40% of duals are under age 65 and about 90% of them are not in long-term or institutional care.

Snark and stereotypes don’t cover up a lack of information…. Other people though, assuming anyone else has been following, have probably learned some things they didn’t know and can follow the links I posted and then do some learning on their own.

It’s ok not to know everything. What you said was false, take the L, move on… These people I’m talking about are the topic of this thread, they are already outliers in many ways, they are disproportionately responsible for all kinds of costs on society ESPECIALLY government programs like Medicare and you cannot define them away just to avoid admitting you didn’t know something.

they receive a tad over $600 a month in benefits on average.

“Average” is not the same as “typical”. Lots of these people are extremely expensive. If they didn’t exist the average would be substantially lower. When we’re talking about the homeless we are already talking about people who are statistical outliers and the “average” is simply irrelevant.

This is not a population segment of much social significance.

They are of huge FINANCIAL significance, especially the dual eligibles.

People enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid comprise 17% of Medicare beneficiaries in traditional Medicare and 14% of Medicaid enrollees, but much higher shares of spending (33% of traditional Medicare spending and 32% of Medicaid spending).

I imagine you can locate a few who are benefits of this minor component

But they draw a hugely disproportionate share of health care dollars. Which is an excuse for why money is being thrown at them through health insurance. Which is why we’re talking about them at all. We know there’s only a tiny percentage of homeless people, but they impose huge and outsize costs on society.

You have a great opportunity here to learn some of the facts that you’re missing which help explain why homelessness is such a screwed up issue.

Prisons are not just for “housing” people away from the general population – they are also for locking them in and guarding them so they can’t get out. The people in “housing first” programs are free to go where they want and do what they want. They are not sleeping on the street, but that’s hardly analogous to a prison. It’s analogous to having a free or very low-cost apartment.

Now, I ask you–who the heck do you think is going to get put into those small units? How about our newly arrived non-citizens? There are thousands of those “clients” to serve. Here in our small town which is run by the fem/nazis and the R cowards who try to assuage the situation, large swaths of great agricultural land are being used to develop housing for those who “need housing”. Well, let me tell you about our future residents we have three distinct categories:

1. upper middle class who have just moved in from CA, Minnesota,Oregon etc. because their former states are disasters. I can assure you they do not want to live in one bedroom 800 sq ft condos staring into their neighbor’s front room from less than 20 feet away, for the rest of their lives. Is our dearly little town planning on building larger more expensive housing for this group? Not in this lifetime–the communists running our city want every human being to be absolutely equal.

The second group of new arrivals in our town are the young techies or college grads who want to live in the mountains. I promise you they want a little more besides high speed internet service to their 800 sq foot condo.

The next group we have showing up under the cover of nighttime are folks with very limited English language skills. After all it was only several years ago that our city council declared this a “Sanctuary City”. Now tell me–what do you think they are going to feel about an 800sq ft condo with limited rent requirements and a free right to work pass?

You see the deceit here? The developers want these government monies to build that type of housing–as much of it as a space can hold. Yeah baby, they are in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, the Catholic Church charity and whatever other “noble” group that will front them. The basic fact is that we are giving up some of the finest agricultural land in this country in order to pack in illegal immigrants.

The last I heard the three elements essential for human survival are:
FIRST–WATER. WATER. WATER. WATER
SECOND–FOOD. FOOD. FOOD. FOOD.
Third–shelter.
Tell me again why we are taking in hundreds of thousands of &*^% (people) from warmer countries with more water and better growing conditions, so that we can build houses for them on our AGRICULTURAL LANDS?
Don’t Americans need water and food?

Here you go. Read it and weep: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/WhctKKZGdHxXBDVjkMZCgkTjtxrZZDbvxndWFxKfwvkqsKJtwzXSZlQcLhHGLmCkKnhhwfB

I just quoted SSA saying literally the opposite. Pretty sure they’re the ones who know:

Most people who receive disability benefits are workers who qualify on their own records and meet the work and disability requirements we have just described. However, there are some situations you may not know about:

If You’re Blind or Have Low Vision – How We Can Help
If You Are the Survivor
Benefits for Children with Disabilities
Benefits for Wounded Warriors & Veterans

…An adult who has a disability that began before age 22 may be eligible for benefits if their parent is deceased or starts receiving retirement or disability benefits. We consider this a “child’s” benefit because it is paid on a parent’s Social Security earnings record.

The Disabled Adult Child (DAC) — who may be an adopted child, or, in some cases, a stepchild, grandchild, or step grandchild — must be unmarried, age 18 or older, have a qualified disability that started before age 22, and meet the definition of disability for adults.

Example: A worker starts collecting Social Security retirement benefits at age 62. He has an unmarried 38-year old son who has had cerebral palsy since birth. The son may start collecting a DAC benefit on his father’s Social Security record.
It is not necessary that the DAC ever worked. Benefits are paid based on the parent’s earnings record.

It’s understandable you’d not know that, there’s so much propaganda and misconceptions about how these programs work. Including, of course, what can count as a “disability” which is surprisingly expansive.

Medicare also finances dialysis patients, but they’re not a big constituency.

It’s not the number of people, it’s how much they spend. Every health insurance company has a team trying to figure out how to get people off of their insurance and on to Medicare who are in dialysis and the paperwork moves at glacial speeds.

Many dream of a life unfettered by restrictions and accompanied by boundless resources. The American Dream can be reduced to that formula and applied to whatever political hucksters are selling to enrich themselves.

Some of us are aware that the unfettered life is both undesirable and unattainable and see through the hucksterism. Most of the unhoused have layers of trouble not curable by free everything. Cramming them together in a high rise with other troubled souls magnifies problems for those who would really benefit by a boost toward self care.

Thanks for your insights, everyone.