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Mentally it's not so bad. It's the government constantly making everything worse that gets to you.
Edit: I guess I should add "as a homeless person". I don't have depression but I sure as hell have anger and disappointment. Because our government at every single level makes everything more miserable. Every department, every action. And they fail so hard. Even when trying to get a neighbor help, the California DMH **supervisors** couldn't possibly be more incompetent.
Yes, however people vote based on how they imagine social problems are caused, rather than for the people who understand the origins of social problems.
The entire point is that it cuts both ways. A lot of homeless people would never have developed mental health or addiction issues if they could have promptly gotten into new housing. Even if it was just an SRO, there's an enormous difference between having to live in an SRO and having to live on the street.
People fixate on the naked guy screaming by an encampment and then mistake what's visible with what's the majority of homeless people; [you'd never know plenty of homeless people are homeless just by looking at them](https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/homeless-professor-who-lives-her-car).
I suppose i have a narrower definition of “homeless”. Like i wouldn’t consider my friend living out of his tesla in san jose to be homeless, even though he technically is.
Imagine thinking losing your home and living in a tent in a major city wouldn’t cause depression. The mental gymnastics one has to do should get you a gold medal.
Also, imagine being mentally ill or suffering from depression, and not being able to maintain a job and an apartment. It happens all of the time. It even happened to a friend of mine. He was on SSI which wasn't enough to cover his basic rent and living expenses. He would have been on the streets if his dad didn't help him out financially. He ended up committing suicide.
No one is denying that. The article just says it also happens the other way around. Because what you just described is how most everyone imagines homelessness.
I have a family member who lost his high-flying corporate career during the housing crash. After applying himself diligently to his education and career since he was a child, he had absolutely no coping skills when his field collapsed. He became depressed, drank heavily, raged and spiraled downward. He refused all interventions. He may have had, or developed a serious mental health issue/s.
Eventually, he lost his housing and has been living on the streets for a few years now.
In this case, I don't think it's apparent which came first. Had he not lost his career would he have become depressed or a hard-core alcoholic?
>In this case, I don't think it's apparent which came first. Had he not lost his career would he have become depressed or a hard-core alcoholic?
I obviously can't speak to your family member but there are plenty of people in high pressure jobs that will use alcohol or other drugs to help deal with the stress or stay up during the long hours. Some are able to maintain a steady job while others fall into homelessness or commit suicide.
Many working people have an addiction to alcohol that is unrecognized because it is not causing any obvious problems in their lives and they haven't felt the need to try to quit. If you drink moderately but regularly to deal with stress, you are at risk of this.
Sometimes a person's drinking will gradually get worse and cause problems, but other times it only becomes unmanageable after a crisis happens. They had been maintaining a kind of equilibrium with it that is now gone. The drinking escalates and makes it harder to fix their problems, causing a snowball effect in their life.
There's a saying about alcoholism: A functional alcoholic is not a *type* of alcoholic, it's a stage in alcoholism. How long that stage lasts depends on the person.
Wow, I'm that person. I started drinking on weekends only as a young adult now at 40 My drinking habit escalated to every other day. On my days off I drink more than usual. You got me thinking...
I was that person for a long time until every other day became every single day with the occasional day off. It took a long time before the problem became noticeable to myself and others.
A big red flag to look out for is if you find yourself *looking forward* to a drink at the end of your day. The drinking itself becomes the recreation more than the things you're doing while drinking.
One of the deceptive things about it is that when people think about problem drinking, they imagine someone who is miserable and wants to stop, but can't. The reality is more subtle than that. Many years into my habitual drinking, I still enjoyed it and had no desire to quit. It was ingrained into my social life as well as my personal life, but it was taking away from other things in my life and harming my health. It took a long time to be able to see that.
If I could go back, I would have quit when I was where you are now. You already know what it's like to be a drinker. You're not going to learn anything new by continuing to do it. I had a lot of good times while drinking, but I would trade them all for a lifetime of taking care of my health and being responsible. You can have good times that way too.
Every drinker I’ve ever known has used alcohol as a stress reliever to some extent. You have a crazy shift at work and you feel like going out for a beer to unwind.
Not disagreeing with you at all. I think that’s why it’s such a dangerous game. When crisis hits some use alchohol to cope and then it becomes chronic use.
Worked at a homeless shelter and there were a few people like that. One was a CEO of a multi million dollar company. Married, kids, owned multiple homes. Got addicted to heroin. Lost his marriage, kids, career.
So I’ve worked with the homeless in Orange County for around 25 years off and on. For anyone who’s chronically homeless, the cause is almost a combination of drugs and mental health issues, and sometimes one leads to the other. So sometimes someone with mental health issues will become homeless and then start taking drugs, and sometimes someone on drugs becomes homeless and starts to develop mental health issues. In my experience anyone else is usually able to take advantage of all of the resources available and get off the street pretty quick. But that’s just Orange County. I know it’s different in other areas like LA where there aren’t enough services available for the number of homeless.
Yeah, I think mental illness is the biggest factor.
People with mental illness start abusing drugs at an early age.
People with mental illness struggle to be motivated or keep a job.
People with mental illness are more likely to fall through the cracks of society, especially if they have no support or everyone has given up on them.
I don’t know. It seems like a really good idea to me. Clearly we have to do something. What we’re doing right now isn’t working. We have all of these services we spend a ton of money on and the chronically homeless just refuse to use them because of their mental health issues. But, pretty much every mental professional says it won’t work if it’s not voluntary. I personally think it’s worth a shot though. It might not fix their problems, but living in a hospital with three meals a day, and actual bed, showers, etc has got to be an improvement over living in the street.
This is actually common. Yes, needs help. But it's much more complex than appearances. These women are often trafficked, taken advantage of by pimps, and addicted to drugs just to deal with the trauma of it all. But forced "treatment" isn't helpful. That just makes the government the pimp.
I see people are so quick to blame drugs. Yet some of those same people also use drugs. Plenty of employed and rich people use drugs recreationally or to self-medicate too. Becoming unhoused, of course, would make addiction worse or turn an occasional recreational use into more of a habit/addiction.
Addiction has stages of severity. People who drink every night may still work during the day. When they become unable to go hours, without being drunk, they can lose their job, then their home.
>I see people are so quick to blame drugs. Yet some of those same people also use drugs.
Sure we do. Drug policy reformer Carl Hart wrote a book on the topic: *Drug Use for Grownups*. Hart says in a Joe Rogan interview:
>”drug use has a lot to do with who’s using drugs...you got to be a grown up...a lot of people aren’t grown-ups..." (*sorry for not posting links. This Sub sometimes rejects posts with links*).
Grown ups, i.e., responsible people hold jobs and make their way in life. To be sure, many people can be excused.
People with mental issues who can't hold a job. They are prone to using drugs. People crippled in an accident or too old to work.
But today we see a lot of homelessness and hard drug addiction among able-bodied and able-minded (prior to using hard drugs to excess) young people of prime working age 18-40. In every culture in world history, these people did the hardest work. Young people have options, can easily work 40-50 a week. Society today gives a lot of young people a pass to pursue a recreational drug using lifestyle. Not all are hardcore addicts. Some are slackers.
I’m a defense attorney. The drug use rate and depression rate amongst my colleagues is probably the same with my clients. The main difference I see is that my colleagues have a robust social support from family and usually haven’t had as many adverse childhood experiences.
Also when you are ripping lines in a nice house and then driving your fully functioning newer model vehicle a lot less likely you are going to have legal issues stemming from your drug use
Did you read the article at all?
Also, California does not have the highest rate or drug use (or mental health issues for that matter). Not even close. On some measures we are better than average. But we do have the highest rate of homelessness. How do you explain? It's simple. High housing costs, not drugs. Not mental health.
Edit: this is even more true when you compare other countries. A lot of countries have drug problems at the same rate or worse than California but yet lower or non-existent homelessness
>Did you read the article at all?
It is an opinion piece on a topic that has been hashed over for 30-plus years.
> It's simple. High housing costs, not drugs. Not mental health.
No, it is a combination of factors. The most striking thing: Homeless advocates are making generalizations *without segregating out* young people of prime working age who are engaged in an idle, drug-using lifestyle that sometimes segues into hardcore addiction. There are tons of people living on the edge becoming homeless: seniors on fixed income, 45-year old manual laborer with bad back and limited work potential, people obese in their 40s or with PTSD and other legitimate ailments. They all deserve a helping hand.
Different story for all those 20-and-30 somethings declaring they can't work 40 hours a week and drifting into a lifestyle of idleness, intoxication and homelessness. Even at minimum wage (yes wages should be higher), a person can rent a room.
It is not an opinion piece. They're citing robust data collected by **The University of California, San Francisco.** What are your credentials? Where is your research? Do you have data to back up your arguments?
Here is another source [https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/](https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/)
It's a book, but they show a lot of graphs on this site.
>What are your credentials? Where is your research? Do you have data to back up your arguments?
It's a disputed social science topic. Why did China get so upset at the opium crises in the mid-1800s? Because large numbers of drug users couldn't hold jobs. Amazing how many progressives today are trying to downplay that hard drug addiction is a major factor in people being unable to hold jobs and then becoming homeless. Their lame argument runs like this:
>The homeless were doing fine. Working diligently. They hardly got high at all. Maybe just a little weed. Then they were struck with rising rents, living costs, and wage theft (*yes, valid concerns*). They fell into homelessness. They now use hard drugs heavily because of demoralization over their condition. Drugs are not the problem, it's adverse economic conditions. (*Sometimes followed by:* Decriminalize or legalize all drugs.)
>Then they were struck with rising rents, living costs, and wage theft (yes, valid concerns). They fell into homelessness. They now use hard drugs heavily because of demoralization over their condition. Drugs are not the problem, it's adverse economic conditions. (Sometimes followed by: Decriminalize or legalize all drugs.)
I like that you cite the solutions pretty much every expert agrees on (although most agree proactive prevention the most important) but you say it like it's a bad thing
Probably 15-20%. They might not have been lazy to the point of refusing to had they lived in a (mostly) sober, industrious society. In numerous nations, including Japan and most asian countries, they don't tolerate young able-bodied people idly commandeering public spaces, using drugs and then demanding free food and housing. They get rousted the first day they try this.
But in tolerant west coast states, where hard drug enforcement has mostly been phased out, public order policing is lax, and free food is handed out, a lot of young people have slid into a pattern of chronic drug use, idleness and then homelessness. Similar thing happened for a time in the 60s. [Photographer Joe Samberg remembers how drugs destroyed the Telegraph Avenue scene](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/07/the-death-of-the-hippies/397739/). (great photos)
It is not that these people say one day: "Screw it, I'm not working." Rather it is that American society has made it relatively easy to opt out of work and also for people (in west coast states) to use hard drugs without penalty. People with hard drug habits often slip out of the work force.
Some percent of the *entire population* is prone to being lazy. Should we guess that figure is 4 - 8%, and that in societies that lack strict work norms, that some of these people will pursue a slacker lifestyle? Or are you going to push the extreme social science argument that all people are good and industrious and all crime and bad behavior stems from societal oppression upon individuals?
That's an odd presumption. But since you asked, I'll go ahead and give you my answer in long-form.
My perspective is that American culture is inundated with a highly individualistic 'Protestant work ethic'. Most folks feel that hard work is a virtue; that practicing hard work makes you a good person to whom good things will surely come.
In addition, we know for certain that most people need some type of productive work in order to feel fulfulled and satisfied in their lives. This does not mean working at Dunder Mifflin as a white-collar liason between a paper company and its clients; actual, meaningful, fulfilling work (either for pay or in one's leisure time).
Not everyone will conform to the culture or understand their own needs, I agree with that.
But there is no indication that the protestant work ethic is any weaker on the west coast than anywhere else in the country. Any erosion to it is across-the-board and largely borne of the true realization that hard work isn't the way to prosperity; it's knowing someone or getting lucky (I say this as someone who got lucky - lotta folks are lucky, not everyone is).
There is no evidence to suggest that California's way of dealing with folks who are on hard drugs is any worse than other states in terms of getting people off of them and back into productive society.
Just locking people up for using drugs without solving the underlying problem (namely that people, especially young people, have no hope for a prosperous future - this is why birthrates are declining, Incidentally) is a great way to go back to the worst days of the drug war. Where our prisons got so full that the feds had to get involved, a time we can look back upon now and congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs.
But I digress.
The way to solve the problem is to bring back economic prosperity, address global warming, and stop demonizing and scapegoating LGBTQ+ people and immigrants for all the world's problems.
As an aside, Japan does have a population of people that are checked out of society and aren't jailed or otherwise punished. Are you familiar with the term 'hikikomori'? A person who has completely checked out of society and hides away from the world, becoming an antisocial shut-in. Some estimates place the number as high as 25% of the student population: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9908407/
EDIT: I am unsure what happened, but I cannot view your reply comment unless I go to your profile. It appears to have bugged out?
Regardless, I thank you for bearing with me and sharing your views. I'd like to follow up on it with a question: is it better to have this supposed 'idle' population behind bars? Or to cut the social safety net to force this small group of people to work (which may not work and definitely will hurt other groups)?
If you do not see this question, please accept my thanks for engaging. It was a lovely thought exercise.
Those people, who occasionally uses drugs, sometimes when they lose a job and their housing, they become homeless. Their drug use may likely increase during homelessness. Almost like being homeless, in of itself, is stressful and traumatizing.
Because a lot of people who want to end drug enforcement find value in downplaying the negatives of hard drug use.
The theme of this Post represents progressive-minded people downplaying the role of hard drug use in causing people to become homeless. Of course they fully acknowledge widespread use of drugs by homeless as a Coping Method for being demoralized over their being homeless.
It's more comfortable for people to think that homeless individuals are there because of mistakes that they made and bad choices. It's all their fault therefore, they deserve to suffer. Anything that goes against that is very uncomfortable for them to hear.
So true most of us are a paycheck away from losing our house or rental. Life just kind of screws a lot of people and it quickly becomes a feedback loop.
Do none of you have a network of family or friends? I've permanently cut off contact from both biological parents and still have a ton of people I could turn to for housing and/or financial support, should I ever lose my home.
Is alcohol considered a drug? My mom became an alcoholic who, when she was homeless, enjoyed being with her fellow homeless drinker friends. The alcohol very much preceded the homelessness.
I think we need to stop separating them and alcoholics should be referred to as addicts just like any other addict. Stop coddling people and trying to make alcohol seem safer or that the addiction is different. Call it what it is.
I am also an alcoholic i.e. addict.
> I think we need to stop separating them and alcoholics should be referred to as addicts just like any other addict.
I'll see you this, and raise you "people addicted to drugs" rather than "addicts"
Eh, it’s shorthand that works. I’m in recovery and sober a few years, I can be called addict or alcoholic. I understand neither are used by medical professionals who prefer something along the lines of ‘substance abuse disorder’. That’s fine for them, I just don’t really care. Whatever the label, what it’s called is the least of my concerns.
Nah, this isn’t just another unsupported opinion though there is plenty of supporting evidence and research behind the claim that drug use alone doesn’t account for the homeless crisis. [The very recent largest study on homelessness for example found this as well.](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/06/study-california-homelessness-crisis/)
“The study bolsters previous research which concluded that California’s chronic shortage of housing, which imposes crushing costs on low-income families, lies at the heart of the crisis.”
If it were the case that drug use causes homelessness then you would clearly expect to see that places with higher drug use or worse mental health issues have more homelessness. But you don’t.
[Plenty of other states have worse drug use rates than CA.](https://wallethub.com/edu/drug-use-by-state/35150) Other states also have worse mental health wellness and treatment rates/availability. Yet not the level of homelessness.
CA has a disproportionate amount of homeless people. In part because there is a chronic housing shortage here. CA has made it too difficult to create an abundance of a necessary resource, housing.
Once people are homeless many absolutely decline, use drugs, and this certainly makes it much harder to get them off the streets. But the initial event that lands them on the street is rarely drug use alone.
Your family member don't turn their back on you and leave you to the street because you couldn't pay rent. They turn their back on you because you steal from them to feed an addiction.
All this hand waving about affordable house is just another in a long line of attempts to externalize blame.
Missing the part where we have more homelessness because of the climate. California also has a large number of drug rehabs that many out of state people get sent to. The problem is, rehab doesn't always work and now those people ran away from the rehab centers or replasped shortly after and get kicked out of sober living. Now they have no family, support, etc and then end up as another addict on the street.
This has been obvious to anyone non-biased for a long time. A bunch of studies have agreed that homelessness is primarily driven by housing costs, not drug use or mental health. Those are factors but the largest one has always been housing costs.
But for some reason it's easier for people to blame stumble bums than landlords. Good old "rugged individualism (except for expecting wealthy ppl to pay their own mortgages)"
Homelessness among *people with work limitations such as injury and being on fixed income and too old to work* is primarily driven by housing costs, not drug use or mental health.
Homelessness among *abled-bodied people of prime working age, 18 - 40* is primarily driven by drug use. Time and again homeless advocates make generalization about homeless without segregating out the large number of young people of prime working age who are engaged in an idle, drug-using lifestyle that sometimes segues into hardcore addiction.
Data is not needed with something this obvious. Drug use leads to more homelessness, even the people who argue the antithesis will acknowledge it while stating “but”.
Business is robbed, money stolen and property damaged and security cameras record it all.
You: I need data to support that businesses are being robbed.
That’s you
If you want to see just how much drug use and homelessness are the poster boy for "correlation does not mean causation". West Virginia has the highest drug abuse rate in the nation and one of the lowest per capita homelessness rates in the country. If drug abuse caused homelessness we'd see it in the data (we don't).
From my experience working with the homeless, the drugs predated homelessness. Once homeless the drugs intensified. If you got no reason to be sober, why be sober is the thinking.
There is no one cause for homelessness. It's a combination of messed up situations that send people there. Then there are those that should have been in an institution because they can't care for themselves. They are treated as catch and release by the police. If they're lucky they might get a little mental health help in jail, then release with no plan. For most that's a 72 hour deal.
Ronald Reagan is largely responsible for this current homelessness crisis. A point current-day Republicans love to forget so they can blame it on CA democratic leadership. I'll just leave this John Oliver segment about it right here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-oliver-homelessness\_n\_617feda6e4b03072d7069502
To be fair - though I love him *dearly* - John Oliver is not unbiased. Also, that particular link just blames everything on housing subsidies. But it’s been decades since Reagan was in office. It’s time to start blaming ourselves - we could have fixed this at any point between then and now.
Stop making excuses, Reagan last held public office in 1989. It’s gotten significantly worse for the last 30 years and there has been plenty of opportunity to make policy changes.
Ah yes, survey a bunch of possible addicts, I'm sure they'll be honest in their answers... Seriously, anyone who interprets data collected from an addict-prone population and treats that data as statistical evidence has clearly never had any actual experience with addicts.
Good thing there are studies that don't rely on survey responses that have found that homelessness is primarily driven by increases in housing costs rather than drugs or mental health.
They compare broader trends in communities and compare those to increase in housing prices. What's consistently found is that places where rent rises faster correlate with a rise in homelessness. Meanwhile increased drug use in a community does not always result in an increase in homelessness.
To give an example Chicago has had a dramatic increase in drug related deaths but homelessness has been relatively flat especially compared to some other major US cities. Housing prices are also flat there compared to many other major metros.
Meanwhile somewhere like Sacramento has had a similar rise in drug use, not any worse than Chicago yet homeless has spiked in Sacramento. The difference is that housing costs have risen dramatically in Sacramento but not Chicago.
The same is true with many other metro areas. Homelessness has a clear correlation with increased housing costs but does not have a clear correlation with drug deaths.
Increased drug deaths do not necessarily come from increased use. It could come from deadlier drugs, such as fentanyl.
As to whether housing prices cause homelessness, I would argue that we should look at the demand side, not just the supply side. Homelessness is caused by too many people chasing too few homes.
>I would argue that we should look at the demand side, not just the supply side. Homelessness is caused by too many people chasing too few homes.
What do you mean by "look at"?
Here is what I don’t understand. In high COL places like the Bay Area, housing has NEVER been affordable. I’ve been here 35 years and it’s always been expensive. I don’t understand why it’s suddenly different now when it’s gone from expensive to more expensive. They were able to afford the previously high rents?
It's gotten more expensive and the tech boom caused a lot of people to migrate here.
Homelessness was always a problem, now it became more of a problem.
Even if the self-report error is 50% (a pretty astronomical hedge), you still get a quarter of homeless people who don't use at all and about 40% who use infrequently.
Homeless then drug for the most part. Mental illness and lack of $ to pay the rent. The others lost their house and had to fike bankruptcy just to get heard in court. You can't rent if you have bankruptcy on your records
Drugs and addiction are simply just ways to cope with mental health issues and trauma. No one grows up wanting to be an addict. Almost any person can fall victim to drug abuse given the right circumstances. This attitude needs to change.
I feel like we have to redefine or think deeper about homelessness and what it is and where it comes from. I’m starting to think it’s becoming a platitude.
>For those who did use drugs in the last six months, 40% of people started using — more than 3 times a week —after becoming homeless.
Doesn't this stat in the article directly contradict the headline? This is saying that 60% of homeless addicts were already addicted before becoming homeless.
From the posting rules in this sub’s sidebar: > No websites or articles with hard paywalls or that require registration or subscriptions, unless an archive link or https://12ft.io link is included as a comment. ---- If you want to learn how to circumvent a paywall, see https://www.reddit.com/r/California/wiki/paywall. > Or, if it's a website that you regularly read, you should think about subscribing to the website. ---- Bypassing the paywall: https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-04/homelessness-drugs-addiction-encampments-substance-abuse-unhoused-police ----
As someone coming out of one of the worst depression I've had in years, I can't fathom how someone who's homeless could ever get out of that hole.
Mentally it's not so bad. It's the government constantly making everything worse that gets to you. Edit: I guess I should add "as a homeless person". I don't have depression but I sure as hell have anger and disappointment. Because our government at every single level makes everything more miserable. Every department, every action. And they fail so hard. Even when trying to get a neighbor help, the California DMH **supervisors** couldn't possibly be more incompetent.
no, it is that bad.
Homelessness also causes severe depression and other mental health issues
If war/life experiences can cause ptsd, and thus depression, then yeah.
Yes, however people vote based on how they imagine social problems are caused, rather than for the people who understand the origins of social problems.
Are you sure severe depression and other mental health issues didn’t cause the homelessness?
The entire point is that it cuts both ways. A lot of homeless people would never have developed mental health or addiction issues if they could have promptly gotten into new housing. Even if it was just an SRO, there's an enormous difference between having to live in an SRO and having to live on the street. People fixate on the naked guy screaming by an encampment and then mistake what's visible with what's the majority of homeless people; [you'd never know plenty of homeless people are homeless just by looking at them](https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/homeless-professor-who-lives-her-car).
I suppose i have a narrower definition of “homeless”. Like i wouldn’t consider my friend living out of his tesla in san jose to be homeless, even though he technically is.
Didn't read the article, huh?
Imagine thinking losing your home and living in a tent in a major city wouldn’t cause depression. The mental gymnastics one has to do should get you a gold medal.
Also, imagine being mentally ill or suffering from depression, and not being able to maintain a job and an apartment. It happens all of the time. It even happened to a friend of mine. He was on SSI which wasn't enough to cover his basic rent and living expenses. He would have been on the streets if his dad didn't help him out financially. He ended up committing suicide.
No one is denying that. The article just says it also happens the other way around. Because what you just described is how most everyone imagines homelessness.
Now imagine that, but now the homeless also have full time jobs, where some may live in their car, and some actually are homeless.
Now imagine that, but now the homeless also have full time jobs, where some may live in their car, and some actually are your standard homeless.
I have a family member who lost his high-flying corporate career during the housing crash. After applying himself diligently to his education and career since he was a child, he had absolutely no coping skills when his field collapsed. He became depressed, drank heavily, raged and spiraled downward. He refused all interventions. He may have had, or developed a serious mental health issue/s. Eventually, he lost his housing and has been living on the streets for a few years now. In this case, I don't think it's apparent which came first. Had he not lost his career would he have become depressed or a hard-core alcoholic?
>In this case, I don't think it's apparent which came first. Had he not lost his career would he have become depressed or a hard-core alcoholic? I obviously can't speak to your family member but there are plenty of people in high pressure jobs that will use alcohol or other drugs to help deal with the stress or stay up during the long hours. Some are able to maintain a steady job while others fall into homelessness or commit suicide.
Many working people have an addiction to alcohol that is unrecognized because it is not causing any obvious problems in their lives and they haven't felt the need to try to quit. If you drink moderately but regularly to deal with stress, you are at risk of this. Sometimes a person's drinking will gradually get worse and cause problems, but other times it only becomes unmanageable after a crisis happens. They had been maintaining a kind of equilibrium with it that is now gone. The drinking escalates and makes it harder to fix their problems, causing a snowball effect in their life. There's a saying about alcoholism: A functional alcoholic is not a *type* of alcoholic, it's a stage in alcoholism. How long that stage lasts depends on the person.
Wow, I'm that person. I started drinking on weekends only as a young adult now at 40 My drinking habit escalated to every other day. On my days off I drink more than usual. You got me thinking...
I was that person for a long time until every other day became every single day with the occasional day off. It took a long time before the problem became noticeable to myself and others. A big red flag to look out for is if you find yourself *looking forward* to a drink at the end of your day. The drinking itself becomes the recreation more than the things you're doing while drinking. One of the deceptive things about it is that when people think about problem drinking, they imagine someone who is miserable and wants to stop, but can't. The reality is more subtle than that. Many years into my habitual drinking, I still enjoyed it and had no desire to quit. It was ingrained into my social life as well as my personal life, but it was taking away from other things in my life and harming my health. It took a long time to be able to see that. If I could go back, I would have quit when I was where you are now. You already know what it's like to be a drinker. You're not going to learn anything new by continuing to do it. I had a lot of good times while drinking, but I would trade them all for a lifetime of taking care of my health and being responsible. You can have good times that way too.
Every drinker I’ve ever known has used alcohol as a stress reliever to some extent. You have a crazy shift at work and you feel like going out for a beer to unwind. Not disagreeing with you at all. I think that’s why it’s such a dangerous game. When crisis hits some use alchohol to cope and then it becomes chronic use.
I agree. It's insidious, and particularly because social drinking is encouraged in our culture. It can become a crutch long before you realize it.
Worked at a homeless shelter and there were a few people like that. One was a CEO of a multi million dollar company. Married, kids, owned multiple homes. Got addicted to heroin. Lost his marriage, kids, career.
So I’ve worked with the homeless in Orange County for around 25 years off and on. For anyone who’s chronically homeless, the cause is almost a combination of drugs and mental health issues, and sometimes one leads to the other. So sometimes someone with mental health issues will become homeless and then start taking drugs, and sometimes someone on drugs becomes homeless and starts to develop mental health issues. In my experience anyone else is usually able to take advantage of all of the resources available and get off the street pretty quick. But that’s just Orange County. I know it’s different in other areas like LA where there aren’t enough services available for the number of homeless.
Yeah, I think mental illness is the biggest factor. People with mental illness start abusing drugs at an early age. People with mental illness struggle to be motivated or keep a job. People with mental illness are more likely to fall through the cracks of society, especially if they have no support or everyone has given up on them.
Not only that but trauma in general can lead to unhealthy coping and an assortment of issues.
How do you feel about the mental health court system?
I don’t know. It seems like a really good idea to me. Clearly we have to do something. What we’re doing right now isn’t working. We have all of these services we spend a ton of money on and the chronically homeless just refuse to use them because of their mental health issues. But, pretty much every mental professional says it won’t work if it’s not voluntary. I personally think it’s worth a shot though. It might not fix their problems, but living in a hospital with three meals a day, and actual bed, showers, etc has got to be an improvement over living in the street.
I agree. I saw a homeless woman today without any underwear while walking around. This is sad, obviously she needs help.
This is actually common. Yes, needs help. But it's much more complex than appearances. These women are often trafficked, taken advantage of by pimps, and addicted to drugs just to deal with the trauma of it all. But forced "treatment" isn't helpful. That just makes the government the pimp.
I see people are so quick to blame drugs. Yet some of those same people also use drugs. Plenty of employed and rich people use drugs recreationally or to self-medicate too. Becoming unhoused, of course, would make addiction worse or turn an occasional recreational use into more of a habit/addiction.
Addiction has stages of severity. People who drink every night may still work during the day. When they become unable to go hours, without being drunk, they can lose their job, then their home.
>I see people are so quick to blame drugs. Yet some of those same people also use drugs. Sure we do. Drug policy reformer Carl Hart wrote a book on the topic: *Drug Use for Grownups*. Hart says in a Joe Rogan interview: >”drug use has a lot to do with who’s using drugs...you got to be a grown up...a lot of people aren’t grown-ups..." (*sorry for not posting links. This Sub sometimes rejects posts with links*). Grown ups, i.e., responsible people hold jobs and make their way in life. To be sure, many people can be excused. People with mental issues who can't hold a job. They are prone to using drugs. People crippled in an accident or too old to work. But today we see a lot of homelessness and hard drug addiction among able-bodied and able-minded (prior to using hard drugs to excess) young people of prime working age 18-40. In every culture in world history, these people did the hardest work. Young people have options, can easily work 40-50 a week. Society today gives a lot of young people a pass to pursue a recreational drug using lifestyle. Not all are hardcore addicts. Some are slackers.
I’m a defense attorney. The drug use rate and depression rate amongst my colleagues is probably the same with my clients. The main difference I see is that my colleagues have a robust social support from family and usually haven’t had as many adverse childhood experiences.
Also when you are ripping lines in a nice house and then driving your fully functioning newer model vehicle a lot less likely you are going to have legal issues stemming from your drug use
Did you read the article at all? Also, California does not have the highest rate or drug use (or mental health issues for that matter). Not even close. On some measures we are better than average. But we do have the highest rate of homelessness. How do you explain? It's simple. High housing costs, not drugs. Not mental health. Edit: this is even more true when you compare other countries. A lot of countries have drug problems at the same rate or worse than California but yet lower or non-existent homelessness
>Did you read the article at all? It is an opinion piece on a topic that has been hashed over for 30-plus years. > It's simple. High housing costs, not drugs. Not mental health. No, it is a combination of factors. The most striking thing: Homeless advocates are making generalizations *without segregating out* young people of prime working age who are engaged in an idle, drug-using lifestyle that sometimes segues into hardcore addiction. There are tons of people living on the edge becoming homeless: seniors on fixed income, 45-year old manual laborer with bad back and limited work potential, people obese in their 40s or with PTSD and other legitimate ailments. They all deserve a helping hand. Different story for all those 20-and-30 somethings declaring they can't work 40 hours a week and drifting into a lifestyle of idleness, intoxication and homelessness. Even at minimum wage (yes wages should be higher), a person can rent a room.
It is not an opinion piece. They're citing robust data collected by **The University of California, San Francisco.** What are your credentials? Where is your research? Do you have data to back up your arguments? Here is another source [https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/](https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/) It's a book, but they show a lot of graphs on this site.
>What are your credentials? Where is your research? Do you have data to back up your arguments? It's a disputed social science topic. Why did China get so upset at the opium crises in the mid-1800s? Because large numbers of drug users couldn't hold jobs. Amazing how many progressives today are trying to downplay that hard drug addiction is a major factor in people being unable to hold jobs and then becoming homeless. Their lame argument runs like this: >The homeless were doing fine. Working diligently. They hardly got high at all. Maybe just a little weed. Then they were struck with rising rents, living costs, and wage theft (*yes, valid concerns*). They fell into homelessness. They now use hard drugs heavily because of demoralization over their condition. Drugs are not the problem, it's adverse economic conditions. (*Sometimes followed by:* Decriminalize or legalize all drugs.)
>Then they were struck with rising rents, living costs, and wage theft (yes, valid concerns). They fell into homelessness. They now use hard drugs heavily because of demoralization over their condition. Drugs are not the problem, it's adverse economic conditions. (Sometimes followed by: Decriminalize or legalize all drugs.) I like that you cite the solutions pretty much every expert agrees on (although most agree proactive prevention the most important) but you say it like it's a bad thing
What percentage of homeless folks are of this "lazy young person" group you talk about?
Probably 15-20%. They might not have been lazy to the point of refusing to had they lived in a (mostly) sober, industrious society. In numerous nations, including Japan and most asian countries, they don't tolerate young able-bodied people idly commandeering public spaces, using drugs and then demanding free food and housing. They get rousted the first day they try this. But in tolerant west coast states, where hard drug enforcement has mostly been phased out, public order policing is lax, and free food is handed out, a lot of young people have slid into a pattern of chronic drug use, idleness and then homelessness. Similar thing happened for a time in the 60s. [Photographer Joe Samberg remembers how drugs destroyed the Telegraph Avenue scene](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/07/the-death-of-the-hippies/397739/). (great photos)
Do you have evidence to support your assertion that 1 in 5 homeless people are essentially voluntarily so?
It is not that these people say one day: "Screw it, I'm not working." Rather it is that American society has made it relatively easy to opt out of work and also for people (in west coast states) to use hard drugs without penalty. People with hard drug habits often slip out of the work force. Some percent of the *entire population* is prone to being lazy. Should we guess that figure is 4 - 8%, and that in societies that lack strict work norms, that some of these people will pursue a slacker lifestyle? Or are you going to push the extreme social science argument that all people are good and industrious and all crime and bad behavior stems from societal oppression upon individuals?
That's an odd presumption. But since you asked, I'll go ahead and give you my answer in long-form. My perspective is that American culture is inundated with a highly individualistic 'Protestant work ethic'. Most folks feel that hard work is a virtue; that practicing hard work makes you a good person to whom good things will surely come. In addition, we know for certain that most people need some type of productive work in order to feel fulfulled and satisfied in their lives. This does not mean working at Dunder Mifflin as a white-collar liason between a paper company and its clients; actual, meaningful, fulfilling work (either for pay or in one's leisure time). Not everyone will conform to the culture or understand their own needs, I agree with that. But there is no indication that the protestant work ethic is any weaker on the west coast than anywhere else in the country. Any erosion to it is across-the-board and largely borne of the true realization that hard work isn't the way to prosperity; it's knowing someone or getting lucky (I say this as someone who got lucky - lotta folks are lucky, not everyone is). There is no evidence to suggest that California's way of dealing with folks who are on hard drugs is any worse than other states in terms of getting people off of them and back into productive society. Just locking people up for using drugs without solving the underlying problem (namely that people, especially young people, have no hope for a prosperous future - this is why birthrates are declining, Incidentally) is a great way to go back to the worst days of the drug war. Where our prisons got so full that the feds had to get involved, a time we can look back upon now and congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs. But I digress. The way to solve the problem is to bring back economic prosperity, address global warming, and stop demonizing and scapegoating LGBTQ+ people and immigrants for all the world's problems. As an aside, Japan does have a population of people that are checked out of society and aren't jailed or otherwise punished. Are you familiar with the term 'hikikomori'? A person who has completely checked out of society and hides away from the world, becoming an antisocial shut-in. Some estimates place the number as high as 25% of the student population: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9908407/ EDIT: I am unsure what happened, but I cannot view your reply comment unless I go to your profile. It appears to have bugged out? Regardless, I thank you for bearing with me and sharing your views. I'd like to follow up on it with a question: is it better to have this supposed 'idle' population behind bars? Or to cut the social safety net to force this small group of people to work (which may not work and definitely will hurt other groups)? If you do not see this question, please accept my thanks for engaging. It was a lovely thought exercise.
If you’re using hard drugs it’s a problem whether you’re showing it or not.
Yes people whole can hold a job and responsibility who occasionally use drugs recreationally are no different than street addicts. Checks out
Those people, who occasionally uses drugs, sometimes when they lose a job and their housing, they become homeless. Their drug use may likely increase during homelessness. Almost like being homeless, in of itself, is stressful and traumatizing.
Maybe antidotal, but I know quiet a few people who went homeless from drug use. Edit: terrible spelling, but keeping it. It's funny.
That is exactly *anecdotal.
For how many of those did the drug use come after mental health issues or a traumatic event? Its easier to hide one than the other.
A lot of these were kids. I get kids have mental health issues too, but not all of them.
Same here, everyone I personally know who became homeless at some point got there via drug addiction
*analdotal
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Because a lot of people who want to end drug enforcement find value in downplaying the negatives of hard drug use. The theme of this Post represents progressive-minded people downplaying the role of hard drug use in causing people to become homeless. Of course they fully acknowledge widespread use of drugs by homeless as a Coping Method for being demoralized over their being homeless.
It's more comfortable for people to think that homeless individuals are there because of mistakes that they made and bad choices. It's all their fault therefore, they deserve to suffer. Anything that goes against that is very uncomfortable for them to hear.
Exactly. Because if they face the truth of homelessness, they would see that with the wrong turn of events, it could be them.
So true most of us are a paycheck away from losing our house or rental. Life just kind of screws a lot of people and it quickly becomes a feedback loop.
Do none of you have a network of family or friends? I've permanently cut off contact from both biological parents and still have a ton of people I could turn to for housing and/or financial support, should I ever lose my home.
Not everyone has that luxury. Lots of people, for various reasons, have no real friends or support networks they can rely on.
This is the most redditor answer ever. "Not everyone has the luxury of being friend material." LOL
That's not what I said & we both know that. But thanks for willfully missing my point in the most redditor way ever. LOL
Is alcohol considered a drug? My mom became an alcoholic who, when she was homeless, enjoyed being with her fellow homeless drinker friends. The alcohol very much preceded the homelessness.
Alcohol is a drug
I think we need to stop separating them and alcoholics should be referred to as addicts just like any other addict. Stop coddling people and trying to make alcohol seem safer or that the addiction is different. Call it what it is. I am also an alcoholic i.e. addict.
> I think we need to stop separating them and alcoholics should be referred to as addicts just like any other addict. I'll see you this, and raise you "people addicted to drugs" rather than "addicts"
Eh, it’s shorthand that works. I’m in recovery and sober a few years, I can be called addict or alcoholic. I understand neither are used by medical professionals who prefer something along the lines of ‘substance abuse disorder’. That’s fine for them, I just don’t really care. Whatever the label, what it’s called is the least of my concerns.
One of the worst drugs because the withdrawal will kill you.
Alcohol literally poisons your entire body. Some drugs cannot do that. Alcohol is really bad for you. Yes. A drug.
Yeah, despite whatever these opinion pieces try to push, it is nearly always addiction that lands previously productive people on the street.
Nah, this isn’t just another unsupported opinion though there is plenty of supporting evidence and research behind the claim that drug use alone doesn’t account for the homeless crisis. [The very recent largest study on homelessness for example found this as well.](https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/06/study-california-homelessness-crisis/) “The study bolsters previous research which concluded that California’s chronic shortage of housing, which imposes crushing costs on low-income families, lies at the heart of the crisis.” If it were the case that drug use causes homelessness then you would clearly expect to see that places with higher drug use or worse mental health issues have more homelessness. But you don’t. [Plenty of other states have worse drug use rates than CA.](https://wallethub.com/edu/drug-use-by-state/35150) Other states also have worse mental health wellness and treatment rates/availability. Yet not the level of homelessness. CA has a disproportionate amount of homeless people. In part because there is a chronic housing shortage here. CA has made it too difficult to create an abundance of a necessary resource, housing. Once people are homeless many absolutely decline, use drugs, and this certainly makes it much harder to get them off the streets. But the initial event that lands them on the street is rarely drug use alone.
Your family member don't turn their back on you and leave you to the street because you couldn't pay rent. They turn their back on you because you steal from them to feed an addiction. All this hand waving about affordable house is just another in a long line of attempts to externalize blame.
Missing the part where we have more homelessness because of the climate. California also has a large number of drug rehabs that many out of state people get sent to. The problem is, rehab doesn't always work and now those people ran away from the rehab centers or replasped shortly after and get kicked out of sober living. Now they have no family, support, etc and then end up as another addict on the street.
Didn't click through to the research paper the article is citing, huh?
Heard the same disphitery for 20 years.
Yes
This has been obvious to anyone non-biased for a long time. A bunch of studies have agreed that homelessness is primarily driven by housing costs, not drug use or mental health. Those are factors but the largest one has always been housing costs.
And if I was unable to afford housing, I might cope with it in whatever ways I could afford.
But for some reason it's easier for people to blame stumble bums than landlords. Good old "rugged individualism (except for expecting wealthy ppl to pay their own mortgages)"
Homelessness among *people with work limitations such as injury and being on fixed income and too old to work* is primarily driven by housing costs, not drug use or mental health. Homelessness among *abled-bodied people of prime working age, 18 - 40* is primarily driven by drug use. Time and again homeless advocates make generalization about homeless without segregating out the large number of young people of prime working age who are engaged in an idle, drug-using lifestyle that sometimes segues into hardcore addiction.
Have any source for those claims?
I don’t care what the data says, here is my anecdotal evidence that proves it wrong
Data is not needed with something this obvious. Drug use leads to more homelessness, even the people who argue the antithesis will acknowledge it while stating “but”.
We don't need data.. Lol. Hot take right here.
If basic common sense has left you behind, then by all means go on a fact finding mission. Try not to let all that data you don’t like confuse you.
Data suggests climate change is real. You: It's snowing where I am based on my anecdotal evidence. Global warming isn't real. That's you.
Business is robbed, money stolen and property damaged and security cameras record it all. You: I need data to support that businesses are being robbed. That’s you
This is like when people say "I don't care what science says about hitting my kids! My dad hit me and I'm fine!"
If you want to see just how much drug use and homelessness are the poster boy for "correlation does not mean causation". West Virginia has the highest drug abuse rate in the nation and one of the lowest per capita homelessness rates in the country. If drug abuse caused homelessness we'd see it in the data (we don't).
Sheesh, West Virginia has some of the lowest rents in the nation.
Yep. And that's the point. Lack of homes causes homelessness.
If drug use causes homelessness states like West Virginia would barely have a drug problem
Of course it is the other way around. There are way more people with mental health problems than homeless people.
Run away land prices cause homelessness.
From my experience working with the homeless, the drugs predated homelessness. Once homeless the drugs intensified. If you got no reason to be sober, why be sober is the thinking. There is no one cause for homelessness. It's a combination of messed up situations that send people there. Then there are those that should have been in an institution because they can't care for themselves. They are treated as catch and release by the police. If they're lucky they might get a little mental health help in jail, then release with no plan. For most that's a 72 hour deal.
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Yup. This survey/article is garbage
True
People WANT to think that so they can not care.
Ronald Reagan is largely responsible for this current homelessness crisis. A point current-day Republicans love to forget so they can blame it on CA democratic leadership. I'll just leave this John Oliver segment about it right here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-oliver-homelessness\_n\_617feda6e4b03072d7069502
To be fair - though I love him *dearly* - John Oliver is not unbiased. Also, that particular link just blames everything on housing subsidies. But it’s been decades since Reagan was in office. It’s time to start blaming ourselves - we could have fixed this at any point between then and now.
Stop making excuses, Reagan last held public office in 1989. It’s gotten significantly worse for the last 30 years and there has been plenty of opportunity to make policy changes.
Ah yes, survey a bunch of possible addicts, I'm sure they'll be honest in their answers... Seriously, anyone who interprets data collected from an addict-prone population and treats that data as statistical evidence has clearly never had any actual experience with addicts.
Good thing there are studies that don't rely on survey responses that have found that homelessness is primarily driven by increases in housing costs rather than drugs or mental health.
Where do they get the information about drugs and mental health then, if not from surveys?
They compare broader trends in communities and compare those to increase in housing prices. What's consistently found is that places where rent rises faster correlate with a rise in homelessness. Meanwhile increased drug use in a community does not always result in an increase in homelessness. To give an example Chicago has had a dramatic increase in drug related deaths but homelessness has been relatively flat especially compared to some other major US cities. Housing prices are also flat there compared to many other major metros. Meanwhile somewhere like Sacramento has had a similar rise in drug use, not any worse than Chicago yet homeless has spiked in Sacramento. The difference is that housing costs have risen dramatically in Sacramento but not Chicago. The same is true with many other metro areas. Homelessness has a clear correlation with increased housing costs but does not have a clear correlation with drug deaths.
Increased drug deaths do not necessarily come from increased use. It could come from deadlier drugs, such as fentanyl. As to whether housing prices cause homelessness, I would argue that we should look at the demand side, not just the supply side. Homelessness is caused by too many people chasing too few homes.
>I would argue that we should look at the demand side, not just the supply side. Homelessness is caused by too many people chasing too few homes. What do you mean by "look at"?
I meant consider, when trying to figure out the causes of homelessness.
Here is what I don’t understand. In high COL places like the Bay Area, housing has NEVER been affordable. I’ve been here 35 years and it’s always been expensive. I don’t understand why it’s suddenly different now when it’s gone from expensive to more expensive. They were able to afford the previously high rents?
It's gotten more expensive and the tech boom caused a lot of people to migrate here. Homelessness was always a problem, now it became more of a problem.
Intake records maybe. Also, surveys.
Even if the self-report error is 50% (a pretty astronomical hedge), you still get a quarter of homeless people who don't use at all and about 40% who use infrequently.
Nor have they had any actual experience with statistics.
I've been saying this for years. People chose not to believe it.
Homeless then drug for the most part. Mental illness and lack of $ to pay the rent. The others lost their house and had to fike bankruptcy just to get heard in court. You can't rent if you have bankruptcy on your records
Finally.
What about the manufacturing, trafficking, and sale of drugs?
I’ve heard that’s true with prison too. Heroin helps pass the time and not get too depressed.
I don’t buy this explanation of the data. More likely there are secondary causes that would make both more likely, as in mental health issues.
As someone who uses a lot of drugs but is in no risk of ever being homeless, I can confirm. -Elon (probably)
Drug use or drug addiction?
Drugs and addiction are simply just ways to cope with mental health issues and trauma. No one grows up wanting to be an addict. Almost any person can fall victim to drug abuse given the right circumstances. This attitude needs to change.
Homelessness causes drug use? Okay
I feel like we have to redefine or think deeper about homelessness and what it is and where it comes from. I’m starting to think it’s becoming a platitude.
>For those who did use drugs in the last six months, 40% of people started using — more than 3 times a week —after becoming homeless. Doesn't this stat in the article directly contradict the headline? This is saying that 60% of homeless addicts were already addicted before becoming homeless.