Joe Lonsdale: Just giving people homes isn’t the solution to homelessness

"The way things are done now in California are just totally insane. You have $1 billion being given out, not based on data or metrics, but based on political favors to very powerful, very corrupt nonprofit groups whose incentives are completely misaligned," argues Joe Lonsdale.
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[@kellyhassen8071]

When they closed the sanatariums in 1963,and changed to community outpatient centers, They said it would cause mass homelessness. 60 years later .See it now...

[@semperparatus678]

We need to bring them back.

[@jamesdellaneve9005]

They became Dickensonian hell holes. We do need new versions of these but even people with mental problems have some agency. Can be responsible to behave in some fashion.

[@kirpalani-griffin3706]

Do you feel that sanitorium-based existence a la 1960 would be a good thing?

[@jamesdellaneve9005]

@@kirpalani-griffin3706 Read “San Fran Sicko”. Shellenberg does a great job with policy prescriptions. He’s suggesting a state wide system to handle this. But, key to this enforced incarceration for drug and mental health care. Which is what the Scandinavian countries do.

[@kirpalani-griffin3706]

There is nothig I can possibly ever read that will justify putting all of the suffering caused by an unmanageable cost of living onto the poorest people so fast food is cheaper for those who can afford it. The idea is laughable. @@jamesdellaneve9005

[@beatrixkills1]

The homeless industrial complex is real and a massive waste of money.

[@invisiblemiles]

In BC Canada, the homeless are given free bachelor units apartments, food, and money to buy fentanyl. It create jobs

[@TheRustyLM]

We’ve transferred the cost of mental asylums onto the judicial/police/public health systems.

[@randylahey8207]

The reason so many addicts use on the street is precisely because when in a house, especially alone, they're much more likely to not be found in time in case of O.D. and die. I remember an encounter I had with a longtime homeless gentleman last year when this subject was brought up. He said quite candidly "If you give me and most of us a place, it'll turn into a trap house in a week or less". He was quite happy living the way he did, as the city provides everything they might need and he greases money out of people for the rest. It's become a scam, like any freeflow of govt money without proper oversight...

[@christerry1773]

So they’re all choosing to do it in public because they feel safer?

[@charliegordon-qh2ll]

People aren't homeless simply because they lack a place to live. Most have behavioral and/or addiction issues that cause their homelessness. Addressing the underlying conditions would better serve the homeless and put them on a better, more prosperous path to obtaining adequate housing and work for themselves.

[@major__kong]

And most people aren't poor because of lack of money. That's just the proximate cause. Most people are poor because of poor time and money management skills.

[@TwisterTornado]

​@@major__kong That isn't all of it. Lots of people do not WANT to get involved with the stock market, or investments. Sometimes for ideological reasons, sometimes they assume they are too uneducated/it would be too risky. And they're sometimes right, too. Those easy apps have been causing a lot of problems for some people. So, no. As inflation rises, without investments, a fast-food worker may not be able to keep up to their previous levels, without it being an issue of "poor time and money management skills". That's just a convenient lie, that makes you feel better.

[@TwisterTornado]

​@@major__kong Also, as so many notice, "don't poor people mysteriously seem to spend a lot of money on alcohol, junk food, nicotine, drugs, etc.?" Well, it's not an excuse, but rich kids party just as hard and don't fall through the cracks. Even if they do crack. So...that isn't all of it, either. If they do not invest that money, quitting their habits does nothing but extend their life. For what? Possibly no retirement? Many are committed to dying "young", because they DO know the reality about how much cancer treatment costs. They just think that it is hopeless, and they'd rather enjoy life, now. It isn't a lack of insight, or education. It's resignation.

[@TwisterTornado]

​@@major__kong I should add that many of the people that I have asked about this kind of thing, were factory workers. They figured that they were already exposed to multiple carcinogens, throughout their lives. Fast-food workers, the cooks, anyway, are exposed to constant, high-smoke and carcinogenic fried oils and heavy-duty cleaners.

[@nunyabidness3075]

That’s some stream of consciousness stuff there. Fast food workers do not, in general, provide enough value to live on their own. I did that job for three and a half years in the early eighties. If your plan to fix the world is based on subsidies so that someone can stay in fast food worker mode, it’s a fail. And yes, rich kids get more chances because their parents pay to get them more chances. If poor parents had the money, their kids would get more chances. There is no system in the world that eliminates consequences. It wouldn’t matter if you eliminated the money differences. Genetics, culture, connections, luck, whatever, there will always be unfairness. So we have a system where if you work hard, you can pay for things which means you can help other people if you want. Or, you can take your chances. The more you tax and redistribute, the less effort you get out of many of the most capable people.

[@shrimuyopa8117]

No, if you poop on the street in front of other people, you need to go to jail. This wasn't even controversial fifteen years ago.

[@christerry1773]

In the mind of today’s progressive liberals, that’s irrelevant. Unless of course it’s outside their front door

[@prashnaveetprasad8339]

Well I heard there is a jail cell shortage and they arrest extreme criminals who cause violate chaos

[@christerry1773]

@@prashnaveetprasad8339 for how long?

[@prashnaveetprasad8339]

@@christerry1773 to stay at jail ?

[@christerry1773]

@@prashnaveetprasad8339 yeah

[@thomaschristiansen5133]

"People are homeless so we need to just give them a house" has the same vibes as "give everyone a million dollars, then everyone will be rich"

[@fritsfmn]

no, it's really hard to get a job without a mailbox or a bath, but a house might be a bit too generous, but a small apartment might help. a million is just nice to have

[@prashnaveetprasad8339]

But million dollar is useful

[@MrMatt3046]

I work for the a large militeristic non profit. They used to participate in a federal program called housing first. They would take these guys who were like hopeless alcoholics literally just been drunk for years, and rent them Apartments. I used to always wonder if that's great for them but what about the people that live in the complex with them? The sad thing is the worst of people are the faster they would get them out of there because they didn't want them in the shelter. But of course they just lived in the apartment for a few months didn't pay any of the bills and then just left when the lights got turned off.

[@schumanhuman]

Removing the portion of property tax that falls on buildings (aka shifting to land value tax) would help a lot.

[@Btobebone]

yeah, it makes no sense if I buy materials and pay taxes on them, and just stack lumber, concrete blocks, pipes, wires, nails and screws on my property, no big deal. but if I pay someone, and pay more taxes for them to take my pile of materials, and arrange them in such a way that I can live in them, I have to pay the government every year.

[@schumanhuman]

@@Btobebone I wouldn't tax the materials either except when they are part of the land before extraction, land taxes are enough, as Benjamin Franklin put it 'Our legislators are all landholders; and they are not yet persuaded that all taxes are finally paid by the land therefore we have been forced into the mode of indirect taxes' (letter to Alexander Small, 1787)

[@Btobebone]

@@schumanhuman yeah, I agree, I was just pointing out the absurdity that the exact same materials on your property can be added to property taxes or not depending on how you have them arranged

[@schumanhuman]

@@Btobebone Agreed, the tax system is absurdity upon absurdity.

[@1495978707]

At the end of the day, as much as it sucks, you can't help people who don't want to be helped

[@bloodgain]

Show me the data. Many of the things Lonsdale said here have already been widely disproven. It is NOT the whole solution, by far, but there have been multiple programs that prove that providing housing (with minimal strings attached) _does,_ in fact, reduce homelessness. Meanwhile, government hostility toward homelessness, such as making street sleeping illegal (suggested here) and designing benches, sidewalks, etc. to prevent lying down results in worsening the problem and makes the city worse for everyone. Salt Lake City tried both approaches, and the data showed that providing housing was both more effective at reducing homelessness (long term, not just temporarily) _and_ cheaper to implement. He's right about some of this, of course. Clearly, what's being done in many places isn't working, and we should pay attention to why. There are bad incentives being created. Correct, and provable with data that is already being collected. But his solutions are heavily "let's do this other hostile approach that we've already tried that also doesn't work." Look. At. The. Data. Start with the things that helped in the past. Try to figure out why they worked, and where they broke down. He brushes the edges of some good ideas, like addressing mental illness, that we know is part of the problem. The sanitoriums were their own problem and inhumane, but when they closed, we ended up with the same mentally ill people now being homeless, too. It's a complex issue, to be sure. It's far too complex to cover in a YT comment that's already too long. We won't solve it overnight, and we'll fail a lot on the way to figuring out what actually helps. But government helped cause the problem and is unlikely to ever solve it. Progressives want to tax and victim-olympics their way out of it and conservatives want to punish their way out of it. The government's involvement should probably end somewhere around collecting data; the biggest thing government can do is get out of the way -- removing bad zoning regulations, decriminalizing victimless crimes related to poverty/homelessness, etc. Where we as libertarians fail worst on this is that we have to get over the fact that there will always be some people that are a drain on society. They bring little to no value, and it's often not entirely their fault or the result of some moral failing. It's easier to understand with some people, like the severely mentally handicapped, than it is with others who aren't as clearly disadvantaged. We're supposed to be anti-authority, not anti-compassion. We may agree that more government isn't the solution, but we need to start agreeing that it's still our problem to deal with as a society. We can agree that more taxes isn't the solution -- _less_ taxation would probably help more -- but it doesn't mean it won't cost you anything.

[@AP27081]

What is the cost of forced treatment vs prison? What treatments exactly would be forced? If in prison, how would they be handled if they poop in their cell or in a common area as in a city square? I don’t know which would be a better solution. But I think offenders should definitely be tracked and denied any social payouts or benefits. Putting mentally ill/drug addicted people in prison without treatment would be rough to manage and psychologically taxing on the guards leading to abuse. Maybe forced treatment is the lesser evil.

[@Ploxtifs_OldAndDeadAccountXD]

It’s very paramount to ensure that things don’t either become akin to Ireland during the potato famine(the Government preventing intervention and exasperating the suffering by arguing that the Irish people need to “just work harder and earn it”) or basically government overreach and removing people’s basic human rights and freedoms due to going through temporary financial hardship.

[@Ploxtifs_OldAndDeadAccountXD]

It’s paramount to ensure that whatever means to solve the homelessness crisis will NOT become akin to either the Corne laws OR the final solution.

[@DerekCroxtonWestphalia]

"How do ensure that you're not just creating another power structure?" You can't. Any time you give power to government, you can't guarantee that it's not misused. But the power structure is already there. Government is already intervening in housing and homelessness in a thousand ways. The point is to use it as constructively as possible.

[@RezaQin]

Something given for free has no value.

[@KennethC43]

If a human could own property it would solve homelessness. But a good honorable law owns all real property we just pay rent and maintainence until a guy with a gun decides to kick us off.

[@Blakesworld642]

Love how this reporter didn’t push back or ask for sources literally a single time. Great job

[@megaszx08]

Whatever they're doing over in California, it's not working. Couldn't it be reasonable to deduce that corruption and nepotism lie at the hand of the problem? I mean, considering all the money spent on the problem (7.2 billion for the 2021-2022 fiscal year only) it's not farfetched to come to this conclusion; even without "sources".

[@Lopfff]

“This reporter”? That’s Mr Gillespie to you. He’s the Han Solo of libertarianism

[@Wackalacka]

​@Lopfff at least he isn't a douchebag like Lonsdale

[@eprofessio]

Monty Python in real life. “Have you bullshit today?”

[@dariusthurman8835]

The victim olympics never end

[@doomersnek3878]

Make housing cheaper by ridding of regulations restricting competition and building of new homes. More homes built, lower the prices. Lower the prices, lower the prices of temporary housing. Lower prices of temporary housing, easier for private charities to get people back on their feet. Easier for private charities to get people back on their feet, more people to work to build more homes.

[@josephriley3244]

This conversation started out strong....

[@stockfeeder666]

Forced treatment is a bigger restriction on one's liberty than jail

[@Wackalacka]

Not very libertarian

[@stp479]

People need purpose. When Uniparty elites off-shore a nation's jobs, no matter how menial, this is the result.

[@aaroncrandal]

Is the video too shirt for context, or did that dude end by saying we need the already existing institutions to exist😊 as a solution

[@kylewatson5133]

"Giving people homes isn't the solution" No, giving people homes is a solution but not from first robbing people of their income that is totally counter productive.

[@zombieapocalypse3837]

It suddenly hit me why SQUATTERS now have more rights than the owners of homes. This is how progressive dims are going about giving the homeless homes.

[@dsanchez9703]

It's many things mental illness, drug addiction etc.

[@kindofbluenyc]

Don’t forget greed.

[@melainewhite6409]

Laziness

[@tcorourke2007]

Of course it won't. They will also need food, clothing, healthcare, and walking around money!

[@clydecessna737]

If you give poor people cash or some kind of in-kind benefit they are still poor, but with cash. Perhaps this stops revolutions, or bribes those people for not using the 300 million guns in circulation, but it is a band-aid at best. Let's look for solutions that allow disadvantaged people to gain the skills, education and CONFIDENCE to pursue the same activities that make the rest of us "rich".

[@Santuse]

I'm on drugs right now. Does this mean I am homeless? Dear God.

[@jefft8597]

Who wants to work if you just give people homes, foodstamps, etc? When I was younger back in the 70s there was plenty of housing to be had but so many regulations and red tape, who wants to invest in building anything? Back then it wasn't necessary to have two tiers of pricing.

[@LynyrdSkynyrd.4Ever]

​@user-ye4bu6xh4cwhere does the money to do this come from? I'm working for my wages and I want them for me

[@captain_context9991]

The problem with "giving people homes" are many. This has been up and debated in many countries and widely considered a bad move. If you dedicate an area for building low-cost housing, well great... Then you are dedicating an area for poverty, crime, and basically building a forever-ghetto. BAD solution. The solution used by most successful countries is to subsidise housing in completely normal areas where middleclass people live. Pay half their rent or something. That way, poverty does not propagate poverty for generations. Their kids get to grow up with well-to-do friends, and are 10 trillion times more likely to do well themselves. And then, within a couple of generations, these people are just like anyone else. Rather than trailer inhabitants for ever.

[@melainewhite6409]

Um, this is _already_ done. These are vagrants _choosing_ the "work is for suckers" lifestyle and aren't going to pay half of anything as they don't need to.

[@help4343]

Too many NIMBY and HOA blocking that here

[@captain_context9991]

@@help4343 As if anyone has ever tried that approach over in the US.

[@Wackalacka]

Happened in Eastern Europe and once they changed to free market capitalism it was a great start for people to have an apartment or home in their names

[@captain_context9991]

@@Wackalacka Yeah if you look up home ownership by % of the population, all the ex Soviet countries top the list. But also look at the types of homes. They are literally built for crushing despair, depression, and alcoholism. You cannot speculate in properties in these countries. So the concrete monstrosities, in their thousands, will forever be cheaper than dirt. And never be repaired because its just not worth it. So youre living in your "own home", but not in a way we could possibly relate to.

[@kirpalani-griffin3706]

That's right. They need housing yesterday and support today and opportunity tomorrow. But without housing now, there so often is no tomorrow.

[@streetchat5054]

The wrong people are setting up and running these out of touch programs, there are plenty of homeless people who could do it better, and should be given the chance. What does someone who's never been homeless know about it? Not much apparently..

[@Alaninbroomfield]

Bring back asylums.

[@youtube-critic]

So it kind of sounded like he said, let's push a social system on these people which didn't work for them to begin with. Wtf? I don't have an answer to the problem, but I'm pretty sure this ain't it either.

[@BigBoyJay_69]

I mean, by the very definition, giving people homes would solve homelessness. Come on, guys.

[@DangRenBo]

1. Not a chance. Some people don't want structure in their lives and choose not to have homes. 2. There is not enough money to provide homes for every person in the country, and giving away homes creates an incentive structure that leads to this end.

[@bruno3617]

Can't poop on the street? Have you ever been to India??

[@Ninjaeule97]

It works in Finland where they just provide housing for everyone without having a stupid point system. Of course drug addicts a mentally ill people aren't magically going to get better just because they have housing. But if they do it's a lot easier to give them the treatment they need. I have been to Helsinki for half a year and I didn't saw a single homeless person there. Only some people collecting bottles in the park but the wore clean clothes and must have showered recently so I'm pretty sure that these were just poor people not homeless ones. I bet it also saves money in the long run cause homeless people don't contribute to the economy.

[@LiberalDictate]

But if you give home, they'll contribute? It's just socialism. Even worse, how any sane person would give drug user or psychopaths home, they're dangerous for neighborhood at least

[@melainewhite6409]

The more and better free stuff you give vagrants (including adoration by calling them "homeless") the _more_ vagrants you get.

[@chasemartin4450]

By definition, ensuring everyone has a *home* ensures nobody will be *homeless* except those who want to be (which is a tiny minority of the current homeless population). Solving other issues such as addiction, unemployment, and violent crime is a separate task than solving the issue of homelessness, but is made significantly easier by solving homelessness as many of these issues stem from homelessness. That said, the homeless-industrial complex in Californian cities doesn't really do much - what we *really* need is to abolish zoning laws and act at the state level to strip the abilities of a tiny minority to drive millions into homelessness for no reason other than maintaining their segregated communities (NIMBYs) and return that power to the hands of the People as a whole, who overwhelmingly want more housing built so that the price of housing is reduced. Rural America demonstrates that free-market housing prices can and do become low enough for just about everyone to afford a place to live, hence the higher rates of mental health issues, addiction, etc. in rural communities coupled with the drastically lower rates of homelessness.

[@brianbagnall3029]

God bless aspies, they speak the truth better than most people. But this guy really needs to work on his presentation skills if he wants to connect with normies. He's looking around the room and won't make eye contact. It makes him look shifty.

[@Wackalacka]

Cause he is shifty. He looks like a rich meth head

[@central3425]

Its an age old remedy. Getting people off the streets so society can't see them suffer instead of addressing their actual problems. Because thats takes more work...

[@melainewhite6409]

What percent responsibility do vagrants bear for their "problems"? Any?

[@central3425]

@@melainewhite6409 they bear a responsibility to get off drugs and become contributing members of society. Unfortunately, our current policies don't incentivize this

[@SomeNerd361]

So the problem isn't "Giving People Homes", the problem is picking and choosing who gets them. Creating an incentive program that promotes bad behaviour. I agree that the "who actually gets the home" approach is a bad idea. My approach? "You need a home? GREAT! Here's a home", then provide mental/finance/drug assistance programs if folks need it nearby. The problem is never the simple solution, the problem is almost ALWAYS the unnecessary complexity added to it so some random checkbox gets to be ticked.

[@E8reflections]

How about we take the government completely out of it and all of the funding that you would do for government services use subcontract to private services and treatment centers private mental health services private health centers for-profit so they are incentivized on certain markers treating somebody getting them off the drugs getting them a job getting them into a home and incentivize them with cash re words to treat people and therefore solve the problem

[@damunzy]

All the privatization of services has been going horribly for us. Bad Idea

[@E8reflections]

The only reason it's been going horrible is because the government is involved and it's not actually privatized when you incentivize people to put profit before results. For example, the private prisons which are an atrocity to our world that's not what I'm advocating for what I'm truly advocating for is actual privatization without nepotism and government bureaucracy@@damunzy

[@Wackalacka]

Reagan tried that and blew up the social safety net.

[@JessmanChicken86]

The root issue is government owned land. Private ownership of land would solve the issue.

[@brentwells8963]

Gavin gonna fix it 👍

[@cato451]

Chronic homelessness (50% of homeless) is a lifestyle choice

[@melainewhite6409]

People choosing to embrace the "work is for suckers" lifestyle that the prosperity Capitalism brings allows.

[@ArloPignotti]

I'll never forget, as a teen in the 90s, having long talks with homeless teens, it was absolutely a choice for them. They look down on people who give into capitalism, work for "the man", and even used a derogatory term "housies" to describe the housed.

[@lefthand4943]

What yiu don't work for you should get the only expections is your rigths what you have on an unhabited island.

[@itsalie]

i kinda want the way we dealt with homeless people in the 50's to make a come back.

[@jacobstamm]

What does that mean?

[@ProjectFairmont]

This guest appears to have body language of a coke head, IDK?

[@damunzy]

Ban street sleeping = illegalize being homeless. All his good points go out the window when he says he wants to basically put more people in jail.

[@melainewhite6409]

He (and I) want to offer a deterrent to choosing to be a bum.

[@lmcfigs4874]

I'd like to hear from the non-profits that this person is disparaging.

[@captain_context9991]

Relying on non-profits (that are often not non-profit at all, is that you are then allowing them to take the responsibility off the local municipalities that should deal with the problem themselves. And non-profits often aid people in a very short-sighted way. Keeping people in perpetual need, dependency, and prolonged poverty rather than moving people on and up.

[@4kirsten]

You lost me on “Very powerful, very corrupt NGO’s”. As you have no understanding of what’s in front of you, I doubt your theories are any more effective. That is not to deny the very difficult problem of homelessness, but given this is a problem all over the world, and better programs than the simplistic approach you describe have failed, it’s one that needs innovative thinking and a complex and compassionate response.

[@daddyaf945]

Here are some actual metrics. Tax cuts = approx. 9% inflation. Deregulation particularly with banks offering an ocean of easy credit, approx. 8% inflation. That’s an around 17% inflation meaning that the $700 dollars that working families keep at tax time, they are paying over $11,000 more for goods and services annually. Why not adopt policies that encourage economic growth by going back to the time when businesses had a choice between giving their money to the tax man or reinvesting in their companies? Currently we see extraordinary profits going into the pockets of investors, price gouging with no consequence and inferior products coming from factories that went over the border. A personal income tax rate of 90% after the first $3 million would get this country back on solid ground and reactionary corporate mouthpieces could find something better to do with their time. People are struggling today because the rules of business have been allowed to change to suit the mega wealthy. I understand that corporate media isn’t the best source of information and this may be a new idea for many. Just take what time you need for this to sink in.

[@staubach1979rt]

What does any of what you typed have to do with homelessness?

[@daddyaf945]

@@staubach1979rt Wow. People are struggling due to a huge economic gap between working ppl and the wealthy. That’s where the conflict is. It’s not between the homeless and people living paycheck to paycheck like corporations are promoting.

[@daddyaf945]

@@staubach1979rt trickle down economics isn’t working