Homelessness Is Largely a Byproduct
Not solvable; just reduceable
When I have briefly touched on the problem of homelessness, I identified a three-legged stool approach: pragmatism, compassion, and reasonableness. In that post I linked to Scott Alexander’s take via a book review.
What I really liked about his take was his characteristic deeper thinking always asking “okay, then what?” He has again brought that to bear with a deep discussion on mental illness/homelessness as well as a follow up addressing comments.
From the way most people approach this issue, I am like 97% in alignment with Scott. It is only when thinking about it from an in-the-weeds policy perspective that daylight might emerge between us. So on the street I’m virtually indistinguishable from him. In the backroom a naive onlooker might think we are polar opposites or at least far apart.
I say all of that to both protect Scott’s image from this post being mistakenly thought of as representative of his view as well as to disclaim his as being exactly my view.
Homelessness is to a very large degree a so-called wicked problem. I think it is something that has snuck up on us. Like all social problems, the typical search for a single root cause is completely fraught. Monocausal thinking is poor/lazy reasoning in generally, and it is laughable in this particular case.
I think multiple factors have been contributing to the problem over time. These have compounded upon each other building up until a breaking point resulting in an eventually obvious and very bad outcome.
There is a key question to ask when considering potential causes of wicked problems in my estimation—Is this factor contributing to the problem or the solution? The answer isn’t sufficient in that this is far from a complete cost-benefit analysis. Maybe it is contributing to the problem, but the value it brings elsewhere is worth that cost. Sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze.
Here is my rough outline of factors that have significantly contributed to the problems of homelessness as we see it today. This is a provisional partial list—I reserve the right to expand upon it.
Housing Costs - More than any other factor including drug use and mental illness, housing cost is the leading determinant associated with homelessness. The correlation is very clear, and the cause-effect relationship is well understood and accepted. Our multi-decade experiment with restricting supply and subsidizing demand has had many knock-on effects. Homelessness is indeed one of them.
The Drug War - For people at risk and in the margins, the drug war has had very predictable results. They face criminal risk pushing them into harder drugs and ever-worsening environments. They are caught in viscous cycles. Drug warriors fantasize about so-called gateway drugs when in fact they have created a gateway circumstance that allows people to always slide into a bigger crack from which it is more and more difficult to surface.
Tolerance (Type A) - We are a super rich nation filled with very sympathetic people whose actions often foster and enable homelessness. Success in social services is very hard to achieve. The nature of the beast is that if it was easy, it wouldn’t be needed because avoiding the problems that require social services is easy for those who don’t need social services. Sometimes there is a fine line between enablement and prevention—think food pantries and free access to medical services. Sometimes there is a wide gap—think cash handouts from passers by. It is all too easy to think I’m taking care of this problem by throwing money at it . . . “but, but, but, I’m not just throwing money at it. I’m giving it to this highly organized group with a great logo and mission statement.” Unfortunately, that is insufficient as is giving at the office whether through a voluntary donation to United Way or a forced donation to Uncle Sam (see below). In America we are rich/stuff is cheap so, therefore, homelessness is easily subsidized.
Tolerance (Type B) - Not that it is AT ALL desirable, but the norm used to be very much a tough-on-bad-behavior world. This didn't mean you called the police and waited for the justice system or social services to alleviate the burden. It meant you dealt with it then and there yourself. A deranged man yelling at a family on the street would be lucky to find himself institutionalized in those horrible facilities of our past. He would often instead find himself beaten unconscious if not shot.1 Softness is partially to blame even though “being soft” might be ethically and morally correct. In this area I am very much in agreement with Scott who writes, “I’m saying that there are some options, and we should debate them, but people have to specify them first. ‘Be tough’ is a vibe, not a plan.” Reading all that he wrote, I feel confident he would agree with me that softness as I describe it has been a problem-contributing factor and that we’ve done an awful job of balancing the move from a fear-based control of bad behavior to a empathy-based allowance for bad behavior.
Tolerance (Type C) - People must be held accountable for their actions and their decisions and their behavior. Responsibility is built upon accountability and reward. We cannot expect a good outcome without this foundation.
[thus,] A Reliance on Government - The entity that reliably does not work toward actual solutions has in fact not given us actual solutions. If you think private, non-profit organizations can err in not actually working to solve the problem they ostensibly are created for, let me introduce you to the government. Blunt force is a harsh mistress. There is a role indeed for government in combatting homelessness, but it is select, slight, and subtle. We need to let a hundred flowers bloom with quick willingness to pluck them by the roots when they fail to blossom. We need hyperlocal approaches. And most of all we need government to stop crowding out the private sector. Of all of these factors, this one has been at play by far the longest. Nation building at home is ever much as fraught as is nation building abroad.
I’ll say it again: Homelessness is a wicked problem. The growth and interplay of the factors above is how we got here.
But notice what isn’t mentioned—mental illness per se. Mental illness is a constant. It is not a factor as such. Once upon a time homelessness was less of a problem partially because mental illness was less well respected while those afflicted by it were shamefully disregarded. I do not want to go back to that world as it was. That does not mean I am fully against any and all forms of involuntary institutionalization, but it does leave me about 95% a Szazian.
Still regarding the effect on homelessness, we can make the conditions better if we can reduce mental illness. Only through breakthroughs that do not yet technologically exist can we get to a truly new frontier—reduce the base level such that we never look back. Just like the discovery of electricity did not give us all cheap lighting and warmth in winter/cooling in summer, knowing there are somewhat solutions (drugs and therapy) to undesired mental states does not yet give us freedom from mental illness-related chronic problems.
So when people say we can/should combat homelessness by addressing mental illness, I hear “assume a can opener . . .”
Reversing the factors above will likely bring slower-than-desired results followed by faster-than-expected progress. There is some low-hanging fruit there, but there is also a LOT of work to do.2 And diminishing returns if not outright backtracking will be restraint on further progress and continued momentum in the right direction.
Until we begin work on these factor reversals, forgive me for thinking that nobody is actually serious about addressing this problem.
Yes, I hear the counter. It is sadly true that shot dead might have been better than what many went through in the asylums.
Meaningfully written in the active tense—there is no “to be done”; only “to do”.