Machiavellian Assault On Science, The Poor & Democracy!

In a previous article, Machiavellian Ideology Ignores Real Science, I pointed out that Finland has resolved most of their problems with homelessness, and they also found that they could save an enormous amount of money as well, since it's far less expensive to resolve social problems before they escalate. Other studies have shown that it's also less expensive to address contributing causes of violence before they escalate, treat drug addiction instead of criminalizing it, implementing a Single payer health care system, and presumably solving other social problems before they escalate, since this is enough to establish a pattern of behavior, and my best guess is that there are other studies with similar result for other social problems that I just haven't come across yet.

Based on the savings that Finland had according to a study, and the total number of homeless we allegedly had in 2018, I came to the conclusion that we might be able to save approximately 9.7 billion per year, and more, if we reduce the total number of homeless people by enabling them to rejoin the workforce and afford their own housing without government assistance. However, this was based on the assumption that cities across the country weren't doing something idiotic like criminalize the homeless and trumping up absurd charges to justify arresting them for eating, sleeping, or storing their property in public, which apparently an absurd number of cities are doing.

If these cities implemented smart programs, based on good research, instead of making it much more expensive to deal with the homeless they could save money like Finland, so for them the savings would be higher than other cities, if they housed the homeless in a similar manner to Finland. One news article from 2014 claims 33 U.S. Cities make it Illegal to feed the homeless and another from from 2016 claims it's More Than 70 Cities which probably means that they haven't tracked all the cities doing this, since it's unlikely that it doubled so quickly. The same goes for the total number of homelessness, which ranges from 552,830 in 2018 to 564,708 in 2015 and 610,042 in 2013.

By 2014 homeless shelters and cities across the country could have known about the results of Finland's homeless program, which would have been six years old, if they wanted to, although they might not have known about the study I cited which indicates that they saved $17,628 per homeless program; and they had the following smaller study that at least some of them were aware of, which indicates they could have saved at least $25,458:

Study Reveals It Costs Less to Give the Homeless Housing Than to Leave Them on the Street 03/26/2014

The news: A new study has found that it's significantly cheaper to house the homeless than leave them on the streets.

University of North Carolina Charlotte researchers released a study on Monday that tracked chronically homeless adults housed in the Moore Place facility run by Charlotte's Urban Ministry Center (UMC) in partnership with local government. Housing these people led to dramatic cost savings that more than paid for the cost of putting them in decent housing, including $1.8 million in health care savings from 447 fewer ER visits (78% reduction) and 372 fewer hospital days (79% reduction). Tenants also spent 84 fewer days in jail, with a 72% drop in arrests.

Moore Place cost $6 million in land and construction costs, and tenants are required to contribute 30% of their income (mainly benefits) towards rent. The remainder of the $14,000 per tenant annually is covered by donations and local and federal funding. According to the UNCC study, that $14,000 pales in comparison to the costs a chronically homeless person racks up every year to society — a stunning $39,458 in combined medical, judicial and other costs.

New opportunities: What's more, Moore Place is enabling the formerly homeless to find their own sources of income. Without housing, just 50% were able to generate any income. One year after move-in, they're up to 82%. And after an average length of 7 years of homelessness, 94% of the original tenants retained their housing after 18 months, with a 99% rent collection rate.

The program is so successful that UMC is planning a $4 million expansion to bring the total capacity from 85 to 120 units. More than 200 chronically homeless people in the county qualify for such housing, which is desperately needed to bring down Charlotte's homeless population, which has risen at more than double the national rate — 2013 marking the fourth year the city saw a double-digit rise in the category. While the rate of homeless individuals without children dropped significantly, "on any given night, about 2,418 people in the community are homeless, including 952 in emergency shelters, 1,183 in transitional housing and 283 without any shelter." ......

In 2012, total welfare spending for the poor was just 0.47% of the federal budget. It turns out that maybe if we spent a little more to help the chronically destitute solve their own problems, we could save a lot of money. Complete article

Fortunately Charlotte hasn't joined other cities that banned feeding the homeless, despite some pressure from local people that don't want it in their back yard, and presumably they did expand it to 120 units by now; but this is only a fraction of the homeless in their own city, which is apparently worse than most of the country. Other studies provided an estimated savings of $21,000 per homeless person or $42,500 per homeless person. The reason the savings vary so much appears to be the cost of services or housing in the areas where the programs were covered, but almost all studies show large savings with few exceptions, but even those show, either only 20% in the United States, or in Canada, no savings or losses by housing the homeless, presumably because Canada was already providing many services; this article also cited the study with a $21,000 savings. However, the vast majority of studies show larger savings than these two conservative ones, including another one from Canada that claims that for every $10 they spend housing the homeless, they save another $22 on related expenses, and more studies listed below.

There are many more studies showing that "Housing First" has been a proven success, although no programs that I know of have been as comprehensive and successful as Finland, even though some of the small scale studies have shown higher savings per homeless person. Another major problem is that most of the discussion, including in some of the best studies about Housing First, ignore some of the most important long term causes of homelessness, including an economic system that has resulted in an enormous amount of income inequality. An enormous part of the problem is that a shrinking percentage of the population owns a shocking percentage of the wealth, including real estate, and these oligarchs are using their market power to drive up the cost of housing while driving down income for the vast majority of the public.

For one reason or another this obvious fact is practically never mentioned by the mainstream media. I'm not ruling out the possibility that this is because mainstream media is owned by oligarchs benefiting from a rigged economic system.

The existing studies are enough to show that Housing First and other other successful programs should be expanded, although there's room for much more research, with existing data, that will probably strengthen the case; but even without that additional research a little basic sense shows that some things are clearly counterproductive, like funding partial solutions from nonprofit organizations then using tax payer money to destroy those partial solutions. This should obviously be counterproductive, yet it's being done repeatedly including in Grand Rapids possibly in violation of CDC recommendations, last month, and even worse North Las Vegas where they did violate CDC guidelines and destroyed 26 tiny homes that were built with $16,000 raised by Food Not Bombs and the Sidewalk Project.

As far as I know North Las Vegas hasn't disclosed how much tax payer money was used to destroy charitable efforts to help provide partial solutions to their homeless problem, and instead of improving it, they clearly made their homeless problem worse. However, this is just one of many cases where cities around the country have been spending money to intimidate and harass non-profit organizations that are trying to help the poor often using tax payer money to sabotage partial solutions by these organizations, which is an incredibly obvious waste of money that also makes their social problems worse, regardless of how much money is being wasted; and, of course, the damage to the homeless victims is even worse. It's virtually guaranteed to make crime and other problems worse; and, amazingly, a lot of this may be intentional for one reason or another, as the following article indicates:

The Consultant Leading the White House Push Against Homelessness 12/12/2019

Panhandling is a gateway to vice: That’s the claim on which Robert Marbut Jr. has staked his entire career.

According to Marbut, a consultant who’s spent the last decade advising cities on how to manage services for people living in homelessness, those who panhandle on the streets spend 93 percent of the money they receive on drugs, alcohol, or sex. He’s repeated that figure in dozens of appearances before city councils and media outlets, including an interview with NPR’s Rachel Martin in 2014. When the Weekend Edition host pressed for details, Marbut replied, “We’ve done a lot of research.”

That 93 percent figure has always bothered Jeremy Alderson, a journalist and activist who bristled when local agencies in Sarasota, Florida, hired Marbut in 2013 to help them come up with a strategy. How, exactly, would a researcher find out how much a person living on the street paid to a drug dealer? Or to a sex worker?

“If you were homeless, what would you think if a stranger came up to you, asked if you were homeless, gave you some money, and then started following you around?” asks Alderson, who interviewed Marbut about his methods in 2015. (Marbut did not agree to an interview with CityLab in time for this story and did not respond to questions.)

Other experts question whether any research exists to support such a claim. The data is weak across the board, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. One survey conducted in Toronto nearly 20 years ago found that the single largest reported expense for panhandlers was food (followed by tobacco, then alcohol, then illicit drugs). Samantha Batko of the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center agrees that there’s nothing in the published literature on homelessness that adds up to the figure that Marbut has used. “While panhandlers do report spending money on alcohol and substances in surveys, these same surveys show that food is their primary expense,” she says.

Still, Marbut has successfully used that striking stat to help build a career promoting his signature “velvet hammer” strategy—a policing-heavy model that emphasizes banning panhandling, centralizing services for the homeless in massive facilities far from urban centers, and providing food and shelter only as a reward for good behavior. Over the last decade, Marbut has convinced hundreds of cities and counties across the nation to pay for his advice. His next stop: the White House. ......

Marbut, a former San Antonio city councilman, is best known as the founder of Haven for Hope, a vast shelter complex on San Antonio’s West Side that has been the focus of much controversy since it opened in 2010. Billed as a “transformational campus,” the 17-building complex features a surface lot called the Prospects Courtyard, where between 700 and 900 people may sleep at night on concrete, exposed to the elements. Residents struggling with substance abuse won’t find shelter in the part of the facility that provides roofs overhead until they pass a required drug test.

Marbut’s time at Haven for Hope was short lived: Within a year, the founding CEO was out. But he’s since exported the model he established there to other cities, and advocates now fear that it will serve as a national template as he assumes his new capacity as the Trump administration’s go-to on homelessness. Worse, they say, his approach flies in the face of evidence-based practices developed and supported by housing groups—including, until now, USICH itself.

“[Marbut’s] goal seems to be to try to fix what he perceives to be individual flaws with punitive and dehumanizing tactics while completely ignoring the clear and obvious structural flaws that create and exacerbate homelessness,” says Diane Yentel, president and CEO for the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “It strikes me as a throwback to 19th-century poor houses.” .......

Marbut has claimed radical reductions in homelessness in San Antonio (and other cities where he’s worked). An October 2019 article in The Coloradoan points to an 80 percent decline in downtown homelessness in San Antonio as an argument for adopting a similar model in Fort Collins. Only there wasn’t any 80 percent decline in San Antonio: Point-in-time counts show an overall increase in homelessness citywide over the decade. Warehousing homeless people on the city’s poorer West Side may only have succeeded in shifting them out of central business districts and tourism areas.

In particular, Haven for Hope’s open courtyard quickly garnered a reputation as a place of despair: Residents at the shelter report hundreds of crimes every year, including assaults, rapes, and threats of terror. Between 2012 and 2014, police registered about 800 calls per year to Haven for Hope. San Antonians say that people who use the shelter refer to it as the “Haven for Dope.” (Haven for Hope did not respond to CityLab’s interview requests.)

Some of these criticisms manifested very soon after the shelter’s establishment, and the reality on the ground may be worse than even 911 calls let on. According to Josh Brodesky, columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, in-house security officers at Haven for Hope have addressed thousands of violent incidents. CityLab’s review of San Antonio’s 2020 budget finds that the city spends almost as much on security at the Prospects Courtyard ($1,103,916) as it does for services for the people who sleep there ($1,112,971).

Among the critics of Marbut’s approach, and his new USICH role, is Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro, who was San Antonio’s mayor when Marbut opened Haven for Hope. “As HUD Secretary, I advanced the Housing First model as the most effective way to improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness,” he tells CityLab by email. “In the Obama administration, we reduced veteran homelessness by nearly half, and I’m convinced that’s the leadership and action we need as a nation.”

Castro adds, “There is nothing wrong with people who are poor or have fallen into difficult times, and we need to build a country where everyone counts.”

One fact-check concerns a program Marbut helped to launch in St. Petersburg, Florida. Local officials in St. Pete visited Haven for Hope in 2010 and liked what they saw, so they hired Marbut—at a rate of $5,300 per month. Pinellas Safe Harbor, a former jail repurposed as a shelter and operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, brought Marbut to the attention of Clearwater and other Florida cities. In a pitch to Daytona Beach in 2015, Marbut said that the St. Petersburg facility had helped the city reach “functional zero” levels of street homelessness.

That’s an illusion, says Iain De Jong, president and CEO of OrgCode. He says that the count that Marbut relies on was produced by the police who run Pinellas Safe Harbor, and that local law enforcement juke the stats in how they enforce a regulation that bans sleeping on sidewalks. The strategy boils down to “jail diversion”—services that divert homelessness without addressing it, he says. .....

At least one California city may have heeded that message. Ten years ago, the Fresno Business Council and some 60 community groups engaged Marbut for an assessment. He proposed a large shelter campus based on his San Antonio model. Local authorities looked into it, but they couldn’t make his numbers work, according to Preston Prince, executive director of the Fresno Housing Authority. “We could not find data that showed the large campus resulted in people ending up in permanent housing,” Prince says. “What we were seeing was that very vulnerable people would end up at Prospect Courtyard at Haven for Hope and not move up and out of the system. They, instead, would find themselves back out on the street.”

Instead, Fresno decided to go with a Housing First model, focusing on a coordinated entry system to find permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals and rapid re-housing for people who suddenly find themselves out on the street. From 2011 to 2017, Fresno saw its point-in-time homelessness counts decline by 60 percent. While that number has crept up over the last few years, the city, county, and its partners are still committed to Housing First principles. “Really, all of the best practices coming out of USICH over the last 10 years,” Prince says. Complete article

It's long overdue for someone to come right out and call Robert Marbut what he is, a thief, conman and scam artist; however, he caters to ideological beliefs supported by wealthy people and he's had political connections going back over thirty years, so instead of calling him a thief, conman and scam artist the media refers to him as "controversial" when they have to acknowledge his critics. It helps to understand how the media may seem to think the word "controversial" should be defined, one way or another, more often than not, it's "controversial" when wealthy people's beliefs or ideology contradicts good research or the truth.

In some cases good researchers expose their fraud with good research, and instead of admitting they're wrong they portray that person as "controversial;" for example, it I were to get a lot of attention by saying that "the more insurance companies spend on advertising, lobbying campaign donations, high CEO pay and other bureaucratic expenses, the less they have available for claims," instead of admitting that I'm obviously right they might spin the story and portray me as "controversial." In other cases, like Robert Marbut when he's obviously a thief, conman and scam artist, the media spins it and tries to make him look like an expert, or if that fails they call him "controversial."

Marbut lied about his claim that he studied how homeless people spent the money they panhandled and came to the conclusion that they spent 93% of it on drugs, alcohol or other vices and he lied about reductions in homelessness in at least three cities including San Antonio, Sarasota, and St. Petersburg, and probably many more, although it's difficult to get reliable numbers on most cities he consulted for. And he charged St. Petersburg $5,300 per month for his services which were based on fraud and according to How A Traveling Consultant Helps America Hide The Homeless 03/09/2015 Daytona Beach was "paying Marbut six figures to investigate the city’s homelessness problem and devise a solution." Marbut also claimed to do consulting for over a hundred other cities, although there's no data readily available on how much he charged, and supposedly some of it was "pro-bono," but there's little doubt he was paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions for his consulting services pushing a failed ideology that doesn't reduce homelessness and does lead to higher crime where the homeless are forced into.

This means that both the tax payers and the homeless are victims of his epidemic fraud, but not necessarily the politicians who hired him, or even Julián Castro, who claims to be a critic of his policies. If they wanted to check his credentials they could easily have done so, and they wouldn't have come close to holding out, assuming they actually wanted to solve the homeless problem to the best of their ability. His background is based on his political connections, including a political appointment by George H.W. Bush back in 1989, not, for the most part, working with the homeless. According to some reports he may have done some alleged work with homeless organizations years before he founded "Haven for Hope," which he only ran for up to eight months before, before moving on to consulting for other cities, but he was involved in other activities at the same time, so any alleged experience must have been very limited, if they existed at all.

According to How A Traveling Consultant Helps America Hide The Homeless 03/09/2015 'Marbut presents himself as someone who can break the cycle of criminalization. One of the “Core Tenets“ on his website notes that “arresting homeless individuals has never ended homelessness” and that criminal enforcement should be a last resort. Instead, according to his “Seven Guiding Principles,” society must “engage” the homeless and “move to a culture of transformation.”' However, his policies routinely criminalize homelessness, and if arrests aren't a first resort they come soon afterwards, and they're often accompanied by fines, that will inevitably keep them in homelessness, this include some homeless people that played by the rules all their life and wound up homeless anyway, since the economic system was rigged against them, and their records are only a result of homeless related fabricated crimes that he supports.

He does little or nothing to speak out against a rigged economy which contributes to homelessness, instead blaming everything on personal flaws, which he claims that he's trying to help with. But the way he allegedly tries to help people with drug or alcohol problems involve forcing them to sleep out in the cold until they can pass a drug test, before they can get help. There are also many studies showing that treating drug or alcohol addiction is also much less expensive than criminalizing them, including some listed below, but I doubt very much if they would use this tactic, any more than good advocates for the homeless would use his tactics for that.

There's much more reporting exposing Robert Marbut's fraud, including some additional stories listed below, but according to Julián Castro’s Troubling Record in San Antonio 07/02/2019 Castro's record may not be much if any better, even if he does a better job pretending to defend the homeless and working class people, especially during campaigns. While he was mayor of San Antonio Murbut started his homeless shelter with no opposition from Castro that I know of, despite alleged calls to increase funds for it. When he did pas a plan to address it he didn't commit funds, and when the council passed four laws criminalizing homeless he was notably absent, and when they passed another one in 2011, he voted in favor of it. This was similar to what he did as part of the Obama White House, speaking out in favor of Housing First, but by most accounts funds for it have been declining for decades, including when Obama was president, and laws criminalizing homelessness rose dramatically under Obama and Castro's watch, with little or no opposition from them.

But why would all these politicians hire Marbut with tax payer money and pass these draconian laws even though they have overwhelming evidence showing they're counterproductive? Who benefits? What Marbut has been recommending is policies that are obviously designed to keep the poor in their place, segregating them from businesses that don't want to deal with them. He's also avoiding any consideration of the fact that our rigged economic system is a major factor. This is a Machiavellian ideology to "keep the citizens poor," and divert the blame away from the wealthy. This is an ideology that's designed to control the poor not look out for their best interests, and it's accompanied by massive efforts to suppress voting rights for low income people, especially minorities.

Marbut never could have done this alone, and the political establishment had to know it all along; which raises a strong possibility that this was intended to increase income inequality all along so that oligarchs wouldn't be held accountable for their fraud. And even his critics only put up a token amount of opposition that had little or no impact, but gave them some political cover. This is why we should be cautious, even when another homeless advocate appears to be significantly better than Robert Marbut, they may not be nearly as good as those reforming the system in Finland.

There's no doubt that Robert Marbut is a fraud; however, intentional or not, he's helped provide additional research opportunities to show how effective good policies work compared to the ones that he's recommended, assuming someone does a comprehensive job compiling the data. There are plenty of studies, including ones I already cited and more listed below, that show that Housing First has been far more successful than other programs, even if few if any American cities are implementing it nearly as well as Finland, but unfortunately they haven't shown all their work in the articles. However all the success stories that actually stand up to scrutiny are from cities that have used the Housing First model, even if some of them haven't done as well as others.

In addition to Fresno, which was cited in the article above, Houston, San Diego, Denver, Columbus and Salt Lake City all had a reasonable amount of success with Housing First plans; Seattle didn't do so well, at least not yet. According to one article, Two cities tried to fix homelessness, only one succeeded 12/14/2020, Houston had much more success than San Diego, which seems like a failure by comparison; however, it still had a reduction of 19% of their homeless people. And as the article said, "according to one study, millions in taxpayer dollars were saved compared to taxpayer-funded services frequently used by the homeless." One of the leading problems preventing more success in San Diego is lack of affordable housing, which is the same problem holding Seattle back.

Ironically Barbara Poppe, who spent fourteen years helping Columbus Ohio reduce homelessness, before becoming Obama's director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) from 2009 to 2014 doesn't seem to think that addressing affordability needs to be part of the solution according to Less talk, more action: Homeless consultant critiques Seattle council 06/09/2016 which says:

Barbara Poppe, who is being paid $80,000 for nine months of work, told the council it needs to stay focused and not confuse the homeless crises with issues such as income inequality and affordable housing. Those, she said, are topics that should be dealt with on their own.

Barbara Poppe spent twenty five years working on homeless issues and had a lot of success in Columbus Ohio, almost certainly at a lower rate of pay, before becoming a high priced consultant, so there's no doubt she's significantly better than Robert Marbut; but this statement should raise major doubts. if you crunch the numbers from Homelessness Statistics By State it's clear that California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington State, Hawaii, Alaska, and the District of Columbia all have well above average homeless rates for the nation; and most if not all other states are below average. Most of these states provide better than average education and do a better than average job addressing other social problems; however they also have much higher than average costs of housing, so there's little doubt that affordable housing and income inequality are among the most important contributing factors for homelessness even without expertise. But it's not hard to find experts that come right and say "Lack Of Affordable Housing Is Biggest Cause Of Homelessness," Expert Says 05/31/2019

Some of the wealthiest parts of the country have the biggest problem with homelessness. There's no doubt that they can afford to solve those problems; but instead they hire high priced consultants to distract from the obvious cause of that problem; that wealthy people are profiting by suppressing wages, while simultaneously sending the cost of housing through the roof. Without addressing these causes, there's no way these parts of the country can solve their homeless problems, even with Housing First policies. The best they can hope to do is subsidize homeless shelters, without making the problem go away.

Tim Harris also points this out in Director's Corner: The trouble with grading homelessness response on a curve 12/19/2018 which also points out that at least 114 homeless people died of sickness or violence in 2018.

The Human Rights Committee also criticized the United States for criminalizing the homeless, as well as violation of other human rights, including unlawful killings and use of torture in their response to the 9/11 attacks. For one reason or another, this report and a lot of other research on homelessness, and many other things are being taken down from the internet, either by private organizations, or in some cases government web sites; but I was able to retrieve some of it from the Wayback Machine, including this report and some of the other sources following it:

Human Rights Committee: Concluding observations on the fourth report of the United States of America* 2014

Accountability for past human rights violations

5. The Committee is concerned at the limited number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions of members of the Armed Forces and other agents of the U.S. Government, including private contractors, for unlawful killings in its international operations and the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees in U.S. custody, including outside its territory, as part of the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” program. While welcoming the Presidential Executive Order 13491 of 22 January 2009 terminating the programme of secret detention and interrogation operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Committee notes with concern that all reported investigations into enforced disappearances, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that had been committed in the context of the CIA secret rendition, interrogation and detention programmes were closed in 2012 leading only to a meagre number of criminal charges brought against low-level operatives. The Committee is concerned that many details of the CIA programme remain secret thereby creating barriers to accountability and redress for victims (arts. 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 14). .......

Criminalization of homelessness

19. While appreciating the steps taken by federal and some state and local authorities to address homelessness, the Committee is concerned about reports of criminalization of people living on the street for everyday activities such as eating, sleeping, sitting in particular areas etc. The Committee notes that such criminalization raises concerns of discrimination and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment (arts. 2, 7, 9, 17, and 26). The State party should engage with state and local authorities to: (a) abolish criminalization of homelessness laws and policies at state and local levels; (b) ensure close cooperation between all relevant stakeholders including social, health, law enforcement and justice professionals at all levels to intensify efforts to find solutions for the homeless in accordance with human rights standards; and (c) offer incentives for decriminalization and implementation of such solutions, including by providing continued financial support to local authorities implementing alternatives to criminalization and withdrawing funding for local authorities criminalizing the homeless. Complete article

United States Is Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading to Poor, UN Report Charges 03/31/2014 Jerome Murdough, 56, a mentally ill homeless veteran, was just trying to stay alive during a New York City cold snap when he thought he found his spot: a stairwell leading to a roof in a Harlem public housing project. But that desperate act set in motion a nightmare ride through New York's criminal justice system that would end with Murdough dying of heat stroke in a Riker's Island jail cell. New York officials now say the system failed Murdough every which way.

When oligarchs hire consultants like Marbut to demonize the poor, even if he does a good job pretending to help them, some of the time, it's inevitable that the police they hire to enforce it will become cruel, since the good ones will either quite or fail to enforce it as strictly as those giving orders want them to. If they think it's a joke, like the following officers do, do you think they'll treat you or anyone else much if any better?

The following are some additional sources or related articles:

Alabama police apologise for 'insensitive' homeless quilt photo 12/31/2019

Alabama Police Apologize After Outrage Over “Homeless Quilt” Photo 12/31/2019

Lack of Affordable Housing Remains the Leading Cause of Homelessness 03/22/2019

Homelessness in America: Overview of Data and Causes updated January 2015

Two cities tried to fix homelessness, only one succeeded 12/14/2020 But Houston and San Diego took fundamentally different approaches to implementing that strategy, known as Housing First. Houston revamped its entire system to get more people into housing quickly, and it cut homelessness by more than half. San Diego attempted a series of one-off projects but was unable to expand on the lessons learned and saw far fewer reductions in homelessness.

The cities making a dent in homelessness — and what Seattle can learn from them 07/19/2018 Columbus and Salt Lake City suceeded with Housing First Seatle didn't do so well.

Housing First Is Working in Denver. The City Needs More of It. 03/09/2020 But federal investments in housing, which programs like Housing First rely on, have fallen over the past two decades. And a month ago, President Trump proposed reducing the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget by 15 percent.

Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness By 91 Percent; Here's How 12/10/2015

Once a national model, Utah struggles with homelessness 01/10/2019 Once lauded as a leader among U.S. cities struggling to relieve homelessness, the number of people sleeping rough in Utah’s capital has spiked in the past two years, as funding for its groundbreaking housing program dried up.

Wikipedia: Robert G. Marbut

Barbara Poppe: What happens when federal government invests in housing - #homelessness declines about #Veterans. #Proofpoint #HousingFirst 11/17/2016

Houston’s solution to the homeless crisis: Housing — and lots of it 10/12/2017 Houston’s unsheltered homeless population is down about 75 percent since 2011, and leaders there credit their new housing-first approach. The numbers have Seattle officials taking note.

The Faulconer Doctrine Offers Homeless San Diegans a Choice: Services or Police 12/08/2020

The 2016 Annual Homeless Assesment Report to (AHAR) Congress November 2016

How A Traveling Consultant Helps America Hide The Homeless 03/09/2015 They’re paying Marbut six figures to investigate the city’s homelessness problem and devise a solution.

Seattle Police Clear Encampment in Public Park Amid Pandemic Surge 12/21/2020

The 10 Worst Places To Be Homeless 08/14/2009

Homeless advocates name the top 20 “meanest” cities for homeless 01/13/2006 Runner ups not mentioned: Fort Lauderdale, Daytona Beach, Clearwater, Hollywood Fla., El Cajon Ca., Raleigh, Wilmington, N.C, Dallas Tx., Grand Rapids Mich., Mobile Alabama, Columbia SC,

Feeding Intolerance: Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness November 2007 Runner ups not mentioned elsewhere: Wilmington, N.C; Baltimore, MD; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Cincinnati, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Fort Myers, Florida abandoned plans after protest; Hempstead, NY; Jacksonville, Florida; Miami-Dade County, Florida; Pinellas Park, Florida; Portland, Oregon; Tampa, Florida agreed not to enforce ordinance after legal action; West Palm Beach, Florida;

Santa Monica’s Homelessness Strategy is Showing Results 06/17/2019 We were one of the first cities to embrace the Housing First model and build permanent supportive housing (PSH); we now have about 330 PSH units.

“Housing First” Hawaii Both the State of Hawaii and the City & County of Honolulu administer specific Housing First programs for chronically homeless individuals and families.

Honolulu Mayor's Office of Housing Permanent supportive housing, affordable housing targeting homeless persons, and mental health support are the keys to solving homelessness: "Permanent supportive housing will reduce homelessness" (4/9/19)

How A Traveling Consultant Helps America Hide The Homeless 03/09/2015 They’re paying Marbut six figures to investigate the city’s homelessness problem and devise a solution. .... The city of Hollywood last year not only planned a panhandling crackdown, it also spent $4.8 million buying a homeless shelter for the express purpose of knocking it down. An appraisal for the city explained that the neighborhood around the shelter was “negatively affected by the presence of this homeless shelter that houses emotionally and physically deficient and threatening-looking individuals.” Not content to simply tear the shelter down, the sale contract also forbid the shelter’s owner, Sean Cononie, from living in the city anytime in the next 30 years. “I’ve actually been exiled,” Cononie, 50, said in an interview. ...... Marbut presents himself as someone who can break the cycle of criminalization. One of the “Core Tenets“ on his website notes that “arresting homeless individuals has never ended homelessness” and that criminal enforcement should be a last resort. Instead, according to his “Seven Guiding Principles,” society must “engage” the homeless and “move to a culture of transformation.”

Hollywood planning crackdown on panhandlers 05/24/2014

So long, Hollywood homeless shelter: Wrecking ball imminent 08/18/2015

Tag: Barb Poppe Barbara Poppe income inequality and affordable housing Kshama Sawant

Homeless Residents Got One-Way Tickets Out of Town. Many Returned to the Streets. 09/14/2019

Bussed out How America moves its homeless 12/20/2017 Each year, US cities give thousands of homeless people one-way bus tickets out of town. An 18-month nationwide investigation by the Guardian reveals, for the first time, what really happens at journey’s end

Cities Are Hiring This Controversial Homelessness Consultant 03/31/2015

‘Housing First’ Model for Fresno Homeless isn’t Working 10/24/2017 By Don Eskes

Homelessness in Fresno is a Big Problem. Tiny Houses Might Help. 02/08/2018

Fresno County: A Framework for Action Barbara Poppe and Associates claim more success than Don Eskes, although they admit more needs to be done.

In 33 U.S. Cities, It’s Illegal to Do the One Thing That Helps the Homeless Most 06/12/2014 (some of the related articles linked from this one have been removed; in most cases, I found a copy from the Wayback Machine, listed below.) Why it's happening: The bans are officially instituted to prevent government-run anti-homelessness programs from being diluted. But in practice, many of the same places that are banning food-sharing are the same ones that have criminalized homelessness with harsh and punitive measures. Essentially, they're designed to make being homeless within city limits so unpleasant that the downtrodden have no choice but to leave. Tampa, for example, criminalizes sleeping or storing property in public. Columbia, South Carolina, passed a measure that essentially would have empowered police to ship all homeless people out of town. Detroit PD officers have been accused of illegally taking the homeless and driving them out of the city.

The 10 Most Ridiculous Anti-Homeless Laws – Part I 07/20/2011

The 10 Most Ridiculous Anti-Homeless Laws – Part II 07/26/2011

Homeless People In Jail For Sleeping In Public 07/23/2013

Arresting People For Eating, Sleeping In Public 07/16/2013

2013 AHAR: Part 1 - PIT Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. November 2013 In January 2013, 610,042 people were homeless on a given night. Most (65 percent) were living in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs and 35 percent were living in unsheltered locations.

Feeding Homeless Apparently Illegal in Raleigh, NC 08/24/2013

That's rich: Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record 01/07/2014 Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of impoverished people in the U.S. has declined only slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama.

Food Not Bombs Members Arrested for Feeding the Hungry 06/27/2011

Feeding Resistance: Food Not Bombs Members Arrested in Orlando for Serving Meals Without a Permit 06/24/2011

Food Terrorists? 24 Food Not Bombs Activists Arrested for Feeding Homeless; Protest Planned July 1 06/24/2011

Food Not Bombs Food Not Bombs has been making a visible difference for thirty years. 09/16/2010

Please don't feed the homeless: Good Samaritans ARRESTED and facing jail... for handing out food 06/06/2011

DUI Mission Debriefing : Feeding The Hungry 06/06/2011

More US Cities Are Cracking Down on Feeding the Homeless 06/08/2014

Federal Judge: Dallas Ministries Can Feed the Homeless Wherever They Damn Well Please 03/29/2013

Florida Couple Cleared of All Fines for Feeding Homeless People 05/21/2014

Food Feud: More Cities Block Meal-Sharing for Homeless 05/23/2014

Florida Couple Fined, Threatened with Jail for Feeding Homeless 05/12/2014

Study: Giving homeless people housing is cheaper than leaving them on the streets 02/10/2015 The report by the May Central Florida Commission on Homelessness indicated that the region spends $31,000 a year per homeless person. ..... Conversely, it would cost about $10,000 per person to get each homeless person a house and a caseworker to supervise his or her needs. (Estimated $21,000 savings)

The cheapest way to end homelessness is ridiculously simple, according to the largest-ever US study 05/28/2015 Before they received housing, these homeless created public costs of $62,500 a year — and housing cost less than $20,000 per person. (Estimated savings $42,500)

The most cost-effective way to help the homeless is to give them homes 05/30/2014 updated 02/20/2020 Most conservative savings are only 20% in the United States, or in Canada, no savings or losses by housing the homeless, presumably because Canada was already providing many services, including Single Payer Health Care.

Giving the homeless a home is often cheaper than leaving them on the streets 07/17/2014 Salt Lake City estimates a savings of $45,000 per homeless person housed, Canadian study says they save $22 for every $10 spent on their programs.

Providing housing for homeless is cheaper and better for society 03/16/2017 Each bed provided by the government provides an average net benefit of $10,800 per year, according to the comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, commissioned by the University of Melbourne's Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI). Australia

"It costs about $40,000 a year for a homeless person to be on the streets." 03/12/2012 Politifact: Mostly True. Estimated savings, based on 2002 study, is about $16,281 per housing unit per year.

Ending Chronic Homelessness Saves Taxpayers Money 02/17/2017 This study shows how costs on average are reduced by 49.5% when they are placed in supportive housing.

What could help Sacramento reduce homelessness? Here’s what’s being done elsewhere 03/08/2019

We Can End Homelessness through Housing First Interventions 02/12/2020 From 2009 to 2019, veteran homelessness decreased by 50 percent. And from 2007 to 2019, chronic homelessness, long-term or repeated homelessness among people with disabilities, decreased by 20 percent. These decreases did not happen by chance. The decreases are partly the result of placing people in permanent supportive housing (PSH). PSH is a Housing First intervention that provides housing assistance without preconditions or service participation requirements and engages participants in individually tailored services once they have the security of a safe place to live.

Grand Rapids clearing out homeless encampment at Heartside Park 12/21/2020

A North Las Vegas Homeless Camp Was Bulldozed. Now What? 12/07/2020 "We ended up building 26 tiny homes for folks at that encampment and really it is an ideal location because it's 'out of sight, out of mind,'" he said.

Charity Builds Dozens of Tiny Homes for the Homeless and The Gov’t Destroyed All Of It 12/09/2020

'War on the poor': Las Vegas's homelessness crackdown takes effect 02/13/2020 Las Vegas recently began cracking down on people living outdoors. In November, the city council approved a law that made sitting, resting or “lodging” on sidewalks a misdemeanor punishable with up to six months in jail or fines of up to $1,000 in most neighborhoods.

Income equality in Finland among the best in Europe 05/07/2019

El Cajon ends ban on feeding homeless 01/23/2023

Twelve charged for defying California city's ban on feeding homeless 01/15/2018

South Carolina City, Columbia, Takes Steps to Evict Homeless From Downtown 08/25/2013

5 shocking ways America abuses its homeless 09/13/2013

Will Fines and Jail Time Fix the Homelessness Crisis? 10/07/2019

In More Than 70 Cities, It's Illegal to Feed the Homeless Because... 2016 As of January 2015, there were 564,708 people in the U.S. who were homeless.

90-year-old Florida man charged for feeding homeless people 11/05/2014

A Dozen People Arrested for Feeding the Homeless 01/17/2018

Why It's Illegal to Feed the Homeless in Cities Across America 01/16/2018

The U.S. Undercounts People In Poverty—By 106 Million, Advocates Say 12/15/2020

Criminalizing Poverty in LA Is No Longer Politically Viable​ 12/01/2020

Eliminate the Criminalization of Poverty

Criminalization of Poverty as a Driver of Poverty in the United States 10/04/2017 Over the last 40 years, as the United States criminal justice system ballooned, so too did the costs of funding that system. It also became increasingly difficult for state houses across the country to balance budgets. States were reluctant to raise taxes, leading many to charge individuals in the criminal justice system various fees to fund the criminal justice system and surcharges to fund the state’s costs more broadly. Many also increased fines, or penalties.[9] Taken together, “fees and fines” can accumulate quickly, resulting in huge debt burdens for individuals. [10] Research shows that they are imposed with increasing frequency.[11] Georgia collected 20 percent more fees and surcharges in 2014 than in 2005[12] and in Illinois, attorney fee revenue grew over 150 percent in certain counties between 2001 and 2009.[13]

Denmark, Finland, and Sweden are proof that poverty in the US doesn't have to be this high 11/11/2015 The problem is that this claim is false. Poverty is not just lower in Scandinavia than in the US, it's dramatically lower.

Voting Is Key to Ending Extreme Poverty 08/17/2020 Denmark, rated as one of the best democracies in the world, has nearly eliminated poverty through welfare programs shaped by political decisions. In North Korea, considered the most authoritarian country in the world, most people live on around $2 to $3 per month. In the US, considered a “flawed democracy” by the EIU Democracy Index, people living in poverty are often denied the right to vote, and nearly half the country is poor or low-income. (Organizations like HeadCount, which Global Citizen has partnered with to engage 1 million young voters, are working to increase voter turnout by registering traditionally marginalized and underrepresented citizens across the country.)

Poor People’s Campaign launches drive to build power among poor, low-income voters 08/19/2020

“Voter suppression is a violation of our human rights!”: Poor People’s Campaign at NYC Hall & the UN Human Rights Council By Nicholas Laccetti Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives … The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. In the light of the recent push to institute racist voter suppression laws across the United States — which follows upon decades of attempts at suppressing the vote of black and brown Americans — the U.S. is in clear violation of this mandate.

Voting Rights For Blacks And Poor Whites In The Jim Crow South

Bloomberg: Voting Rights Aren’t Just a Black Issue: They Affect Poor People of All Races 11/13/2018 The Poor People's Campaign is building a multi-ethnic national force to “save the democracy,” and end the cross-racial poverty it sees as born of racialized voter suppression.

North Carolina boy spends birthday handing out pizza to homeless in Charlotte 'tent city' 12/07/2020

‘We the people.’ George Floyd marchers turn to service, feed homeless people in uptown 06/11/2020

More Cities Are Making It Illegal To Hand Out Food To The Homeless 10/22/2014

‘Basically Cyberbullying’: How Cops Abuse Social Media to Publicly Humiliate 12/21/2020

Overdose deaths far outpace COVID-19 deaths in San Francisco 12/19/2020

Drug Rehab Instead of Prison Could Save Billions Initial drug treatment is less expensive than incarceration. Costs related to incarceration are cut because people who are in recovery are less likely to commit expensive crimes or be arrested again. Because long-term health of each individual will be improved, the cost of healthcare for uninsured patients will be drastically reduced. Costs of law enforcement and court costs will be cut when crime rates drop and fewer arrests occur.

Drug addiction treatment reduces drug use and its associated health and social costs. Substance abuse costs our Nation over $600 billion annually and treatment can help reduce these costs. Drug addiction treatment has been shown to reduce associated health and social costs by far more than the cost of the treatment itself. Treatment is also much less expensive than its alternatives, such as incarcerating addicted persons. For example, the average cost for 1 full year of methadone maintenance treatment is approximately $4,700 per patient, whereas 1 full year of imprisonment costs approximately $24,000 per person.

Obama White House Archives: Cost Benefits of Investing Early In Substance Abuse Treatment 05/23/2012 SBIRT Saves Lives and Cuts Healthcare Costs: Washington State Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (WASBIRT) found significant healthcare cost reductions among 1,315 disabled Medicaid clients who received an intervention through the program. Administrators concluded that the potential reduction in Medicaid costs could be as high as $2.8 million per year for working-age disabled clients who receive a brief intervention.8

Homelessness and Substance Abuse

Consultant On Homelessness: Cities Enable The Poor 11/09/2014

JUDGE BACKS DAYTONA BEACH'S BAN ON HOMELESS SHELTER, FOOD PROGRAM 05/16/1995

Homeless feeding legal again in Daytona parks 03/23/2016

San Antonio Gave a Woman a $2,000 Ticket for Feeding the Homeless 04/15/2015

Feeding the homeless is not illegal in San Antonio 08/03/2015

Robert Marbut, the greatest policy threat to homeless people since Rudy Giuliani 10/14/2020

Robert Marbut: Sarasota’s homeless numbers ‘as high as they’ve ever been’ 11/28/2020

Homeless say booming cities have outlawed their right to sleep, beg and even sit 06/02/2016 (including Sarasota) Between 2011 and 2014, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty found that bans on sleeping in cars shot up 119 percent, citywide camping prohibitions jumped 60 percent, anti-loitering laws increased 35 percent and anti-begging laws increased 25 percent in a survey of 187 cities.

Sarasota Cop Andrew Halpin Seen on Tape Throwing Peanuts at Homeless Man 07/28/2015

Motel Dwellers Say They Were Forced Into Homelessness—So The Motel Could House Homeless People 12/16/2020 L.A. County was all set to purchase its 10th vacant hotel and convert the property into housing for the homeless as part of California's new Project Homekey program, but there was one minor problem: the Studio 6 motel in Commerce wasn't vacant.

Springfield Ill. officials divided on homelessness consultant's plan 12/02/2020

Lowell Mass. eying a new approach to ending homelessness 03/20/2019 Lowell has hired Barbara Poppe as the consultant — the former executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Will Mayor Durkan’s legacy be defined by homelessness? 12/13/2020 “There are these progress points, it just needs to be at a greater scale and with greater urgency in a way that doesn’t take so long to execute,” said Barbara Poppe, the former director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness who published a highly cited, city-commissioned report in 2016 to help the city evaluate how it could fix its homeless crisis.

Julián Castro’s Troubling Record in San Antonio 07/02/2019 Castro flatly refused to raise property taxes even as he called for an increase in funding for assistance to the poor in the face of growing homelessness, particularly among children. When Castro later helped pass a $52 million homeless plan, perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that it didn’t actually commit any funds. (Incidentally, when the council later passed four laws aimed at criminalizing homelessness, Castro missed the vote.) ….. While the city had one of the lower rates for unmet need for shelter (10 percent), the report nevertheless noted that there was “a need for more affordable permanent housing” in the city, particularly for veterans, and that the number of homeless families and individuals had jumped by 11 percent over the previous year. (Meanwhile, in 2011, Castro had voted with the rest of the city council to toughen San Antonio’s already strict anti-panhandling ordinance).

How Julián Castro’s ‘Decade of Downtown’ Reshaped San Antonio 07/10/2019

San Antonio Says It’s Effectively Ended Veteran Homelessness 05/13/2016

Since 2007, the City of St Petersburg has passed a number of ordinances that specifically target homeless people .......

An emerging battleground: Housing in the 2020 presidential election 09/24/2020 Article exposes numerous false claims by the Trump administration.

Activists Protest as Trump's Homelessness Czar Visits Denver 02/21/2020

Editorial: Trump’s new homeless guru doesn’t think housing is the key to ending homelessness 12/06/2019

Texas Homeless Network Response to Marbut 12/19/2019

The National Alliance to End Homelessness: Housing First 04/20/2016 There is a large and growing evidence base demonstrating that Housing First is an effective solution to homelessness. Consumers in a Housing First model access housing faster and are more likely to remain stably housed. This is true for both PSH and rapid re-housing programs. PSH has a long-term housing retention rate of up to 98 percent.vi Studies have shown that rapid re-housing helps people exit homelessness quickly—in one study, an average of two months—and remain housed. A variety of studies have shown that between 75 percent and 91 percent of households remain housed a year after being rapidly re-housed.

'Housing First' approach won't solve homelessness crisis 11/30/2019 Article doesn't address many of the studies supporting Housing First, including Finland and provides little additional research, a;though Austin's "Community First" may be worth consideration.

Austin's Fix for Homelessness: Tiny Houses, and Lots of Neighbors 11/12/2018 This is worth consideration; but reducing the cost of housing should be done and segregating the poor could be a problem.

Housing First and Homelessness: The Rhetoric and the Reality 04/21/2020 This article acknowledges cost savings of Housing First; however it doesn't address most of the research about it, including Finland, which is the most comprehensive program, and although Housing First shouldn't be a sole solution, it may be one of the most important parts of a comprehensive solution.

Proven Solutions: We can end the homelessness crisis.

What are the limitations of Housing First? 02/26/2016

Why Are People Homeless? July 2009 The lack of affordable housing has lead to high rent burdens (rents which absorb a high proportion of income), overcrowding, and substandard housing. These phenomena, in turn, have not only forced many people to become homeless; they have put a large and growing number of people at risk of becoming homeless.

As the gap between increasing housing costs and stagnant incomes widens, the end result is that more people become homeless.

The Links Between Income Inequality, Housing Markets, and Homelessness in California September 2001

Homelessness: A Prominent Sign of Social Inequalities 02/11/2019

Today, most households become homeless because they simply do not make enough money to pay for housing.

Homeless report: Region is wasting time, money 09/08/2016

"Ask the Expert" Welcomes Barbara Poppe 2010

INTERVIEW WITH BARBARA POPPE 02/07/2013

San Diego Hopes a Building Can Help Fix a Broken Homelessness System 03/21/2018

A Biden Administration Could Mark a Return to Evidence-Based Homelessness Policies 12/01/2020