I really enjoy Zuby's podcasts. He's British with an American accent. His parents are Nigerian. He is conservative and hosts many people on a variety of issues. He's a hip hop artist and a body builder also. In this interview he discusses the Housing First movement with Tyler Alvarez who worked in that program in San Diego and has found it to be a failure. Alvarez estimates that in LA or San Francisco the city spends from $750,000 to $800,000 per homeless person a year in the Housing First programs. It's insane, but it also keeps many people employed who are in the "helping" professions and the housing business. It's a shame. Homelessness increases because the problem is not their home, it's their addictions and their mental health. It's also the enabling of the people who have good intentions. Alvarez estimated that of the 50 people he was able to place in housing, only one really was successful, and she was really motivated to help her five children.
Donating money or food and volunteering he also believes does not help in the long run because of the wages and careers of the staff. He recommends getting involved in your local city politics--know who are the big players getting rich on these schemes. You have to really push to get the real numbers on what this costs your community. Don't accept squishy words or guilting/shaming you. Alvarez calls it "pathological altruism" the way the homeless are treated by do-gooders.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/18/housing-first-promised-to-solve-homelessness-it-fa/
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/housing-first-effectiveness
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2020/03/california-homeless-housing-first-policy-is-failing/
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment