San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#21

Post by martinshen » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:14 AM UTC

fosk wrote: post #19

martinshen wrote: post #11

Housing and the homeless topics keep coming up on HN and in my social circles. It's frustrating. My real frustration is in fact with our cities are incentivizing businesses to create jobs while not creating more housing supply nor using that capital to improve our city like solve homelessness. This is unethical and despicable. The city is not run by the techies who work here. The city is run by rich companies AND ent…

I live in SF and the problem with housing here is that although the residential neighborhoods are very extended (think of the Richmond), most of the residential buildings are 2/3 story houses that cannot accomodate many people. We need to start replacing these little residential houses with 10 story buildings. There is nowhere else to build, we need to start upgrading the existing buildings. Will that change the city…

This is one of many problems that disincentivizes construction projects.

To build a new condo in San Francisco is rarely profitable: 1) Unlike other cities, when your building plan fits all criteria, it is not effectively automatically approved. To get your permit, you must comply AND be very lucky. In other cities, you generally must ONLY comply. 2) Once your building has been approved, small community groups may oppose it and the government will reject you if you do not. 3) A substantial percentage of your building must be sold at a loss for affordable housing.

Development projects here are effectively the highest risk and highest cost. On top of this, most buildings can only be 4 or 5 stories tall. Of course, the only way to stay afloat is to build luxury overpriced condos.

The question is how do you overcome the rich and entrenched voters who effectively control these policy.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#22

Post by fosk » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:16 AM UTC

martinshen wrote: post #21

fosk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in SF and the problem with housing here is that although the residential neighborhoods are very extended (think of the Richmond), most of the residential buildings are 2/3 story houses that cannot accomodate many people. We need to start replacing these little residential houses with 10 story buildings. There is nowhere else to build, we need to start upgrading the existing buildings. Will that change the city…

This is one of many problems that disincentivizes construction projects. To build a new condo in San Francisco is rarely profitable: 1) Unlike other cities, when your building plan fits all criteria, it is not effectively automatically approved. To get your permit, you must comply AND be very lucky. In other cities, you generally must ONLY comply. 2) Once your building has been approved, small community groups may op…

> The question is how do you overcome the rich and entrenched voters who effectively control these policy.

I can't talk for every category, but the tech industry as a whole would be more than happy to promote these initiatives, because cheaper rents mean cheaper salaries for their employees.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#23

Post by dreamdu5t » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:18 AM UTC

Why is that a problem that needs solving? Quite honestly I do not give a shit if someone is choosing to use drugs and live in the street... And the idea that they just need "addiction services" is laughable. Whatever. I don't give two shits about some alcoholic or methhead, and the idea that they have no control over it and need to be "helped" is perverted.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#24

Post by henrikschroder » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:19 AM UTC

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #16

1024core wrote: post #3

Every time the topic comes up, people from across the country start commenting on SF's homelessness woes. I live in SF, and consider our homeless situation unique. There are lots of mentally ill people, who have been hanging around for many years, thanks to good weather and generous people (and the easy availability of some drugs). Most of these people are NOT your typical "lost my job, lost my apartment, and hence a…

> They simply cannot take care of themselves. And no one else wants to, which is part of the problem.

Well, there's enormous amounts of charity that ensures noone starves to death, and there's enormous amounts of money spent by Fire departments/Police/EMT teams to handle emergencies, because those are deemed politically acceptable expenses.

But those are band-aid responses that can never ever eliminate the root cause. I'm convinced that the public would spend way less money over the long term, and the affected people would be vastly better off, if they were given proper long-term care and treatment.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#25

Post by adwf » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:20 AM UTC

20years wrote: post #10

This is very similar to the homeless situation where I live. We had to recently break up a camp in one of the beach communities too. Many, many drug addicts (especially meth) and mentally ill (possibly due to drugs). Simply providing shelter is not the solution imo. The challenge is so much bigger than that. Drug rehab services need to be provided or even required. The easy access to drugs also needs to be addressed.…

> If we want to solve this problem, we need to provide shelter along with drug rehab services & require weekly clean drug tests as a requirement to keep the shelter.

Yes and no. The question is, are people becoming homeless because they're drug addicts or becoming drug addicts because they are homeless?

If it's the former then yes, clean drug tests - as a requirement to compel them to get better - might help. If it's the latter however, you're just going to drive away the very people that you are trying to help.

I venture to say that most drug addicts don't actually want to be that way. So throwing them a lifeline and then taking it away because they're addicted? Seems callous and unhelpful. You'll never solve the problem that way.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#26

Post by 1024core » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:20 AM UTC

beatpanda wrote: post #7

1024core wrote: post #3

Every time the topic comes up, people from across the country start commenting on SF's homelessness woes. I live in SF, and consider our homeless situation unique. There are lots of mentally ill people, who have been hanging around for many years, thanks to good weather and generous people (and the easy availability of some drugs). Most of these people are NOT your typical "lost my job, lost my apartment, and hence a…

I suggest looking at the official data on this subject[1]. The vast majority of San Francisco's homeless people are, in fact, people who were living in SF and paying rent, lost one or more jobs, and subsequently became homeless. I would also suggest you read the literature[2] concerning "putting people in a mental institution" against their will, because that practice has a long and sordid history and there are many,…

> The vast majority of San Francisco's homeless people are, in fact, people who were living in SF and paying rent, lost one or more jobs, and subsequently became homeless.

Look closely. 70% claim to be so ... but only ~30% were actually paying rent. That's 21%, certainly not the vast majority. Also: if you got kicked out of a shelter, it counts as having been "living" in SF. :-)

Plus, this was a self-reported survey. Homeless people will often lie to get your sympathy. Case in point: the whole "I need to buy food" spiel. Most of the time that I have offered to do so, they hum and haw and ignore my offer. Some in fact take the food and throw it away. Very rarely do they actually eat the food. The point is: if the homeless think they can get more sympathy by claiming to be lifelong residents of SF, many will claim to be so.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#27

Post by aetherson » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:21 AM UTC

fosk wrote: post #19

martinshen wrote: post #11

Housing and the homeless topics keep coming up on HN and in my social circles. It's frustrating. My real frustration is in fact with our cities are incentivizing businesses to create jobs while not creating more housing supply nor using that capital to improve our city like solve homelessness. This is unethical and despicable. The city is not run by the techies who work here. The city is run by rich companies AND ent…

I live in SF and the problem with housing here is that although the residential neighborhoods are very extended (think of the Richmond), most of the residential buildings are 2/3 story houses that cannot accomodate many people. We need to start replacing these little residential houses with 10 story buildings. There is nowhere else to build, we need to start upgrading the existing buildings. Will that change the city…

While I do support infill development, San Francisco is already a dense city (the second-densest city in the US after New York City, unless you count much smaller municipalities), and the idea that everyone must, must, must be given the opportunity to live in San Francisco proper is naïve, as is the idea that any but a tiny minority of the homeless in the city would ever be able to afford any kind of market-rate housing even with a wholesale program of infill development.

You say "there is nowhere else to build." Sure there is. There is Daly City and Colma and Millbrae and so forth down to San Jose and out into the east bay and even the north bay. Not everyone is going to live in the 49 square miles of SF, even if it becomes considerably more dense.

Now, we should also build higher-density housing in SF. But that's not going to change the homelessness situation in any meaningful way.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#28

Post by 1024core » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:21 AM UTC

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #16

1024core wrote: post #3

Every time the topic comes up, people from across the country start commenting on SF's homelessness woes. I live in SF, and consider our homeless situation unique. There are lots of mentally ill people, who have been hanging around for many years, thanks to good weather and generous people (and the easy availability of some drugs). Most of these people are NOT your typical "lost my job, lost my apartment, and hence a…

> They simply cannot take care of themselves. And no one else wants to, which is part of the problem.

SF spends $241M/year on the homeless. That is way more money per homeless than NYC does (which spends about $1B/year, for 10x more homeless).

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#29

Post by henrikschroder » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:23 AM UTC

dreamdu5t wrote: post #23

Why is that a problem that needs solving? Quite honestly I do not give a shit if someone is choosing to use drugs and live in the street... And the idea that they just need "addiction services" is laughable. Whatever. I don't give two shits about some alcoholic or methhead, and the idea that they have no control over it and need to be "helped" is perverted.

The above reasoning is shared by a large part of the American people, and this is why the homeless situation in SF and other places in the US is so ridiculously bad compared to the rest of the civilized world.

Re: San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

#30

Post by 1024core » Sat, Feb 27, 2016, 12:24 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #12

1024core wrote: post #3

Every time the topic comes up, people from across the country start commenting on SF's homelessness woes. I live in SF, and consider our homeless situation unique. There are lots of mentally ill people, who have been hanging around for many years, thanks to good weather and generous people (and the easy availability of some drugs). Most of these people are NOT your typical "lost my job, lost my apartment, and hence a…

How many homeless people have you talked to? In my (anecdotal) experience just chatting with people, there are plenty of “lost my job and now I’m homeless” folks in SF. These tend to be a bit less visible than the mentally ill though. More generally, many homeless people become mentally unstable or take up mind-altering substances after a while living on the street. It’s a really stressful, socially alientating situa…

> How many homeless people have you talked to?

Quite a few. Maybe close to 50 over the years, a decent sized sample. Some of them I got to know very closely. One of them did get an SRO room (I was really close to him), I helped him get settled in. Of course, about 2 years later he was back on the streets, because he wrecked his room.