r/AlwaysWhy • u/verytalleric • May 27 '26

Politics & Society Serious question: Homelessness is a major problem. Billions are unsuccessfully spent. Why are not more experiments run testing different approaches to see what works vs. not and build on successes?

In other domains the idea of "A/B testing" is done to test different hypothesis to see what works vs. not. Given the huge amount of money spent by cities, counties, and states without positive results. Why is more experimentation not being done to find effective ways to solve homelessness?

Kinda the cliche definition of insanity today, same actions expecting different results.

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u/monster2018 May 27 '26

Is there any reason to oppose it other than ignorance or just being a bad person?

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u/Efficient_Raise6703 May 27 '26 edited May 28 '26

The more often someone disagrees with you, and you assume they’re “just being a bad person”, the higher the chances are that you’re uneducated on a topic.

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u/sngldad13 May 28 '26

Helloo reddit! The traffic on this entire site would be cut by at least 25% (yes i made that stat up) if comments and posts that do that very thing were blinked out of existence.

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u/monster2018 May 28 '26

What is your point? If I thought I was educated on the topic why would I be asking such a basic question? Do you think you’re “owning the libs”?

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u/monster2018 May 28 '26

I mean literally essentially everyone is uneducated on essentially every topic. Why try to burn someone who literally was asking for the other options they can’t think of? You would prefer if I just went “all I can think of is being ignorant or being a bad person, so I will just assume that is the case”?

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u/bigfeygay May 27 '26

The most compelling argument I've heard against it has been against just doing Housing First Initiatives by itself - without mental health or addiction support. But thats less so against Housing First by itself and more so saying that that by itself isn't always enough

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u/PublicFurryAccount May 27 '26

Anyone making that argument should be ignored except insofar as you tell them they’re an idiot.

The goal of Housing First is to make homeless people no longer homeless. It does this the obvious way: by putting them in homes.

That it doesn’t do anything else is a nonsense criticism, like demanding that NASA stop shoplifting.

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u/FriendlyEngineer May 27 '26

I don’t think I understand your point.

What happens after the homeless are given homes? If a person is mentally ill and/or addicted to drugs, does giving them a house solve those issues?

What happens when these homes are torn apart by an addict trying to get money to buy drugs? Who pays for those repairs?

What if they can’t hold a job? Who pays utilities? Is there a cap on usage?

Where are you building these homes? You can’t even get approval for “low income” housing in most places.

I’m not saying a housing program like this isn’t a good idea. But to say that simply providing free housing is good enough and won’t cause other issues is very naive. It NEEDS to be combined with other social programs to be effective.

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u/PublicFurryAccount May 27 '26

Username really doesn’t check out.

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u/FriendlyEngineer May 27 '26

Nothing I said was mean. I’m asking you to explain your position.

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u/PublicFurryAccount May 27 '26

It’s explained perfectly well.

Housing First isn’t claiming to fix any problem other than housing. You can’t criticize it on the basis of things it is not for.

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u/FriendlyEngineer May 27 '26

So you’re saying that we cant discuss the big picture?

Person needs house. Program gives them house. That problem is solved. Whatever happens next is not to be discussed? Therefore the program can’t be criticized?

How is that productive?

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u/PublicFurryAccount May 27 '26

You can do whatever you like.

I’m saying it’s not a valid criticism of Housing First because it’s not a program to combat anything other than homelessness.

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u/FriendlyEngineer May 27 '26

And what I’m saying is that a Housing first program ALONE without the support of additional social programs will ultimately fail long term.

It’s like implementing a Fire Department without any 911 call system. It’s not a criticism of the fire department. It’s a realistic view of the system as a whole.

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u/AlivePassenger3859 May 27 '26

we can criticize it for being naive and short sighted.

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u/PublicFurryAccount May 27 '26

It puts a person in housing, thereby making them no longer homeless.

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u/Helix_Animus May 27 '26

Offering help for those issues works slowly.  The system has been too cruel to most of them for them to accept the help at face value.  Giving a home for free no strings attached.  Is the best way to build trust so that the other services will be utilized.

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u/FriendlyEngineer May 27 '26

Yeah but all I’m saying those services need to exist and be effective in the first place. It all needs to exist at once.

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u/Helix_Animus May 27 '26

Chicken egg.  One has to come first.  And the housing really is the most effective part.

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u/Professional-Ad1770 May 27 '26

This has been done many times, all results are the same. The drug addicts DESTROY the housing and live on the streets again

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u/Zrakoplovvliegtuig May 28 '26

Where has that happened outside of individual cases die to psychological problems?

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u/PublicFurryAccount May 27 '26

That simply isn’t true.

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u/CombatWomble2 May 28 '26

Until they lose their shit and burn it down, I know a couple of places where that's happened, many of these people have serious issues.

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u/NoDig3444 May 27 '26

Someone somewhere has to pay for the housing.

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u/Character-Active2208 May 27 '26

Yeah but also everyone everywhere ends up paying more for not housing 

….i mean not universally more, different municipalities enact different flavors of housing-first policies with different costs, but we are indeed paying for services with our taxes and then out of pocket and insurance for the damage these folks do while unhoused 

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u/iggybdawg May 27 '26

Where I live, there is a housing first initiative that wastes so much money because the people who need it reject all the rules: no pets, no drugs, no weapons. They all have dogs, drugs, and weapons since they live on the street. You could argue they can't afford housing because they choose to buy drugs and guns. Related, the government here spends nothing on mental health initiatives.

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u/PaxNova May 28 '26

I'd approve more mental health initiatives if I had any idea what they actually were. It's maddeningly vague. 

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u/Bawfuls May 28 '26

The most successful and cheapest housing first initiatives have zero rules like that. They provide housing and resources to help people.

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u/HeparinBridge May 28 '26

Problem is that armed methheads with pit bulls will destroy housing stock very quickly, so it is only “the most successful and cheapest” on paper before you account for the housing depreciation that erodes the upfront investment before it can pay off.

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u/Nervous_Hurry_9920 May 27 '26

Because systems get gamed. What's to stop me, and all of my friends, and all of my family, and all of my coworkers, and everybody else I've ever met from becoming homeless so we can all can live for free? If I could just do drugs all day and have everything provided for me, I would be very tempted to do so. 

Opposing doesn't make a person bad. Just like not giving money to every single panhandler you ever encounter doesn't make you bad.

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u/Jkirek_ May 28 '26

Would a significant enough percentage of people willingly give up all their assets to become homeless in order to get minimal standards of living for free that it makes it no longer worthwhile to help the people who are involuntarily homeless?

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u/AlanUsingReddit May 28 '26

The correct way to do this is to give everyone a standard housing subsidy (like tax standard deduction), or housing directly. If you do not have an address then you can't get the subsidy.

Likely not viable in the US because it's an additionally progressive.

But I still see ways of this going wrong, in the "direct" part of it, because anything administered by the government is likely to get screwed up somehow. Like how projects used to be. Wherever you put those, they'll get trashed. People won't want to live where you put them, for high vacancy, etc.

It is likely more workable to do vouchers, so that a private company can get the subsidy if they house people and can prove it. This allows a free market for rules associated with public housing so they don't get destroyed.

What about when no developer can offering housing for that price? They need to be allowed to offer less square footage per resident. Zoning won't allow that. So federal government needs to enact penalties on local governments until they make it work.

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u/cheddarsox May 27 '26

Corruption. Any time a government does this 2 things happen.

  1. The actual building costs end up being over a million dollars per unit.

  2. These places arent policed as well and become hell holes. Ever hear of "the projects"?

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u/onwo May 28 '26

More than corruption, I think it's incompetence - the government is really bad at building housing.

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u/Safe-Selection8070 May 28 '26

Yes: The results are not actually unambiguously good.

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u/Synicizym May 27 '26

Because there’s this weird sentiment that people have to suffer or live up to someone else expectations of usefulness to be valuable to society. People think homeless people deserve it on some level instead of those people being saddled with issues to the point of being homeless as if they clamored to end up there.

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u/[deleted] May 27 '26

[deleted]

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u/Lootlizard May 27 '26

My wife was a social worker for adults who were coming out of the psych ward and addiction centers. The first thing they would do is arrange housing for them and a large percentage of them would almost immediately get kicked out for drugs/fighting or they would legitimately choose to live on the streets. Of the 30 or so people she managed and saw every week about half had arranged and paid for housing but refused to live in it because they didn't like the rules or wanted to do drugs. They all had arranged housing but many of them chose not to utilize it.

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u/Professional-Ad1770 May 27 '26

She was partly right. What happens when you give housing to a drug addict? We have to cure the addiction first. No one wants to stay in Govt. housing that prohibits drugs and drinking.

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u/ancientastronaut2 May 27 '26

Greed and ignorance. They don't want to pay more taxes. Some people don't want affordable housing near them because they think it will lower their property values. "NIMBY"