There are cycles of epistemic awareness just as there are cycles of seasons

From Plot Twist: The progressive narrative on homelessness has always been wrong—and new data undermine it further. by Christopher F. Rufo. A bit polemical but his anger is understandable.

In recent years, discussion about homelessness has been circumscribed around a set of premises acceptable to progressive opinion. The homeless were thrown onto the streets, we’re told, because of rising rents, heartless landlords, and a lack of economic opportunity. Activists, journalists, and political leaders have perpetuated this line of reasoning and, following it to its conclusion, have proposed investing billions in subsidized housing to solve homelessness.

But new data are undermining this narrative. As residents of West Coast cities witness the disorder associated with homeless encampments, they have found it harder to accept the progressive consensus—especially in the context of the coronavirus epidemic, which has all Americans worried about contagion. An emerging body of evidence confirms what people see plainly on the streets: homelessness is deeply connected to addiction, mental illness, and crime.

True enough. But this isn't he first time we have seen this movie.

Back in the eighties and nineties, just as critical theory, social justice and postmodernism were beginning to intrude into the national dialog, there was a concerted effort to cast the issue of homelessness in terms of resources. "We are all only one paycheck away from homelessness" was one of the mantras. Myopic and empirically untrue as it might have been, it had much currency in policy circles.

Those arguing that, like most social issues, homelessness was complex and multi-causal were shunned and turned away from the policy discussion as mean-spirited visigoths.

Empirically it was as true then as it is true now. There are two populations of homeless. There are the transient or occasional homeless. People who do have circumstantial impingements. Loss of job. Chronic ill-health. Spousal abuse. We have always been sympathetic to those plights, both socially and governmentally. Programs have always existed and gotten better. Transient homelessness is persistent but we are probably dealing with it better than in the past. We have some reasonable ideas about what works.

The second population are the chronic homeless. Overwhelmingly associated with one or more issues including substance abuse, mental health, psychiatric conditions involving lack of personal control, etc. These are often the most visible aspect of homelessness and the most intractable.

By the late nineties there was a concerted effort, through the desire to avoid stigma, to try and decouple chronic homelessness from sustained substance abuse and mental illness. But as always happen, the harder you make it to accurately discuss a problem, the longer and worse it gets.

If substance abuse and mental illness are not the prime driver of chronic homelessness, then it must be simply a matter of insufficient affordable housing. That was the thinking.

On the West Coast for perhaps a decade, several municipalities including Los Angeles have sunk hundreds of millions into shelter-first initiatives (get the homeless into shelters, apartments, and homes) with wrap around medical and other services. All well-intentioned. And all missing the mark by defining the issue as social/economic rather than as substance abuse and mental illness.

What has been found is exactly what economists predicted. If you reduce the cost (danger, discomfort, etc.) of homelessness, you increase the incentive for the homeless to avail themselves. I read an interesting report from LA a couple of years ago comparing the chronic homeless population before and after the shelter first strategy. And as economists predicted, the chronic homeless population was much greater than it had been in the past.

As Rufo is pointing out, the only good approach is to acknowledge empirical reality and then from there tackle the root causes. As unpleasant, expensive and difficult as they might be.

Substance abuse and mental illness are both notoriously intractable. But those are the problems which need solving. Housing will take care of itself.

And now we might be beginning to start the epistemic cycle again, realizing that reality will not be denied. Acknowledging that the root causes are substantially substance abuse and mental illness will take us in a different, and hopefully more productive, policy direction.