The Homeless Industrial Complex

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My Other Channel: @howhistoryworks

Edited By: Andrew Gonzales

Music Courtesy of: Epidemic Sound

Select Footage Courtesy of: Getty Images

All materials in these videos are for educational purposes only and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. This video does not provide investment or financial advice of any kind.

#business #housing #realestate

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America has a homelessness crisis as record numbers of people are ending up on the streets of a few concentrated city centers. Cities are spending billions of dollars on failing projects to try and solve this problem which has attracted a growing list of companies happy to provide their services… for a price. Helping the homeless has become a lucrative business with multimillion-dollar government contracts awarded every day.

but if there is so much money to be made, do these companies really want a long-term fix?
According to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company, the annual budget for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority rose from sixty-three million dollars [$63,000,000] in 2015 to eight hundred and eight million dollars [$808,000,000] in 2022, a thirteen HUNDRED percent increase in just seven [7] years… And what did the hardworking taxpayers of Los Angeles get for their money?... the number of homeless people went UP by 56%.

Ignoring for a moment that everybody deserves the right to affordable comfortable shelter, there is something not quiet adding up here. A closer look at individual programs like the “Inside Safe” homelessness reduction policy doesn’t make it much better. The idea of this program was to have social workers offer hotel rooms to homeless individuals while they sought out longer-term housing arrangements. Data collected by the city and compiled by local news outlet the center square found that the plan had cost two hundred and fifty MILLION dollars [$250,000,000] over just one year.

The program only served one thousand four hundred and sixty-three individuals which works out to be seventeen thousand dollars [$17,000] per individual, per MONTH. That is over two hundred thousand dollars [$204,000] every year been spent on ONE individual in ONE program in just ONE city in America. So where is all this money going? and at what point would it just be easier to give homeless people checks for three times the national salary? Well, there are three reasons why cities across America and the rest of the world are spending more money than ever on this problem while not making it any better.

So it’s time to learn How Money Works to find out why throwing money at a complicated problem is not fixing it.

[highestqualitypigiron]

There's no way a single apartment building costs that much to construct, that's $36, 211, 000 for the whole complex. Anyone who works in construction will tell you that's nuts, there's definitely a lot of corruption going on here.

[MrHamsto]

An acquaintance of mine is a very successful real estate agent in SoCal, Coachella Valley area. He started a his own ministry to homeless people. Going out feeding them, finding spare bedrooms and casitas for the ones that wanted to get off the street, helped a lot of people. His hardest loss was when the local city fought him tooth and nail to permit a low cost tiny home community for people to get their lives back in order. If I remember right, it's because the existing 'charities' were legacy partners with the council and leveraged NIMBYism to keep the funds flowing their way.

[JimmySaul]

I literally just spoke to a lady who's worked with the homeless for the last 10 years. She told me it's a business designed to extract the tax dollars and that she wants out of her job once her kid is a little older. She said she took the job wanting to help people but told me she feels like she hasn't been able to help one single person the whole time.

[MissFoxification]

Someone I know has about 30 bedrooms. He has a very large property and is in a small town. He housed pretty much all of the homeless in that town, anyone that was left homeless wanted to be.
The salvation army complained to the council and forced him to stop renting rooms out. They spent seriously money shutting him down because he solved the housing problem in that town.
Yeah.. they want homeless people to exist.

[AwesomeHairo]

Homelessness is a symptom of a problem, not the source of the problem itself.

[anonymoose]

as someone formerly homeless, I'm glad to see someone pointing out what's actually happening in our country. There is no incentive for these businesses to effectively end homelessness. there is only incentive to keep them there in an effort to continue to receive government money.

[Jerahmeelli]

As a former housing case manager in San Francisco, this is the tip of the iceberg.

[masonm]

"There are more efficient solutions, but nobody wants to be the politician responsible for ending that many jobs"
Ain't that government programs in a nutshell.

[NashvilleNative-]

I am a homeless single mother. I have reached out to dozens of organizations and have never been assisted by any of them. As I have learned, they only seem to exist to inform assistance-seekers to contact a different organization for help. Those people running the organizations get paid to tell people to seek help from a different organization while ultimatley doing nothing.

[iymenabdella]

Its crazy how homeless prevention is far cheaper than homeless treatment. But there are politics blocking any meaningful prevention strategy from taking effect

[mads]

Homelessness programs arent designed to end homelessness, they're designed to keep people alive while experiencing homelessness.

[kortyEdna]

To my own research In USA, individuals living in cars due to partial homelessness result from a complex interplay of factors. High housing costs relative to income, stagnant wages, and income inequality drive this issue. Job loss, weak social support, medical expenses, evictions, and lack of affordable housing also contribute, while systemic problems and inadequate policies further perpetuate the phenomenon.

[rumplstiltztinkerstein]

The most infuriating thing about this topic, is that if we create programs to support people that are unemployed, people start complaining saying that this is "throwing away money". When the cost for having people homeless is much greater.

[CaraMarie]

As someone whose first job out of grad school was with an agency that was managing the so called "cluster model program", I can tell you that it was a money cow. Landlords noticed they could make money renting units out to the city at well above market price. The only people benefiting was us the employees. But we all knew the impact we were having was minimal. It was something we often talked about between us. Truly disgusting.

[zentierra]

This is sickening. Truly sickening.
We are a country mired in unscrupulousness, hypocrisy, and greed.

[MrLoungist]

Homes are here. Substance abuse help is 22 blocks away. Mental health is downtown. Job assistance is uptown. None of these services are centralized close to the housing. If you don’t have a home, you don’t have bus fare. The programs that work are of campus design.

[rhondavigil]

There is big money in feeding the hungry and housing the homeless.
So little actually reaches the needy.

[alexcarter]

It's good to see *The Homeless-Industrial Complex* becoming a meme. Because that's exactly what it is. Homeless people as cash cows.

[gtn]

The homeless are going to rise drastically and so will their funding, irrespective of the election outcome this industry is bound to grow rapidly.

[RILDIGITAL]

This is eye-opening stuff—truly a systemic issue we're dealing with. It's disheartening to see so much money circulating but not resolving the problem. We need efficiency, transparency and urgency in addressing homelessness.