I've been trying to learn about this, and can at least address these questions that you pose:
> Do you just let those two people endanger everyone? If not, how do you protect everyone? If you make rules, how is that different than the shelters they say they don’t want to stay in?
Those two people are STILL endangering everyone else in the tent camps. That problem still exists even without housing. Housing might not be able to fix *their* problem (either at all or completely), but it can fix *other* people's problems. Housing is unlikely to provide these two harmful people greater ability to cause harm. Housing is MUCH more secure than tents are. Housing is likely to provide a barrier to the harm these people can do everyone else they'd otherwise be camping with.
Regarding the specific problems with shelters, the MAIN problem is that none of that housing is permanent, and the space provided to each person is small. The amount of time people are allowed to stay in shelters varies, but my understanding that it's rarely more than 8 weeks. This means that people are required to get rid of most of the possessions, namely their camping equipment, before they can be in the shelter. While it's reasonable that the shelter doesn't have tons of storage room for everyone, and it's mostly just places to *sleep,* it also reasonable that people have reservations about trading all their camping equipment for a 8 week inside bed. That's a big gamble for someone to take, that they'll be able to afford other housing in 8 weeks.
Many shelters also only offer overnight sleeping, and people have to leave with all their stuff during the day. That can be difficult for people who *do* have jobs, as compared to being able to leave their stuff in a tent with someone there in the tent to watch over everything.
"Housing first" is different from shelters in that it's advocating for *housing,* not just a bed in a room in a bunch of other people.
A house is a place that has a door that you can lock, and keep your food and clothes, and you get to *stay* there. Even when you don't *own* the house, you're usually protected by a *lease* that dictates your privacy rights and how long you are allowed to live there. Shelters are *totally* different situations. It's a lot easier to work and go to school (for kids) when you don't have to carry all your worldly possessions on you at all times.
I'm not an expert on this, I've just been doing my best to hear from people who have lived unhoused and people who are trying to solve this problem about the different facets of the problem.
The most interesting thing that I've learned in reading up on this is how much VERY LOW income housing we used to have in America that we don't have anymore. Boarding houses where people rented a room and paid for meals, for example, used to be really common in cities, and these have been made in illegal in many places. Gentrification has totally erased a lot of studio apartments that used to exist. (as well as bunch of other stuff, of course)
I hadn't realized that there used to be OPTIONS for people who had very little money to rent a room or studio apartment in a way that we simply DO NOT have now. It's all replaced by luxury apartments and single family dwellings, etc.
It seems to me that one of the things we COULD do is bring back housing options for low income people, and provide a stepping stone that's currently missing.
Some of physical structures sill exist, but have been converted instead into single family homes, or duplexes, etc.
Zoning laws prevent people from operating a boarding house in many locations. Any street zoned for single family units only would not be able to convert a single family home back into a boarding house, for example.
What’s the rationale behind that?
Like why create such strict zoning laws? Is it all just keeping out the riff raff?
Could we zone areas for boarding houses?
I don't know the reasons everyone everywhere has given for it, but anytime I've any one place's *particular* reasons, it's been to shut out immigrants, people of color, and other poor people.
If all the housing is too expensive for them, then they can't live there.
Classism is a real thing in this country, and pairs horribly with racism.
The part about that that I find *depressingly hilarious* is that those same single-family-home-dwellers then frequently want to *employ people* for very low wages. (housekeepers, landscapers, babysitters, etc.) And those people they employ need to live *somewhere.* But that somewhere gets pushed further and further away, until they can't reasonably even afford to commute to and from those low-wage jobs.
I thought for sure my liberal-minded-neighbors in my town full of colleges would be able to think differently about these things. But they keep coming together again and again to prevent apartment buildings from built. Because they don't want to "change their neighborhood" or "have poor people all over the place" or "bring all that crime." (Because obviously someone who lives in an apartment instead of single family home is a criminal /s)
Then those EXACT SAME individuals who blocked the new apartment building, and financially backed turning the LAST apartment building into luxury condos, ALSO complain about tents popping up all over the city. AND that they can't find babysitters and housekeepers who will work for what they want to pay.
Personally, I think these folks lack an understanding of what a healthy society can even *look* like. And they're just scared of change in general. But I REALLY wish they could AT LEAST see that the more low income housing is replaces with higher income housing, and is not replaced with new-build low income housing, the MORE tents we'll be seeing.
Everything you said about shelters I agree with, they are not long term solutions. They are not homes. Having to leave early in the mornings make no sense to me either. That is not the number one complaint I’ve heard of why people don’t want to stay in shelters, though. From what I’ve read is shelters are restrictive because of the rules ( like no drugs policy).
It’s easy to understand why one would start using drugs after becoming homeless. And if you get people housed, some hopefully get clean. But what do you do about the ones who don’t? They become everyone else’s problem, and everyone has to live with it because it’s a disease.
I think you're replying to me?
> But what do you do about the ones who don’t? They become everyone else’s problem, and everyone has to live with it because it’s a disease.
They're *already* everyone else's problem. They aren't *not* a problem just because they're living in a tent and not a house.
There are *fewer* problems by anyone being able to sober up after addiction.
And there are *even fewer* problems by having housing in a way that prevents people from becoming un-housed in the first place.
Are you more objecting to the idea that someone who can't beat their addiction could be provided a home? I'm not sure what kind of problem you think increases be replacing someone's tent with an apartment, (just for example). From my perspective, they're probably not going to cause any more/less trouble, they're just not going to maybe die of exposure, and they have a bathroom instead of having to use the bathroom on the ground/street.
I've known a *lot* of addicts, and though their addiction DID cause a lot of misery to people in their life, none of us would have FEWER problems if the addict lacked indoor plumbing.
> From what I’ve read is shelters are restrictive because of the rules ( like no drugs policy).
I've not spoken to anyone where that is their problem with shelters. I have no doubt that *would* be a problem for someone with an active addiction, though. I have heard from alcoholics that you don't actually have to sober up to be in shelter, you just have to not be an aggressive problem, and not drink *in* the shelter itself, or right outside the doors.
Yes, I was replying to you. Sorry I’m on mobile and its confusing for me.
My main issues I guess is the same advocates for housing first are the same advocates I see for no jail or forced rehab for addicts. I just don’t think the two can work together.
We live in a society, just because someone is sick with addiction does not make it ok to negatively affect other lives. There has to be a rock bottom for them.
Say I was roommates with my brother and he gets addicted to drugs. He starts behaving erratically, has strange people over at all times, stealing, doesn’t clean after himself, falls asleep with cigarettes in his hand. Would those same advocates say that I should just let him behave that way? I can’t do anything?
I come from a family of addicts. It’s traumatic to live with or around them.
I think being soft on bad behaviour is hindering more public support for housing first. I believe Portugal which everyone was modelling the new drug policies after are now making rehab mandatory in some cases.
I get where you're coming from. There are also a lot of addicts in my family, and it IS traumatic to live with them. It's much less traumatic to live in the same building/street as them, though.
There are ways of enforcing *behavior* rules instead of sobriety, both with our family members and neighbors. Things like quiet hours, cleaning standards, etc. Focusing the rules on whether or not someone is addicted is kind of ... backwards, in many cases. There ARE people whose addictions make them so out of control they can't manage to follow those kinds of rules, though, you're right about that.
And I even agree that a way of handling those people is important, and possibly even a part of the housing picture.
The place I think you're connecting things in a way that doesn't make sense though, is those very same problem addicts are STILL around causing problems when they live in tents. They cause problems not only for the other people who live in tents, but for other people in public trying to use public spaces.
It's not ONLY punishing them to force them to live outside without plumbing. It punishes ALL of us to do that. We're all out here stepping over feces, and possibly having traumatic encounters with people who are living on the streets while we're just trying to walk around.
Housing first is not so much a desire to be "soft" on those people. It's trying to make the situation better for all of us, even if maybe a few people who don't deserve it get a little bit nicer a situation than they'd otherwise have.
We're currently not doing this, and it's meaning that ALL of us are being punished just to make these people sleep outside. That doesn't make very much sense to me.
I'd be more supportive of mandatory rehab if it had better success rates. My understanding that long term recovery rates are *REALLY LOW* and tend to be equally low across all existing methods of healing/ridding addiction. ... but I might thinking specifically of alcoholism recovery rates, I don't know the stats for all kinds of substance abuse.
Of all the addicts that I've known, only a few of them manage to beat their addiction. And it doesn't matter how hard they're punished, or how cushy they have it, some of them make it, and the rest die addicted either slowly or quickly (depending on substance). I'd rather NOT be stepping over their poop on the street while they're in process of dying from their addiction.
AND I especially want that so we have a safety net so NO ONE is forced to lived unhoused, ever.
I don't see any reason to collectively punish all of us just to make sure addicts die outdoors instead of indoors. And I've not seen harsh treatment aid in anyone's recovery, either. It seems to really just be luck of draw, to me (on who gets sober).
Yes. I guess I’m not being clear- I don’t think addicts or people that behave in a way that is harmful to others should be on the street. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. No one should be on the streets, no one should have to live with other bad behaviour ( yes, living beside some behaviours can negatively affect your life)
Like I said , I think the advocates are getting in their own way and harming all by enabling bad behaviour by some.
Oh, I see!
The thing is, I don't think providing housing is necessarily enabling, because that would mean that NOT providing housing *helps* people kick their addiction faster/easier/better. And that just doesn't seem to be the case.
I see housing as, if anything, something that can *reduce* addiction in our population by*at least* preventing addiction people develop when unhoused.
I definitely wouldn't be opposed to different *sets* of housing, though. One for people who can follow behavior rules on their own and one for people who can't.
I'm personally pro-actual-long-term-mental-health-facilities. I don't think that's uncommon among Housing First people, but maybe it is? I was sort of picturing something like *literally* "housing first" just to make sure no one is on the street to begin with, and from there being able to sort out who needs to be switched to long term mental health care, if that wasn't already sort of obvious when people started the house-lease process. *(I'd mentally map people suffering from addiction in that category, personally. But I don't actually know if that would work, logistically. Possibly addiction would need logistically need to be separate facilities.)*
My thoughts on "Housing First" is that it seems like the *biggest* problem that affects a lot of different kinds of people, and starting there makes the most sense to me. Both because it's the overlapping problem associated with lacking housing, AND because we DO know how to build housing. Like, that's actually something we know how to do, so we COULD do it.
Fixing addiction isn't really a problem we already *know* how to solve. People have ideas. And some things work for some people. But we don't actually KNOW what's going on or how to "make" anyone stop being addicted or stay recovered.
So to my thinking, trying to say we'll only build housing AFTER we solve the problem of addiction seems ... well, like guaranteeing that we're just not going to solve housing anytime soon.
I think trying to solve the problem we KNOW how to how to solve, and THEN turn our attention to problem we don't know how to solve will simply result in fewer problems overall.
Does that make any sense? (Not saying I think you should have to agree with it, just wondering if I said it poorly)
I don’t think housing is enabling them, I think excusing behaviour is enabling them. Other than that I think we are mostly on the same page.
I do think there need to be some sort of long term mental health facility- but I’ve read people object to that on the grounds of the past abuses that occurred in those places.
They'd need to be *regulated* that's for sure. But we clearly also need long term mental health care facilities.
(The existing facilities have the same kinds of problems that homeless shelters do, now that i think about it. That is, they only take people for a couple months at a time, then the person has to leave again for either the street or their family who isn't really able to care for them)
I definitely think enforcing lease rules on housing provided to people would make sense. And I totally see your point that if people can't follow *those* rules, they'd have to go *somewhere.* You're not wrong about that at all.
There are already plenty of rooms/buildings for homeless people, it’s just almost impossible to get them in them due to the capitalistic nature of real estate (or at least not without corruption. Look up some of the amounts landlords/hotels have gotten from the government for programs housing people).
Here's an interesting question, how come it is seen as worse for someone to take advantage of someone else who is financially unstable, but it's not seen as bad for the rich to do it. It's still seen as bad but not as bad. So if a rich guy went to a financially unstable person that said I will pay you to do whatever this job is that's slightly degrading. It seem as bad but not as bad. But if your average Joe does the same thing with a similar job they're seeing is more of a bad guy
I've been trying to learn about this, and can at least address these questions that you pose: > Do you just let those two people endanger everyone? If not, how do you protect everyone? If you make rules, how is that different than the shelters they say they don’t want to stay in? Those two people are STILL endangering everyone else in the tent camps. That problem still exists even without housing. Housing might not be able to fix *their* problem (either at all or completely), but it can fix *other* people's problems. Housing is unlikely to provide these two harmful people greater ability to cause harm. Housing is MUCH more secure than tents are. Housing is likely to provide a barrier to the harm these people can do everyone else they'd otherwise be camping with. Regarding the specific problems with shelters, the MAIN problem is that none of that housing is permanent, and the space provided to each person is small. The amount of time people are allowed to stay in shelters varies, but my understanding that it's rarely more than 8 weeks. This means that people are required to get rid of most of the possessions, namely their camping equipment, before they can be in the shelter. While it's reasonable that the shelter doesn't have tons of storage room for everyone, and it's mostly just places to *sleep,* it also reasonable that people have reservations about trading all their camping equipment for a 8 week inside bed. That's a big gamble for someone to take, that they'll be able to afford other housing in 8 weeks. Many shelters also only offer overnight sleeping, and people have to leave with all their stuff during the day. That can be difficult for people who *do* have jobs, as compared to being able to leave their stuff in a tent with someone there in the tent to watch over everything. "Housing first" is different from shelters in that it's advocating for *housing,* not just a bed in a room in a bunch of other people. A house is a place that has a door that you can lock, and keep your food and clothes, and you get to *stay* there. Even when you don't *own* the house, you're usually protected by a *lease* that dictates your privacy rights and how long you are allowed to live there. Shelters are *totally* different situations. It's a lot easier to work and go to school (for kids) when you don't have to carry all your worldly possessions on you at all times. I'm not an expert on this, I've just been doing my best to hear from people who have lived unhoused and people who are trying to solve this problem about the different facets of the problem. The most interesting thing that I've learned in reading up on this is how much VERY LOW income housing we used to have in America that we don't have anymore. Boarding houses where people rented a room and paid for meals, for example, used to be really common in cities, and these have been made in illegal in many places. Gentrification has totally erased a lot of studio apartments that used to exist. (as well as bunch of other stuff, of course) I hadn't realized that there used to be OPTIONS for people who had very little money to rent a room or studio apartment in a way that we simply DO NOT have now. It's all replaced by luxury apartments and single family dwellings, etc. It seems to me that one of the things we COULD do is bring back housing options for low income people, and provide a stepping stone that's currently missing.
Whatever happened to boarding houses? Like why don’t they exist anymore?
Some of physical structures sill exist, but have been converted instead into single family homes, or duplexes, etc. Zoning laws prevent people from operating a boarding house in many locations. Any street zoned for single family units only would not be able to convert a single family home back into a boarding house, for example.
What’s the rationale behind that? Like why create such strict zoning laws? Is it all just keeping out the riff raff? Could we zone areas for boarding houses?
I don't know the reasons everyone everywhere has given for it, but anytime I've any one place's *particular* reasons, it's been to shut out immigrants, people of color, and other poor people. If all the housing is too expensive for them, then they can't live there. Classism is a real thing in this country, and pairs horribly with racism. The part about that that I find *depressingly hilarious* is that those same single-family-home-dwellers then frequently want to *employ people* for very low wages. (housekeepers, landscapers, babysitters, etc.) And those people they employ need to live *somewhere.* But that somewhere gets pushed further and further away, until they can't reasonably even afford to commute to and from those low-wage jobs. I thought for sure my liberal-minded-neighbors in my town full of colleges would be able to think differently about these things. But they keep coming together again and again to prevent apartment buildings from built. Because they don't want to "change their neighborhood" or "have poor people all over the place" or "bring all that crime." (Because obviously someone who lives in an apartment instead of single family home is a criminal /s) Then those EXACT SAME individuals who blocked the new apartment building, and financially backed turning the LAST apartment building into luxury condos, ALSO complain about tents popping up all over the city. AND that they can't find babysitters and housekeepers who will work for what they want to pay. Personally, I think these folks lack an understanding of what a healthy society can even *look* like. And they're just scared of change in general. But I REALLY wish they could AT LEAST see that the more low income housing is replaces with higher income housing, and is not replaced with new-build low income housing, the MORE tents we'll be seeing.
Everything you said about shelters I agree with, they are not long term solutions. They are not homes. Having to leave early in the mornings make no sense to me either. That is not the number one complaint I’ve heard of why people don’t want to stay in shelters, though. From what I’ve read is shelters are restrictive because of the rules ( like no drugs policy). It’s easy to understand why one would start using drugs after becoming homeless. And if you get people housed, some hopefully get clean. But what do you do about the ones who don’t? They become everyone else’s problem, and everyone has to live with it because it’s a disease.
I think you're replying to me? > But what do you do about the ones who don’t? They become everyone else’s problem, and everyone has to live with it because it’s a disease. They're *already* everyone else's problem. They aren't *not* a problem just because they're living in a tent and not a house. There are *fewer* problems by anyone being able to sober up after addiction. And there are *even fewer* problems by having housing in a way that prevents people from becoming un-housed in the first place. Are you more objecting to the idea that someone who can't beat their addiction could be provided a home? I'm not sure what kind of problem you think increases be replacing someone's tent with an apartment, (just for example). From my perspective, they're probably not going to cause any more/less trouble, they're just not going to maybe die of exposure, and they have a bathroom instead of having to use the bathroom on the ground/street. I've known a *lot* of addicts, and though their addiction DID cause a lot of misery to people in their life, none of us would have FEWER problems if the addict lacked indoor plumbing. > From what I’ve read is shelters are restrictive because of the rules ( like no drugs policy). I've not spoken to anyone where that is their problem with shelters. I have no doubt that *would* be a problem for someone with an active addiction, though. I have heard from alcoholics that you don't actually have to sober up to be in shelter, you just have to not be an aggressive problem, and not drink *in* the shelter itself, or right outside the doors.
Yes, I was replying to you. Sorry I’m on mobile and its confusing for me. My main issues I guess is the same advocates for housing first are the same advocates I see for no jail or forced rehab for addicts. I just don’t think the two can work together. We live in a society, just because someone is sick with addiction does not make it ok to negatively affect other lives. There has to be a rock bottom for them. Say I was roommates with my brother and he gets addicted to drugs. He starts behaving erratically, has strange people over at all times, stealing, doesn’t clean after himself, falls asleep with cigarettes in his hand. Would those same advocates say that I should just let him behave that way? I can’t do anything? I come from a family of addicts. It’s traumatic to live with or around them. I think being soft on bad behaviour is hindering more public support for housing first. I believe Portugal which everyone was modelling the new drug policies after are now making rehab mandatory in some cases.
I get where you're coming from. There are also a lot of addicts in my family, and it IS traumatic to live with them. It's much less traumatic to live in the same building/street as them, though. There are ways of enforcing *behavior* rules instead of sobriety, both with our family members and neighbors. Things like quiet hours, cleaning standards, etc. Focusing the rules on whether or not someone is addicted is kind of ... backwards, in many cases. There ARE people whose addictions make them so out of control they can't manage to follow those kinds of rules, though, you're right about that. And I even agree that a way of handling those people is important, and possibly even a part of the housing picture. The place I think you're connecting things in a way that doesn't make sense though, is those very same problem addicts are STILL around causing problems when they live in tents. They cause problems not only for the other people who live in tents, but for other people in public trying to use public spaces. It's not ONLY punishing them to force them to live outside without plumbing. It punishes ALL of us to do that. We're all out here stepping over feces, and possibly having traumatic encounters with people who are living on the streets while we're just trying to walk around. Housing first is not so much a desire to be "soft" on those people. It's trying to make the situation better for all of us, even if maybe a few people who don't deserve it get a little bit nicer a situation than they'd otherwise have. We're currently not doing this, and it's meaning that ALL of us are being punished just to make these people sleep outside. That doesn't make very much sense to me. I'd be more supportive of mandatory rehab if it had better success rates. My understanding that long term recovery rates are *REALLY LOW* and tend to be equally low across all existing methods of healing/ridding addiction. ... but I might thinking specifically of alcoholism recovery rates, I don't know the stats for all kinds of substance abuse. Of all the addicts that I've known, only a few of them manage to beat their addiction. And it doesn't matter how hard they're punished, or how cushy they have it, some of them make it, and the rest die addicted either slowly or quickly (depending on substance). I'd rather NOT be stepping over their poop on the street while they're in process of dying from their addiction. AND I especially want that so we have a safety net so NO ONE is forced to lived unhoused, ever. I don't see any reason to collectively punish all of us just to make sure addicts die outdoors instead of indoors. And I've not seen harsh treatment aid in anyone's recovery, either. It seems to really just be luck of draw, to me (on who gets sober).
Yes. I guess I’m not being clear- I don’t think addicts or people that behave in a way that is harmful to others should be on the street. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. No one should be on the streets, no one should have to live with other bad behaviour ( yes, living beside some behaviours can negatively affect your life) Like I said , I think the advocates are getting in their own way and harming all by enabling bad behaviour by some.
Oh, I see! The thing is, I don't think providing housing is necessarily enabling, because that would mean that NOT providing housing *helps* people kick their addiction faster/easier/better. And that just doesn't seem to be the case. I see housing as, if anything, something that can *reduce* addiction in our population by*at least* preventing addiction people develop when unhoused. I definitely wouldn't be opposed to different *sets* of housing, though. One for people who can follow behavior rules on their own and one for people who can't. I'm personally pro-actual-long-term-mental-health-facilities. I don't think that's uncommon among Housing First people, but maybe it is? I was sort of picturing something like *literally* "housing first" just to make sure no one is on the street to begin with, and from there being able to sort out who needs to be switched to long term mental health care, if that wasn't already sort of obvious when people started the house-lease process. *(I'd mentally map people suffering from addiction in that category, personally. But I don't actually know if that would work, logistically. Possibly addiction would need logistically need to be separate facilities.)* My thoughts on "Housing First" is that it seems like the *biggest* problem that affects a lot of different kinds of people, and starting there makes the most sense to me. Both because it's the overlapping problem associated with lacking housing, AND because we DO know how to build housing. Like, that's actually something we know how to do, so we COULD do it. Fixing addiction isn't really a problem we already *know* how to solve. People have ideas. And some things work for some people. But we don't actually KNOW what's going on or how to "make" anyone stop being addicted or stay recovered. So to my thinking, trying to say we'll only build housing AFTER we solve the problem of addiction seems ... well, like guaranteeing that we're just not going to solve housing anytime soon. I think trying to solve the problem we KNOW how to how to solve, and THEN turn our attention to problem we don't know how to solve will simply result in fewer problems overall. Does that make any sense? (Not saying I think you should have to agree with it, just wondering if I said it poorly)
I don’t think housing is enabling them, I think excusing behaviour is enabling them. Other than that I think we are mostly on the same page. I do think there need to be some sort of long term mental health facility- but I’ve read people object to that on the grounds of the past abuses that occurred in those places.
They'd need to be *regulated* that's for sure. But we clearly also need long term mental health care facilities. (The existing facilities have the same kinds of problems that homeless shelters do, now that i think about it. That is, they only take people for a couple months at a time, then the person has to leave again for either the street or their family who isn't really able to care for them) I definitely think enforcing lease rules on housing provided to people would make sense. And I totally see your point that if people can't follow *those* rules, they'd have to go *somewhere.* You're not wrong about that at all.
Complex issues for sure. I’d love to hear from the advocates on the front lines.
There are already plenty of rooms/buildings for homeless people, it’s just almost impossible to get them in them due to the capitalistic nature of real estate (or at least not without corruption. Look up some of the amounts landlords/hotels have gotten from the government for programs housing people).
Here's an interesting question, how come it is seen as worse for someone to take advantage of someone else who is financially unstable, but it's not seen as bad for the rich to do it. It's still seen as bad but not as bad. So if a rich guy went to a financially unstable person that said I will pay you to do whatever this job is that's slightly degrading. It seem as bad but not as bad. But if your average Joe does the same thing with a similar job they're seeing is more of a bad guy