Even if that is true, does it somehow invalidate the fact that they are also homeless?! Are they less deserving to be out of the elements because they have an addiction?
That’s what I find so disgusting about this statement. It’s just an excuse and doesn’t address anything at all.
Using his own “argument”, it would seem to me that a path to less addiction and violence would involve having a place to live and sleep.
Yeah wonder what could drive someone to addiction and desperation? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm couldn’t be not having a stable food supply and a place to live?
Yeah the whole correlation causation thing is going to be very mixed up here. Like lets look at it another way:
Oh no I become disabled > Can’t work anymore shit I got no money > Try to apply for disability benefits oh fuck its a million forms and I need a lawyer oh fuck I’m broke > Crash at friends to apply for disability, first try fails after 1 year (this is pretty standard usually takes 2-3 trys), oh fuck friend kicks me out > go to homeless camp struggling to feed yourself, no time to think about applying for benefits anymore > The pain is too much I don’t have my medicine anymore its fucking freezing oh shit that guys selling drugs > get addicted
Boom, you’re homeless and addicted. That story could happen to literally anyone without generational wealth and an exceptionally strong support network.
I cannot explain how disgustingly evil it is to witness the suffering of individuals, whether due to substance abuse, illness, or homelessness, and dismiss it as untruthful.
The numbers to fix homelessness may be controversial, with some sites saying it was 20 billion in 2010 and that’s just to provide vouchers for a year, and some fact checking sites saying it can cost $60 billion in a year.
The primary concern is the actions of a South African billionaire, whose net worth is $350 billion. Instead of recognizing the complexities of a significant social issue, he appears to dehumanize those affected and assigns blame, rather than offering assistance.
What a fucking evil take.
Those numbers all take into account existing housing assistance programs, which are used by mostly non-homeless people.
There are 250k homeless people in the US. For $20B, you could spend $80k per each person. Since many of the homeless are families, that’s enough to buy a small house for each family.
But you still have to keep paying into the existing programs, or more people will become homeless. Compared to a quarter million homeless people, there are 4.5M households using the existing programs.
While the word is “homeless” the problem is generally not just “lacking a home”. It usually stems from things like inability to work due to severe disability or psychiatric illness, unofficial immigrants struggling to find employment, addiction, abandonment from family, not enough money to retire but unable to work etc.
Like don’t get me wrong giving everyone a home is great. But it won’t magically solve all the problems. And they might not be able to afford maintinance, property tax etc. Also if it’s homelessness due to lack of employment I question whether the 80k home will be anywhere useful for someone to find a job they qualify for, and if it will have any transportation links or anything
Aside from the fact that having a safe place to live alone helps both mental illness and substance abuse in most individuals, a major cause of homelessness is domestic abuse and being disowned. Having a safe place to live will absolutely help the over a third of domestic abuse victims who become homeless, and would help those who cannot afford to get away from their abusers due to lack of ability to find a safe haven.
Home the homeless, then we can start working on the harder parts.
Ketamine pot, calling the mentally ill kettle black.
The word “homeless” (without a home) literally as descriptive and neutral as possible. Elon Musk: Propaganda
Wait, I can’t tell, is Elon talking about himself?
By his own definition, he is homeless, yeah.
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The guy who is so addicted with twitter engagement boostingbhis ego he bought it for himself just to go full fascist. Is calling homeless people addicts lol.
I wonder if they use drugs to cope with the mental illness they got from being forced to live on the streets?
Naw, that’s pseudoscience. We all know that it’s proven that poverty is a character trait that you actively choose. Not rich? Obviously you don’t want it hard enough. /s
Completely ignoring that addiction is an illness.
Doesn’t matter. We have the resources available to house, feed, educate, provide health care, and community for every American but don’t out of greed. The US won’t survive unless we mobilize every American to achieve their best self.
Funny because elon is a drug addict who’s showing he has some affective disorder because his daddy didn’t love him and is a malignant narcissist.
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In short, yes.
See this graph: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-stock-spacex-valuation-xai-neuralink-trump-charts-2024-12
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pretty sure you can’t end homelessness with $20b unless we’re talking about absolute homelessness or something…
That could be the cost to house people who are otherwise unhoused, aka “homeless”
pretty sure you can’t end homelessness with $20b
The math is straightforward: Cost of a housing unit * number of unhoused people. Even assuming the extraordinarily inflated market rate for housing in 2024, $20B is more than enough to house 650k people.
Now, will the institutional actors that produced homelessness stop existing? Will we see an end to predatory lenders, robo-signed foreclosures, police harassment and civil asset forfeiture of the working poor, and unregulated real estate scammers targeting our most vulnerable neighbors? Probably not.
But we wouldn’t have so many billionaires running about squandering our national wealth on vanity projects like Twitter without billions to be fleeced from the public to begin with.
$20B is more than enough to house 650k people
I got curious, so I whipped out my phone’s calculator. $20B/650k = $30,800, give or take. I truly don’t know if that’s enough to break the cycle of homelessness, but if it is that seems like a pretty low number. We spend 40x that number on the defense budget, which is totally a jobs program but it seems like fighting homelessness would also ultimately be a jobs program.
So-called genius can’t fathom that in many cases the mental illness and drug addiction came from the homelessness.
I know someone with moderate substance abuse issues and diagnosed severe mental illness - basically as bad as it gets if left untreated. But she also lives independently and holds down a solid middle class desk job. How? She has rich parents who pay for treatment (individualized psychiatry) and care (housekeeping mostly), as well as an array of friends who help oversee her.
Homelessness is not necessary, even in the most desperate cases. It’s just a question of what we’re willing to pay and how much we’re willing to care.
