who commute in. That's a model that usually works out. But, at some point, the city can grow fast enough to push even higher earnings' people to the outskirts. I know that's happening in places like DC and even NYC doesn't have many lower income neighborhoods inside Manhattan.

And, traditionally, the cities that are now pushing lower income people out have been a beacon for migration to the city because of the idea of upward mobility, which is now in reverse. It's a lot harder to know where those opportunities lie because realistically, if LA or NYC are places with traditionally high upward mobility and that is now no longer the case in terms of affordability, it's probably some of those lower income people's last hope to be there in the first place and who now have no hopes of better options.

Basically would need certain people to not reproduce which is impossible to enforce (and I do not advocate for that) so it's unlikely to be solvable. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't have a good solution. 

Many homeless have mental or emotional problems that preclude them from a normal life or really seeking out changes for themselves. In our area the previously mentioned tiny homes are being offered at small numbers by some religious and NGO organizations. I think providing small no frills housing to homeless is a pretty smart idea.

With that being said, generally the best answer for addressing homelessness in able bodied and able minded people is to drive such growth in jobs that people who would have previously been overlooked for positions would be accepted. Unfortunately, covid’s biggest detriment to our society probably won’t be in lives lost but in the economic harm that occurred due to necessary measures to avoid mass death. I would love to see programs like the depression era public works programs where we can put these people to work on our infrastructure providing them with housing, food and income while hopefully getting our infrastructure caught up to where it should be. The real benefit would be if you didn’t have to pay prevailing wages like many governments require you could really employ a ton more people and get so much more done.

Yes mental health contributes to drugs and alcohol which then contributes to burning bridges and becoming homeless.

But I don't understand widespread homelessness in high cost of living cities like San Fran; if you can't afford the cost of living, move out! Move to a more affordable part of the country and rebuild your wealth.  Think about it, if you lost your job and were draining your savings b/c the cost of living is high, would you stay and let yourself become homeless or would you move, decrease your costs and grind to get on your feet again?

Plus practically we are enabling homelessness by accommodating them with zero police intervention (made worse by liberals defunding police), free health care, free food and shelter.  Enabling someone with a problem by giving them more means to continue their problem doesn't break their vicious cycle.  

More needs to be done in helping the homeless find work and relocate to other zip codes where there is demand for their labor.  

Generalizing to a bigger problem a HUGE part of America just wants to live a ‘simple’ life and work a job they don’t have to think much of, go home and bam without too much food or housing insecurity.

I’d be ok if we did away with everything and gave everyone UBI for this reason because it applies to druggies like above. Localities and municipalities can then have programs that go beyond to provide these basic works (janitorial, etc. that people can do and have job security) while getting enough to live.

Decent value, money sink sure but mostly gets a decent chunk of the problem dealt with. At this point if someone is fucked then it’s their fault. People have a lot of insecurity over their downside case, and providing a guarantee for some of that with money we will spend no matter what (on BS useless programs and bloviating bureaucracies and bureaucrats) is somewhat OK to preserve incentives still.

But yeah I think we could do better for those who have no recourse or have issues that needs help from society. But what about lazy people who put themselves in those situations? You have to provide a margin for that, but at least this way I think crime drops for those who are desperate and need it who sometimes turn to crime instead of working hard. This is a middle ground of sorts. I’m for it, but mostly for localized programs. Someone in alaska should not be responsible for some bum in California and Vice versa it’s just too removed from another, but Californians can tru this out.

In my opinion, to start a discussion on homeless you need to define what/who you think the majority of homeless are. Is it people with mental disabilities or just can't function in society? People down on their luck? People who are just lazy and dont/wont work?

I mean, we're all smart on this form. If one of us went homeless, no money, no assets, but you have your ability and mindset, how fast do you think it would take you to get out of homeless. What would be your process? Get a job, move to a less populated area? Basically, my point/take is, I don't think people live on the streets because they got priced out of a home or are too lazy to work; most have most mental issues outside of that, where a majority, if you gave them a home they would still end up on the streets. 

So do you police the homeless? Give them money? A lot of people mention how the homeless aren't policed because they dont have anything to take/it would crowd jails. Adam Carolla talks about this on his podcast, where he tells a story about Jimmy Kimmel trying to open a sandwich shop. The state inspector wouldn't let Jimmy open the sandwich shop bc he didn't have the right fan for the drive thru window, but across the street a homeless guy was selling fruit everyday and no one policed him.