looks pretty based

I know stats to do it as part of my work and to get paid for it. My argument is a statistical one while you keep falling back on a fallacy appealing to authority.

Interaction with his patients would most likely yield exactly my conclusion, that it doesn't matter if it's 500 or 1000 that schizo would end up in the street. But if Skinned is willing to provide some data that he has and I don't I'm open to change my mind.

drug addiction is a terrible metric to track for cause of homelessness in any case, as it doesnt account for homeless people who fall into drug or alcohol use as a result of homelessness.

"why are you homeless" and "why are you still homeless" arent the same question, drug addiction answers one fairly well but not the former i dont think.

even from a causality standpoint, those who lose homes or have crippling medical debt that fall into drug use to cope before being homeless would still have the cause being housing costs and/or medical debt.

root causes have the greatest impact, not tertiary side effects.

Except you aren't doing statistics in any meaningful sense. You have no regression analysis. You have the raw percentages and thats it. Like I said, you know how but not why or where. You point your spreadsheets where you've been told to point them. That's what business is lol. It's not a science even if you use some scientific principles.

Appealing to authority is not a fallacy. The fallacy is appealing to false authority dumb dumb. Skinned is not a false authority. Expert opinion is perfectly valid evidence.

Its metal AF.

I'm surprised these were put in place for skateboarders in the 90s.

This post was edited by Skinned on Apr 9 2021 12:02pm

Yep. It's easy to point out that the homeless have a greater incidence of drug use and mental illness, but mental illness often limits income potential which doesn't make you homeless unless that limited income potential is below the cost of accomodation. I.e. mental illness would show up in a regression but the fundamental issue is still affordable housing as most people in this situation can still hold down a job and have constant income, or get on some kind of disability or rent assistance and afford rent that way. Then drug use either is picked up as a coping mechanism or enhanced as part of a poor coping strategy.

if i was forced to guess the % of homeless who are homeless due to a causal relationship with drugs or alcohol i'd guess maybe 5%. but if i had to guess the % who REMAIN homeless due to a causal relationship with drugs or alcohol i'd guess 50%+.

drug treatment programs might get more people out of homelessness, but unless we stem the flow it just becomes a sump pump that never stops going off.

i just wish i trusted the govt to handle affordable housing, drug treatment programs, or mental health facilities. i don't, even a bit.

Yep, and if you do a regression mental health and drugs will show up, and the internet warriors with a business level understanding of statistics will say "it's because drugs and mental health", while the people who work with them and know most of them still hold down jobs or desparate to work know the real causes.

For reference: My mother works in a residential care facility with people who genuinely can't function due to mental health issues, I volunteered for years at a free clinic and part of my job was helping the social worker go over finances. I'm not an expert like Skinned, because I did it 2 days a week as a free helper, but what he's saying reflects the experience of basically everybody I know who works with this kind of thing.

Medical bills have been the number one cause of bankruptcy in America for decades.

So don't get sick or diseased. If you do and lose your house people will assume you're a schizophrenic drug addict.

This post was edited by Skinned on Apr 9 2021 12:20pm