Indianapolis homelessness is a housing problem
There is no direct causal correlation between homelessness and addiction, mental health, city location or even poverty.
Cities with high levels of homelessness have low levels of affordable housing. The accepted 'danger zone' vacancy rate that predicts high homelessness is 5%. Indianapolis is around 4.5%.
Briggs: Mike Braun grandstands on Indianapolis crime while murders drop 24%
Briggs is correct, however, in noting that any city promises that Streets To Home Indy will end all homelessness are aspirational at best.
The true promise of the organization is to end chronic homelessness. There's a big difference.
People who are chronically homeless are stuck in a vicious systemic cycle that offers no way out. The same 20 years of data is also clear that permanent housing with the services they need not only breaks the cycle of homelessness, but it also saves between $10K and $20K per person per year compared to how we're doing it now – shelters, temporary housing, and encampments.
While there will still be homelessness in 2028, it can be vastly reduced to episodic instances that we can address quickly and with permanent solutions.
I also agree that we must empathize with residents and business leaders.
That's why closing the Leonard Street encampment without a real solution is simply moving Fountain Square resident's problems to some other neighborhood's problem.
Briggs: Fishers, Carmel don't think renters deserve single-family homes
Warehousing people in tents is not a solution; it's kicking the proverbial can down the road. Instead of closing the Leonard Street encampment, the city could ask residents for some grace while Streets To Home Indy gets ramped up and we can permanently house folks.
I've talked to several residents who were at the July 28 meeting and all agreed that they and their neighbors are willing to wait for the city to do the right thing. Instead, Andrew Merkley and the Indianapolis Office of Public Health and Safety unilaterally decided to sweep people away from Fountain Square to points unknown, making them now a problem for our beleaguered homeless response professionals.
We can end chronic homelessness in Indianapolis. If we don't do it now, Gregg Colburn, associate professor of real estate at the University of Washington's College of Built Environments, would predict Indianapolis will become Seattle or San Francisco in less than 10 years. These are cities that will likely never do more than manage their untenable homelessness epidemic.
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Geek Wire
06-08-2025
- Geek Wire
AI chatbots sway political opinions – but education could offer protection, UW study finds
University of Washington graduate student Jillian Fisher presenting at the Association for Computational Linguistics in Vienna, Austria, on July 28. (UW Photo) If you've faced the frustrating challenge of trying to pull a friend or family member with opposing political views into your camp, maybe let a chatbot make your case. New research from the University of Washington found that politically biased chatbots could nudge Democrats and Republicans toward opposing viewpoints. But the study reveals a more concerning implication: bias embedded in the large language models that power these chatbots can unknowingly influence people's opinions, potentially affecting voting and policy decisions. '[It] is kind of like two sides of a coin. On one hand, we're saying that these models affect your decision making downstream. But on the other hand … this may be an interesting tool to bridge political divide,' said author Jillian Fisher, a UW doctoral student in statistics and in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Jillian Fisher, University of Washington doctoral student in statistics and in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. (UW Photo) Fisher and her colleagues presented their findings on July 28 at the Association for Computational Linguistics in Vienna, Austria. The underlying question that the researchers set out to answer was whether bias in LLMs can shape public opinions — just as political bias in news outlets can. The issue is of growing importance as people are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for information gathering and decision-making. While engineers don't necessarily set out to build biased models, the technology is trained on information of varying quality and the many decisions made by model designers can skew the LLMs, Fisher said. The researchers recruited 299 participants (150 Republicans, 149 Democrats) for two experiments designed to measure the influence of biased AI. The study used ChatGPT given its widespread usage. In one test, they asked participants about their opinions on four obscure political issues: covenant marriage, unilateralism, multifamily zoning and the Lacey Act of 1900, which restricts the import of environmentally dangerous plants and animals. Participants were then allowed to engage with ChatGPT to better inform their stance and then asked again for their opinion of the issue. In the other test, participants played the role of a city mayor, allocating a $100 budget for education, welfare, public safety and veteran services. Then they shared their budget decisions with the chatbot, discussed the allocations, and redistributed the funds. The variable in the study was that ChatGPT was either operating from a neutral perspective, or was instructed by the researchers to respond as a 'radical left U.S. Democrat' or a 'radical right U.S. Republican.' Diagram illustrating an AI bias study conducted by researchers at the University of Washington. (UW Image) The biased chatbots successfully influenced participants regardless of their political affiliation, pulling them toward the LLM's assigned perspective. For example, Democrats allocated more funds for public safety after consulting with conservative-leaning bots, while Republicans budgeted more for education after interacting with liberal versions. Republicans did not move further right to a statistically significant degree, likely due to what researchers called a 'ceiling effect' — meaning they had little room to become more conservative. The study dug deeper to characterize how the model responded and what strategies were most effective. ChatGPT used a combination of persuasion — such as appealing to fear, prejudice and authority or using loaded language and slogans — and framing, which includes making arguments based on health and safety, fairness and equality, and security and defense. Interestingly, the framing arguments proved more impactful than persuasion. The results confirmed the suspicion that the biased bots could influence opinions, Fisher said. 'What was surprising for us is that it also illuminated ways to mitigate this bias.' The study found that people who had some prior understanding of artificial intelligence were less impacted by the opinionated bots. That suggests more widespread, intentional AI education can help users guard against that influence by making them aware of potential biases in the technology, Fisher said. 'AI education could be a robust way to mitigate these effects,' Fisher said. 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Yahoo
05-08-2025
- Yahoo
Indianapolis homelessness is a housing problem
James Briggs' recent column, "Fountain Square camp shows Indianapolis' homelessness strategy is broken" doesn't accurately describe homelessness. There is no direct causal correlation between homelessness and addiction, mental health, city location or even poverty. Cities with high levels of homelessness have low levels of affordable housing. The accepted 'danger zone' vacancy rate that predicts high homelessness is 5%. Indianapolis is around 4.5%. Briggs: Mike Braun grandstands on Indianapolis crime while murders drop 24% Briggs is correct, however, in noting that any city promises that Streets To Home Indy will end all homelessness are aspirational at best. The true promise of the organization is to end chronic homelessness. There's a big difference. People who are chronically homeless are stuck in a vicious systemic cycle that offers no way out. The same 20 years of data is also clear that permanent housing with the services they need not only breaks the cycle of homelessness, but it also saves between $10K and $20K per person per year compared to how we're doing it now – shelters, temporary housing, and encampments. While there will still be homelessness in 2028, it can be vastly reduced to episodic instances that we can address quickly and with permanent solutions. I also agree that we must empathize with residents and business leaders. That's why closing the Leonard Street encampment without a real solution is simply moving Fountain Square resident's problems to some other neighborhood's problem. Briggs: Fishers, Carmel don't think renters deserve single-family homes Warehousing people in tents is not a solution; it's kicking the proverbial can down the road. Instead of closing the Leonard Street encampment, the city could ask residents for some grace while Streets To Home Indy gets ramped up and we can permanently house folks. I've talked to several residents who were at the July 28 meeting and all agreed that they and their neighbors are willing to wait for the city to do the right thing. Instead, Andrew Merkley and the Indianapolis Office of Public Health and Safety unilaterally decided to sweep people away from Fountain Square to points unknown, making them now a problem for our beleaguered homeless response professionals. We can end chronic homelessness in Indianapolis. If we don't do it now, Gregg Colburn, associate professor of real estate at the University of Washington's College of Built Environments, would predict Indianapolis will become Seattle or San Francisco in less than 10 years. These are cities that will likely never do more than manage their untenable homelessness epidemic. Rabbi Aaron Spiegel is the executive director of the Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis homelessness is a housing problem | Letters Solve the daily Crossword
Indianapolis Star
05-08-2025
- Indianapolis Star
Indianapolis homelessness is a housing problem
James Briggs' recent column, "Fountain Square camp shows Indianapolis' homelessness strategy is broken" doesn't accurately describe homelessness. There is no direct causal correlation between homelessness and addiction, mental health, city location or even poverty. Cities with high levels of homelessness have low levels of affordable housing. The accepted 'danger zone' vacancy rate that predicts high homelessness is 5%. Indianapolis is around 4.5%. Briggs: Mike Braun grandstands on Indianapolis crime while murders drop 24% Briggs is correct, however, in noting that any city promises that Streets To Home Indy will end all homelessness are aspirational at best. The true promise of the organization is to end chronic homelessness. There's a big difference. People who are chronically homeless are stuck in a vicious systemic cycle that offers no way out. The same 20 years of data is also clear that permanent housing with the services they need not only breaks the cycle of homelessness, but it also saves between $10K and $20K per person per year compared to how we're doing it now – shelters, temporary housing, and encampments. While there will still be homelessness in 2028, it can be vastly reduced to episodic instances that we can address quickly and with permanent solutions. I also agree that we must empathize with residents and business leaders. That's why closing the Leonard Street encampment without a real solution is simply moving Fountain Square resident's problems to some other neighborhood's problem. Briggs: Fishers, Carmel don't think renters deserve single-family homes Warehousing people in tents is not a solution; it's kicking the proverbial can down the road. Instead of closing the Leonard Street encampment, the city could ask residents for some grace while Streets To Home Indy gets ramped up and we can permanently house folks. I've talked to several residents who were at the July 28 meeting and all agreed that they and their neighbors are willing to wait for the city to do the right thing. Instead, Andrew Merkley and the Indianapolis Office of Public Health and Safety unilaterally decided to sweep people away from Fountain Square to points unknown, making them now a problem for our beleaguered homeless response professionals. We can end chronic homelessness in Indianapolis. If we don't do it now, Gregg Colburn, associate professor of real estate at the University of Washington's College of Built Environments, would predict Indianapolis will become Seattle or San Francisco in less than 10 years. These are cities that will likely never do more than manage their untenable homelessness epidemic.
