The answer is a community that cares about this person and is going to invest in them. Period
That’s it that’s the solution.
Until every person on earth has a supportive loving community - which mathematically works out very easily - we’ll never solve these problems.
There is absolutely no logistical or material reason that we can’t do this. It’s also not biologically determined - fear and greed are not inherit in humans, those are all learned behaviors. I fear however it’s going to take generations to undo how much we have invested in domination based systems rather than partnership based structures.
You are so stuck in your bubble that can't even imagine that societies exist today without a massive homelessness problem. Societies that do not have a "supportive loving community" but that combine individual responsibility with strong social services.
> There is absolutely no logistical or material reason that we can’t do this
Yes there is. What you and other "progressives" fail to acknowledge is that for every well meaning supportive and loving member of society there are two people who will use them and their resources endlessly until they drop dead. If your plan is to wait until we change human nature - then good luck.
Want to see a preview? Socialize with families of alcoholics, drug addicts, psychopaths, etc. Look how their "loving and supportive" families are destroyed by one person who abuses them with no end in sight.
Stop fantasizing about changing human nature. The future where we all meditate in peace like that advanced society in Fantastic Planet won't happen any time soon. The more likely future is that we will completely stagnate and fail to resolve any societal issues because we treat people like they are lost babies that just need a supportive and loving community to be found.
If the choice is between using HTML in JS (e.g. JSX) vs using JS in HTML (essentially, that's what HTMX is), my choice is unequivocally the former. Ignoring some very basic use cases, UI apps are all about state and interactivity. HTMX can somewhat handle interactivity (very awkwardly in my opinion), it offers nothing over React in terms of state management.
In terms of state management, it's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, no? It offers nothing over React because it doesn't offer any state management. AFAIK HTMX is a wrapper for the fetch function that lets you define your request from your HTML. How you manage the state on the server is up to you.
That's where I disagree with this approach. IMO sending over fully rendered views just because some state changed is antithetical to the UI needs. UI is the state that users interact with.
There are many other examples of failed policies that increased financial pressure on taxpayers but did not result in an overall improvement in the homeless situation.
E.g. what is the outcome of CA Proposition 2 that passed in 2018?
While I agree that the reduction in the role of religion in the US is partially to blame for the increase in severe cases of drug addition, the idea that we need to bring religion back essentially to control people is extremely patronizing. Basically, we are saying that some people are too stupid to live productively if they are not controlled by fairy tales.
This is the same approach as we are seeing in the "far left" bubble in the context of this issue: street drug addicts have no responsibilities and agency, the society has to accommodate their every whim, including ignoring all illegal activities they are engaged in.
Until we acknowledge that benefits come with responsibilities we are not going to solve this.
It's naive to see religion as fairy tales. If used correctly, the tales are a medium of communication to instill values, discipline and morals in the masses.
The fundamental reason and ground for these morals will remain in fairy tales. You don't see how divisive and fragile that is? This is fundamentally wrong, even if it used to work effectively.
Surely there is another way? Stronger families, philosophy, sports, education? Humanism over religion - the only truly universal approach.
It's not fairy tales. Its human need for attachment to something greater. America has not filled that with anything else. The previous flag waving civic nationalism has become demonized so now there's nothing.
Religion is far from the only venue to explore the purpose and meaning of one's life.
I think religion is declining because people are discovering there are many ways to perform self-discovery and practice fulfillment.
The only aspect of religion that has been beneficial to modern society is providing a social venue for others to interact. This can be achieved by building stronger neighborhoods and encouraging the development of more welcoming social venues -- something that I think is the cure to America's loneliness epidemic.
> I think religion is declining because people are discovering there are many ways to perform self-discovery and practice fulfillment.
Let's suppose this were true. If, as you say, it's all about purpose and meaning, then we would expect that although everyone's conception of these things is different, it would still provide the same benefit. However, this is not what we find. Markers of purpose and meaning (such as suicide rate, depression, etc) are getting worse, not better.
So we're forced to come to terms with a few possible conclusions, none of which are very good for your point of view. Either the systems people are coming up with are insufficient to achieve the same goals or people are not coming up with their own system and are left to flounder.
> This can be achieved by building stronger neighborhoods and encouraging the development of more welcoming social venues -- something that I think is the cure to America's loneliness epidemic.
How is Europe doing on these indicators? Or anywhere else?
I am not surprised by that in the slightest, and I agree that most people struggle with that, myself included. It is THE struggle of our lives.
Being told as a child that if you take drugs you will go to hell is not a meaningful alternative. Not for incredibly complex thinking beings that we are.
Submitting to Jesus, being a part of the "right" religious group is not a benefit to the human race as a whole. It's poison, promoted by power hungry maniacs.
Our maturing world (not just the US) is starting to recognize that religion is BS. We can't go back to relying on religion for keeping our bad instincts at bay. The influence of religion is and has been low in many European countries for decades, which did not result in an increase in homelessness we are seeing in the US.
Social programs, education, keeping corporations in check - these are meaningful alternatives to the idea that we need to bring Jesus back to control the population.
I'm pretty sure they anticipated this attitude in Revelation 3:15
Indifference is worse than extreme atheism or fundamentalism because those two options are actually concerned about others
The indifferent person could care less whether you believe or don't, it's your own "individual responsibility", they owe nothing to you and you owe nothing to them
Widespread indifference will bring about the slow dismantlement of society
East Asia and parts of Europe have quite a few people who are entirely apathetic towards religion. Drug addicts aren't out and open in those regions.
I've really only witnessed such open drug abuse in countries with strong Christian influence, e.g. the US and Latin America. Might be worth investigating why widespread debilitating drug abuse stems from that background.
I mean, they anticipated the effect of eating shellfish and allowing women to speak up in Whatever X:YY, is this going to end the world as we know it as well?
Finding purpose and our place in the world is our individual responsibility. Don't confuse it with the lies of eternal heaven at the cost of total submission in this life that your religion is promoting.
It isn't a "price" that you pay for some reward down the line, or at least that's a pretty shallow way of approaching it, and assuming that is kind of reductive
>the idea that we need to bring religion back essentially to control people is extremely patronizing. Basically, we are saying that some people are too stupid to live productively if they are not controlled by fairy tales.
Can something be simultaneously true and patronizing?
Just looking at how humans in general behave worldwide, I'd say that yes, people are really quite stupid.
Ha, well, yes. But despite sounding so anti-religious and pro individual responsibility, I am not only optimistic, I am always inspired and heartened by us, humans. I believe, we are capable of incredible breakthroughs and are growing as a whole. Untangling from centuries of brutal religious domination will take time, and we will struggle, and sometimes fail. But eventually we will grow out of the need to find purpose in submission, and will thrive as more aware and realized beings.
This assessment contradicts all evidence we have on the homelessness in the US. Unemployment rate is very low in the US, shelters are very often half-empty. Drug-addicts and homeless people refuse help (unless it's cash or free drugs).
The idea that we just need to invest more and more into this extremely corrupt industry has no merit.
Shelters have a lot of restrictions that keep swaths of homeless out. For instance most don't allow animals or carts. If you're homeless and don't want to abandon those you're stuck on the street. There might be reasons for restrictions but they exist and homeless are excluded from shelters because of them.
What are you talking about? Homeless shelters are full, wages are the lowest they have been in decades, and US health care is the most expensive in the world
This is an endless argument. Why can't a person with 0 skills rent an apartment in San Francisco? Some wages are very low. If you can't afford rent in one of the most expensive cities on the planet, move to a cheaper place, don't become homeless in SF.
Do you want me to solve this for you? Here you go:
You're acting like people aren't emotionally attached to their home cities.
Most people are born and raised in the same city or area their whole lives. The adult illiteracy rate is 20% and less than 40% get any kind of 4 year degree. Options are limited. People will cling to hope and the life (and community!) they know, until they're broke and lost their job... and at that point, they straight up can't move to Fresno and start that Walmart job. Walmart wouldn't hire them without a local place to live, and cheap Fresno landlords wouldn't rent to someone without a local job. Neither Walmart nor the landlord has an incentive to change, they're doing just fine exploiting the local Fresno populace.
Low-skill/low-pay life situations are a completely different reality than what well-off knowledge workers know.
> You're acting like people aren't emotionally attached to their home cities.
Respectfully, you misplace the responsibility. When people go through a rough breakup, we don't call for the person experiencing attachment anxiety to be housed with their ex just because it would make things easier for one party at least temporarily. Life is full of hard moments and challenging choices. The fact that something is hard doesn't mean giving up is the healthiest path that the society should encourage.
Talk to people who work in social services. The fact is, visibly homeless (street homeless, most often addicted people) are in this situation not because they have tried everything else and have no choices. They don't seek employment and often refuse help. They are not part of a community (unless you consider other homeless people they randomly ended up living close to their true community).
As usual, the discussion about homeless is kind of pointless without clarifying which segment we are talking about. Homeless families with children, disabled non-addicts, etc are not someone I include in this discussion, and I never see them living on the street.
With all due respect, I was responding to your original highly reductionistic take
> Do you want me to solve this for you? Here you go:
As if your list was anything close to a viable solution for someone already homeless and addicted.
With this post, you're right - it is absolutely more complex. There are absolutely families on the street, they're just more likely in cars or squatting rather than assaulting people.
Beds can be located in places that lock people out of employment or introduce them to toxic elements... and becoming unhoused by itself causes mental health issues in a society which does nothing but stigmatize that from birth to adulthood.
Even within treatment, skilled help is chronically burned out and mediocre help is worse than a rubber duck.
There's a need for structural reform, from policing through sentencing and voluntary/mandatory rehabilitation, as well as public education. Not to mention real estate bottlenecks that drive up prices for everone from low-income odd-job workers, to the city police force, to building new institutional facilities, to staffing social services.
Agree with all your points. We just need the people in power to recognize and act on that, instead of pandering to the extreme vocal minority and throwing money at an industry that has no incentive to make itself more efficient and effective.
This is an unpopular but more tenable solution. The federal government should step in should anyone be homeless and find them better living conditions and comprehensive services especially in under-utilized, lower cost areas where it is cheaper to deliver services. The federal government level is necessary because it amortizes the financial risks more fairly than dumping the costs on specific municipalities.
The article discusses the significant problem of empty beds in Los Angeles County's homeless shelters, despite a large homeless population. Investigations reveal safety and sanitation issues in many shelters, such as bedbugs, rats, foul odors, and lax medical care. Half of the LAHSA shelters had 78 percent utilization. Homeless individuals cite issues like theft, harassment, and violence within shelters, prompting some to prefer living on the streets. There's no unified oversight system, and the is much room for improvement to ensure humane conditions in shelters.
Approximately 7,800 homeless people in San Francisco, 2,100 have been approved for subsidized housing, yet challenges persist in moving them indoors. The city cites issues such as a shortage of case managers, complicated paperwork, and resistance from the homeless to certain unit conditions. Although efforts have been made to address the problem, including a $62 million investment in case managers, the average wait time has increased to five months, a significant delay considering the program's annual budget of $356 million. The article calls for an in-depth audit of the permanent supportive housing program and urgent action to house homeless individuals promptly.
The article discusses California's Project Roomkey initiative, launched by Governor Gavin Newsom in April 2020 to lease 15,000 hotel rooms for homeless individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the program's progress has been slow, with only about half of the rooms occupied over a month into its implementation. Challenges include delays in preparing rooms for occupancy, a shortage of service providers, and difficulties in transitioning residents into permanent housing. While some counties, like Sacramento, have seen relative success, others, such as San Diego and Orange County, struggle to fill leased rooms. The initiative, funded by FEMA, targets homeless individuals aged 65 or older and those with health conditions susceptible to COVID-19, but the article raises concerns about the overall effectiveness and limited coverage of the program in addressing the state's homelessness crisis.
Thanks for the summary. All of that confirms that the shelters are not full, they are underutilized. I am opposed to the idea that we just need to pump more money into this issue, which then gets distributed among "case managers".
E.g. we have invested $62M in case managers to handle 2100 approved cases? With the program's annual budget being $365M? This shows a ridiculous level of bloat and corruption. Do we need to spend $30K per case, considering that this doesn't cover the shelter expense?
I am not opposed helping people in need, I am opposed the idea that we just need to spend more money. And then next year a little bit more. More taxes, more case managers, more street cleaning teams, more safe injection sites. None of that is solving homelessness, all of that is contributing to making the homeless industry bigger.
Caveat: unemployment statistics don't count people who aren't seeking work. Which chronically homeless and/or drug addicted people usually do not.
> The unemployment rate measures the share of workers in the labor force who do not currently have a job but are actively looking for work. People who have not looked for work in the past four weeks are not included in this measure.
Basically what unemployment rate tells us is that USA has enough jobs for people who want to work. It says nothing about people who have given up looking.
> Basically what unemployment rate tells us is that USA has enough jobs for people who want to work. It says nothing about people who have given up looking.
That's a fair point. If people are not seeking work but claim benefits indefinitely, doesn't this require a different solution than blaming the society and expecting taxpayers to take care of that?
Which benefits are you referring to? Unemployment insurance and welfare are generally time limited. Disability payments can last forever, specifically because those people can't work. (There is a small amount of disability fraud by people who are capable of working but choose not too, and are able to convince physicians to approve their claims.)
Benefits in a very broad sense. This includes both e.g. SF General Assistance payments and things like cleaning the streets from syringes, urine and poop on a weekly basis.
Agreed. Every single platform/device has apps that are exclusive to it. It's mind-boggling to me that people are so obsessed with Messages. I can't play thousands of Steam games on my Mac. My friends who have PCs play those games together, have fun, chat online. Should Steam be forced to "open their protocol" whatever that means?..
This is the point I am making. There are certain apps and features that are exclusive to certain devices. I can 't play the vast majority of Steam games on my Mac. Should Steam (and all game companies involved, including Valve) be forced to enable support for MacOS for all their games because Mac users have FOMO?
I am mentioning Steam as an example of an ecosystem that offers exclusive apps on different devices. The fact that I can install Steam on a Mac is sort of irrelevant considering that I can't play the games that are offered through Steam on my Mac. Many indie games are offered only on Steam, so it's a monopoly in this sense.
The only reason we are having this conversation is that some Americans can't fathom the idea that something they want is not available to them for free.
We can assume that there are close to zero iPhone owners who don't use Messages, considering that almost half of the US population has an iPhone. This calculation fails to account for the critical aspect: Messages is the default SMS app, it's not just a group chat. Comparing it to WhatsApp is just incorrect.
If it's the default app and all iPhone users actively use it, and FB messenger beats it by 4 million active users, then your argument hasn't really got a leg to stand on, especially given that the market share for iPhone in the US is ~53%.
My argument is only strengthened by your data?.. Messages app is the app every iPhone user uses to send and receive SMS messages. It's not about some exclusive features, blue vs green bubbles, etc. It's just SMS messages.
So just citing the number (130M) means nothing in this debate. WhatsApp or Signal or FM Messenger are not SMS apps, so we can't just look at the number of active users and make conclusions.
How many angsty teenagers must have an iPhone because of the color of their chat bubble? That's the number that (apparently) matters.
No. That’s appealing to emotion, it’s a fallacy and has no place in a sensible discussion.
As for SMS, I can say with a high degree of confidence that deliberate SMS sending is very low outside the US. Besides, the feature being spoofed, and therefore discussed is iMessage, which categorically is not SMS/MMS. Bringing it up is introducing a strawman.
> therefore discussed is iMessage, which categorically is not SMS/MMS
That's not the reality though, correct? When I send a message to a friend using the Messages app it's being sent as an iMessage if both of us use an iPhone. I don't care what the format is, my intention is to send an SMS. So you can't use this as evidence of popularity of iMessages.
Just looking at my message list: at least 40% of my messages are alerts, reminders, payment confirmations, etc. Are you saying in Europe people get those via Signal?
No, I’m saying it’s irrelevant what businesses are sending you. And since SMS is fundamentally limited to 160 ASCII characters, I doubt the majority cares. Getting hung up on a default SMS client feels like a waste of energy. I get that, as a convenience, you’d want one location for all your messaging needs. For an alternative view, I like the separation that multiple apps provide. I’m not against iMessage being on other platforms either. What I am against is the pitchforks and bullshit reasoning around why this is anti-consumer/trust. The whole polemic is just bullshit.
Edit: in fact I'm annoyed at myself for adding to the pointlessness of what amounts to petty nerd-rage. I apologise to everyone...
> I get that, as a convenience, you’d want one location for all your messaging needs. For an alternative view, I like the separation that multiple apps provide.
Wait wait... now I am totally confused. I don't mind the separation of my messaging needs. In fact, I use Messages only for SMS (or SMS-like) messages, and WhatsApp and Signal for everything else.
> What I am against is the pitchforks and bullshit reasoning around why this is anti-consumer/trust. The whole polemic is just bullshit.
That is what I am saying :) All this debate about bubble colors, anti-consumerism, monopolies, etc is a waste of time, we have much bigger problems to deal with.
It's a ridiculous comparison. How do you calculate "more widely" usage? I use Messages for all SMS messages. I've had maybe 5 group chats in Messages over the last 10 years, all groups are organized in WhatsApp or Signal. So what is more widely used in my case?
Messages is the default SMS app on iPhones. 130M iPhones in the US does mean there are 130M Messages users. So what? Some teenagers are angsty because of green bubbles? FFS do we not have bigger problems to deal with?
I don't think the core motivation in this discussion (or the monetary motivation from Beeper) is due solely to "angsty teenagers." Clearly there are adults out there, with money to spend, who would prefer to send an iMessage to an iPhone owner rather than an SMS message.
While I find it annoying to constantly hear from my mother and other members of my family how messages from me are "a hassle" or "always getting missed" or "never show up in the group chat", I am not willing to spend the money on something like Beeper. But some people are spending the money, it looks like there is a market there.
In my bubble I switched everyone to Signal. I acknowledge that this is an anecdote and don't propose this as a solution. However, complaining about features in different apps is even less of a solution.
Messaging is done extremely differently in the US. All those group chats on Whatsapp or Signal would be done in iMessage because most Americans don't have Whatsapp or Signal, and Android users would likely just be left out of them.
I do live in the US. All my friends are on Signal and WhatsApp.
There are 140M FB Messenger users in the US, more than iPhone users.
This discussion is baffling to me. People buy devices that have exclusive content and features all the time. PS5 has a ton of exclusive games. So sometimes a group of friends is divided: some people have Xbox, others have PS5. Also some have no console at all. And some people will make fun of others, some people will get bullied because of that. This issue will not magically go away if we force Apple to "equalize" the chat bubble color. Some teenagers will still get bullied.
IMHO, it's unlikely anyone with an iPhone uses it "purely for SMS usage." That would mean we have an iPhone owner who only receives SMS from services, only sends messages to people with an Android device, has gone through the trouble to deliberately disable iMessage messages or lacks a data plan of any kind.
I agree with you. The problem is that we conflate SMS and iMessage usage in the Messages app. Most people do use Messages for SMS-like messages (meaning not for exclusive iMessage features). E.g. looking at my message list: at least 40% of messages I receive are alerts, payment confirmations, appointment reminders, etc. These are SMS messages in terms of their purpose, even if some have the blue bubble and whatnot. Messages is a popular app in the US, but what we need to look at is how popular it is for specifically iMessage-exclusive features, not as an SMS client.
Since I’ve moved out of the US and started using Line (the message service of choice in my country of residence) I have no idea why the US market continues to cope with SMS.
iMessage is confusing. I get constant random authorization requests on my iPad because it got un-synced. Messages never come through to my Mac either.
Line is nowhere near perfect, and the app does have ads, but it works, it’s fast, and encrypted. People even use it for calling. I’ve literally never gave my phone number to someone for communication. Not even my coworkers.
It’s so prominent that data only cellphone plans are actually usable-and cheap.
I’m not saying we should all use Line (I would prefer Matrix). What I’m saying is there are so many communication platforms out there that are way better than S/MMS.
What is free housing? Free as in indefinitely free with no strings attached? Free utilities, free services, free food, perhaps free transportation? Free furniture, free healthcare, free drugs, free clothes, free HOA?
Do you think the violent addicts everyone complains about just need a house, and starting from day one they will become productive members of society?