| ▲ | echoangle 6 hours ago | |
> For example: homelessness. The number one cause of and solution to homelessness is... housing. Is that true? Without having a deep insight into the subject, homelessness seems to often be a symptom of mental illness and substance abuse. I don’t think having cheaper housing would really fix the issue of homelessness. | ||
| ▲ | jmyeet 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |
Here's the best description I've heard of homelessness. It goes in stages: 1. You are evicted or priced out of your apartment or house. You are still working but you are now housing insecure. You might couchsurf, stay temporarily with friends or relatives or otherwise hop around until those options run out; 2. You are now living in your car. You likely still maintain a job. There's a constant cat-and-mouse with local authorities who will seek to tow your car or detain you if they find you living in your car. You might move around, sleep in Walmart parking lots and so on. At some point your car might break down and you can't afford to fix it, or it gets impounded and you can't recover it; 3. You are now living on the street. This is the first stage of homelessness that people generally see. Unfortunately visible homeless on the streets is largely viewed as an eyesore and people push local authorities to sweep them into a neighbouring town, city or county. Also, visible homeless is what drives people's perceptions of crime [1]. The same is true for the "migrant crisis" and visible (unhoused) migrants in places like NYC. Having no transportation, you will often lose your job (if you haven't already); finally leading to 4. You are longterm homeless. Because of this you likely have addiction and/or mental health issues as you self-medicate to cope. Some (wrongly) believe that drug addiction leads to hojmeless. It's the opposite. As for the cost of housing and homelessness rates, the link is well-established [2]. [1]: https://www.columnblog.com/p/people-feel-unsafe-because-visi... [2]: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/... | ||
| ▲ | teachrdan 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
This is a major misconception. The people you see homeless on the streets are very disproportionately those with mental illness(es) and addiction problems. But studies show a huge percent of the homeless have jobs; the link below says 40% to 50%. But we don't see people workings and living in their car or in a shelter "being homeless," so we tend to think of the visibly homeless as representative of all homeless folks. And for those who do have mental illness or addiction problems, well, those problems are severely exacerbated by being homeless. They'd be more likely to get treatment and improve with housing. | ||