This idea of worrying about who gets what for free before actually solving the problem, is a major blocker in solving the homelessness problem. And not only do the homeless suffer for it, the people who have work or homes in the area suffer for the lack of pragmatism about it.
Let’s also recognize that if you are a home owner and especially if you also have a mortgage, you are already benefiting from massive government subsidies and “handouts”. An enormously valuable one is the exemption for capital gains taxes on primary residences. Or the ability to deduct mortgage interest and property taxes from your taxable income. The list is long and represents huge sums of money.
The amount of tax revenue forgone by the government for the capital gains exemption alone surely dwarfs the money it would take to provide affordable housing for many people. To salt the wound further, these benefits turn home ownership into a lucrative investment vehicle that drives up prices, worsening the crisis!
If you offer free housing, there will be millions claiming they are homeless to take advantage. Just look at the PPP loans that were taken advantage of during the pandemic to get an idea how far people will go to get a bit of free cash.
You can, right now, go buy a mobile home in pretty much anywhere you want for around $40-50k. Why aren't more people buying mobile homes if the housing market is such a problem? The answer to that question is the solution to the thing you think will be an issue.
I agree with you, I just feel like if I were working a minimum wage job busting my ass to pay rent to my landlord, I’d be deeply offended that you can be rewarded free housing essentially for being addicted to drugs.
I think culturally we need to get our heads on straight. There’s no reason for someone who is capable of work to be feeling offended that a sick person gets something they can earn. I’m not angry disabled people can get income just for being disabled: being disabled sucks ass! Similarly I wouldn’t envy a homeless/addicted person: being homeless rots your brain and being addicted is like being enslaved. I’m a free man and I’m happy with that. Yes I must work for my housing but I guarantee my quality of life is better than someone whose addiction drive them out onto the streets.
You seem really intent in your comments on this post to conflate drug addiction and homelessness, which are overlapping but definitely separate issues.
Also, there are housing assistance programs for everyone who makes less than a certain amount of money, and I think everyone who advocates for more housing for the homeless would agree with more affordable housing in general. Mostly people who work in this space agree that housing costs are the primary driver of homelessness.
you would be working the same minimum wage job and busting the same ass to pay the same rent to the same landlord, regardless of whether someone else got housed for free. this is indeed a very real problem, but the problem is that people are forced into long hours at (insufficient) minimum wage jobs in order to get unaffordably priced housing. you should be resenting the people higher up the chain who have created these conditions, not the people lower down who might be getting something for free.
again, the amount of their taxes that would go to providing free housing to people with nothing is so infinitesimal as to be unnoticeable, especially compared to the portion that goes into handouts to billionaires. and yet somehow it is the poor people who get resented.
and the ironic thing is that housing-first measures would likely end up saving taxpayers money, but the awful fear of someone undeserving getting something counts for more.
Why would you imagine that free housing would be something to envy over regular rentals? Minimal housing, possibly surrounded by other at-risk people working through serious issues seems like not something to envy.
> This idea of worrying about who gets what for free before actually solving the problem, is a major blocker in solving the homelessness problem.
For me, it’s not about “getting something for free” so much as it is about being efficient or inefficient.
Housing people in San Francisco instead of cheaper locations is like solving the carlessness problem by only buying teslas instead of hondas.
And then complaining that you don’t have enough money to buy everyone Teslas.
The plan is dumb. It won’t work. It’s stupid to fund such a plan. It’s not “never give free stuff to people” and “don’t give expensive stuff to people when cheap stuff does just as well, and especially if by doing so you incentivize more people to come and ask.”
I don’t think they want to solve the problem. I think they want to generate funds for consultants and NGOs that pay lots of people.
