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S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

sfchronicle.com

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Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#61

Post by closeparen »

hezralig wrote: post #44
twblalock wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, the only way we can solve this is with incarceration. This has little to do with the availability of housing, or the cost of housing. Some people will simply refuse to live in the housing that is provided. Many are so mentally ill and addicted to drugs that no amount of money we give them, either directly or indirectly, will get them off the streets. Proposed solutions that don't involve incarceration…

I know plenty of homeless people in San Francisco without drug issues. The reason they are on the street or living in their cars or crashing on a friends couch in between either other spot? They cannot afford rent. Both friends I am currently in contact with are also CURRENTLY employed.

I know lots of normally functioning adults who cannot afford rent in San Francisco. Many of them have bigger, nicer houses than my apartment - elsewhere than San Francisco.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#62

Post by gwbas1c »

bergenty wrote: post #8
ska wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> clean the homeless up I'm curious - what do you imagine that looks like?

Moving them to the shelters and telling them to stay off the street. If there’s no room in the shelter, providing them housing outside the city. If you have a shelter/provided housing it’s a crime to sleep on the streets. Alternatively start up workhouses and sanitariums again. Government work in exchange for a safe, clean place to sleep and food for the day. Mental sanitariums for those people that are too far gone.…

Some of the replies point out that it's always more complicated than that.

One part of the problem is that the sheer cost of housing in San Francisco (and the surrounding) area is out of control. Some homeless people are simply priced out of the market. That generally is caused by a general lack of new construction in San Francisco and the Bay Area. But, I doubt that magically increasing the housing stock overnight will "solve" homelessness. (Because there are many reasons for homelessness.)

When I lived in the S.F. Bay area for almost a decade, I was shocked that the homeless problem was so bad. Where I'm from, the weather does put a sense of urgency on homelessness, because it's much more difficult to camp unsheltered in the winter. The Bay Area doesn't have the late October-November urgency to get people into shelters; nor do the homeless have the urgency to follow someone else's rules for a bit or risk freezing to death.

What I would suggest is to try to avoid seeing homeless as "others." Many people are homeless for different reasons; and it's important to empathize with the person who doesn't want the tent on their front door as much as it's important to empathize with the person in the tent.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#63

Post by mjevans »

bergenty wrote: post #4

Screw that, clean the homeless up. Can’t believe we have let the problem get so bad.

Further clarification requires far more nuance and assessment than is likely to be read. There's probably not even one single cause but a multitude of social ills. Some people in this situation might experience one, but are probably each a unique snowflake of mixed problems. Unaffordable housing, mental illness (across a huge spectrum of many different illnesses, probably several different experts just for this), even the occasional grifter who just happens to prefer panhandling or urban scavenging to scrape by.

My belief is that homelessness / 'unsheltered' is a catchall result of all the gaps in society's integration of individuals; and it's also a national level problem since the individuals can also be shipped around like those migrants that made the news recently. At least in America, but I've also heard that one of the emotionally motivating factors of Brexit were migrants from outside of the EU, we refuse to even provide a path and set of requirements for those who do want to participate in the system that's setup (instead in the US it's "build the wall" or "war at the border" extremes). Closing gaps in social safety nets and providing pathways for those who are troubled to integrate into society in mutually useful ways, or perhaps even caring for those who are incapable of such self care when provided help getting out of that hole, logically seems like a far harder challenge than any single city can face in a vacuum when we can't even handle easier issues on a national level.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#65

Post by erellsworth »

twblalock wrote: post #31
olivermarks wrote: post #10

'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…

Realistically, the only way we can solve this is with incarceration. This has little to do with the availability of housing, or the cost of housing. Some people will simply refuse to live in the housing that is provided. Many are so mentally ill and addicted to drugs that no amount of money we give them, either directly or indirectly, will get them off the streets. Proposed solutions that don't involve incarceration…

Yes, because we certainly don't do enough of that in this country.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#66

Post by clint »

masterof0 wrote: post #60
entwife wrote: post #35

It would be impossible to build enough housing in San Francisco for everyone who wants to live there.

I fail to understand why people feel entitled to live in a place they can't afford. I would love to live in Beverly Hills, but I can't.

Because they are there and they don't have money to go elsewhere, its not about "Where they feel entitled to live"

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#67

Post by foobarian »

jwlstn wrote: post #38
olivermarks wrote: post #10

'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…

If this were true why are the giant homeless populations almost exclusively in insanely expensive housing markets like SF, LA, NYC? Drug addiction is far worse in WV yet they don't have a major homeless problem. Explain this discrepency please if it's all because of drugs

Of those 3 I can explain SF and LA (nice weather) but no idea about NYC.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#68

Post by triceratops »

twblalock wrote: post #31
olivermarks wrote: post #10

'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…

Realistically, the only way we can solve this is with incarceration. This has little to do with the availability of housing, or the cost of housing. Some people will simply refuse to live in the housing that is provided. Many are so mentally ill and addicted to drugs that no amount of money we give them, either directly or indirectly, will get them off the streets. Proposed solutions that don't involve incarceration…

> This has little to do with the availability of housing, or the cost of housing.

This is a startlingly ignorant take. Shelter is among the basic human needs. If people were starving to death, would you blame mental illness or food prices?

> Progressive attempts to solve this problem have all failed

Yes. Because they don't focus on creating more housing. Not "affordable" housing, just housing.

They're called "progressive" attempts because the city's politics is dominated by progressives. But every property owner and voter, regardless of political stripe, is responsible for this state of affairs.

There is exactly 1 solution to California's "housing crisis". More housing. Not "affordable" housing. Not mass transit alone. More. Housing. Moar. Build baby build. If that doesn't work, you know what you do? Build more housing. Beat those prices into the ground with construction cranes and hammers.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#69

Post by lotsofpulp »

Bud wrote: post #51
twblalock wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, the only way we can solve this is with incarceration. This has little to do with the availability of housing, or the cost of housing. Some people will simply refuse to live in the housing that is provided. Many are so mentally ill and addicted to drugs that no amount of money we give them, either directly or indirectly, will get them off the streets. Proposed solutions that don't involve incarceration…

Quoted post unavailable.

> Long-term public support for the entire population, even the inconveniently vulnerable and expensive part of the population, is the only solution.

Right, the entire population of the US, which means solutions has to come from the federal government because of freedom of movement within the US.

The only solution available for state, county, and city governments is incarceration. Unless they want to blow up their budgets and see people who pay into the system move out and people who are net recipients of benefits move in.

Re: S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

#70

Post by twblalock »

jwlstn wrote: post #38
olivermarks wrote: post #10

'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived…

If this were true why are the giant homeless populations almost exclusively in insanely expensive housing markets like SF, LA, NYC? Drug addiction is far worse in WV yet they don't have a major homeless problem. Explain this discrepency please if it's all because of drugs

It's because places like SF, LA, and NYC tolerate it more than other cities. It's that simple.
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