Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
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Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#2The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless population, I witness it on a near daily basis:
"I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of homeless people to move on but having no answer when asked where they could move to"
As I said, I witness this extremely regularly just outside of my apartment. It ranges from a patrol car stopping for a few minutes to just give a talk to the homeless people that amounts to "hey, we're the police, we are letting you know we're here and we've got our eye on you... we know you can't magically stop being homeless but please stop looking so homeless", all the way to 4-5 cars + a firetruck/ambulance on standby while the officers make the homeless people take down camp, pat them down, etc. with sometimes a city sanitation pickup truck taking away all of their possessions as garbage (it seems that many homeless people are hoarders).
I'm not sure what's going on "behind the scenes" here. Is it an irate neighbor that calls the police complaining about the homeless people and asking them to do something about it, which they then do their best to? Or is interacting with the homeless population an actual, documented part of their job? If so, is it tracked? What are the outcomes they hope for?
What I observe is that when they make the homeless people leave, they'll typically be back a few days/weeks later, so clearly this is only shuffling the problem around, rather than actually solving it in any meaningful way.
My hunch is that this is all essentially theater - the police/fire department know they can't do anything, but have instructions from above to do "something" about it, so they just end up doing what they can, even if it is utterly pointless and ineffective. But at least the irate neighbor is satisfied that there are no more homeless people outside their window for now.
It's all very sad.
Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#3Philip Alston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Alston
Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#4The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless population, I witness it on a near daily basis: "I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of ho…
It was my understanding that SF in particular is an incredibly rich county and that there are adequate beds available in shelters for the homeless. Is this not the case?
Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#5The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless population, I witness it on a near daily basis: "I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of ho…
It was my understanding that SF in particular is an incredibly rich county and that there are adequate beds available in shelters for the homeless. Is this not the case?
This article[0] claims that the shelter system has 1200 beds, and that official figures put the homeless population count at ~7000, while unofficial figures put it more around 10 000-12 000 and the parent article quotes 21 000.
[0] https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Questions-about-San-Fran...
Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#6The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless population, I witness it on a near daily basis: "I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of ho…
It was my understanding that SF in particular is an incredibly rich county and that there are adequate beds available in shelters for the homeless. Is this not the case?
The city of San Francisco spends $40,000 per person per year on the city’s homeless population. That was $241 million in 2016 [0]. The issue of homelessness is complicated but is made worse by terrible mismanagement by the city.
[0] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-recor...
Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#7The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless population, I witness it on a near daily basis: "I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of ho…
It was my understanding that SF in particular is an incredibly rich county and that there are adequate beds available in shelters for the homeless. Is this not the case?
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Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#8The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless population, I witness it on a near daily basis: "I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of ho…
The implicit, undocumented, de facto aim of moving homeless on to somewhere else is to have them die quietly out of the public eye.
A better way to solve the “homeless problem” is to give people homes, counselling, and access to work. This is because homelessness is usually a result of losing a job and thus a house and thus one’s self esteem (and in some cases, one’s mind).
Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#9The whole report is a great read, which completely lines up with my experience living in various places in the US (particularly California + Louisiana) as a European - but this example near the beginning particularly stands out to me because, living in an area in San Francisco with a very visible homeless population, I witness it on a near daily basis: "I witnessed a San Francisco police officer telling a group of ho…
It was my understanding that SF in particular is an incredibly rich county and that there are adequate beds available in shelters for the homeless. Is this not the case?
Shelters are notoriously nasty places, and a bed alone is not what these people need. Many, if not most are seriously mentally ill, and need a level of care that isn’t available to people without serious money. Since the 1980’s mental health has been shafted in the US, with predictable results for homelessness and mass violence. Remember that the Us is a country in which a sitting congresswomen and bystanders can be gunned down by a paranoid schizophrenic who was known to authorities, and nothing changes.
Re: Statement on Visit to the USA by Professor Philip Alston
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was my understanding that SF in particular is an incredibly rich county and that there are adequate beds available in shelters for the homeless. Is this not the case?
The city of San Francisco spends $40,000 per person per year on the city’s homeless population. That was $241 million in 2016 [0]. The issue of homelessness is complicated but is made worse by terrible mismanagement by the city. [0] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-recor...
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