Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk • Hacker News Board

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#401

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #109

This is becoming such a frustrating issue. As an advocate of public spaces and parks, it's kind of heartbreaking that maybe 1/3 of public spaces in our town are no longer usable for all - they have more or less become private spaces for the homeless. I don't have much respect for communities that solve the issue by just "kicking them out" and passing the problem onto others, but it is almost becoming unacceptably com…

> It's a pity - this used to be a problem that was mostly solved by the private market.

No, it wasn't. It was “solved” (or, at least, those afflicted were encouraged to keep a low profile so as not to disturb “decent folk”) by government through actual and de facto imprisonment, whether involuntary and abusive institutionalization of those with mental health problems or criminalization of vagrancy.

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#402

Post by randompwd » Sat, Aug 07, 2021, 10:06 AM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #90

dyingkneepad wrote: post #23

As a non-American person living in the US, I fail to understand one thing about its society. When I walk around town I see tons and tons of places advertising jobs, for simple stuff like kitchen, moving stuff around, etc. I even recently saw a store with a "talk to the manager and start working right now" sign. And then I walk around the streets and see all these homeless. It seems like a paradox to me, but I am obvi…

If you take the problem in good-faith. That is, that even if these people wanted to engage in pro-social behavior, it's essentially nihilist at this point to assume anyone in this position can achieve this without years of support. I think a lot of it comes from policies that have in America that have effectively destroyed the housing supply. This goes triple for California. For folks living on the street, you absolu…

> As it stands, in Los Angeles, median one-bedroom seems to be about $2,362/month, and a minimum wage job there, before taxes only pays $2,462 per month.

Never been to Los Angeles so correct me if I'm wrong but is Los Angeles a small town or is a massive, sought-after city with a ~4 million population and ~18 million greater-area population?

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#403

Post by pas » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #383

pas wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandating density increase would solve this. Of course the problem is that US cities are legally small, the metro areas are big sprawling low density money sinks, and there's very little zoning coordination between cities in a metro area.

Los Angeles county is enormous and can address this.

Can a country override city regulations effectively?

Re: Woman sues L.A. after being struck by car on a street where tents block sidewalk

#404

Post by ric2b » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #275

legitster wrote: post #109

This is becoming such a frustrating issue. As an advocate of public spaces and parks, it's kind of heartbreaking that maybe 1/3 of public spaces in our town are no longer usable for all - they have more or less become private spaces for the homeless. I don't have much respect for communities that solve the issue by just "kicking them out" and passing the problem onto others, but it is almost becoming unacceptably com…

> The rise of homelessness is almost equal to the decline of single occupancy housing (flophouses, chicken wire hotels, etc). This has specifically been a huge problem in cities with expensive real estate like Los Angeles and San Francisco. It is why the free market approach to fixing the housing crisis doesn't work. The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable ho…

> The land is so expensive that it doesn't make financial sense to waste it on low margin affordable housing.

Isn't part of the problem that these places have regulations against high density housing? If San Francisco allowed for high-rises to be built I bet developers would be running over themselves to build affordable housing.

Better transportation would also help.