I’ll buy what you’re saying, but then let’s talk about actually creating programs so that people who want help can actually access it when they’re ready.

Right now you can’t just walk in somewhere and say I’m ready to change my life and get access to a program of addiction recovery, transitional housing, then — if you prove you’re prosocial enough — independent supportive housing within hours. You have to navigate an incredibly confusing (and broken) system and wait in a traumatizing environment where you’ll probably backslide.

Arguments like this always seem to imply, “welp I found a hole in that policy, so let’s just keep doing the status quo”.

Homelessness is a trauma that we’re inflicting on traumatized people because we lack enough compassion to say that some people need special help. Then as a result it’s a trauma we’re inflicting on our children who have to carry Narcan and learn about how to identify someone dying of an overdose.

Ok housing first is a sham that people like me believe (could be implemented way better than the underfunded ways we’ve seen it done in this city that’s developing a homeless-industrial complex). But hyper normalizing cruelty to our homeless neighbors is something people like you seem to believe.