r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Garey_Coleman • 10d ago

Where are the homeless supposed to go?

Cities have been cracking down on homeless people so they can’t have encampments or stay on sidewalks. At the same time usually the shelters are full. So those who are unable to get into a shelter, where are they supposed to go?

8.2k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

23

u/JPBillingsgate 10d ago

The chronically homeless, which is the homeless population that are problematic for cities, are not homeless because they have no money for food. It is mental illness, substance abuse, or a combination of both.

The second, larger, homeless population is much, much less of a problem and these are people who are much more able to seek and receive help. We should never stop being generous with these people as governments or as individuals.

For the first group, not only would it be hugely expensive to try and treat these people en masse, we would also have to be able to involuntarily commit many of them, which is something that is not legal in most cases now.

5

u/AndWinterCame 9d ago

Fascinating breakdown, couldn't mention anywhere in it that you don't end up homeless by doing drugs or having psychosis go untreated, you actually become homeless by being unable to afford a home, that is by being priced out of the housing market. The problems you are attributing to the first group either start or dramatically worsen after months and years of being treated like less than human. It is a progressive, worsening circumstance, but saying that large swaths of the population are inherently homeless is wild.

3

u/JPBillingsgate 9d ago

It's not just being forced out of the housing market. It often comes from mental illness and/or drug addiction causing unemployment, dissolution of families, estrangement of loved ones, and even evictions for behavior.

4

u/AndWinterCame 9d ago

You exhibit what appears a strong desire to place yourself firmly and irrevocably in another category of person than the unhoused, all I ask is that you acknowledge that if only for an instant.

2

u/JPBillingsgate 9d ago

You exhibit what appears to be a strong belief that our chronic homelessness problem is something that can readily solved, or even substantially ameliorated with just a little more compassion and a little more money. Yet, we have spent many, many billions of dollars on this issue with no real results at all.

The city of Los Angeles' annual budget for homelessness is almost a billion all by itself. How are things going there? Have they gotten better? It's been years and they have tried everything they can think of, have they not?

I was not and am not defending what Trump is doing in DC. I was merely pointing out that one, chronic homelessness and economic homelessness are two very different things and that two, chronic homelessness is an incredibly difficult, perhaps impossible, problem to solve.