> By looking at the rate of homeless per 1,000 people, they found communities with the highest housing costs had some of the highest rates of homelessness
Correlation != Causation
The rest of the article is just noisy musing about this false conclusion, like
> But the point is, there are people who are addicted and mentally ill in Chicago, and Chicago has one-fifth the homelessness of Seattle and San Francisco. So what’s going on here?
Well for one thing, you don't die in the winter in Seattle or SF if you're unhoused. I'm also willing to bet the homeless resources in SF and Seattle are top notch relative to Chicago.
However, the most frustrating part about this type of rhetoric is that it is completely useless. The affordable housing is not coming. We are not about to build subsidized apartments to house all the homeless in some of the most valuable real estate on earth.
When functional people get priced out of a neighborhood, they leave and go to cheaper locales. Meanwhile the prevailing mindset is that the most needy must be located in expensive city centers. This flies in the face of the behavior of a rational actor. It stands to reason, programs to help the homeless should be moved to lower cost of living areas, where the participants stand a chance of getting back on their feet and where we can afford to subsidize this process.
Of course, I also believe we need to build lots of housing in places like SF, Seattle and elsewhere, but it's just not going to be 'affordable' for the types of people that are homeless. Even with the right amount of housing, the economically less fortunate do not get to live in the most desirable areas.
Correlation != Causation
The rest of the article is just noisy musing about this false conclusion, like
> But the point is, there are people who are addicted and mentally ill in Chicago, and Chicago has one-fifth the homelessness of Seattle and San Francisco. So what’s going on here?
Well for one thing, you don't die in the winter in Seattle or SF if you're unhoused. I'm also willing to bet the homeless resources in SF and Seattle are top notch relative to Chicago.
However, the most frustrating part about this type of rhetoric is that it is completely useless. The affordable housing is not coming. We are not about to build subsidized apartments to house all the homeless in some of the most valuable real estate on earth.
When functional people get priced out of a neighborhood, they leave and go to cheaper locales. Meanwhile the prevailing mindset is that the most needy must be located in expensive city centers. This flies in the face of the behavior of a rational actor. It stands to reason, programs to help the homeless should be moved to lower cost of living areas, where the participants stand a chance of getting back on their feet and where we can afford to subsidize this process.
Of course, I also believe we need to build lots of housing in places like SF, Seattle and elsewhere, but it's just not going to be 'affordable' for the types of people that are homeless. Even with the right amount of housing, the economically less fortunate do not get to live in the most desirable areas.