Seattle is dying

[Aletheia4u]

KOMO News Special: Seattle is Dying


Unrestricted migration lousy leadership
Everything libs touch

 

[denmark]

KOMO News Special: Seattle is Dying


Unrestricted migration lousy leadership
Everything libs touch

If Seattle is dying, why don’t many residents move to Red states where housing is less than half compared to Seattle?
Perhaps MANY people prefer to live in Blue states.

 

[Andylusion]

Wh

KOMO News Special: Seattle is Dying


Unrestricted migration lousy leadership
Everything libs touch

That is not what it's about. As it says in the article and in the TV programs, why aren't we doing more to prevent crime, solve the homeless problem, and deal with drug abuse. These are major issues with liberals. These are homegrown problems and are not the result of migration.

I've lived in Seattle for years and what I have seen is a gross misallocation of resources, 3.3 billion dollars for a tunnel in the downtown section and one sports stadium after another and years of procrastination on the decision to expand light rail which will cost the city hundreds millions of dollars. There is nothing wrong with these projects but the city needs to make crime, drugs, and homelessness a priority.

Just for the sake of discussion... when you say 'make homelessness a priority'... what exactly do you mean by that? What would you expect them to do?

Crime is straight forward enough. Enforce the laws, and hire more police.

But when you say drugs... are you in favor of legalizing drugs, or pushing more people into prison for drug offenses?

When I say make the homelessness a priority, I mean we should follow the plan such as has been used in Salt Lake City (google it for details) which means provide housing for the chronic homeless defined as over 1 year of living on the streets with documented physical or mental disabilities and addiction to drugs or alcohol. This will cover most of the people that live on the streets of downtown Seattle as well as most other major cities. It requires both building domiciles and support after the people move in. Support is critical in helping these people get some form of work to pay their living expenses. The success rate is about 50% which is good for this type social service.

For non-chronic homelessness there is no real program because non-chronic homelessness is defined as being intermittent. A person loses their means of support and they are homeless a month or so, then they they get support through a job, family, or government support for few months, then they are on the streets again. Unfortunately, there is no prescribe program for this type of homelessness. We have to rely on other social welfare programs.

No, I am not in favor of legalizing hard drugs, PCP, Cocaine, Heroine, etc. Our currently recognized drug programs and at risk programs have a good record of success which about 40% to 60%.

But it all boils down to having the money. When you don't have the money, you don't have the money.

I was looking into the Salt Lake City deal, and discovered two articles that basically... shattered the entire concept.

The first from Huffpost....
Think Utah Solved Homelessness? Think Again | HuffPost

The decline of homelessness, was more a factor of changing definitions of who was counted as homeless, and who was not.

In short, the dramatic decline in homelessness, was largely fiction. That doesn't mean they didn't move many people off the street and into subsidized apartments and government funded shelters. They did.

Once a national model, Utah struggles with homelessness

However, even there the solution was not a long term fix.

10 years ago when they came up with subsidizing apartments, many land owners faced with the economic down turn, and loss of tenants, were more than willing to accept low rents from government subsidized renters. Today that isn't the case.

The government has run out of money. They simply can't afford this anymore, and people are back on the street, and in larger numbers than before.

Additionally, the government shelters have ended up being home to the cartels which have set up shop for their favorite customers.

They are now just feeding money from the tax payers, through the homeless shelter occupants, right into the hands of the drug cartels. That is not a plan.

Even if it was a plan, the government simply doesn't have the money for more low cost apartments, or more shelters.

So unless you have more information, I'm labeling that idea a bust.

As I said, programs such as this have a success rate of about 50%, certainly not 91% as was claimed. Seattle, and other cities have been studying what Salt Lake City has done and how it can be improved. The simple fact is no one has come up with a really effective program for chronic homelessness. We know the things that don't solve the problem such as jail, transporting, more homeless shelters, and job programs.

Seattle is now requiring that 5% to 11% of all new housing units be low income housing. This is not likely to have much effect on the chronic homeless but it may reduce the numbers in the future because essentially all of the chronic homeless began as non-chronic.

But those programs appear, based on the information I have gathered thus far, to actually be counter productive.

From what I have read, they have actually made things worse. Because when you provide people housing, when they are not working, that encourages more people to not work. The number of homeless has increased, not decreased. The problem is, they are simply not counting people as being homeless, when they are living off the government.

But that can only last as long as the government has the money to provide that housing, and the fact is, they can't.

Moreover, requiring that new apartment buildings have low-cost apartments, has a negative consequence. In a place with restrictions on building new apartments, to then add to those costs, the requirement of providing money losing apartments, means that you have less of an incentive to build apartments there.

With all things being equal, if I have two cities that I can build an apartment building, which one am I going to choose? The city were I can rent all apartments at a profit, or the city where I lose money on 1/10th of the building?

By reducing the number of apartment buildings built, whatever benefit there is to having the few low-income apartments, is lost by an overall reducing in housing, that drives up prices higher over the rest of the market.

Additionally, when you create an incentive to have a low-income, such as being able to qualify for low-income housing, the result is people will adjust their income to fit that requirement. I know people who went part-time in order to get into low-income housing.

So this incentive actually drives more people into poverty, in order to qualify for those apartments. I personally know people directly, who did this.

Lastly, you are going up against the no-free-lunch problem. When any specific apartment building must have low-income apartments, the result is always that the rest of the apartments in that building, have to be more expensive to offset the cost. If I have 100 apartment, that I am renting for $1,000 per unit, and 10 of those units I am only allowed to rent for $500 a month, I have to charge all the other units $60+ to make up for the loss of money on those 10 units.

I'm not going to lose money on this deal... or I wouldn't do the deal. Again, I said above, you reduce the incentive to build apartment buildings with these laws.

Why do you think those laws have never fixed the problem? This isn't the first time those laws have been tried, and they never worked before.

 

[Aletheia4u]

KOMO News Special: Seattle is Dying


Unrestricted migration lousy leadership
Everything libs touch

If Seattle is dying, why don’t many residents move to Red states where housing is less than half compared to Seattle?
Perhaps MANY people prefer to live in Blue states.

The Red states needs to build walls to keep the Blue states' migrants from coming into the red states. They are coming in from all directions.

According to a new U.S. Census Bureau report, of the 15 fastest-growing cities larger than 50,000 people, seven are in Texas including the top three: Frisco, New Braunfels, and Pflugerville. Frisco’s growth rate was 8.2 percent, some 11 times faster than the national rate of 0.7 percent.
New Yorkers and Californians can't stop moving to Texas

 

[22lcidw]

Of course the poor vote for democrats because republicans don't give them much choice. Why would the poor vote for people that believe healthcare, education, and the most basic necessities of life are for those that can afford it. Republican plans for the poor is survival of fittest.

Education K-12 is free to the student in this nation the last time I checked. If you live somewhere where fourth graders have to pay to attend class let me know.

Medicaid is open to low and no income people. The problem with these glib complaints is they just aren't so but to critics on the left if you aren't doing exactly as they wish you might as well be shooting the poor and lower income people in the head to hear them tell it.

Do republicans stress personal accountability more than democrats? Yes. Does that mean they leave people out in the cold to die of hunger? No.

Look at Seattle to see where leftist policy has gotten them. Tell me their way is working out so well.

#1 Best Cities in America for Tech Jobs
#1 In the US for best high schools
#2 Most healthiest city
#10 in Best Places to live in America
#30 as Best Place to retire
#5 in Best Healthcare
#5 Best City for Dinning
#11 Least Stressful City
#8 Safest Cities for families and children
#10 Most Secure City to Live In
Consistently in the top 5 for most literate cities

Seattle can't build a passenger jet anymore and lives off of crony capitalism ripping off the taxpayer.

 

[Papageorgio]

You searched for komo news - Media Bias/Fact Check

A slight right wing bias and it is factual, I guess you have to have left wing inaccurate stories.

 

[Flopper]

Wh

That is not what it's about. As it says in the article and in the TV programs, why aren't we doing more to prevent crime, solve the homeless problem, and deal with drug abuse. These are major issues with liberals. These are homegrown problems and are not the result of migration.

I've lived in Seattle for years and what I have seen is a gross misallocation of resources, 3.3 billion dollars for a tunnel in the downtown section and one sports stadium after another and years of procrastination on the decision to expand light rail which will cost the city hundreds millions of dollars. There is nothing wrong with these projects but the city needs to make crime, drugs, and homelessness a priority.

Just for the sake of discussion... when you say 'make homelessness a priority'... what exactly do you mean by that? What would you expect them to do?

Crime is straight forward enough. Enforce the laws, and hire more police.

But when you say drugs... are you in favor of legalizing drugs, or pushing more people into prison for drug offenses?

When I say make the homelessness a priority, I mean we should follow the plan such as has been used in Salt Lake City (google it for details) which means provide housing for the chronic homeless defined as over 1 year of living on the streets with documented physical or mental disabilities and addiction to drugs or alcohol. This will cover most of the people that live on the streets of downtown Seattle as well as most other major cities. It requires both building domiciles and support after the people move in. Support is critical in helping these people get some form of work to pay their living expenses. The success rate is about 50% which is good for this type social service.

For non-chronic homelessness there is no real program because non-chronic homelessness is defined as being intermittent. A person loses their means of support and they are homeless a month or so, then they they get support through a job, family, or government support for few months, then they are on the streets again. Unfortunately, there is no prescribe program for this type of homelessness. We have to rely on other social welfare programs.

No, I am not in favor of legalizing hard drugs, PCP, Cocaine, Heroine, etc. Our currently recognized drug programs and at risk programs have a good record of success which about 40% to 60%.

But it all boils down to having the money. When you don't have the money, you don't have the money.

I was looking into the Salt Lake City deal, and discovered two articles that basically... shattered the entire concept.

The first from Huffpost....
Think Utah Solved Homelessness? Think Again | HuffPost

The decline of homelessness, was more a factor of changing definitions of who was counted as homeless, and who was not.

In short, the dramatic decline in homelessness, was largely fiction. That doesn't mean they didn't move many people off the street and into subsidized apartments and government funded shelters. They did.

Once a national model, Utah struggles with homelessness

However, even there the solution was not a long term fix.

10 years ago when they came up with subsidizing apartments, many land owners faced with the economic down turn, and loss of tenants, were more than willing to accept low rents from government subsidized renters. Today that isn't the case.

The government has run out of money. They simply can't afford this anymore, and people are back on the street, and in larger numbers than before.

Additionally, the government shelters have ended up being home to the cartels which have set up shop for their favorite customers.

They are now just feeding money from the tax payers, through the homeless shelter occupants, right into the hands of the drug cartels. That is not a plan.

Even if it was a plan, the government simply doesn't have the money for more low cost apartments, or more shelters.

So unless you have more information, I'm labeling that idea a bust.

As I said, programs such as this have a success rate of about 50%, certainly not 91% as was claimed. Seattle, and other cities have been studying what Salt Lake City has done and how it can be improved. The simple fact is no one has come up with a really effective program for chronic homelessness. We know the things that don't solve the problem such as jail, transporting, more homeless shelters, and job programs.

Seattle is now requiring that 5% to 11% of all new housing units be low income housing. This is not likely to have much effect on the chronic homeless but it may reduce the numbers in the future because essentially all of the chronic homeless began as non-chronic.

But those programs appear, based on the information I have gathered thus far, to actually be counter productive.

From what I have read, they have actually made things worse. Because when you provide people housing, when they are not working, that encourages more people to not work. The number of homeless has increased, not decreased. The problem is, they are simply not counting people as being homeless, when they are living off the government.

But that can only last as long as the government has the money to provide that housing, and the fact is, they can't.

Moreover, requiring that new apartment buildings have low-cost apartments, has a negative consequence. In a place with restrictions on building new apartments, to then add to those costs, the requirement of providing money losing apartments, means that you have less of an incentive to build apartments there.

With all things being equal, if I have two cities that I can build an apartment building, which one am I going to choose? The city were I can rent all apartments at a profit, or the city where I lose money on 1/10th of the building?

By reducing the number of apartment buildings built, whatever benefit there is to having the few low-income apartments, is lost by an overall reducing in housing, that drives up prices higher over the rest of the market.

Additionally, when you create an incentive to have a low-income, such as being able to qualify for low-income housing, the result is people will adjust their income to fit that requirement. I know people who went part-time in order to get into low-income housing.

So this incentive actually drives more people into poverty, in order to qualify for those apartments. I personally know people directly, who did this.

Lastly, you are going up against the no-free-lunch problem. When any specific apartment building must have low-income apartments, the result is always that the rest of the apartments in that building, have to be more expensive to offset the cost. If I have 100 apartment, that I am renting for $1,000 per unit, and 10 of those units I am only allowed to rent for $500 a month, I have to charge all the other units $60+ to make up for the loss of money on those 10 units.

I'm not going to lose money on this deal... or I wouldn't do the deal. Again, I said above, you reduce the incentive to build apartment buildings with these laws.

Why do you think those laws have never fixed the problem? This isn't the first time those laws have been tried, and they never worked before.

I couldn't get past your second paragraph because it's pure nonsense. The chronic homeless don't work other than a few odd jobs people give them. Most of them stop looking for any kind of steady work years ago.

They live off their disability checks, VA checks, and Social Security checks, and other government support. They panhandle, steal and occasional get money from relatives or friends.

The houses for the homeless are not free. They pay $30 to $50 a month. The idea was a home they could call their own would give them incentive to work and a home address which you need when you apply for a job. I have doubts about that working because when a person becomes chronically homeless they give up the idea working. I suspect it has been many years since most of these people have had job. Many of them would have no idea how you get a job.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

#1 Best Cities in America for Tech Jobs
#1 In the US for best high schools
#2 Most healthiest city
#10 in Best Places to live in America
#30 as Best Place to retire
#5 in Best Healthcare
#5 Best City for Dinning
#11 Least Stressful City
#8 Safest Cities for families and children
#10 Most Secure City to Live In
Consistently in the top 5 for most literate cities

LOL...best place to live and retire in if you happen to have massive amounts of money and don't mind the constant grid lock traffic.

Least stressful, most secure and safest city? That hardly squares with the thread OP and reality, does it.

Crime in Seattle, Washington
Crime is ranked on a scale of 1 (low crime) to 100 (high crime)

Seattle violent crime is 32.3. (The US average is 22.7)
Seattle property crime is 76.9. (The US average is 35.4) Seattle, Washington Crime
Above average in violent crime and and over double the amount of property crime is a good thing to you?


Your list isn't sourced. I don't wonder why about that. It seems wildly out of touch and unrealistic, just like your posts. I guess you just haven't noticed.

Did KOMO news consult you before they made their remarkably honest assessment of Seattle?

As I said I have spent so much time in Seattle over the years: My mother's family all lived there. My son lived in Seattle for awhile and worked for the city. My brother lived in Tacoma, Renton and Kent for years. I have many great memories of the city but the Seattle of today is not the Seattle it was then just as San Francisco, a place where I went to school, is not the city I knew when I was studying there.

I don't know where your head is buried and I won't make a rude guess. You just seem very out of touch. To be honest if the Cascadia subduction hit tomorrow it would be tragic but
perhaps Seattle would be better off in the long run if all the leftist politicians in the city were
swept out to sea.

Seattle...another great American city taken over and raped by leftist ideologues. It's an American tragedy.

 

[denmark]

Of course the poor vote for democrats because republicans don't give them much choice. Why would the poor vote for people that believe healthcare, education, and the most basic necessities of life are for those that can afford it. Republican plans for the poor is survival of fittest.

Education K-12 is free to the student in this nation the last time I checked. If you live somewhere where fourth graders have to pay to attend class let me know.

Medicaid is open to low and no income people. The problem with these glib complaints is they just aren't so but to critics on the left if you aren't doing exactly as they wish you might as well be shooting the poor and lower income people in the head to hear them tell it.

Do republicans stress personal accountability more than democrats? Yes. Does that mean they leave people out in the cold to die of hunger? No.

Look at Seattle to see where leftist policy has gotten them. Tell me their way is working out so well.

#1 Best Cities in America for Tech Jobs
#1 In the US for best high schools
#2 Most healthiest city
#10 in Best Places to live in America
#30 as Best Place to retire
#5 in Best Healthcare
#5 Best City for Dinning
#11 Least Stressful City
#8 Safest Cities for families and children
#10 Most Secure City to Live In
Consistently in the top 5 for most literate cities

Regarding countries, Denmark is #2 on the latest rankings for Happiest place to live in. USA was #19, but better than UAE and Russia.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Regarding countries, Denmark is #2 on the latest rankings for Happiest place to live in. USA was #19, but better than UAE and Russia.

Regarding nations it's easy to be a relatively small homogeneous nation like Denmark. The US spends four times as much on it's military and has 62 times the military personnel of Denmark.

I don't doubt things are jolly in Denmark (home of my ancestors) but comparisons between two nations of such disparate size (the US is 228 times the size of Denmark), wealth and makeup are pretty pointless. Size of United States compared to Denmark

 

[Flopper]

#1 Best Cities in America for Tech Jobs
#1 In the US for best high schools
#2 Most healthiest city
#10 in Best Places to live in America
#30 as Best Place to retire
#5 in Best Healthcare
#5 Best City for Dinning
#11 Least Stressful City
#8 Safest Cities for families and children
#10 Most Secure City to Live In
Consistently in the top 5 for most literate cities

LOL...best place to live and retire in if you happen to have massive amounts of money and don't mind the constant grid lock traffic.

Least stressful, most secure and safest city? That hardly squares with the thread OP and reality, does it.

Crime in Seattle, Washington
Crime is ranked on a scale of 1 (low crime) to 100 (high crime)

Seattle violent crime is 32.3. (The US average is 22.7)
Seattle property crime is 76.9. (The US average is 35.4) Seattle, Washington Crime
Above average in violent crime and and over double the amount of property crime is a good thing to you?


Your list isn't sourced. I don't wonder why about that. It seems wildly out of touch and unrealistic, just like your posts. I guess you just haven't noticed.

Did KOMO news consult you before they made their remarkably honest assessment of Seattle?

As I said I have spent so much time in Seattle over the years: My mother's family all lived there. My son lived in Seattle for awhile and worked for the city. My brother lived in Tacoma, Renton and Kent for years. I have many great memories of the city but the Seattle of today is not the Seattle it was then just as San Francisco, a place where I went to school, is not the city I knew when I was studying there.

I don't know where your head is buried and I won't make a rude guess. You just seem very out of touch. To be honest if the Cascadia subduction hit tomorrow it would be tragic but
perhaps Seattle would be better off in the long run if all the leftist politicians in the city were
swept out to sea.

Seattle...another great American city taken over and raped by leftist ideologues. It's an American tragedy.

Crime varies by year, the agency doing the reporting, and the size of reporting area.
From the FBI 2017 UCR, Seattle's violent crime rate ranks 11th among the 20 largest cities. Since I have lived in Seattle full time for only few years, I have no idea what it was like many years. I have lived in 6 of our largest cities in the country and all things considered Seattle has been a great place. For me, the positives are the mountains, lush old growth forests, the Sound, the coast, skiing and camping, riding the ferries, Whidbey Island, Port Townsend, and in the city the restaurants, the Seattle Symphony, Discovery Park, picnicking at Gas Works Park, UW, the Seahawks, sunny afternoons with the kids around the fountain at Seattle Center, the block parties, friendly neighbors, and the laid back easy going atmosphere. For me the downside is I5 any time of the day, the homeless around Pioneer Square, cost of living, and increasing population density everywhere.
Table 6

 

[Flopper]

Regarding countries, Denmark is #2 on the latest rankings for Happiest place to live in. USA was #19, but better than UAE and Russia.

Regarding nations it's easy to be a relatively small homogeneous nation like Denmark. The US spends four times as much on it's military and has 62 times the military personnel of Denmark.

I don't doubt things are jolly in Denmark (home of my ancestors) but comparisons between two nations of such disparate size (the US is 228 times the size of Denmark), wealth and makeup are pretty pointless. Size of United States compared to Denmark

I doubt that the size of nation has much to do with the happiness of the people. The culture seems to make a difference. Most Europeans don't seem very patriotic to me compared to Americans and nobody spends billions on politician campaigns. They are in general less interested in politics far more interested in what is happening in other countries than Americans, less religions but more interested in the welfare of others.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

I doubt that the size of nation has much to do with the happiness of the people. The culture seems to make a difference. Most Europeans don't seem very patriotic to me compared to Americans and nobody spends billions on politician campaigns. They are in general less interested in politics far more interested in what is happening in other countries than Americans, less religions but more interested in the welfare of others.

The Danish culture is defined by it's homogeneous citizenry. Think of Vermont or Maine and then consider how much
happier the people are there than in California, for example.

Small state, small problems, no ethnic strife or divisions. It's a simple fact.

 

[Flopper]

I doubt that the size of nation has much to do with the happiness of the people. The culture seems to make a difference. Most Europeans don't seem very patriotic to me compared to Americans and nobody spends billions on politician campaigns. They are in general less interested in politics far more interested in what is happening in other countries than Americans, less religions but more interested in the welfare of others.

The Danish culture is defined by it's homogeneous citizenry. Think of Vermont or Maine and then consider how much
happier the people are there than in California, for example.

Small state, small problems, no ethnic strife or divisions. It's a simple fact.

Not sure that's a fact rather than an assumption.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Not sure that's a fact.

Does ethic strife, hostility and enmity make for a happy populace?

I never thought so. L.A. country, for instance, is filled with ethnic ghettos all fighting against one another. The Danes....not so much. Wake up.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Since I have lived in Seattle full time for only few years, I have no idea what it was like many years.

Try reading the OP. The title should clue you in.

 

[Flopper]

Not sure that's a fact.

Does ethic strife, hostility and enmity make for a happy populace?

I never thought so. L.A. country, for instance, is filled with ethnic ghettos all fighting against one another. The Danes....not so much. Wake up.

There is more to it than that. Maine and Vermont have much higher rates of suicide, alcoholism, and Opioid-Related Overdose Death Rates than California. High rates of suicide, alcoholism, opiod deaths are not usually associated with happiness.

 

[Andylusion]

Wh

Just for the sake of discussion... when you say 'make homelessness a priority'... what exactly do you mean by that? What would you expect them to do?

Crime is straight forward enough. Enforce the laws, and hire more police.

But when you say drugs... are you in favor of legalizing drugs, or pushing more people into prison for drug offenses?

When I say make the homelessness a priority, I mean we should follow the plan such as has been used in Salt Lake City (google it for details) which means provide housing for the chronic homeless defined as over 1 year of living on the streets with documented physical or mental disabilities and addiction to drugs or alcohol. This will cover most of the people that live on the streets of downtown Seattle as well as most other major cities. It requires both building domiciles and support after the people move in. Support is critical in helping these people get some form of work to pay their living expenses. The success rate is about 50% which is good for this type social service.

For non-chronic homelessness there is no real program because non-chronic homelessness is defined as being intermittent. A person loses their means of support and they are homeless a month or so, then they they get support through a job, family, or government support for few months, then they are on the streets again. Unfortunately, there is no prescribe program for this type of homelessness. We have to rely on other social welfare programs.

No, I am not in favor of legalizing hard drugs, PCP, Cocaine, Heroine, etc. Our currently recognized drug programs and at risk programs have a good record of success which about 40% to 60%.

But it all boils down to having the money. When you don't have the money, you don't have the money.

I was looking into the Salt Lake City deal, and discovered two articles that basically... shattered the entire concept.

The first from Huffpost....
Think Utah Solved Homelessness? Think Again | HuffPost

The decline of homelessness, was more a factor of changing definitions of who was counted as homeless, and who was not.

In short, the dramatic decline in homelessness, was largely fiction. That doesn't mean they didn't move many people off the street and into subsidized apartments and government funded shelters. They did.

Once a national model, Utah struggles with homelessness

However, even there the solution was not a long term fix.

10 years ago when they came up with subsidizing apartments, many land owners faced with the economic down turn, and loss of tenants, were more than willing to accept low rents from government subsidized renters. Today that isn't the case.

The government has run out of money. They simply can't afford this anymore, and people are back on the street, and in larger numbers than before.

Additionally, the government shelters have ended up being home to the cartels which have set up shop for their favorite customers.

They are now just feeding money from the tax payers, through the homeless shelter occupants, right into the hands of the drug cartels. That is not a plan.

Even if it was a plan, the government simply doesn't have the money for more low cost apartments, or more shelters.

So unless you have more information, I'm labeling that idea a bust.

As I said, programs such as this have a success rate of about 50%, certainly not 91% as was claimed. Seattle, and other cities have been studying what Salt Lake City has done and how it can be improved. The simple fact is no one has come up with a really effective program for chronic homelessness. We know the things that don't solve the problem such as jail, transporting, more homeless shelters, and job programs.

Seattle is now requiring that 5% to 11% of all new housing units be low income housing. This is not likely to have much effect on the chronic homeless but it may reduce the numbers in the future because essentially all of the chronic homeless began as non-chronic.

But those programs appear, based on the information I have gathered thus far, to actually be counter productive.

From what I have read, they have actually made things worse. Because when you provide people housing, when they are not working, that encourages more people to not work. The number of homeless has increased, not decreased. The problem is, they are simply not counting people as being homeless, when they are living off the government.

But that can only last as long as the government has the money to provide that housing, and the fact is, they can't.

Moreover, requiring that new apartment buildings have low-cost apartments, has a negative consequence. In a place with restrictions on building new apartments, to then add to those costs, the requirement of providing money losing apartments, means that you have less of an incentive to build apartments there.

With all things being equal, if I have two cities that I can build an apartment building, which one am I going to choose? The city were I can rent all apartments at a profit, or the city where I lose money on 1/10th of the building?

By reducing the number of apartment buildings built, whatever benefit there is to having the few low-income apartments, is lost by an overall reducing in housing, that drives up prices higher over the rest of the market.

Additionally, when you create an incentive to have a low-income, such as being able to qualify for low-income housing, the result is people will adjust their income to fit that requirement. I know people who went part-time in order to get into low-income housing.

So this incentive actually drives more people into poverty, in order to qualify for those apartments. I personally know people directly, who did this.

Lastly, you are going up against the no-free-lunch problem. When any specific apartment building must have low-income apartments, the result is always that the rest of the apartments in that building, have to be more expensive to offset the cost. If I have 100 apartment, that I am renting for $1,000 per unit, and 10 of those units I am only allowed to rent for $500 a month, I have to charge all the other units $60+ to make up for the loss of money on those 10 units.

I'm not going to lose money on this deal... or I wouldn't do the deal. Again, I said above, you reduce the incentive to build apartment buildings with these laws.

Why do you think those laws have never fixed the problem? This isn't the first time those laws have been tried, and they never worked before.

I couldn't get past your second paragraph because it's pure nonsense. The chronic homeless don't work other than a few odd jobs people give them. Most of them stop looking for any kind of steady work years ago.

They live off their disability checks, VA checks, and Social Security checks, and other government support. They panhandle, steal and occasional get money from relatives or friends.

The houses for the homeless are not free. They pay $30 to $50 a month. The idea was a home they could call their own would give them incentive to work and a home address which you need when you apply for a job. I have doubts about that working because when a person becomes chronically homeless they give up the idea working. I suspect it has been many years since most of these people have had job. Many of them would have no idea how you get a job.

Well crap, if I could qualify for that, and not have to work, I'd do that too.

You are telling me that if I can figure out how to get some government support, I can live in an apartment for $50 a month?

You don't think that would drive people to live that way? Of course it would. Being homeless and on the street, itself is an incentive to get a job, and keep working.

Moreover, people in that system have no reason to want to work. IF they work, they won't qualify for $50 a month rent. Getting a job would kick me out of my apartment, then I'm not going to do it.

a person becomes chronically homeless they give up the idea working. I suspect it has been many years since most of these people have had job. Many of them would have no idea how you get a job.

​

Again, I go back to the 1990s and welfare reform. We reduced the welfare rolls by over 50%. Millions of people were kicked out of the system.

Everyone had the same claims back then. I remember it very well, that people said they had no idea how to even get a job, and they couldn't possibly get work, and had given up. Everyone said they were going to be tossed out into the gutters and people would be dying in ditches along the roads.

It didn't happen. People kicked off of the government funding, ended up getting jobs.

So I just don't buy this 'they can't get a job'... no, they can. They might choose to not get a job, because they and beg for money, and get $50, to pay for their government funded apartments, but it isn't that they can't. They can. You are just enabling them not to.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

There is more to it than that. Maine and Vermont have much higher rates of suicide, alcoholism, and Opioid-Related Overdose Death Rates than California. High rates of suicide, alcoholism, opiod deaths are not usually associated with happiness.

Making stuff up as you go along? Not a good look.

California had the most alcohol related deaths in the country (5,425) .Alcohol Statistics by State | Alcoholism and Alcohol-Related Health Issues

Quality of life rankings using scientific methodology shows California is near the bottom of all states (46) while Maine (10) and Vermont (18) rank much higher. Happiest Americans live in states ranked highest for quality of life
So how does that fit into your little hypothesis? Again, try reading the KOMO citation.
It didn't come out of nowhere for no reason.

 

[Flopper]

There is more to it than that. Maine and Vermont have much higher rates of suicide, alcoholism, and Opioid-Related Overdose Death Rates than California. High rates of suicide, alcoholism, opiod deaths are not usually associated with happiness.

Making stuff up as you go along? Not a good look.

California had the most alcohol related deaths in the country (5,425) .Alcohol Statistics by State | Alcoholism and Alcohol-Related Health Issues

Quality of life rankings using scientific methodology shows California is near the bottom of all states (46) while Maine (10) and Vermont (18) rank much higher. Happiest Americans live in states ranked highest for quality of life
So how does that fit into your little hypothesis? Again, try reading the KOMO citation.
It didn't come out of nowhere for no reason.

Gee, I wonder why California had the most alcohol related deaths? It could be that there population is nearly 40 million compared to Maine's 1.3 million. If you're going to quote statistic, how about adjusting for population size.

Quality of Life does not equate to happiness. Quality of life is highly subjective. Whereas one person may define quality of life according to wealth or satisfaction with life, another person may define it in terms of capabilities (e.g., having the ability to live a good life in terms of emotional and physical well-being). A disabled person may report a high quality of life, whereas a healthy person who recently lost a job may report a low quality of life.
Quality of life