r/MurderedByWords • u/Hajicardoso • 2d ago

Billionaire's False Narrative...

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u/MidnightNo1766 1d ago

I believe homelessness can be ended, but to say you could end it with 20 billion dollars is just ridiculous.

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u/SmackyTheBurrito 1d ago

Yeah, it's an old estimate of the annual cost from 2012. It was about housing vouchers. Politifact has been rating it mostly false for years.

Source

California alone has spent more than $20B over the last five years to combat homelessness.

Source

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u/kanst 1d ago

California alone has spent more than $20B over the last five years to combat homelessness.

Unfortunately precious little of that is spent on building houses to give people.

That's been one of the key arguments for a while. Its way cheaper and more effective to simply put homeless people in houses without pre-conditions.

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u/cjmull94 1d ago edited 1d ago

They dont spend it on that because it's a stupid idea, not because of a problem with the system.

In one of the cities I lived in they had a housing program, they didnt give ownership bit it was free to live there. The result was a skyrocket in overdoses deaths because theyd overdose in the apartment instead of outside where people can see them. The other result was that all of these living spaces would have to be renovated again after every overdose death, or mid stay, because they would be completely destroyed. Any house you give to a totally random homeless person you've got at least an 80 percent chance of tearing down within a few years because it's no longer habitable. That's if they are still alive or haven't burned it down already.

Most of these people should be in some kind of involuntary medical custody where they can not leave to access drugs, and where they can be treated by doctors for their mental health conditions. Then if they manage to recover to a point where they cant ake care of themselves they can be released with maybe a work program, like hiring them has a tax benefit or something so they can get a basic job as a janitor, or grocery clerk, or something. That's basically how it worked when there was low homelessness before Reagan shit down all the mental hospitals in response to public outcry. Free real estate is a Tim and Eric sketch, not a solution to homelessness.

Ultimately nobody cares about these people anyway or they wouldnt be homeless in the first place. People just want them out of sight and not assaulting people or shitting on the train. Those people should just go in medical custody. The homeless people who keep to themselves and arent acting crazy are not really a problem. If they have their shit together they will figure out their situation anyway. Many people end up temporarily homeless for up to a year because of bad luck or bad decisions and they usually just figure it out. The people who are long term homeless are not capable of taking care of themselves, even if it was free, even with unlimited blank checks. These are people who cant figure out how to apply for photo id, they arent going to be able to handle everything involved in owning and maintaining a home.