There's a youtube channel where a guy interviews homeless people. A lot of them just chose to live on the streets over the the pressures of making rent money in a job. They chose to check out of society. If there's a program that says "live on the street for 3 years and you get a free flat", I'm betting it would be an ok deal for some.
Especially after trauma. I know for me the stress of earning rent is WAY, WAY orders of magnitude less than living on the street. For many people it is that way, that is why they choose not to. Most people on the street don't want to be there (though you wouldn't know it, they are working poor who mostly sleep in their cars, what you see as homeless is only a small percentage of homeless)
You could experience trauma too. It can change anyone. A little empathy goes a long way.
They don't have full time. Many of the worst jobs in our society are given on part time/hours basis only.
And most landlords now a days do background checks. If you have been in prison, had a foreclosure, bankruptcy, etc many places won't rent to you at all. So you have to go to predatory places which charge way more than your regular housing.
However, this is all very basic information on this topic.
Since you seem to not know these very basic facts, may I suggest not holding an opinion or judgement until you may do a little reading on the topic.
It's my experience in my life that when I gave an opinion on something I was ignorant on, I generally felt ashamed afterwards. It's been a big motivator in me trying to know a little before giving an opinion. I think it's made me a better person.
So you are essentially not solving a problem for fear of a minuscule amount of suckers?
Two decades ago, there was a big press campaign in Germany over "lazy professors" with some prominent illustrative examples (which I am sure existed). As a consequence academia was covered with bureaucracy to prevent this. Now professors do paperwork instead of science or teaching.
For the greater good society should be able to cope with a few free-riders.
I lived in communist Poland, who tried, via lots of socialist policies, to fix the "social injustices". Over time, it created an absolutely insane amount of free-riding behaviours, to the point that if you did not took advantage of the state, you were the sucker. People living in Western countries have not experienced socialism on that scale yet, so they haven't seen how corroding to the human character the state-given freebies can be.
Regarding lazy professors, we were (and still are) the exact same problem in Poland - dunno what the situation is in Germany, but here I'm convinced the laziness is absolutely prevalent, and almost no one is doing any real research. We also had the heavy buruecratic reform imposed on the academics, and the main difference is that now they expend a lot of effort pretending they're doing research, up to the point of creating collusion rings where everybody is citing everybody else (so that their citation count looks decent) etc.
On a broader scale, I don't believe that people do well in utopias imposed by bureucrats - and that's what the "help the homeless" and other socialist programs ultimately are. A lot of us just can't relate to something as impersonal as the state, and see no problem cheating it or stealing from it. What's worse, it's a slippery slope that leads to general moral corrosion. The professors are one of myriad examples of this - under socialism, most of them learned to game the system in a way that allows them to do nothing, to the point that it became a part of the Polish academic culture, which is now absolutely immoral and corrupt (just speak to young Polish scientist how actually want to do science, and who haven't yet given up and left the country). These people then pass such values to their children, who may enter different areas of live, and spill the cynicism of their parents there. Over a couple of generations, you end up with an absolutely broken and apathetic society - just look at Russia.
The linked article which you are LITERALLY commenting on is among many parts of this data gathering. The Utah experiment has tons of data also.
To say what the data is, would be to literally post the text which you are answering to (you know, the one you supposedly read before commenting)
A text which has facts that you contradicted several times in this thread.
On top of this you don't seem to know what the meaning of the words you use are. Let me help you, socialism is when the state controls the means of production. Unless you are literally arguing that helping a homeless person is the same as the government nationalizing every company on the stock exchange, then you are using words wrong. Though not surprising, given that you seem to comment on articles you haven't read.
BTW, the way Portland tried is terrible. That is why these successful experiments are so interesting to read about for those who don't have closed minds.
The linked article is not research or even data - it's a Guardian article, which has close to zero credibility as far as I am concerned (nothing against Guardian per se, newspapers are terrible sources of knowledge in general).
Even having said that, the article does not seem to have any data on what I was worrying about - i.e. to what degree subsidising homeless people is incentivising homelessness. It instead talks about a programme (not homelessness itself), which seems to be dealing with homelessness by... providing subsidised housing. They don't say how much they're spending a year (presumably many millions, judging by the scale of the operation), and in 2018 their results are... six people who stopped needing the subsidy and went on to live independently. Given the fact that they house 3500 people, a yearly conversion rate of 0.2% seems abysmal, and may actually point to what I was worrying about - i.e. homeless people not wanting to be go back to the society that much, as long as the state is subsiding their housing.
Funny aside, according to the article, 70% of homless in Finland do not actually live on the streets, but with friends or family (but, I am assuming, would prefer to live on their own). According to this standard, there are millions of homeless in Poland. Although I wouldn't be suprised if this particular bit of reporting was mangled and that the truth is more complicated.
First you say the guardian isn't reliable, but then you quote it and cherry pick data from it. So which is it? Not reliable or not reliable for facts you don't like?
Before you were talking about 'communist Portland', you also said that all initiatives to help the homeless are 'socialism'.
I honestly want to learn about this. You might have a point, but you seem to have an agenda, for example you made up up that all costs related to homeless programs are new costs (on top of existing programs) when the article clearly states otherwise.
It seems you want to play to win, not to learn and your mind is already made up. You have already made up facts multiple times in this thread and used words wrong without regard for the truth. This to me shows a lack of intelectual honesty and I don't really feel like engaging such behavior any further.
