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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30623 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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As others have pointed out, there's some sleight of hand in what people mean when the say "homeless" and what the causal factors in those populations are.

When people talk about San Francisco having homelessness problems, they aren't talking about people that merely lack a fixed address. They're talking about the people living in and defecating on the streets, frequently deranged. People that have defected entirely on societal norms.

Cities like Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle have much higher amounts of these total defectors than other cities. The relevant difference between these and other cities is that total defectors are more or less tolerated in those cities. You can build permanent structures on public land and nothing bad will happen. At worst, something bad like a murder happens at the camp and then you'll be kicked out and lose the materials you likely stole to construct your building. You can do drugs openly. At the moment Seattle Police aren't even legally capable of arresting people for drug possession and public drug use.

I don't know if this environment creates total defectors or merely attracts them, it's probably some combination.

I once had a conversation with a gentleman standing around a nightclub exit, who explained that he supported himself while in Dallas from April to October by giving life advice for tips to women who were crying as they left, that he took a greyhound to New Orleans the rest of the year(he didn’t explain what he did there), and that he would live in a cheap hostel when he managed to beg enough.

This man’s lifestyle choices were eccentric, and it’s plausible to me that he doesn’t have the ability to hold down a normal job, maintain an apartment, etc. But he didn’t seem to be the sort to live a lifestyle based on public nudity, drug use, assaulting random people, vandalism, and public defecation. He was polite and normal seeming except for his life decisions when I spoke to him, and more than likely is not on a societal level a problem. I mean, sure, he’d be better off if he was given a free apartment. But that’s not my problem and he isn’t asking for one anyways.

I gave him a fiver for an interesting story and I think that’s a microcosm of someone being low-functioning to the point of not being able to support himself, but not causing problems for others.

Yeah, this guy is self-employed, for some values of "self-employed", and doesn't seem to be hurting people through his eccentric lifestyle.

he supported himself while in Dallas from April to October by giving life advice for tips to women who were crying as they left

What was his apparent age and how did he monetize giving unsolicited advice to devastated strangers ?

He looked like Morgan freeman with more ‘kindly grandfather’ vibes. I’m assuming that helped.

As far as I know, he straight up asked for a tip and crying drunk girls frequently gave it to him.

Yeah I'm not so sure "homeless man explains how he harasses distressed (and probably inebriated) women as they're leaving a night club for fun and profit" is exactly a heartwarming anecdote...

Never underestimate the power of charm. What may, heard secondhand, or when read on the page, seem to be opportunistic manipulation can, in the moment, take on a transcendent feel, like contact with the divine. Various cognitive twists then immunize the tipper from ever feeling they've been manipulated, even after-the-fact.

As others have pointed out, there's some sleight of hand in what people mean when the say "homeless" and what the causal factors in those populations are.

I don't think so. There's more than enough room to talk about how to deal with whatever percent of homeless people are the most destructive (probably mental institutions) and also talk about what drives homelessness overall. Being homeless is bad in of itself and whether or not every homeless person bothers us, they are all suffering.

Cities like Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle have much higher amounts of these total defectors than other cities. The relevant difference between these and other cities is that total defectors are more or less tolerated in those cities.

Correlation wise, the relevant difference (not just among these three cities but for cities across the country) seems to be the cost of living. NYC and Chicago are much less permissive than Seattle and Portland, clear out homeless encampments and arrest public drug users regularly, and it hasn't made their homeless situation much better. To my understanding the really significant legal difference in the west is just that they can't clear homeless encampments unless they have a place to resettle the homeless too. This seems reasonable enough (and clearances still happen anyway); if you don't have anywhere to put the homeless then you're not actually getting rid of an encampment, just moving it down the road. Likewise, states don't have homelessness because of public drug use (or you would expect states with more drug addicts to have more of this), they have public drug use because their drug addicts live outside.

I think a major problem is that there’s a lot of wiggle room for motte and Bailey around the issue. When people want sympathy they talk about a guy just down on his luck. When they want to remove them, they’re drug using street shitters.

I think intervention might only be possible in the early stages though. Once you’ve gotten to the place where you’re drug addicted, haven’t held a job in ten years and are infested with lice, the chances of you getting back to even working class are pretty small.

I think a major problem is that there’s a lot of wiggle room for motte and Bailey around the issue. When people want sympathy they talk about a guy just down on his luck. When they want to remove them, they’re drug using street shitters.

I agree that people describe homeless populations (indeed, all populations) as more or less sympathetic depending on their own sympathies. But I hardly see how that (alone) has anything to do with mottes / baileys. Not every form of intellectual dishonesty should be shoehorned into a motte-and-bailey framework.

Per Scott:

So the motte-and-bailey doctrine is when you make a bold, controversial statement. Then when somebody challenges you, you retreat to an obvious, uncontroversial statement, and say that was what you meant all along, so you’re clearly right and they’re silly for challenging you. Then when the argument is over you go back to making the bold, controversial statement.

I think intervention might only be possible in the early stages though. Once you’ve gotten to the place where you’re drug addicted, haven’t held a job in ten years and are infested with lice, the chances of you getting back to even working class are pretty small.

Yeah I agree. This is crucial though because we're not dealing with a static homeless population, we're dealing with a growing one. Supposedly homelessness has grown at a rate of 6% a year since 2017, so there are many people that could still be prevented from falling into a state where it'll be a lot harder to pull them back from.

Any sort of good rule has to recognize both situations and have separate systems for dealing with such.

E.g.

I remember feeling extremely awkward and sorry one freezing winter having to looking at an old couple (65-75) sleeping under a pedestrian bridge in what looked like four sleeping bags (per person) and a big pile of felt insulation. Their campsite wasn't a mess. Then I talked to them and they turned out to be fairly happy. Didn't even have a mess, their kitchen stuff was lined up on the concrete behind their bedding, they had a stove.

They had been evicted, but seemed quite content , they said they had another apartment lined up in two months time and this was strictly temporary. Felt better after that, it made me feel bad going past them twice a day.

NYC and Chicago are much less permissive than Seattle and Portland, clear out homeless encampments and arrest public drug users regularly, and it hasn't made their homeless situation much better.

It's far better in NYC than San Francisco. One source gives an unsheltered homeless population of about 4400 in San Francisco in 2022. Here we have a number of 4042 for New York City. New York City has over 8.4 million people; San Francisco about a tenth of that.

No, it's not housing prices.

New York City has enshrined Right to Shelter where the homeless have to be housed, even at high cost hotels if they refuse. The total homeless population for SF is 7,754 and the total population for NYC is 83,649, twenty times higher than the number you cited. On a population basis NYC and SF both have homelessness rates near 0.95%, quite in line for two of the most expensive cities in the country.

And also, come on. Even if you had been right you can't just cherry pick one city and say that overturns the finding that housing costs have the highest correlation with homelessness across the country.

This is a refusal to distinguish between the homeless as officially defined, and the homeless that people think of when talking about the homeless problem.

In fact, most people consider homelessness to be bad unto itself, and the fact that it costs NYC $2.2 billion yearly to manage its extraordinary homeless population is indeed the kind of thing we care about averting through policy. You personally might be talking about something else but this is a conversation about homelessness and how to reduce it. I would know, I started it.

Is part of that just that if you refuse to accept help in New York(IIRC there's plenty of it available and homeless are guaranteed shelter there), you die in winter, whereas in San Francisco you don't?

Nah, I've been to NYC in the winter -- they just sleep on the steam grates and/or ride the subway all night.

NYC has very few unsheltered homeless people because it is legally mandated to provide shelter.

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