For those who are mentally ill, maybe we do need to go back to the institution model. Federally funded, build them in low COL areas that need jobs. Near smallish cities would work well so that residents wouldn’t necessarily have to be cooped up inside but high functioning folks who are safe to be in public would have access to activities and parks during the day.

For those who are capable of functioning in society but just need a leg up after a hard time: loosen restrictions in urban areas to allow more building but especially smaller simpler units for single people. We wouldn’t have so many homeless if rents weren’t so dang high. Rents are high because supply is constrained. Look to Japan for a model of the type of high density single person apartments that could be built. My rent was about $400 a month (not Tokyo obviously) for a place that was tiny by US standards, but had its own bathroom, kitchen, laundry, balcony, and access to the outdoors. We need much much more of this kind of thing but local governments and probably state and fed to a degree are preventing this. It would be much easier to provide rental assistance if there were more affordable units in the first place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well the District will have to find a place in the District. I’ve heard that the shelters are so dangerous that the homeless don’t want to go there. They’d rather sleep in the streets.

Why is that conundrum necessary when you could build shelters with large, locking private rooms 90 minutes bus ride away?

So, you have never been in a shelter or worked with a homeless population before. Got it. Usually. To solve a problem, you need to become connected to it and educated about it.

Agree, it takes more than just a locking private room - it takes services, food, utilities et cetera as well. And not only is the real estate much cheaper 90 minutes away, but so are all of the other things. Makes ZERO sense to try and provide all of that in one of the most expensive places in the country.

Anonymous wrote:And for those who have never worked in or around this issue, you now see the reason why there is no improvements. Well, we can agree that mental health services and drug prevention and rehabilitation services are to key issues, advocates can’t agree on what is the best process for improvement.
Therefore, very few new interventions are ever supported, so rarely tried.

The "advocates" are clearly tripping all over each other and are thus counterproductive. The decision should be taken out of their hands. Maybe Council should have a hearing, to allow each advocacy group to make its case, and select 2-3 of the most compelling and workable recommendations from them, support it, mandate it, fund it, and collect the data to revisit and assess outcomes over the span of the next few years. And periodically revisit it to look at the data, support what's working, and replace whatever isn't working with one of the alternatives recommended by advocacy groups.

But sitting around, navelgazing and dithering like they've done for the last decade isn't going to cut it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Settle down folks. Homelessness is an affordable housing problem, not a mental health problem. It's true that a large minority of people experiencing homelessness have serious mental illness, but it's also true that being homeless is really bad for your physical and mental health, so it's very hard to tease out whether the homelessness caused the mental illness or vice versa.

DC has plenty of money to house the homeless. It would save the federal government a ton of money because homeless people have huge medical costs just to get them stabilized before being discharged.

Sending them out to the middle of nowhere is unworkable for a variety of reasons, but I can see how it would be attractive to people who want to get rid of this population for their own benefit.

This is a load of crap. A mentally healthy person doesn’t unroll a sleeping bag or pitch a tent on Connecticut Ave because rent has gotten too high. They move somewhere else, whether it be with roommates or to a cheaper jurisdiction altogether.

They do not have the delusions (a sign of mental illness) that many homeless people around here have that lead them to think they’re entitled to like in the expensive downtown core of a major metro area.

Yeah, why don't they go be homeless in the parts of the major metro area where poor people live, so I don't have to see them!

/s

Sincerely, many unhoused people are not capable of living independently and without incident in completely free housing. CM Cheh commented about this problem of providing unhoused people with housing without supports. It’s led to serious problems because people don’t really end up living on the streets for years if they don’t have other concurrent issues that make it difficult for them to stay housed even when it’s provided for free.

Those who've become homeless only because they've fallen on their luck usually end up couch surfing or other things until they can find a job and a more permanent situation. But many of the ones who are continually and repeatedly homeless are a different category.

A substantial percentage of the chronically homeless (I've seen numbers as high as 60-70%) have serious mental health problems and/or substance abuse problems. You can't put someone in an apartment with a kitchen if they are having episodes where they become unaware or confused that they left the stove on and catch the place on fire - they need treatment. Similarly, an untreated, raging addict left to his own devices in an apartment might start tearing open the walls to strip out the copper to sell in order to feed their habit. I've seen both of those things happen.

I'd also suggest that DC should investigate where they came from - many of them aren't originally from DC, and should be referred back to their home community for social services.

DC laws say they can in fact involuntarily commit mentally ill or addicts to treatment if a qualified medical professional deems it necessary. If they ever hope to have housing those who have serious issues will definitely need treatment first.

And for those who have never worked in or around this issue, you now see the reason why there is no improvements. Well, we can agree that mental health services and drug prevention and rehabilitation services are to key issues, advocates can’t agree on what is the best process for improvement.
Therefore, very few new interventions are ever supported, so rarely tried.

*unhoused

Housed and in housed people are equally free and entitled to choose a place in which to live.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Settle down folks. Homelessness is an affordable housing problem, not a mental health problem. It's true that a large minority of people experiencing homelessness have serious mental illness, but it's also true that being homeless is really bad for your physical and mental health, so it's very hard to tease out whether the homelessness caused the mental illness or vice versa.

DC has plenty of money to house the homeless. It would save the federal government a ton of money because homeless people have huge medical costs just to get them stabilized before being discharged.

Sending them out to the middle of nowhere is unworkable for a variety of reasons, but I can see how it would be attractive to people who want to get rid of this population for their own benefit.

This is a load of crap. A mentally healthy person doesn’t unroll a sleeping bag or pitch a tent on Connecticut Ave because rent has gotten too high. They move somewhere else, whether it be with roommates or to a cheaper jurisdiction altogether.

They do not have the delusions (a sign of mental illness) that many homeless people around here have that lead them to think they’re entitled to like in the expensive downtown core of a major metro area.

Yeah, why don't they go be homeless in the parts of the major metro area where poor people live, so I don't have to see them!

/s

You can’t possibly take issue with what I said. Be honest.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. It would be much more efficient to provide services to the homeless if they’re housed in one place.

Oh! Ghettos.

As if DC's tent encampments aren't already ghettos

It would be an improvement for them to have real roofs over their heads, actual beds, toilets, warm showers and so on. And, many of them need services from multiple different providers. PP is actually far more right than you are, with your dumb "Oh, ghettos" comment.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

That's because you aren't providing free food and drugs. And cleaning.[/quote]
So we are to provide free housing, food, and maid service? Is that all?[/quote]

Plus free crystal meth and heroin. Don't be cheap now, you evil gentrifier.

[quote=Anonymous]

That's because you aren't providing free food and drugs. And cleaning.[/quote]
So we are to provide free housing, food, and maid service? Is that all?

Anonymous wrote:Instead of forcing people to go, give them incentives to move to more affordable areas and provide them with jobs and healthcare there. Currently, advocates are giving homeless to stay here even though its neither working homeless nor taxpayers, criminal elements sure are benefiting or "non-profits" who depend on "advocacy" to make their own living and careers.

You don’t understand the problem, so your imagination about s world where this idea would work is not even entertaining.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well the District will have to find a place in the District. I’ve heard that the shelters are so dangerous that the homeless don’t want to go there. They’d rather sleep in the streets.

Why is that conundrum necessary when you could build shelters with large, locking private rooms 90 minutes bus ride away?

So, you have never been in a shelter or worked with a homeless population before. Got it. Usually. To solve a problem, you need to become connected to it and educated about it.

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Settle down folks. [b]Homelessness is an affordable housing problem, not a mental health problem.[/b] It's true that a large minority of people experiencing homelessness have serious mental illness, but it's also true that being homeless is really bad for your physical and mental health, so it's very hard to tease out whether the homelessness caused the mental illness or vice versa.

DC has plenty of money to house the homeless. It would save the federal government a ton of money because homeless people have huge medical costs just to get them stabilized before being discharged.

Sending them out to the middle of nowhere is unworkable for a variety of reasons, but I can see how it would be attractive to people who want to get rid of this population for their own benefit.[/quote]

This is a load of crap. A mentally healthy person doesn’t unroll a sleeping bag or pitch a tent on Connecticut Ave because rent has gotten too high. They move somewhere else, whether it be with roommates or to a cheaper jurisdiction altogether.

They do not have the delusions (a sign of mental illness) that many homeless people around here have that lead them to think they’re entitled to like in the expensive downtown core of a major metro area.[/quote]

Yeah, why don't they go be homeless in the parts of the major metro area where poor people live, so I don't have to see them!

/s[/quote]
Sincerely, many unhoused people are not capable of living independently and without incident in completely free housing. CM Cheh commented about this problem of providing unhoused people with housing without supports. It’s led to serious problems because people don’t really end up living on the streets for years if they don’t have other concurrent issues that make it difficult for them to stay housed even when it’s provided for free. [/quote]

That's because you aren't providing free food and drugs. And cleaning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Settle down folks. Homelessness is an affordable housing problem, not a mental health problem. It's true that a large minority of people experiencing homelessness have serious mental illness, but it's also true that being homeless is really bad for your physical and mental health, so it's very hard to tease out whether the homelessness caused the mental illness or vice versa.

DC has plenty of money to house the homeless. It would save the federal government a ton of money because homeless people have huge medical costs just to get them stabilized before being discharged.

Sending them out to the middle of nowhere is unworkable for a variety of reasons, but I can see how it would be attractive to people who want to get rid of this population for their own benefit.

This is a load of crap. A mentally healthy person doesn’t unroll a sleeping bag or pitch a tent on Connecticut Ave because rent has gotten too high. They move somewhere else, whether it be with roommates or to a cheaper jurisdiction altogether.

They do not have the delusions (a sign of mental illness) that many homeless people around here have that lead them to think they’re entitled to like in the expensive downtown core of a major metro area.

Yeah, why don't they go be homeless in the parts of the major metro area where poor people live, so I don't have to see them!

/s

Sincerely, many unhoused people are not capable of living independently and without incident in completely free housing. CM Cheh commented about this problem of providing unhoused people with housing without supports. It’s led to serious problems because people don’t really end up living on the streets for years if they don’t have other concurrent issues that make it difficult for them to stay housed even when it’s provided for free.