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San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

city-journal.org

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Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#51

Post by jahaja »

m0nsoon wrote: post #38
jahaja wrote: post #20

Wow, that article's rhetoric is seething with social darwinistic class hatred. All these voluntary homeless seems to be conspicuously absent in western Europe. At least at this scale. Insisting on, which the author clearly does according to a quick googling, firmly supporting and perpetuating an economic system that creates these dystopian features and then calling for their forceful removal, through weasel language,…

Your point side-steps the social responsibility of lifting drug-addicted and mentally-disadvantaged victims of so-called “social Darwinism” out of their state of despair. The case made by the article for social change is rock solid and borne out by a quick walk through the TL.

In what way? I'm trying suggest to address the root cause, albeit very long term, rather than just moving poverty out-of-sight.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#52

Post by pjc50 »

airnomad wrote: post #6

Why do we expect that people should live in house or have a home? Maybe we need to design our cities and public places in a way that they would be approachable for people living outside? Why we wouldn't have camping spots in cities with infrastructure that supports living outside?

People do not want to live on the streets in tents. Tents are just not suitable for permanent life even at the latitude of San Francisco.

The UK and Ireland have the "traveller" community. They are basically non-Roma gypsies, the descendants of nomadic Irish tinkers. Even they do not live in tents. They live in caravans. A few still have the traditional wooden painted horse-drawn ones, although generally those only appear for special occasions like funerals. Mostly it's modern caravans and motorhomes.

There used to be fields provided for them on the edge of towns, but the inevitable social conflicts have caused those to be reduced to almost no provision.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#53

Post by jahaja »

m0nsoon wrote: post #50

An excellent article that beautifully summarizes the frustration of many residents and highlights obvious policy solutions to address them, such as Proposition Q. >>>Providing the mentally ill with the “liberty” to decompose on the streets is cruelty, not compassion. The policies employed by Breed’s government misuse resources in a quixotic effort at fighting addiction by providing more means to be addicted. The “nee…

No, cruelty is _causing_ the problem. Not being unable hide it.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#54

Post by m0nsoon »

awayyyythrow wrote: post #36
kelnos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civilization is exactly about imposing a philosophy on how people should live. Like it or not, that's how it works. If you don't want to play ball, there are plenty of open spaces in the US where people can live off the land without creating a public health hazard. If people don't want to be homeless, we should do everything in our power to help them get into housing, sustainably. But if they do? No thanks, do that s…

Yeah, most people actually love to be homeless and live in tents. The housing crisis isn't real.

So it is society to blame for one’s decision to not be employed, be addicted to intoxicants, and behave feral? The grandiose entitlement certainly is real.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#57

Post by awayyyythrow »

m0nsoon wrote: post #54
awayyyythrow wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, most people actually love to be homeless and live in tents. The housing crisis isn't real.

So it is society to blame for one’s decision to not be employed, be addicted to intoxicants, and behave feral? The grandiose entitlement certainly is real.

Yeah, how dare people want to sleep in a bed under a roof. So entitled.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#58

Post by m0nsoon »

awayyyythrow wrote: post #42
kelnos wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the alternative, not enforcing laws, is clearly not working. Law enforcement everywhere is about moving crime out to the margins. It will never stamp out all crime, but it does tend to reduce the quantity of it. And I'm not even convinced that "moving it elsewhere" is necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather have most crime concentrated in a small area than distributing it over a large area. Regardless, people should…

The alternative is building houses . When you put people in houses they cease to be homeless. They did it in Helsinki, and it worked: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Very simple deductive reasoning actually, I wonder how people did not come up with it yet.

>>>No other American city has built as much affordable housing per capita, according to the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. From 2004 to 2014, the city spent $2 billion on nearly 3,000 new units of permanent supportive housing.

You’re conflating addressing “housing transience” with addressing “addiction, mental illness, and criminal antisocial behavior”. Additional housing units don’t resolve this problem.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#59

Post by pjc50 »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #24
jahaja wrote: post #20

Wow, that article's rhetoric is seething with social darwinistic class hatred. All these voluntary homeless seems to be conspicuously absent in western Europe. At least at this scale. Insisting on, which the author clearly does according to a quick googling, firmly supporting and perpetuating an economic system that creates these dystopian features and then calling for their forceful removal, through weasel language,…

Lets do an experiment. Go to a park in the middle of London, and set up a tent, and scatter used needles on the sidewalk. You'll be involuntarily moved out of the park within a couple of hours. Since your governments go ahead and remove people who are trying to live in public spaces, you don't see them, and you assume they don't exist. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/berlin-has-been-payin... https://www.politi…

Edinburgh has people living in tents. There was someone I used to see from the bus who lived on a park bench for months, surrounded by a pile of black bags of his stuff. Nicely situated park bench too, just far enough out to be away from the tourists but with a great view of the hills.

I hear reports of a used needle problem but haven't seen any myself.

The problem in northern Europe is not so much that the police will move on people in tents as the winters are colder than SF; Norway has zero long-term street homeless because the winter will kill them quickly.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#60

Post by twelve40 »

MrAlex94 wrote: post #46
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets do an experiment. Go to a park in the middle of London, and set up a tent, and scatter used needles on the sidewalk. You'll be involuntarily moved out of the park within a couple of hours. Since your governments go ahead and remove people who are trying to live in public spaces, you don't see them, and you assume they don't exist. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/berlin-has-been-payin... https://www.politi…

> Since your governments go ahead and remove people who are trying to live in public spaces, you don't see them, and you assume they don't exist. From this, I assume you aren’t from the UK and don’t actually have any idea about homelessness here? [Shelter]( https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/homelessness ) and [Centrepoint]( https://centrepoint.org.uk/ ) are two of the biggest homeless charities here and t…

In the US, in San Francisco specifically, many homeless get not just a free coffee, but free needles, methadone, and pretty much a blind eye to all drug circulation downtown. The city spends $300 million on homeless every year, yet in the other thread here they say that SF has more homeless than all of the UK, and that number keeps growing every year. There are people defecating every day in the street around my office in the Financial District, I guess I should start buying them coffee or some food and things will get back on track.
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