The cruel way forwards, is to force people to accept these substandard, dangerous conditions.

The way of kindness, is to improve the conditions at the worst places, to the level of the units that people don't refuse.

And "reducing the bureaucratic delay" involves both simplifying the application process, and not *checks notes* throwing away homeless people's paperwork every few months in sweeps. "Still gathering paperwork" sometimes means reapplying for documents thrown away in a sweep. 😢

2/N

@mekka okereke :verified: Since 2008, when #Finland instituted a “Housing First”
policy homelessness is decreasing there. Despite the costs Finland now spends 18.000 $ per year less per homeless person than before. Homelessness can be history in Finland by 2027. https://www.melbournezero.org.au/finlands_success_story

The problem is, we've had multiple pilot programs here in the USA showing it costs less to just give people somewhere to live, no strings attached or anything, and we continue to force them into group shelters if we provide them with any shelter at all... simply because we treat being unhoused as a moral failing, and therefore people "deserve" it if it happens to them.

I think most people engaging in this conversation here would agree that spending the money to just give people somewhere to live is the right thing to do, especially since it also costs us less, but not enough of us are making sure our law makers know we want that to happen.