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70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

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Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

#101

Post by tootie »

underseacables wrote: post #28
khazhoux wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mixing issues. The homelessness problem has been growing for the last 15 years (I mean, before that too, but I remember never being shocked in the early 2000s like I always am today), whereas the "Defund" thing is only in the last year. The homelessness crisis is not caused by a lack of police enforcement.

True, but lack of police enforcement has led to greater numbers of homeless people acting without worry, setting up camps, pooping in the streets, vandalism, assault, robbery, etc. Greater police presence is an excellent deterrent for homeless misbehavior and crime. Otherwise there is no limitation on what those unhoused persons can do, thus exacerbating the problem. It may not have caused it, but the lack of police…

One of the principles of defund is to use more appropriate responders to things like homelessness. Police arresting homeless and moving them somewhere else is pointless. Having social workers who can get them into a shelter and maybe treatment could actually ameliorate the problem.

Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

#103

Post by creamytaco »

api wrote: post #88
pmalynin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how about religious freedoms, reproductive rights and the feelings about LGBTQ folks? To add a little bit of context to the folks bellow: I actually am from Eastern Europe and consider myself rather lucky to have escaped it to Canada and the US. If you’re a good an American straight white male, with a lot of dollars then yea of course you’re going to have a pretty good time. But let’s not trivialize the issues he…

Isn’t this changing the subject? Or are you implying a connection? There are many major cities in the US that are socially fairly liberal and nowhere near as dysfunctional as SF. Actually most urban areas in the US are pretty accepting even in areas like the Midwest and the South. If you are in a city you are generally fine. Poland could become much more tolerant and accepting of differences without becoming an open…

Maybe not as dysfunctional as SF, but clearly there is severe social dysfunction in a lot of the cities run by liberals: Oakland, Seattle, Portland, NYC, Detroit, DC, Minneapolis.

Allowing for some variation, at what point does one begin to blame the policies and ideologies behind those policies, that are substantially similar across the board?

Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

#104

Post by w_TF »

I find it weird how everyone wants to point their fingers at politicians or the police as if these are the forces that created this mess, as if those groups simply snapped their fingers then the economic conditions that perpetuate homelessness would magically disappear.

Everyone wants someone else to make the problem go away for them, that they shouldn't have to play any part in that because they pay taxes, and all the while they're also lobbying the city to keep housing density low out of some absurd privileged need to preserve a broken status quo of what they think an idyllic neighborhood ought to be.

It's incredibly ironic how in America we've recreated the very thing that Americans were trying to escape from in Europe -a landed aristocracy.

Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

#105

Post by DoreenMichele »

San Francisco has some of the most expensive real estate in the country. [1] When I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area like two decades back and looked at housing prices there, SROs[2] were like $1000/month or so. That's a single room, not an apartment.

San Francisco has really lovely weather most of the year. It has highly desirable weather if you are homeless: Not much rain and mild temperatures year round.[3]

I think California is currently the dumping ground for a lot of America's homeless. I have heard that homelessness is down in other states and up in California.

I think part of what happens is people go there because the weather is very homeless-friendly and then get stuck in part because housing costs are so high in California. I think California will not really solve its homeless problem until the entire US decides to resolve our lack of affordable housing.[4]

I spent nearly six years homeless, most of it in California. I left the state to get back into housing. I have six years of college and yadda, so what I was able to pull off may not be what most homeless people can do for themselves in the face of a broken system.

(Edit: years before I was ever homeless, I took a college class from SFSU called Homelessness and Public Policy. The above paragraph was intended to suggest I'm somewhat knowledgeable about the topic.)

I am still dirt poor and trying to establish an adequate income while being told it's somehow my fault that my poverty is intractable and no amount of rebutting the myriad explanations for how it is somehow my fault ever seems to really change the situation.

I've been repeating a lot of this for years on HN, seemingly to no avail. I'm frankly amazingly exhausted at this point.

[1] Contrary to what internet strangers like to tell me, cost of housing and homelessness are related. https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-c...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy

[3] https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/climate-and...

[4] https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove...

Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

#108

Post by maxlybbert »

chrisseaton wrote: post #85
abystander wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, re: outlawing speeding: "imagine making driving a crime."

That's not my logic. My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish. Do you realise it's not a crime in other countries? It's not in the UK and yet we have a lower road-death rate than the US. What are jaywalking laws for anyway?

The claim is that before cars, Americans (and I assume everybody else in every other country) crossed the road wherever they felt like it. But that they were slow to catch on to the dangers of doing that with cars on the road, and car companies were worried about laws in car owners, so they lobbied for laws restricting where people could legally cross ( https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797 ).

Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

#109

Post by techrat »

astrange wrote: post #65
techrat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's not to get? https://i.imgur.com/8xlOIW9.png The whole point of defunding the police is to get the funding back to where it belongs. https://citymonitor.ai/government/the-reality-of-us-city-bud... - The reality of US city budgets: Police funding eclipses most other agencies’

These comics (and the ones suggesting "defunding police" will lead to school funding) are essentially a trick because 1. reducing police funding won't lead to money going to those other places 2. half those things are done under the police department 3. the other half are much more expensive than police funding. Affordable housing is a notable case of the last one, it's very very expensive to build in SF and nobody a…

> These comics (and the ones suggesting "defunding police" will lead to school funding) are essentially a trick because 1. reducing police funding won't lead to money going to those other places 2. half those things are done under the police department 3. the other half are much more expensive than police funding.

Evidence does not support your claims.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/19/alexandria-k...

Social workers, in conjunction with police, have resulted in a drop of repeat calls and cost less than hiring another officer.

Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll

#110

Post by TedShiller »

w_TF wrote: post #104

I find it weird how everyone wants to point their fingers at politicians or the police as if these are the forces that created this mess, as if those groups simply snapped their fingers then the economic conditions that perpetuate homelessness would magically disappear. Everyone wants someone else to make the problem go away for them, that they shouldn't have to play any part in that because they pay taxes, and all t…

I agree. It's not the politicians' fault, it's their voters' fault.
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