I think this piece makes a strong point — when there’s already a working model, just copy it instead of endlessly debating. The homelessness crisis is real, and doing nothing while watching it grow worse is the worst option. Of course there’s a chance it fails, but the bigger issue is that no one wants to take responsibility if it does. That lack of strong leadership is, in itself, part of the problem.
I think there's a crisis of ineffectiveness in Center-Left institutions
They are too deliberative, and take excessive time including voices of every stakeholder. So you don't just go do the "obvious thing". You cater to trying to listen to every voice in an effort to be as inclusive as possible. Committee after committee and an obsession with process. You can spend years placating NIMBYs and people living with their own alternate reality.
Meanwhile real people are suffering from lack of action.
This level of ineffectiveness just enables authoritarianism ("at least they get something done") and gets people to seek the private industry for their solutions.
While I’m not specifically arguing against your conclusion, there are a few narratives that to me point unfortunately to a systemic cause.
One is the book why nations fail, which among other causes points to circumstance and initial conditions. There was an interesting freakonomics podcast interviewing the mayor of, I think it was Dallas, and why Dallas was so successful, and the problem with California isnt sort of generic leftness but the specific organization of power structures that supports Nimbyism in a way that Texas doesn’t.
Plus the irony the EPA was formed by Nixon and the modern California environmental act was formed by Reagan?
The conspiracy theorist in me might suggest that in fact some of the environmental protections are explicitly right leaning to prevent progress.
I am not left, right, center. I am not even American. I am mostly curious why this is seem in center-left but (as I understood) not expected from the right?
I am supposing that and endless stack of problems to solve is always good for any politician. There is always room to blame something/someone and propose something else of there is a problem.
From outside, the discussions over immigrants in the United States seems to shadow deeper discussions on how to fix the rest. It seems to blame the outside world for the lack of internal competitivity while not recognising any of the obvious problems.
For example, it is not a matter of preferirng public or private healthcare like here in Europe. It is a matter of getting what makes more sense. Same for environment, trading, taxes, etc.
Like Dallas that rounds up the homeless and puts them on busses to drop off in Houston?
"The success in Houston and Dallas came from building operational infrastructure to make encampments disappear permanently instead of temporarily."
This is 100% BS. I drive past tent encampments every day. All that happens is the city comes in and disrupts the encampments so they are clear for a couple of days, and then everyone just returns. They have even started placing signs at the intersections where the people from the closest encampment under the bridge pan handle that discourages "street charity".
If this is what is considered success, then it must be really bad elsewhere. At least on the west coast the homeless do not have to worry about the weather as much
I remember a report about either SF or LA converting a parking lot to safe place for homeless and the mayor going on TV to show how proud they were this was a solution. I was flabbergasted. Because in no way would my SE coastal sensibilities regard this as any fucking solution to homelessness. It was literally a parking lot full of tents for the homeless.
Good article. Very convincing. Even if the housing bit cannot be solved (NIMBY-ism in California is very strong) the other solutions should help. And there's no reason homeless people in SF or LA should stay in the most expensive housing areas of a completely Democratically controlled state
Follow the money. Create a homelessness crisis, buy the cheap houses surrounding the tent cities and sell/rent them again for a bit/way more money when you fixed the crisis.
Not really fair to compare the two geographic regions. Nobody wants to live on the streets in Dallas or Houston. It’s way too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. That said, living in Dallas I have seen the odd tent city pop up under some freeway overpasses but they don’t stick around very long so I guess the city does do something about it.
What the actual fuck? The homeless problem here in Dallas is at an all time high. I've been in and out of the Downtown proper for 20 years now.
Completely unbelievable premise and not worth reading.
Citation: I was recently homeless following a stint in jail on a bogus Felony charge, and still frequent some of the resources / areas where I got help. 24 Hour Club. Dallas Public Libraries.
Tarrant County has a very good homeless program. They throw them in jail. Then let them out to do meth, then put them back in. They were my company in Lon Evans.
I’m a bit confused about this. I live and work in Houston, and it seems like the number of apparently homeless panhandlers I see (specifically in the med center / NRG) area seems approximately constant over the last decade.
Disclaimers- I don’t actually gather data. I don’t explore at night to see who is actually sleeping rough.
I do get report from panhandlers that they need $20 to stay at the shelter…
Interesting article though it curiously deemphasizes what is likely the most significant reason for the differences in outcomes, which is that housing is more cheap and abundant in Houston/Dallas stemming from being easier and cheaper to build. (Yes this is mentioned, but it doesn't end up in the 5 point conclusion list).
This passage for example. Houston can only achieve permanent placement if it actually has homes to place people in. SF is just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic because it has no where to put people and they're in and out of shelters. (Vancouver has the same issue)
> Houston houses people first, then closes encampment sites permanently. San Francisco deploys enforcement first, achieves temporary displacement, and watches areas refill. Houston tracks every person from intake through permanent placement. San Francisco can’t determine if anyone is being permanently housed at all.
Beyond better outcomes around creating new affordable housing if Houston and Dallas are also doing a also better job at keeping rents low and maintaining existing affordable housing that will also prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
A recent study in Vancouver found that one of the most significant single causes of homelessness (20%) was people simply running out of money and being evicted. The direct cause of this is high rents. So any city that is building more housing in general, and not demolishing existing affordable rental is going to be doing a better job in this category at reducing homelessness.
I lived in Oakland and Berkeley for about eight years and left a few years ago. As someone originally from New York, I’m baffled at this idea that there’s no place left to build in the Bay Area. The East Bay still has large swaths of land with nothing on it. SF has plenty of options for building upward. There’s open land to the south. The political gridlock in Bay Area politics is the problem. I’ve never seen more dysfunctional government in my life.
Ultimately the government is the people. The problem is that the established wealthy single family owning class want to retain the status quo they bought into, and reject any and all political change. Cynical politicians leverage this to get elected and serve those interests by rejecting any change.
> A recent study in Vancouver found that one of the most significant single causes of homelessness (20%) was people simply running out of money and being evicted. The direct cause of this is high rents. So any city that is building more housing in general, and not demolishing existing affordable rental is going to be doing a better job in this category at reducing homelessness.
Affordability isn’t simply a function of supply in a market but the wealth distribution of market participants. When wealth is concentrated, housing ownership is concentrated in the hands of rentier capital, which is precisely what determines the amount of financial outflows from the poor to the wealthy in the form of housing prices (rent and mortgages).
Houston has an absolutely massive amount of homelessness. It just also has tons of “null space” for them to exist invisibly. No one here walks or bikes so no one sees it only because they aren’t looking. Homelessness becomes a much bigger problem for society when homeless people cant find any space to be away from the public.
Texas' official policy on homelessness and drug users for at least a decade was to buy them a bus ticket to California. Gov Rick Perry bragged about it in a presidential debate. His successor bragged about it in a gubernatorial debate.
When the LA Times tried to survey the homeless population two years ago, fewer than 25% of the homeless in Hollywood were from California and none of them were locals. Want to guess the #1 state of residence for LA's homeless (Hint: it's Texas.)
But this article is right: once LA started buying the non-local homeless bus tickets back to their real home cities, things started getting better in LA. It's now part of our current mayor's homeless strategy to convince people to go back home.
Also: California defines homelessness differently (more broadly) than most states. Using the California definition, Texas, North Dakota, Florida, New York, and Oklahoma all have almost as many homeless. But when those states redefine homelessness to mean something narrower, of course they're going to look better. If California were to limit the "homeless" population to just Californians who became homeless (meaning that they owned, rented, or otherwise had housing before losing it), it would have fewer homeless than Texas.
Good points and centralized infrastructure does seem key , but I think the biggest factor is the cost of housing. If Houston is half the cost of LA you’re going to have a lot less homeless to begin with and it’ll be a lot more affordable to over then housing.
This overlooks the weather factor. if you’re homeless and have the chance to get a bus to LA, would you rather try to survive in the streets of LA or Dallas (or Houston)? Easy decision.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 56.2 ms ] threadThey are too deliberative, and take excessive time including voices of every stakeholder. So you don't just go do the "obvious thing". You cater to trying to listen to every voice in an effort to be as inclusive as possible. Committee after committee and an obsession with process. You can spend years placating NIMBYs and people living with their own alternate reality.
Meanwhile real people are suffering from lack of action.
This level of ineffectiveness just enables authoritarianism ("at least they get something done") and gets people to seek the private industry for their solutions.
One is the book why nations fail, which among other causes points to circumstance and initial conditions. There was an interesting freakonomics podcast interviewing the mayor of, I think it was Dallas, and why Dallas was so successful, and the problem with California isnt sort of generic leftness but the specific organization of power structures that supports Nimbyism in a way that Texas doesn’t.
Plus the irony the EPA was formed by Nixon and the modern California environmental act was formed by Reagan?
The conspiracy theorist in me might suggest that in fact some of the environmental protections are explicitly right leaning to prevent progress.
I am supposing that and endless stack of problems to solve is always good for any politician. There is always room to blame something/someone and propose something else of there is a problem.
From outside, the discussions over immigrants in the United States seems to shadow deeper discussions on how to fix the rest. It seems to blame the outside world for the lack of internal competitivity while not recognising any of the obvious problems. For example, it is not a matter of preferirng public or private healthcare like here in Europe. It is a matter of getting what makes more sense. Same for environment, trading, taxes, etc.
Too many and too restrictive building codes are bad, but no codes? Yikes.
"The success in Houston and Dallas came from building operational infrastructure to make encampments disappear permanently instead of temporarily."
This is 100% BS. I drive past tent encampments every day. All that happens is the city comes in and disrupts the encampments so they are clear for a couple of days, and then everyone just returns. They have even started placing signs at the intersections where the people from the closest encampment under the bridge pan handle that discourages "street charity".
If this is what is considered success, then it must be really bad elsewhere. At least on the west coast the homeless do not have to worry about the weather as much
"Tent cities" do still exist, regardless of what the article stated.
And under bridges is still a common gathering point.
But yes, to a way lesser degree than anything you'd find in CA.
The brushing-along still happens
Completely unbelievable premise and not worth reading.
Citation: I was recently homeless following a stint in jail on a bogus Felony charge, and still frequent some of the resources / areas where I got help. 24 Hour Club. Dallas Public Libraries.
Tarrant County has a very good homeless program. They throw them in jail. Then let them out to do meth, then put them back in. They were my company in Lon Evans.
Perhaps they're more waiting for the public to beg for permanent military presence. Create a problem for the solution you're looking to implement.
I have no idea about California, but I do know that's how it works in Sweden.
Disclaimers- I don’t actually gather data. I don’t explore at night to see who is actually sleeping rough.
I do get report from panhandlers that they need $20 to stay at the shelter…
This passage for example. Houston can only achieve permanent placement if it actually has homes to place people in. SF is just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic because it has no where to put people and they're in and out of shelters. (Vancouver has the same issue)
> Houston houses people first, then closes encampment sites permanently. San Francisco deploys enforcement first, achieves temporary displacement, and watches areas refill. Houston tracks every person from intake through permanent placement. San Francisco can’t determine if anyone is being permanently housed at all.
Beyond better outcomes around creating new affordable housing if Houston and Dallas are also doing a also better job at keeping rents low and maintaining existing affordable housing that will also prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
A recent study in Vancouver found that one of the most significant single causes of homelessness (20%) was people simply running out of money and being evicted. The direct cause of this is high rents. So any city that is building more housing in general, and not demolishing existing affordable rental is going to be doing a better job in this category at reducing homelessness.
Affordability isn’t simply a function of supply in a market but the wealth distribution of market participants. When wealth is concentrated, housing ownership is concentrated in the hands of rentier capital, which is precisely what determines the amount of financial outflows from the poor to the wealthy in the form of housing prices (rent and mortgages).
When the LA Times tried to survey the homeless population two years ago, fewer than 25% of the homeless in Hollywood were from California and none of them were locals. Want to guess the #1 state of residence for LA's homeless (Hint: it's Texas.)
But this article is right: once LA started buying the non-local homeless bus tickets back to their real home cities, things started getting better in LA. It's now part of our current mayor's homeless strategy to convince people to go back home.
Also: California defines homelessness differently (more broadly) than most states. Using the California definition, Texas, North Dakota, Florida, New York, and Oklahoma all have almost as many homeless. But when those states redefine homelessness to mean something narrower, of course they're going to look better. If California were to limit the "homeless" population to just Californians who became homeless (meaning that they owned, rented, or otherwise had housing before losing it), it would have fewer homeless than Texas.
This overlooks the weather factor. if you’re homeless and have the chance to get a bus to LA, would you rather try to survive in the streets of LA or Dallas (or Houston)? Easy decision.