Its hard to be 'upwardly mobile' and drop an addiction, find a job, get out of depression, have positive self image - when you are homeless, and every US service designed to help you is fucked beyond repair and stealing so much money.

I once looked at the SF budget for SFDPH and it showed all the roles, budget and costs. Payroll being the highest - but it also stated the number of homeless people in the city

I did the simple math of dividing the budget by the nu,ber of homeless and at that time the number would have equated paying every homeless person $12 an hour. or ~$24,000 per year.

Whichwould equate to UBI for such folks - and one could put stipulations on that such that it automatically made a savings account for the user with some % of that savings going into a fund which would be designed to, with the interest made on investment for that fund - be used to pay for more housing developments, job training etc...

regardless of my lack of expertise in developing homeless help programs (I have thought of several - here is the one I wanted to apply to YC with) I try, and compared to what the city of SF spends and how well their policies work, I think evaluating other options is critically needed.

Here was my concept for applying to YC (this is from ~5 years ago or so)

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'Care Fleet' -- Mobile hygiene and necessities vehicle:

A box truck with a built out full set of bathrooms with capability to self steam sterilize after each use.

A one-seat barber station.

A service of providing clothing to all homeless in the form of, effectively, Scrubs. And not some crazy embarrassing color. Offer them in grey, black, brown/khaki only.

Socks and Shoes.

Basic hygiene kit (tooth brush, shaver, soap, whatever, wipes, female hygiene stuffs)

Allow homeless to take a shower, get a cut, get some scrubs and help info and some hydration and help info.

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How I maintain compassion for the homeless is twofold; I have three precious beautiful children.

So whenever I see a homeless person, I see someones precious baby, a human who was once perfectly innocent.

Whenever I see homeless walking in absolute shreds of clothing, no shoes, or like one sock on, it breaks my heart.

If you have children, look at them - now imagine them walking through the streets filthy with shreds of clothing barely clinging to their bodies and being invisible to the rest of society aside from their disdain for your situation.

See your child in that person.

Its not black and white. Of course they can use some help, but they also need to face consequences for they own choices. Just read the book for examples of how other countries, like Holland and Portugal, have been very successful addressing their own addiction problems. In all cases the addict is provided support but is also held accountable for his own part in the addiction. This is how adults operate and the sooner we stop infantilizing these people the sooner we can see results and the better off everybody will be.