51–60 of 190 posts
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Where do you live now?
Split, Croatia. Weather is equivalent, smaller city, lots of foreigners, and a growing IT industry. For a foreigner it's also very easy to just come and live in Croatia, they give staying permits to anyone who comes to just live and spend money (not work) but after you find work, getting an EU blue card is a piece of cake.
I can't even work in SF. The time wasted to drive to work kills me, I can't get desensitized to all the homeless shitting on streets, stabbing themselves with needles, talking schizophrenically in a dead language, every time I go grab a coffee or lunch in a cheaper area, it's like watching animal slaughter every day. Quality of life definitely much better in Mediterranean city I live today.
Oversimplifying here, but the homeless probem arises due to high housing cost and poor health care system. In addition to fighting the symptoms (which is already being done ok-ish), we need to fight the mentioned root causes. Unfortunately, the health care problem goes back to CA or even on a national level. Often times, mentally ill or people that lost their jobs for another reason become homeless, and from there th…
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Not really. Tends to be the same in any booming city. The opposite is the exception.
We just came back from Nashville, a fast growing city with 150 new residents every day. We did not experience any of the issues we saw in SF earlier this year (and last year, and the year before that).
This was a year ago. It was not as bad as SF by a long shot, but absolutely present.
I can't even work in SF. The time wasted to drive to work kills me, I can't get desensitized to all the homeless shitting on streets, stabbing themselves with needles, talking schizophrenically in a dead language, every time I go grab a coffee or lunch in a cheaper area, it's like watching animal slaughter every day. Quality of life definitely much better in Mediterranean city I live today.
It's strange that a rich area can't take care of this problem. E.g. supporting the homeless some way, cleaning them up and helping them to find some job and housing.
The main reasons there's such a visible homeless problem are:
1.) Housing crisis in general. A lot of that $241M goes to lower-income residents who are at risk of homelessness, not ones actually on the street, to keep them in their homes. From there, it largely goes to the landlords, if the apartment isn't rent-controlled, since it's more money chasing the same amount of housing. If the apartment is rent-controlled, it goes to the tenant + other landlords, since rent-controlled apartments drive up the rent for everybody else.
2.) A general laissez-faire attitude toward the homeless. SF has a strong culture of live-and-let-live; if you don't bother the homeless, they won't bother you. (This attitude may or may not reflect reality, but it's the culture.) There's widespread opposition to criminalizing homelessness and say arresting or tazing homeless people.
3.) Poor mental health & substance abuse services. This is a legacy of history: JFK moved responsibility for mental health services from the state to federal government, Reagan consequently cut the budget for the state of CA's mental health services, and then when Reagan was president, he moved responsibility back to the states, without any corresponding increase in funding. As a result, the mentally ill are nobody's problem, so they just sorta hang out on street corners or wander across major boulevards.
4.) Mild climate. SF is an attractive place to be homeless. I grew up in Boston; we didn't have much of a visible homeless problem. Why? Because come wintertime, they would all either freeze to death or huddle together in the subway stations, keeping them out of public view unless you took the T. In SF, they sprawl all over the Tenderloin, the Mission, the Civic Center, SOMA, etc, all of which are prominent neighborhoods that get a lot of gentrified and/or tourist traffic.
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Not really. Tends to be the same in any booming city. The opposite is the exception.
We just came back from Nashville, a fast growing city with 150 new residents every day. We did not experience any of the issues we saw in SF earlier this year (and last year, and the year before that).
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You aren’t supposed to tell people that! Also it rains and is dreary all winter there.
Even a little before dotcoms, there was a perception in the Pacific Northwest, of Californians moving in and driving up prices, and there were the jokes: "It rains all the time! Always gray! And slugs everywhere ! We have to check inside our shoes before we put them on!"
E.g. the slugs: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/2fd5f3/banana_slug...
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It's strange that a rich area can't take care of this problem. E.g. supporting the homeless some way, cleaning them up and helping them to find some job and housing.
They spend vast amounts of money on the problem, but the way they approach the problem makes the solution intractable. To the extent the drug addicted and severely mentally ill homeless can want things, and want the right to continue their current life, they are afforded that right. That is to say, it is their fundamental right to use drugs, live, and defecate on the street (I know these things are illegal, but reall…
SF's recent bill to involuntarily commit chronically mentally ill individuals is a step in the right direction, but it's so toothless that it won't matter much. An individual has to be brought to inpatient mental services 8 times in a year to trigger the rule. Why bother?
I can't even work in SF. The time wasted to drive to work kills me, I can't get desensitized to all the homeless shitting on streets, stabbing themselves with needles, talking schizophrenically in a dead language, every time I go grab a coffee or lunch in a cheaper area, it's like watching animal slaughter every day. Quality of life definitely much better in Mediterranean city I live today.
Speaking Latin or Aramaic while never having studied it is like #1 sign of demonic possession. I'd definitely avoid those guys.
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Oversimplifying here, but the homeless probem arises due to high housing cost and poor health care system. In addition to fighting the symptoms (which is already being done ok-ish), we need to fight the mentioned root causes. Unfortunately, the health care problem goes back to CA or even on a national level. Often times, mentally ill or people that lost their jobs for another reason become homeless, and from there th…
There are also homeless regardless if they receive help, due to mental illnesses.
I can't even work in SF. The time wasted to drive to work kills me, I can't get desensitized to all the homeless shitting on streets, stabbing themselves with needles, talking schizophrenically in a dead language, every time I go grab a coffee or lunch in a cheaper area, it's like watching animal slaughter every day. Quality of life definitely much better in Mediterranean city I live today.
Oversimplifying here, but the homeless probem arises due to high housing cost and poor health care system. In addition to fighting the symptoms (which is already being done ok-ish), we need to fight the mentioned root causes. Unfortunately, the health care problem goes back to CA or even on a national level. Often times, mentally ill or people that lost their jobs for another reason become homeless, and from there th…