<story><title>Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely what you’d expect</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-29/venice-library-homeless-encampment-interviews</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alsetmusic</author><text>The tone of this really is disappointing because it sounds more like a complaint about the unhoused rather than compassion for their situation.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, housing first is a proven method for resolving the cycle of homelessness[0]. Rather than placing restrictions on people (get sober, get a job, etc) to access shelter, putting people in a stable home environment right off the bat has greater success at keeping people housed long-term.&lt;p&gt;I learned about a study on housing first and one of the primary champions of the initiative in a fantastic podcast series called According to Need, by the 99% Invisible crew. It&amp;#x27;s an eye-opening look at the beuracracy that keeps people unhoused when they seek help[1]. Bonus points that it&amp;#x27;s reported on in the Bay Area, where the problem is completely out of control. Episode three deals with housing first, but I&amp;#x27;d really recommend listening to the entire series if you have the time.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;However, for the chronically homeless population, which represents about 10 percent of the homeless population, research has shown, and our experience has been, that when these individuals have a place of their own where they can be safe, the drinking and drug use decreases. Also, with effective case management support, we have found a positive supportive community is created in the single site locations.&amp;quot;[2]&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nlihc.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;Housing-First-Research.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nlihc.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;Housing-First-Research...&lt;/a&gt;
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;99percentinvisible.org&amp;#x2F;need&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;99percentinvisible.org&amp;#x2F;need&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kitsapsun.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;editorials&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;14&amp;#x2F;further-questions-about-housing-first&amp;#x2F;94326784&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kitsapsun.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;editorials&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;1...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>causality0</author><text>Exactly. I want the support system to be good enough that there are few to no &amp;quot;unluckies&amp;quot; in these encampments. If we make it possible for virtually everyone who wants to get back on their feet to do so, then we can bring on the regulations to keep the streets clear. I&amp;#x27;d gladly pay more in taxes if it meant I could eat lunch in my car in peace or go shopping in the bad part of town without getting accosted by some asshole who &amp;quot;just needs gas money to get home&amp;quot; like it&amp;#x27;s not the third time this week.</text></item><item><author>jvanderbot</author><text>exactly. empathy is a wonderful thing to cultivate when designing solutions for obvious problems like homelessness and the community impact it has. But, the fact that homeless people are very real people does not change the fact that their encampments need to be dealt with and the communities around these encampments are suffering very real impacts.</text></item><item><author>drc500free</author><text>These are touching portraits of people&amp;#x27;s backgrounds. However, they are exactly the archetypes I expect in the Venice homeless encampments.&lt;p&gt;The first person is an addict who chops up stolen bikes. The second person has untreated mental health issues. The third person came to LA with no money or employment because the weather was nicer.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;ve all had struggles and we need better support for all of them, but nothing surprising here. It is nice to get a more individualized and personal background on each, it&amp;#x27;s easy to dehumanize when you&amp;#x27;re walking by and afraid of who is the 1-in-100 that&amp;#x27;s dangerous.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>swearwolf</author><text>My experience has been that as you dig deeper into the success of housing first programs, you start to find a lot of caveats. For example, for a while Utah was being praised for “solving” homelessness by applying the housing first method, but their program failed after a few years.&lt;p&gt;It’s still probably the best idea we have going, but it’s not without significant downsides. Where I live, many small time landlords who have agreed to participate in programs like this with the city have had to evict the tenants placed with them because they made the entire property unlivable for other people through actions like smoking meth in their apartments, letting their dealers move in with them, or in one case, piling all their belongings into the bathtub and lighting them on fire in a state of meth induced psychosis.&lt;p&gt;In Portland, there is a large housing complex called Bud Clark Commons that provides low barrier housing to the homeless. Since it was constructed, the area around it has become far more dangerous than it was before. There are hundreds of tents surrounding it, meth dealers operating openly from RVs, and trash strewn all around the area. But what’s really interesting about Bud Clark Commons is that the staff actually struggles to keep people there. People cycle in and out, often leaving to return to the streets voluntarily.&lt;p&gt;It’s really depressing to consider, but it seems clear that some of the people living on our streets have been fundamentally changed in such a way that will make it extremely difficult for them to find their way back into society again. Especially for addicts, the call of euphoric oblivion right outside the door seems very hard to resist in the long term.</text></comment>
<story><title>Profiles of people living in homeless encampments, rarely what you’d expect</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-29/venice-library-homeless-encampment-interviews</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alsetmusic</author><text>The tone of this really is disappointing because it sounds more like a complaint about the unhoused rather than compassion for their situation.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, housing first is a proven method for resolving the cycle of homelessness[0]. Rather than placing restrictions on people (get sober, get a job, etc) to access shelter, putting people in a stable home environment right off the bat has greater success at keeping people housed long-term.&lt;p&gt;I learned about a study on housing first and one of the primary champions of the initiative in a fantastic podcast series called According to Need, by the 99% Invisible crew. It&amp;#x27;s an eye-opening look at the beuracracy that keeps people unhoused when they seek help[1]. Bonus points that it&amp;#x27;s reported on in the Bay Area, where the problem is completely out of control. Episode three deals with housing first, but I&amp;#x27;d really recommend listening to the entire series if you have the time.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;However, for the chronically homeless population, which represents about 10 percent of the homeless population, research has shown, and our experience has been, that when these individuals have a place of their own where they can be safe, the drinking and drug use decreases. Also, with effective case management support, we have found a positive supportive community is created in the single site locations.&amp;quot;[2]&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nlihc.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;Housing-First-Research.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nlihc.org&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;Housing-First-Research...&lt;/a&gt;
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;99percentinvisible.org&amp;#x2F;need&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;99percentinvisible.org&amp;#x2F;need&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kitsapsun.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;editorials&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;14&amp;#x2F;further-questions-about-housing-first&amp;#x2F;94326784&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.kitsapsun.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;editorials&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;1...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>causality0</author><text>Exactly. I want the support system to be good enough that there are few to no &amp;quot;unluckies&amp;quot; in these encampments. If we make it possible for virtually everyone who wants to get back on their feet to do so, then we can bring on the regulations to keep the streets clear. I&amp;#x27;d gladly pay more in taxes if it meant I could eat lunch in my car in peace or go shopping in the bad part of town without getting accosted by some asshole who &amp;quot;just needs gas money to get home&amp;quot; like it&amp;#x27;s not the third time this week.</text></item><item><author>jvanderbot</author><text>exactly. empathy is a wonderful thing to cultivate when designing solutions for obvious problems like homelessness and the community impact it has. But, the fact that homeless people are very real people does not change the fact that their encampments need to be dealt with and the communities around these encampments are suffering very real impacts.</text></item><item><author>drc500free</author><text>These are touching portraits of people&amp;#x27;s backgrounds. However, they are exactly the archetypes I expect in the Venice homeless encampments.&lt;p&gt;The first person is an addict who chops up stolen bikes. The second person has untreated mental health issues. The third person came to LA with no money or employment because the weather was nicer.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;ve all had struggles and we need better support for all of them, but nothing surprising here. It is nice to get a more individualized and personal background on each, it&amp;#x27;s easy to dehumanize when you&amp;#x27;re walking by and afraid of who is the 1-in-100 that&amp;#x27;s dangerous.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alienbeast</author><text>Pardon my ignorance, but does &amp;quot;housing-first&amp;quot; come with an expiration date, or is it indefinite? Obviously, if you pay for someone&amp;#x27;s home, you cure their homelessness, but the goal is to have them pay for their own home eventually, right?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d expect something like: You get 1 year of &amp;quot;housing-first&amp;quot;-style free housing with no requirements, then you get 1 year of &amp;quot;tough love&amp;quot; free housing with sobriety and job-search requirements, then you get kicked out.</text></comment>