"It costs about $40,000 a year for a homeless person to be on the streets."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/12/shaun-donovan/hud-secretary-says-homeless-person-costs-taxpayers/

by jashmenn • 14 years ago

9 4 14 years ago

politifact.com

bunderbunder• 14 years ago

Great to see some attention going to this.

Speaking as a relative of someone who directs an inner city emergency room: Americans, a not-insignificant part of the reason why your health care costs are so high is because your legislators' refusal to allocate money for providing cost-effective care to people with mental health and substance abuse problems means that they instead end up getting cost-ineffective care from the caregiver of last resort - hospitals - instead. Of course they can't pay for that service, so the hospital gets stuck covering their costs by jacking up rates. In a nutshell, what comes off of your tax bill goes onto your health care bills, and then some.

America's approach to dealing with with the less-fortunate is, if nothing else, penny wise and pound foolish.

yzhengyu• 14 years ago

It is an evolutionary trade off due to how human beings instinctively handle cognitive dissonance.

It is very amusing and somewhat depressing on how the most intelligent of individuals can be reduced to a frothing reactionary if you know his/her life history and deduce their biases.

warpedellipsis• 14 years ago

I can see the just world bias there, in the idea that "you should be able to afford it, tough luck if you can't". I don't see cognitive dissonance; how does that come in?

abbott• 14 years ago

what most people don't realize, some or most of the vagrant do not wish to have regular dwellings or homes. Usually due to mental illness or social irregularity, they feel more at home on the streets, than being provided housing by the state or city. I have heard testimony from the founder of Glide church in San Francisco on this very issue. "most of my people choose not to live in the beds we provide, because they simply want to be left alone."

There are so many levels of homeless, some by choice, others not. Help the ones that want to be helped, and find a solution for those who don't.

"We trip over them on the sidewalk every day. We curse, hand them a dollar, or don't. We feel pity, guilt and rage at their presence. The city spends $200 million a year trying to get homeless people off the streets and into a better way of life - but over 20 years, the problem has only gotten worse.

The more able of the homeless find their way into shelters, counseling and housing programs. But the most chronically indigent, called the hard core, steadfastly refuse most help and stay outside. These 3,000 to 5,000 homeless at the very bottom are the most visible, and they give the city its dubious distinction of having what many call the worst homeless problem in the country."

http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/

"It costs about $40,000 a year for a homeless person to be on the streets."

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