Unlike some here, I came away with a deep sense of empathy, and today’s HN snark and frustration bounced off me pretty hard. The public order issues - homelessness in parks, the challenges of shared spaces—have certainly impacted me. But more than that, I struggle with how to translate the state of the world to my boys. I always remind them: every unhoused person was once a little boy or girl. We might be older now, but we’re still kids inside, and nobody dreams of growing up in these circumstances.
What struck me most was the balance of compassion and pragmatism that Amanda brings to her work. It’s easy to be frustrated with the policies and bureaucratic inefficiencies that slow down real solutions - but they are, in some ways, understandable.
The biggest frustration for me is the gap between the mental state of many unhoused individuals and the requirements needed to secure housing. The city surely understands the long-term costs of its policies, and it’s run by highly pragmatic people with limited budgets. But rules are rules, and at some point, top-down accommodations (including medical interventions...) are necessary to bridge this gap.
Nothing about this article strikes me as pragmatic. She's spending all her energy attempting to help people with the least likelihood of success and then gets angry at the system when they inevitably fail. The city didn't kick Morrisette out of the hotel because they like zero-tolerance policies, but because other people deserve a chance a chance to live in a free hotel room as well.
There are those that do succeed but those are certainly the most motivated to do so. Others are in transition: know they should get indoors but know their difficulties.
Rather than kicking them out, maybe they are required to attend some mandatory psych sessions. Maybe they go maybe they don’t but at least there support to help them work thru their issues of why they blew up at the staff (as in this instance).
This is what I'm saying the ranger is doing. Someone who gets extremely distressed by indoor living is not a good candidate taxpayer funded indoor living. On the other hand, that housing given to someone who is capable of navigating welfare bureaucracy on their own may actually enable someone who is at risk spiraling down a path of no return to turn their life around.
I don't understand the reflexive nature many people present in jumping this kind of framing. Of course it's taxpayer funded. Everything is taxpayer funded. Even when it's not literally paid from taxes collected by the government, it's probably funded by people who pay taxes.
The price you pay for your groceries funds not just the wholesale purchase of the goods you pay for but also the labor, facilities, equipment and resources used to purchase, deliver, store and sell those goods. Considering the total amount of taxes collected versus the revenue of the place you get your groceries, you probably contribute more of your income to operating that place than to any single service funded directly from taxes. The amount of those grocery expenses that goes directly into profits alone is probably still greater than that. Housing first specifically also literally is cheaper than the previous approach by reducing expenses for medical services, policing and incarceration.
So "taxpayer funded" is neither a meaningful qualifier if taken literally nor do its implications stand up to scrutiny.
The most common reason for using this phrase is an emotional appeal to selfishness. Your money is being spent without your say on services you don't benefit from. I find that framing morally appalling but even so, what is the alternative? What the US did before was more expensive. Not housing people means more health issues and ER visits. Throwing them in prison means housing and feeding them at a massive multiple of the cost of a housing first initiative. If you want to save costs without spending money on housing, I guess you could cut their access to medical services but then you might as well allow law enforcement to shoot them on sight as the outcome will be the same.
> On the other hand, that housing given to someone who is capable of navigating welfare bureaucracy on their own
What you're describing is triage, not housing the homeless. If your housing program is small enough that you have to engage in triage and turn people away, it's not addressing homelessness, it's addressing a fraction of the homeless population. It's better than nothing, sure, but it's not enough.
Also triage means weighing the necessary resources for treatment against the likelihood of recovery and the likely extent of the recovery. You don't treat someone who can walk it off but you also don't treat someone who's in very poor health or too far gone to be saved without using a disproportionate amount of resources.
Triage is not how you organize a hospital. Triage is how you respond to an overwhelming emergency situation without access to necessary resources. Triage is a last resort measure to reduce the number of people who will die, not a strategy for helping people survive and thrive.
Homelessness is not a natural disaster, not a spontaneous pandemic. Homelessness is a longstanding social issue most often directly arising from poverty and lack of mental health support. If your concern is with the support being wasted on people with worse chances and not support being insufficiently funded for that kind of decision not having to be made, I think you might be overestimating your humanitarianism.
I don't mind strangers benefitting from my tax dollars. No where do I even imply this, so this idea is completely coming from your own preconceived ideas about those who disagree with you. The problem with this case is that I'm not sure anyone is benefiting from these tax dollars. These men aren't asking for help. They're being pressured into accepting help. Someone resourceful enough to trap racoons isn't fundamentally so helpless that they require 7 months of handholding to apply for temporary housing. He required 7 months because that wasn't something he was interested in the first place but is willing to occasionally humor a pretty ranger. She would have much more success meeting them where they're at. For example, she can set up an arrangement where the rangers will stop harassing the campers and tearing down their encampments if they keep the surroundings clean.
> What you're describing is triage, not housing the homeless
Yes, I'm talking about triage because that's exactly what the ranger is doing.