I distrust toots that assert something without providing a link
I was lucky and found a link to the 31K figure; sounds partially like it does NOT apply to all homeless people, just some small percentage, so probably a bullshit numberhttps://homelessvoice.org/the-cost-to-criminalize-homelessness/
I appreciate the link!
The article, I think, is very clear on how those dollar amounts were measured, and I don’t think they’re bullshit at all, but everybody here can read the article and decide for themselves.
Also, they quote $10k for “supportive housing” and show a picture of San Francisco. I guarantee that’s not accurate. The state needs to pay to house these people, but we need to be realistic about the cost.
Housing in places like SF is expensive because of private landlords jacking up proces to the moon. If the government owns the property and gets to control the cost then it’s really not any more expensive than housing them anywhere else. Better still it puts those people within the range of public services like transit so they can actually work on getting themselves into a better situation.
And where does the government get this land from?
Cities have more property than you’d think. They homd a lot of it so they don’t get locked out of being able to do things like this.
Government identifies optimal residential location for facility. Invites largest residential land owner in that location over. Place land lenders head in guillotine. Presents document to sign over land to the government assuring them they can maintain possession of their head in turn. Validate signature. Remove head so they can’t claim they signed under duress.
If they refuse to sign then remove head and forge signature.
Needs strict compartmentalization. Group A identifies optimal location and knows nothing about anyone else.
Group B finds land owner but knows nothing about why or who it’s for.
Group C secures ownership transfer documents and sends to a drop box
Group D delivers landowners to intake facility but knows only who they are getting and to where.
Group E transports landowner to meeting facility/room.
Group F picks up transfer documents and holds meeting with land owner. Sends documents to city hall.
Nobody knows or talks to anyone outside of their group or is provided any information on why they are performing their portion of the process. Group F needs to be strictly limited to a very small number of people. Vetting for group F is done by kidnapping a potential candidates young children and spouse while leaving a note where they are to report for work. Perform their duties for six months to have their family safely returned. During the exit interview remind the group F individual and kidnapped party that all group F members that have ever been involved in the history of the program, their family along with any subsequent family members will be executed should they ever speak to anyone regarding the existence of the program.
If only they did what was cheaper for them…
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I am all for helping the homeless but these numbers seem misleading. Now I want to see how much if they also get all of the amenities that come with prison. 3 meals a day and (shitty) healthcare.
Housing - 10,050 Medicare average cost per beneficiary (2022) - 15,730
31065-10050-15730 = 5285 remaining for meals, three meals everyday for a year would be $4.83 per meal, low but doable. This assumes the government will be providing everything with no contribution from the individual. Lack of housing is probably the largest impediment to employment, no address or id for job apps, nowhere to shower and be clean, have clean clothes, etc. Addiction is another issue but safe stable housing would be a major help in getting clean as well. So some number of these people will be able to get back on track and start contributing to themselves and society at large.
I realized after typing I found Medicare instead of Medicaid, it varies by state but average cost per enrollee is 8651, so another 1400 is available in the equation.
And that is probably on the low end. So even if we round up to $30,000, it’s still less. And the people are better off. I have been a homeless drug addict. It’s a rough life. The only reason I broke free from heroin/fentanyl addiction is because I went to prison. But I also wanted to quit. If someone does not want to quit, they won’t quit.
Thank you for taking the time to research and do the math. You are a good person.
Sure, but are you accounting for the profit gained from slave labor in the private prisons?
And what do you do with the mentally ill homeless who refuse services and help? Cause I’m my city those are the homeless that remain. And until people accept that some will have to be taken off the streets and forced into help, against their will, then we’re always gonna have this issue.
My city provides great homeless services, but only if you ask or want them. If you’re the guy who doesn’t know or want help and running around the subway threatening and harassing people, you get to stay on the street and do as you want.
Well, having a home will help their mental illness because they’ll be able to develop a circadian rhythm, sleep, not be constantly stressed. They are more likely to be able to take their meds on time. They can spend time on their phones to relax because they will have access to chargers/electricity. Very very few people are so mentally disabled they need assisted living, and those people don’t usually stay alive on the streets.
And this time of year gets extra crazy homeless/street people because of sunstroke, heatstroke, and dehydration which they also would be able to avoid in a home. It’s probably your same local homeless people, just some are allowed in libraries and places with AC, and the ones that aren’t are getting extra agitated.
Like literally, cosplay homelessness in your city at peak heat times and no money. How would you cool off if you can’t go in a store? Where is the nearest shade you can sit and rest in? How cool are you, really? Many city have designed infrastructure specifically so homeless can’t cool off. That makes everything worse. Including with climate change for housed people.
You sound very idealistic. I have a cousin who is willingly homeless. He has places he can stay, jobs he’s been offered. He doesn’t want it.
Well, I speak to a lot of homeless people. Maybe your cousin is trans or has some other identity issue or a disability that makes it hard for him to stay with people. What started him living on the street? Why did he initially move out of your aunt and uncle’s house and at what age? Does he have trauma with caregivers such as sexual assault? How do you know he doesn’t?
And fine, let him live on the streets and camp of he doesn’t want free and clear housing. People camp all the time. He shouldn’t be harassed for it. We are animals, we belong outside anyway if we so choose. I know people who have hiked for months across America. There are people who live in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. Why should people be prevented from living freely? Think throughout history - the idea is preposterous. The only reason we force institutionalization is to get slave labor.
He’s just mentally ill, refuses help and just can’t handle the responsibility of just living. It’s sad, but yeah it’s like he craves the homelessness and lack of any expectations maybe? His parents are well off so he has everything he needs at home, but he doesn’t want it. He’s been taken to mental health professionals and programs but he doesn’t want to take part. He would honestly just rather live under a bridge, I don’t know what it is.
So you don’t know why and are just speculating.
I know more than you
So much arrogance and yet you have no firsthand accounts from your cousin, from his pov, why he doesn’t want to live at home
You can thank Reagan for shutting down the mental institutions instead of fixing them.
We just let our mentally ill roam the streets now, even the veterans
Why should mental illness be a crime someone is locked up for? And what level of crazy is permitted so you can maintain your freedom? Depression? Anxiety? PTSD? What if someone is mentally fine but might appear otherwise, like if they have cerebral palsy? Should we lock them up too?
Obviously that’s why they were shut down. There were serious ethical issues…
But why did we throw out the baby with the bathwater? Why throw them on the streets instead of fixing the system?
Of course I don’t want people with anxiety locked up. What about we give very mentally ill a place to go? And those who are hurting themselves or others are sent there against their will.
Well, anyone could say somrone was crazy and they’d maybe get locked up. Women were getting diagnosed with hysteria and lobotomized. You can’t really fix a system that takes away people’s autonomy as the main feature of that system. Like people who get PTSD and are disempowered are the ones being diagnosed and locked up - even though it actually seems pretty rational to develop PTSD from the stuff they went through. So are they actually crazy, or are they victims?
It’s really not that simple, and this is forced imprisonment we’re talking about here. Not even in the fields of ethics and bioethics do we have concrete answers.
https://journals.academiczone.net/index.php/ijfe/article/view/2261
The article discusses an approach to solving bioethics problems through consensus and the establishment of conditional demarcation boundaries within the legal field. The author notes the lack of general criteria for assessing positions, which leads to an “eternal discussion” and makes some problems, such as abortion, euthanasia and biomedical experiment, fundamentally insoluble. Existing bioethical theories consider problems from an axiological position, remaining divorced from ontological foundations. The issue of abortion has historically depended on the dominant type of worldview - pantheistic, theistic, deistic and atheistic. The resolution of such issues is determined by external factors, which creates the ground for conflicts in society. The author calls for a deeper understanding of human nature and ideological dialogues to resolve bioethical contradictions.
If I could create the system it would be the level at which you cannot sustain yourself outside the system. But I would not be treating them in with the level at which you’re a danger to others. Two different systems with two different goals. It would be far more residential, an apartment building with a clinic on the ground floor type thing. Everyone jumps straight to lockdown wards but it doesn’t have to be that.
Well, if the residents are free to leave, then what you’re proposing is assisted living or a permeable institution, not a traditional institution. Institution by the traditional colloquial definition, means they cannot leave and they have their personal liberties taken. Everyone thinks you mean “lockdown” because that’s what an institution is to pretty much everyone. If you specify “permeable institution,” or “assisted living,” it would better convey your meaning
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3702490/
Restriction of freedom is still often associated with psychiatric institutionalization and hospital treatment although modern psychiatric wards and hospitals have been found to be ‘permeable’ [20]. Similar to Goffman’s interpretation of psychiatric hospitals, McNown Johnson & Rhodes characterized psychiatric institutions as establishments where their residents have little or no choice about their participation in activities, and have little say about how they are being treated [38]. Admitted residents are not allowed to leave the psychiatric institution without being officially released or discharged. From this perspective, patients’ freedom of movement is restricted and the functions of psychiatric institutions are similar to a security guard.
The results of this review can be related to critiques of Goffman’s notion of the mental institution [20,37,83,84] namely that the earlier conceptualizations of institutionalization are limiting and can no longer be applicable in today’s context. The traditional conceptualization of institutionalization reinforces mainly a restrictive understanding of institutionalization as taking place in institutions, where patients are only the sufferers of the treatment process and have limited autonomy and are completely isolated from the outside world. Townsend [82] concluded in his review that studies from 1959 to 1975 support the idea that institutionalization involves patients accepting institutional life and developing a lack of desire to leave after a long stay in mental institutions. More recently, Quirk and his associates [20,56] found that ‘permeable institutions’ provide a better representation of the reality of everyday life in modern ‘bricks and mortar’ psychiatric institutions.
I think someone benefits from creating that expectation, but nobody I’ve talked to wants to bring back cold war era mental institutions.
There are literally people itt advocating for it. I have seen people advocate for putting homeless in prisons and even concentration/work camps. People 100000% advocate for that type of psychiatric institution. In fact, per the link in my previous comment, the vast majority of psychiatric institutions are this type of institution and it is actually an exception to the norm and a new style of institution to do the permeable institution. So if you mean a permeable institution, you should specify that if you want to be understood, because that’s what common use means.
Words mean things. People are cruel. Can’t assume you aren’t cruel. Use right word if you want to be understood.
Oh I know there are people advocating to abuse homeless people. But when you assume all mental health facilities are lockdown facilities for dangerous people you’re hurting the entire mental health community. When pressed, people do not want lockdown facilities.
Unhoused people refuse help because past “help” failed them or people they know, or “help” comes with conditions that are unacceptable to them, or “help” will not solve the actual problems they have. The solution is not to force people into institutions that abuse them, neglect them, and then kick them out for failing to follow arbitrary rules.
I mean, if you have a dog, and the shelters don’t allow dogs, what do you do? What sane person would risk their dog being put down at the pound in exchange for a few weeks of housing - housing, moreover, that is demonstratively less safe than living on the street?
The solution is to improve the services available without conditions so that unhoused people feel safe in asking for those services.
There are a small number of people who genuinely cannot make decisions because they cannot comprehend reality. And those people need help, possibly involuntary help. But even then, that doesn’t mean taking them away from the people and places they know and locking them up. People blame Reagan’s deinstitutionalization of mentally ill people in the '80s for the current homeless crisis - people forget Reagan’s deinstitutionalization policy was popular because insane asylums were horrifically incompetent and abusive.
And if you see a homeless person experiencing a mental health crisis or acting irrational in public, please remember, they have no private place to go - how would you come off to the public if your worst moments had to be displayed in public? - and then ask yourself whether their actions are making you feel unsafe, or merely uncomfortable.
I wish more people went to the Glore Psychiatric Museum in St Joseph, MO. Here’s a famous display from that museum, for “pica”:
That museum really really shows how little difference there was in the way we treated patients of asylums, versus inmates, versus prisoners of war. There are so many torture devices in there, disguised as medical devices. As someone formerly in the bioengineering field, it was a sober warning to the harm that can be created through “medical” devices and our own hubris and cruelty.
People have no idea what those were like. And how unethical forced imprisonment is. That should make everyone recoil. I thought we all hated slavery, right? It would be more compassionate to let them set up squats than to force institutionalization on them.
Ps the above picture results in the patient dying. It was one of the first surgeries to remove stomach contents and anesthesia wasn’t refined back then. So they performed an experimental procedure on a patient who couldn’t consent to it and who DIDN’T consent to it, and she died from it. That’s what asylums were like.
“So for 20 000 extra we can keep a cop on the payroll that will protect us when the people rise against us?”
People love paying extra for the cruelty.
At least in countries with shanty towns, the poor are allowed to live in squats. We don’t even give people that tiny grace. We’d have shanty towns if we allowed it. We just hide it rather than see how bad things really are.
And those shanty towns often get mass transit services so the people can get to work.
In America (and Britain), towns specifically avoid serving very poor areas for fear that they might actually use it.
Can’t allow competition for corporate landlords, could cut into their profits.
There’s frequently a lot more to homelessness than just giving someone a place to live. Many of these people are mentally ill or addicted to something and cannot function or take care of themselves. There’s additional costs above just providing a place to live - like food and clothing and healthcare.
Inmates are supposed to be provided with services like meals, showers, uniforms, and healthcare so that’s part of the reason for the discrepancy in costs. I doubt there’s much addiction care or mental health care in prison though.
These people really need a better place to get help than jail. But we don’t have socialized medicine in the US, and that’s probably a huge contributor to homelessness. Just think if you couldn’t drown in medical debt, or could walk in to any clinic and sign up for addiction care or mental health assistance how many homeless people might not have ended up homeless.
Also I’m not aware of any major US city where rent or mortgage is $10k per year. A lot of cities are buying up old motels and providing support services and temporary housing. That seems to be a good start, but it probably costs more than $10k per year per person. And without free continuing healthcare a lot of people are going to end up back on the street.
Some of them it was for sure a preexisting condidtion. But how many homeless people developed addictions and assorted health problems because of homelessness?
A HELL of a lot more.
If they had had a home that they wouldn’t lose to bullshit to begin with…
Housing is kept artificially scarce to keep prices up. Criminalizing homelessness raises the demand for housing. I wonder how many people making these policies have rental properties or invest in housing.
I wonder how much of that is medical costs; being homeless leads to a bunch of chronic medical problems due to exposure to the elements and an inability to keep things clean or even keep medications (I’ve had so many patients say theirs got stolen).
Does anyone have the actual research on this? Both of those numbers seem really low.
https://www.npscoalition.org/post/fact-sheet-cost-of-homelessness
The savings/costs drastically change based on state/city. But the overwhelming majority of the time it is cheaper to do the morally correct thing of providing permanent housing assistance.
$10,000 a year to provide a single person housing? To put that in perspective. I’d assume that means a studio type apartment of some kind. Not high end, but a roof and place to live for $10,000 a year. I have a 1500sqft home in Washington state on 3 acres of land, and I pay $27,000 a year for my mortgage. So to me, $10,000 seems reasonable for a government funded studio for a year.
And I know it’s probably unheard of in America now, but $840 a month in rent is not that wildly low. I assume there’s more to it than just that though.
I live in the middle of Hamburg, second biggest city of Germany, in a recently renovated apartment of roughly 40 sqm and pay round about 700 EUR (~ 770 USD) for that with all facilities including electric power, home insurance and internet. The housing market in this city is considered to be tough for this country.
If you “dare” to live in a “small” flat the price really should manageable. Social assistance is another cost factor but that’s an investment in your country and its people.
That sounds so nice! I’m from America, am 32, make $35,000 a year and still live in my parents basement. I know I can “afford” an apartment, but I really don’t want to see ~50% of my pay go to rent. If you don’t mind me asking, how much do you make a month in Hamburg?
By the way, I’ve been to Germany a few times! Only ever around Frankfurt but it’s such a lovely country. ☺️
You’re judging a country by one city?
Not to invalidate your lovely experiences, mind you. Germany has its lovely sides. But keep in mind that we have more people than California and Texas combined in an area smaller than either. There is a vastly diverse array of cultures and personalities. If you want an accurate image, you’ll have to spend enough time here to observe the discourse around significant events, including the ugly sides, and judge from that.
I don’t know what that person makes, nor what industry you’re in, but minimum wage (12.41 EUR ~ 13.67 USD) with a full 40h job comes out to a gross income of about 31.4k USD per year. Your net income varies depending on where you are, whether you’re married etc. but including public (legally mandated) health / long term care insurance, unemployment insurance and pension insurance, your net income would be about 22.5k USD per year / 1.85k USD per month. It’s not exactly a way to get rich, but at least that’s the bottom of the range.
Also, which Frankfurt? We have two and it’s fun to see confused foreignerd 😄
It was more the fact that, while I stayed in Frankfurt (expo hall Frankfurt) for work, I got to go outside of the city and see a handful of different ‘villages’ and castles and stuff. It was really cool.
But I do understand where you’re coming from. Blows my mind that people would come to the US from another country and not come here:
I just need to say that 31k/22k with health as a bottom line would be a dream for so many Americans. They’re running on 25k without medical, and having to fit rent in there too.
Don’t forget a minimum of 20 days paid time off and unlimited sick leave (the employer pays full for the first six weeks, after that the government pays a reduced amount, but you’re not suddenly unemployed or without income), as well as limited (paid) leave if you need to take care of sick children (30 days per parent per year for single children, 65 if you have multiple, single parents get double).
These are things we occasionally take for granted, but I’ve learned that they seem utterly fantastical to others.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree, I’m working IT full time on a permanent contract with a Union, I get about 46k gross / 34k net per year and 30 days paid time off, while paying about 12k in rent. Food prices have gone nuts lately and various other private bills gobble up most of the rest, but I’m doing alright.
Full time equivalent of about 2.500 EUR net per month (it’s more pre taxes, of course; I don’t mind paying taxes as that affords me living in a safe and functional country). As I work part-time I take home less than that number but still get by easily (time is much more valuable than money if you cross a certain relatively low threshold of income and don’t live a flashy lifestyle).
Thanks for the praise ;) Germany has its troubles and problems but continues to be a nice place to live.
It depends on where you are. $840 a month anywhere near Chicago is either stupidly cheap for what you’re getting, or stupidly bad for what you’re paying.
Begs the question: who’s getting paid the difference right now? And how much are they paying which elected officials?
The overhead goes to a bunch of stuff. The costs of housing inmates include the cost of hours of judges, lawyers, COs, etc. However the way it it profitable, beyond just collecting fines, and deciding your money is suspect, and taking it, is because of the corpratization of the legal system. Huge, but, often, not well known, corporations that run aspects of jails, and prisons. They make the food, run the inmate phone systems, control the inmate commissary, staff the medical departments, and more. These are just the ones that work with jails. There are third part corporations that provide bulk legal assistance work, editing services, services for a lot of the moving factors of the legal system.
These companies, in turn, give huge amounts of “donations” to politician’s needs. Campaign funds being the most well known. This money, while paying for these costs, is also used to keep them living an exceptionally comfortable life. Many, after pushing through legislation favorable to a company, will be compensated in a number of ways. From them being able to take advantage of stock investment knowing how the law is about to change, and how that will affect their holdings, to exiting politics and being given a cushy, high paying, fluff job in the industry they helped out.
There isn’t so much of the straight bribes, graft, and other forms of corruption people assume with politics. It is more abstracted than that, and technically legal. Obviously there are conflicts of interest that can easily be seen in this, however, since a company isn’t just handing the official a bag of money, that they will keep as their own income, it is deemed legal.
And water is wet. Next
It’s for a church honey. NEXT!
Holy. Shit. That’s what… 4 years old? 6 years? What year was it…?
