this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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In addition to what the other guy said:
not wanting to give up drugs
not wanting to give up pets
not wanting to give up the support structure (services, charities, other homeless) that they've spent a long time building up
straight up mental incapacity to live by themselves (schizophrenia, etc)
None of these are a simple desire to be unhoused.
Sure, but no one was talking about that.
None of those things are cookies.
None of those things are Hegelian dialectics.
We could do this all day but I don't see the point.
Yes, they were. They were saying that for a majority, they simply don't want a home.
Oh yeah? Quote it.
That is not even close to "for a majority, they simply don’t want a home".
Housing first doesn't have to interfere with any of that. A reasonable home will allow you to have a pet. They'll need those support structures on the street or off, it wouldn't make sense to cut them off. Anyone with a mental health issue is ONLY going to have a better time with a safe, private space they can call their own, and housing first means there's no stipulation to getting off drugs, until you're ready.
Redefine housing as the FIRST step and not the pot of gold at the end of the societal expectation rainbow, and you'll get a lot further.
Yes, so we need to be offering more than just housing, but rather a whole package.
Yeah? I don't think I, of anyone else, proposed only housing ever.
Typically that's how the "housing first" schemes I've seen work. It would be political suicide for a group to condone drug use in their public housing, and financial suicide to allow dogs (insurance would drop them) for example.
It's rarely as simple as "just do this simple thing and you solve this giant systemic problem"
Then that's not housing first lol. Housing first means just that, housing FIRST. Before anything else. It's worked in some countries, off the top of my head Finland. People don't just get clean without safety, security, privacy, and dignity, and those things are practically impossible to achieve on the streets.
This is one of those things that, yeah, actually. If we did the obvious, simple, humanitarian thing it'd work out to be drastically better for like, everyone except maybe the most well-off. The problem, as you alluded to, isn't one of practicality but of politics.