alt Hacker News> Care to read it past the preface?
I already read the entire thing. You may stop accusing me of bad faith or insufficient research at any time.
> Page 5, Figure 4.
Thank you for confirming that you cited a chart listing 75% of unsheltered people and called it "close to 100%". I gave exact numbers from the studies I referenced; you exaggerated yours.
A more relevant figure from the study is figure 2: 51% of unsheltered people (and 6% of sheltered) say that substance abuse is a cause of their homelessness. Also see figure 3 for other relevant causes.
That's leaving aside, again, that you are still equivocating between drugs and alcohol. I would suggest looking at statistics for how many people in the general population drink to excess, if you're going to cite statistics on how many homeless people do. But, of course, "drug addict" is the more evocative and stigmatizing phrase, which makes it harder to get people help.
And in any case: yes, of course there's a difference between sheltered and unsheltered, not least of which because we do a poor job of helping people who simultaneously experience drug addiction and homelessness. There's an obvious correlation there, but a major part of it is "drug addiction prevents getting help from shelters". (And I would venture a guess that homelessness makes it harder to get help with drug addiction, though I haven't specifically looked up numbers on that one.)
There are many attempted claims in this thread that people "don't want help", and none of that is supported. How many people refuse help, versus how many people can't get the help they need based on the structure of what we provide?
On top of that, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057738 for a more nuanced point about lagging indicators: the right interventions happen much earlier in that downward spiral.
That is nowhere near the same as a claim that homelessness, in general, is a problem of drug addiction, or that the Venn diagram is a circle. That claim is actively harmful towards efforts to build systems that actually help people.
> You failed to do a basic search to verify your claims. Instead, you clutched at the first number that popped out in Google Search.
False. Stop assuming that people who come to different conclusions than you have have not done thorough research.
Replies
> Thank you for confirming that you cited a chart listing 75% of unsheltered people and called it "close to 100%".
I already said that the study is from pre-COVID time, and puts the lower bound due to its conservative methodology.
And yes, I consider it proving my point, even that conservative estimate shows that for the vast majority of unsheltered homeless the problem is not in housing availability. It's mental health and/or drug abuse.
> A more relevant figure from the study is figure 2: 51% of unsheltered people (and 6% of sheltered) say that substance abuse is a cause of their homelessness. Also see figure 3 for other relevant causes.
Self-reporting, again. It's also kinda beside the point. Right _now_ the unsheltered homelessness is a drug problem however it began earlier.
Unless you just want to wait until all the addicts just die of overdoses?
> There are many attempted claims in this thread that people "don't want help", and none of that is supported.
I cited another study. There is also the experience in Seattle or SF. I guess you live somewhere in a town where the worst substance abuse is someone getting a bit too much booze?
Portland tried to decriminalize drugs and add voluntary treatment options. Their drug treatment hotline apparently helped 17 to enter treatment. Not percent, people.
> On top of that, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057738 for a more nuanced point about lagging indicators: the right interventions happen much earlier in that downward spiral.
Yes. We need absolutely relentless pressure. If you're caught doing drugs, you need to have only two choices: treatment or jail. You can then get into housing, but with random mandatory drug screening. Constant, unyielding pressure with 100% certainty of consequences.
For people who are NOT on drugs, I fully support emergency housing assistance, job training, and/or help with getting disability status.
> That is nowhere near the same as a claim that homelessness, in general, is a problem of drug addiction, or that the Venn diagram is a circle. That claim is actively harmful towards efforts to build systems that actually help people.
No. They are people who are actually not blinded by the ideology and CAN SEE THE FUCKING PROBLEM in the first place.
> False. Stop assuming that people who come to different conclusions than you have have not done thorough research.
Sorry. But not buying it.
And also to add to this: OK, assume that you won the point. 75-80% is totally not "almost 100%" and only 65% of people become homeless because of drugs.
So what next? Building more housing won't help drug addicts that are _already_ addicts. Even if you believe that it might prevent future homelessness (spoiler: it won't), we _already_ have hundreds of thousand of hard-drug addicts.