Author Topic: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby  (Read 4315 times)

Cassie

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #50 on: August 10, 2022, 08:01:56 PM »
Busing homeless to other states has been happening for years. I live in Nevada and we got caught sending our homeless to California probably around 5 years ago. It was all over the news and we stopped of course. Nevada’s homeless population is growing as rents skyrocketed. In northern Nevada some people freeze to death in the winter.  Last time I was in New Orleans a retired cop was our Uber driver and he said that the neighborhood greatly improved when hurricane Katrina destroyed a big low income apartment building.

rocketpj

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #51 on: August 20, 2022, 02:47:54 PM »
I happen to work in a supportive housing facility, probably a lot like the one that is being built near the OPs house of concern.

The evidence tends to be counterintuitive, in that property values can go up after local homeless persons get into stable housing.  A lot depends on who is operating the facility and what their approaches are.  It can be good, or it can be a spiral of pain.  I'm fortunate to work for a great organization.

People who have no direct knowledge of homelessness or homeless people don't usually grasp what actual issues are.  In a lot of cases people don't develop addictions until after they become homeless.  'Living in my car, lonely, might as well hang out with these people and get high'.

The weird neo-puritan idea that people should solve their biggest mental health and/or addiction problems before they get help to live in a home is absurd and counterproductive.  I've seen people thrive in supportive housing.  I've seen some people not fit in well and get evicted (violence, drug dealing).  I've also seen people move in as complete mental and physical catastrophes, stabilize over a couple of years, decide to go for treatment and sober up, then end up working.  Some of them have become coworkers, one used to be my boss until he got headhunted away to a different organization.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #52 on: August 22, 2022, 07:47:12 AM »
So how do you go about supporting and helping the homeless, without enabling the addiction issues?  And how do you avoid the issue of attracting the homeless from other, less hospitable areas?

getsorted

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #53 on: August 22, 2022, 07:59:16 AM »
So how do you go about supporting and helping the homeless, without enabling the addiction issues?  And how do you avoid the issue of attracting the homeless from other, less hospitable areas?

When you provide shelter, you're not enabling addiction. You're providing shelter. The addiction is going to exist whether there is shelter or not.

Metalcat

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #54 on: August 24, 2022, 11:15:44 AM »
So how do you go about supporting and helping the homeless, without enabling the addiction issues?  And how do you avoid the issue of attracting the homeless from other, less hospitable areas?

I'm not sure I can even make sense of your question, unless it's based on the assumption that the negative consequences of addiction actually work as a motivator to quit drugs???

Giving an addict a safe place to live won't encourage them to use more drugs. Just like being homeless doesn't encourage them to use less drugs.

What it does do is dramatically lower the cost of that person in terms of policing, social work, medical care, and legal costs.

Homeless people cost a FORTUNE. This is a fiscally conservative policy.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #55 on: August 24, 2022, 11:54:32 AM »
So how do you go about supporting and helping the homeless, without enabling the addiction issues?  And how do you avoid the issue of attracting the homeless from other, less hospitable areas?
I'm not sure I can even make sense of your question, unless it's based on the assumption that the negative consequences of addiction actually work as a motivator to quit drugs???
I am trying to better understand the issue. As I am not intimately familiar with all the nuance, I apologize if my phraseology is inelegant, or if I confound various aspects of the issue, or if my questions seem disjointed.

Do you mean that those suffering from addiction are incapable of modifying their behavior in response to external conditions?  If the homeless are first provided with housing, what's the next step?  How successful is housing at reducing the other costs you mention?  If overcoming addiction is the linchpin of the homeless person's other problems (as I presume it is), and housing doesn't make the addiction go away (as sadiesortsitout says), how does the housing play into that person's rehabilitation(?) process?

getsorted

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #56 on: August 24, 2022, 12:18:33 PM »
I am not familiar with the statistics, but I used to work with people who are homeless regularly, in-person, so I can answer a couple of these.

Do you mean that those suffering from addiction are incapable of modifying their behavior in response to external conditions? 

Well, think about it this way: for people who become homeless as a result of addiction, getting kicked out of whatever housing they were in before becoming homeless obviously wasn't enough motivation. For people who become addicts after becoming homeless (which as someone mentioned up-thread, frequently happens)... well, they're already homeless. Also, lot of the people in the latter category, in my experience, are barely more than children.

On a more philosophical note: Hardship is a motivator, until you reach a threshold. The threshold is when you become overwhelmed and discouraged; it is no longer apparent that your actions can influence the outcome. People feel trapped. Despair is a state of being; even animals experience this. People on the street are nearly always sleep-deprived-- lights, the threat of assault, cold, wet weather, being moved constantly by police. They're also chronically afraid, eating extremely tilted diets, and are just generally worn down in a way that most people can't even imagine. Shelter offers them the opportunity to get their brains online in a way that it's hard to manage when you are sleeping rough. To be energized, effective, make good decisions, etc. from that place is a massive undertaking.

How successful is housing at reducing the other costs you mention? 

Ask an EMT how many times they respond to emergencies relating to homeless people. Exposure injuries and deaths are very real and costly. Plus, just the cost of having police go out and move homeless people away every time someone calls, respond to calls about the belongings of homeless people, etc.

One of the biggest fears guests had in our shelter, which was very low-barrier-- almost anyone could come in and sleep on a kinder mat, even if they were drunk or high, as long as they weren't disruptive-- was other homeless people. Getting stabbed, sexually assaulted, robbed. All these are things that public services address that, as you will notice, happen a lot less if you have walls around you and a door you can lock.

[/quote]

If overcoming addiction is the linchpin of the homeless person's other problems (as I presume it is), and housing doesn't make the addiction go away (as sadiesortsitout says), how does the housing play into that person's rehabilitation(?) process?

I don't know about the linchpin. Housing doesn't make addiction go away, but it provides a stable base from which rehabilitation begins to be possible. Homeless people are sleeping wherever they can, with whoever they can. If you're trying to get off drugs, but sharing a tent with someone who is using drugs, you're not going to get off drugs. If you're freezing and someone has drugs that will take your mind off how cold you are, you'll use drugs.

Metalcat

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #57 on: August 24, 2022, 12:32:57 PM »
So how do you go about supporting and helping the homeless, without enabling the addiction issues?  And how do you avoid the issue of attracting the homeless from other, less hospitable areas?
I'm not sure I can even make sense of your question, unless it's based on the assumption that the negative consequences of addiction actually work as a motivator to quit drugs???
I am trying to better understand the issue. As I am not intimately familiar with all the nuance, I apologize if my phraseology is inelegant, or if I confound various aspects of the issue, or if my questions seem disjointed.

Do you mean that those suffering from addiction are incapable of modifying their behavior in response to external conditions?  If the homeless are first provided with housing, what's the next step?  How successful is housing at reducing the other costs you mention?  If overcoming addiction is the linchpin of the homeless person's other problems (as I presume it is), and housing doesn't make the addiction go away (as sadiesortsitout says), how does the housing play into that person's rehabilitation(?) process?

Hmm..okay, I'll try my best to answer these questions.

Some people can absolutely overcome their addictions, but being homeless doesn't at all increase their probability of doing do. So providing an addict with housing isn't enabling their addiction, it's just providing them with housing.

If you read up on the many, many studies on this, you will see that housing first initiatives often have positive impacts on addiction behaviours, even in the absence of any other drug counselling or supports.

So yeah, if we want addicts using less drugs, giving them housing can actually help with that. Along with dramatically reducing their burden and costs on society. And yes, the numbers on this are insane.

Also, your assumption that overcoming addiction is the linchpin to their other problems isn't necessarily accurate. A lot of people think this way, but it's more of an ideological belief that gets stated as fact rather than an actual fact supported by evidence.

I strongly recommend that you read up on the rational for harm reduction policies and the data that support them.

Once you understand the real world impact of such policies, it becomes shocking that they aren't the standard, especially since the current systems and policies are so unbelievably bad.

For me, I look at over burdened healthcare systems alone and can't believe the absurd cost it takes to manage the health impacts of homelessness.

A medical tv drama recently jad an episode about this, they talked about how the cost of renting one of their frequent flyer homeless patients an apartment would save the hospital millions in care costs. I'm happy this is slowly making it into the general public consciousness/pop culture and not just the obscure briefing notes of public policy analysts.

Like, it's actually fucking ridiculous how much money can be saved by just getting people into housing, but it's so often framed as some kind of lefty, SJW, expensive social program, despite being a fiscally conservative policy.

It's really mind boggling.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2022, 12:38:17 PM by Malcat »

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #58 on: August 24, 2022, 01:03:39 PM »
Thanks, sadiesortsitout and Malcat, for taking the time to respond.  There's a lot of clarification that's helpful in your posts.

Can you provide any insights into why violence (assault, rape, etc) is so much more common among the homeless?  I can understand the robbery part of things, if someone is doing whatever they need to in order to scrape by, get their next fix, etc.  Is the violence also a result of lack of sleep/poor health impacting decision-making ability?

From a public policy perspective, providing safe shelter for the homeless may make sense on a local level, but how does a local government avoid importing homeless from surrounding areas (or even states) as a result?  Addict or not, I imagine homeless people will be attracted to a place where they can get free lodging.

ixtap

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #59 on: August 24, 2022, 01:33:45 PM »
Thanks, sadiesortsitout and Malcat, for taking the time to respond.  There's a lot of clarification that's helpful in your posts.

Can you provide any insights into why violence (assault, rape, etc) is so much more common among the homeless?  I can understand the robbery part of things, if someone is doing whatever they need to in order to scrape by, get their next fix, etc.  Is the violence also a result of lack of sleep/poor health impacting decision-making ability?

From a public policy perspective, providing safe shelter for the homeless may make sense on a local level, but how does a local government avoid importing homeless from surrounding areas (or even states) as a result?  Addict or not, I imagine homeless people will be attracted to a place where they can get free lodging.

Frustration, desperation and mental illness, independently, but also found in combination. That totally powerless feeling is exhausting. They frequently take it out on each other, as is also seen in other marginalized groups. The sleep and stress play into the other factors.

I live in a place that is always going to be attractive to the homeless just because the weather is unlikely to kill them. Providing them with shelter helps with sanitation issues, but it has to be shelter that they feel safe in.

You know how in AA they try to keep you focused? Getting your act together is not the time to get into new relationships or move across the country, etc. That is what providing shelter to addicts offers: a place of stability from which to attempt recovery.

getsorted

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #60 on: August 24, 2022, 01:44:48 PM »
Can you provide any insights into why violence (assault, rape, etc) is so much more common among the homeless?  I can understand the robbery part of things, if someone is doing whatever they need to in order to scrape by, get their next fix, etc.  Is the violence also a result of lack of sleep/poor health impacting decision-making ability?

I don't know whether it's more common or not; I only know that people who don't have any way to secure themselves and their belongings are particularly vulnerable to it.

I mean, yes, when you have a room full of exhausted, undernourished, cold, uncomfortable people who have to sleep on mats in one big room, tempers run high. But that tends to just be some shouting. The serious violence... When you work directly with chronically homeless people, you can't get away from this: some of them are absolute shits. Mean, violent, reactive, conniving, and a few of them will make your skin crawl. I'm not even including mental illness here; I'm talking about people who are homeless because they have absolutely fucked over everyone they've ever known who has tried to help them. Those are the ones who get banned from shelters. Some of them are probably brain-damaged. There was one guy who would come through my breakfast line and knock over the ketchup, knock over other peoples' food, scream at everyone, kick chairs-- he was like a toddler in a grown man's body. People like that were a tiny minority of the people we served-- like, one out of a hundred on any given day-- but they were all the trouble. One guy like that moving into your tent encampment will do a lot of damage. But if the police respond, both the guy like that and the people who tried to stop him are going to get arrested-- and everybody with a warrant, and everybody with drugs, and maybe just everybody who doesn't clear out fast enough.

From a public policy perspective, providing safe shelter for the homeless may make sense on a local level, but how does a local government avoid importing homeless from surrounding areas (or even states) as a result?  Addict or not, I imagine homeless people will be attracted to a place where they can get free lodging.

I don't have a good answer for this, but in my experience, most rough-sleeping homeless don't move from town to town, because they can't. The ones who did manage to get a bus ticket somewhere else almost always came back. People used to say that other cities sent their homeless population to the city where the shelter I worked with was, but, although there were indeed a lot of homeless people, it doesn't seem like there are any fewer where I live now, which is a city twice the size with far fewer services. Both of these cities are in places where the weather will kill you. You would wonder why they don't go somewhere warmer. But they don't, because they can't.

Metalcat

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Re: Land/Property value with homeless housing construction nearby
« Reply #61 on: August 24, 2022, 02:23:11 PM »
Thanks, sadiesortsitout and Malcat, for taking the time to respond.  There's a lot of clarification that's helpful in your posts.

Can you provide any insights into why violence (assault, rape, etc) is so much more common among the homeless?  I can understand the robbery part of things, if someone is doing whatever they need to in order to scrape by, get their next fix, etc.  Is the violence also a result of lack of sleep/poor health impacting decision-making ability?

From a public policy perspective, providing safe shelter for the homeless may make sense on a local level, but how does a local government avoid importing homeless from surrounding areas (or even states) as a result?  Addict or not, I imagine homeless people will be attracted to a place where they can get free lodging.

Well, yeah, like any policy, policy experts need to do analysis based on existing data as to how to implement it. That's a big part of the pilot projects. Which projects are working better than others? What are the factors contributing to more success? What are the negative consequences and how can they be mitigated? Etc, etc.

It's not like it's a free for all where Oprah stands there and says "and you get a house! And you get a house!" to anyone who arrives.

It acts like any other government policy. There would be rules, protocols, budgets, wait lists, etc.

The concept that people need to grasp though is that this is superior in most ways to trying to police the homeless and keep them homeless. As long as the public starts grasping that, then the political will for it can grow, and policy developers and researchers can do their thing and figure out how to implement it effectively.