But our reporting shows there are more effective and compassionate ways for cities to deal with these issues.
Their reporting did no such thing. Neither the article itself nor the linked guide have any case study naming a single city trying something else and having it work.
The title of this article is “6 Best Cities To Be Homeless in the US”. The article also says that two of them have made little to no progress with their homelessness (san Diego and Berkeley). And the others are still struggling with the problem.
The article seems to answer the question of: where is it easiest to live on the street, as it mentions Berkeley and San Diego having good weather, therefore, being easier to live outside.
The only success story seems to be Houston which famously has a low cost of living. I’m not sure this qualifies as a solution to the problem.
I'm curious to know the difference in approach where it's is effective, and where it's not. I've heard nothing but good from HF with regards to places like Finland, but this CBC report from Ottawa is grim:
They also have a program that seems to be at least somewhat effective at helping them get out of that situation. The fact that it is less than 100% effective, or that some homeless may be unwilling to enter it, does not detract from the usefulness of the program.
This doesn’t work always, or even most of the time. There are populations of homeless people that refuse services and are homeless on purpose (for example to abuse drugs freely). I recall reading about situations like homeless people destroying shelter offered to them - for example stripping wiring or selling appliances to get cash to fuel addictions. There are some people that need mental health services and can’t survive even if offered shelter.
That said, I do feel it is cheaper to subsidize housing directly than to fund the grift heavy homeless industrial complex that we find in cities like SF or Portland or Seattle, where lots of money is spent with no results.
In my experience, these are myths used to demonize people without homes and undermine programs to help them. Is there evidence that these issues are significant, or is it just something repeated on the Internet?
Most of the other suggestions are banal, and self-evident qualitative improvements (assuming you agree with the authors that homeless are people to be helped, and not a problem to be solved, which I wouldn't take for granted on HN). eg. maybe cops and sanitation workers aren't equipped to help people, so why are we sending them? Maybe housing costs are too high and we should build affordable housing? and other points which ChatGPT could probably summarize.
Their reporting did no such thing. Neither the article itself nor the linked guide have any case study naming a single city trying something else and having it work.
It’s an attempt to create a fact recursively.