The alternatives? Like, in Europe, you will generally encounter very few homeless people, and yet no shantytowns, and decent building codes?
It starts with the fact that we have a comprehensive social system that will cover rent in minimum available housing if you lose your job, because we realise that losing you house too will totally fuck you up in ways in noone’s interest. There are projects that build on the basic idea—that the solution to homelessness is giving them fucking homes, and then sorting out the rest—in the US, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First They work well.
California adopted a “Housing First” policy several years ago. The number of people experiencing homelessness continued to rise thereafter. Much of the problem seems to be that there just aren’t a lot of homes to be had, because it is time-consuming and expensive to make them (and/or illegal to make them quickly and cheaply).
The alternatives? Like, in Europe, you will generally encounter very few homeless people, and yet no shantytowns, and decent building codes?
It starts with the fact that we have a comprehensive social system that will cover rent in minimum available housing if you lose your job, because we realise that losing you house too will totally fuck you up in ways in noone’s interest. There are projects that build on the basic idea—that the solution to homelessness is giving them fucking homes, and then sorting out the rest—in the US, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First They work well.
California adopted a “Housing First” policy several years ago. The number of people experiencing homelessness continued to rise thereafter. Much of the problem seems to be that there just aren’t a lot of homes to be had, because it is time-consuming and expensive to make them (and/or illegal to make them quickly and cheaply).