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Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

economist.com

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Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#101

Post by rhaway84773 »

ajross wrote: post #96
PaulHoule wrote: post #76

As anathema as it may seem to some people I think the real answer has to involve dispersing the homeless population in SF. The SF chronicle did a series on the efforts to house people in shelters and one major problems was that a person who wanted to get clean from opioids is just surrounded by temptation and is just one dose of Fentanyl away from death. Thus these people are more dangerous to each other than they ar…

> I think the real answer has to involve dispersing the homeless population in SF. Does it? As the article points out, the homeless population is actually down since 2019. Homelessness is bad, and a hard problem to solve[1], but it's not The Reason Everything Is Wrong, because if it was (1) everything would have been wrong before, when we agree everything was great and (2) other places would be worse, and we all agre…

Re: 1]

I just visited several cities in Europe. I did not see homeless people just strewn all over the place like one does in SF, in countries which are both equivalent and far poorer than the U.S., and in countries which statistically have significantly lower and higher homeless per capita than the U.S.

It’s almost like if the govt provides basic services that allow even the poorest then even the homeless will choose to live with some dignity.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#102

Post by api »

ioseph wrote: post #56
spaniard89277 wrote: post #26

Make housing affordable with denser mixed-use zoning: You solved 50% of the problem. Make public transport convenient. You solved another 30%. People needs to be able to stay frugal in rough times and socialize. It feels to me that many US cities make this impossible. If you had Spain levels of unemployment I have no idea how would you do.

Density works but isn't it just kicking the can down the road until population growth and inflation drives prices up again?

You think driving prices up in SF would help?

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#103

Post by rhaway84773 »

elif wrote: post #53

Maybe it's because the friends i used to visit live in the tenderloin but to me San Franskidro tipped a decade ago. I live in the south side of Atlanta and there is constant gun crime, car theft, gang violence, etc. but to me that is wholely different than being harassed in a targeted manner on the streets for being in a perceived "class." There may be an occasional clash of culture in ATL for sure, but not an outrig…

No one in the streets in Atlanta.

Because no one uses the streets in Atlanta outside a car.

Atlanta has 930 violent crimes per 100k vs SF’s 715 or so.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities...

Atlanta is the ultimate out of sight out of mind city.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#104

Post by doo_daa »

Ok... I'm travelling to SF (I live in the UK) for a few days for work this August. I was looking forward to it but now I'm mainly scared! Is it still good to visit but just not to live in? The last time I was there was 2007. I've got a couple of days to myself whilst I'm there. What should I do?

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#105

Post by hotpotamus »

kakapo88 wrote: post #97
naillo wrote: post #44

[deleted]

SF Techie here. Lived and worked here, for many years. Every day I literally step over bodies to get to work. Drugs are openly dealt and consumed. Mentally ill people roam the streets, screaming. People openly use the sidewalks as a toilet. Crime is rampant. And if anyone doubts it's that bad, I invite you to come and look for yourself. Almost all of these people come from elsewhere in the country. They aren't "price…

> mandatory treatment for drug addiction and mental illness

I hope these homeless people have better health insurance than I do.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#106

Post by panarchy »

phpisthebest wrote: post #88
spaniard89277 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you born addicted to drugs? People needs treatment and a path to become useful members of society again. Affordable housing makes a lot of poor people able to save money and help their peers.

anyone that has any depth of knowelege of the homeless knows there are generally 2 types of homeless population. Transitory economic homeless, these homeless can be assisted by affordable housing, housing first, and other programs. Often these homeless of covered pretty well by current homeless programs, as they are the type of homeless people most easily identify with, and engineer programs to solve. Then there are…

It's almost like the second group has been deeply traumatized over time by a society whose only response to their mental health issues was a "fuck you" to the point that their mental health just keeps deteriorating and they become completely anti-social and actively avoid help, because fuck it why contribute back to a system that won't contribute to you. Many view the assistance as just being a pathway to get them back to contributing to a system that already failed them, not real help.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#107

Post by inferiorhuman »

Barrin92 wrote: post #65
Mizoguchi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's ignore that almost 100% of the homeless population in America is addicted to drugs. Having experienced drug abuse myself I know for a fact affordable housing is not going to do anything for these folks. They need treatment, and that unfortunately doesn't happen voluntarily when you are sick.

Yep. As the article points out in SF this is most concentrated but honestly the US overall seems to have largely abandoned institutionalizing the mentally ill or drug addicts. Rates of drug use or mental illness among the homeless can be as high as 30-50% depending on where and how you measure it, and anyone who has ever met people in that state knows they need to be in professional treatment, by force if necessary.

The long and the short of it is that institutions were pretty damn bad back in the 70s which is what lead to states shutting them down. California bought into a community mental health model where municipalities would take responsibility for dealing with mental illness. Reagan bought into it too and turned it into an unfunded mandate.

There've been a few efforts over the years to remedy the problem, but in general institutionalizing people and forcing them onto any sort of medication is very difficult to do in California.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#108

Post by ajross »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #101
ajross wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the real answer has to involve dispersing the homeless population in SF. Does it? As the article points out, the homeless population is actually down since 2019. Homelessness is bad, and a hard problem to solve[1], but it's not The Reason Everything Is Wrong, because if it was (1) everything would have been wrong before, when we agree everything was great and (2) other places would be worse, and we all agre…

Re: 1] I just visited several cities in Europe. I did not see homeless people just strewn all over the place like one does in SF, in countries which are both equivalent and far poorer than the U.S., and in countries which statistically have significantly lower and higher homeless per capita than the U.S. It’s almost like if the govt provides basic services that allow even the poorest then even the homeless will choos…

FWIW: if you walked around San Francisco in the 1990's, you'd see fewer people "strewn all over the place" too. But they were still there! We used to use law enforcement to push them into places you couldn't see. That's not "living with dignity", it's just abuse.

I won't speak to what you saw in Europe except to say that Europe too has large homeless populations in most cities. This is a universal thing.

But really your point is the point in the linked article. We don't want a solution to the homeless problem. We just don't want to see the homeless. And our community has treated that disconnect by meme-ing the existence of a problem that isn't real.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#109

Post by asmithmd1 »

golemotron wrote: post #15
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #7

San Francisco and Oakland are facing combined close to $500 million budget shortfall and are requesting a federal tax payer bailout. The second major federal bailout in eight years. Oakland has one of the highest violent crime rates in the entire country and they just cut more public safety and health jobs. I can't see how anyone can look at the situation in the Bay area and not anticipate anything other than continu…

This is why one party rule is bad.

I agree mixed government wins. I moved to Massachusetts almost 20 years ago and I don't understand why it isn't held up as an example for other states. Everyone thinks MA is deep blue, and it is on social issues. It was the first state to allow same sex marriage. It has the toughest gun law enforcement in the US (break the law and you are going to jail for 2 years) and consequently has the lowest gun death rate in the US - 80% lower than many red states!

But MA also elects Republican governors on the regular. Mitt Romney was Governor from 2002-2006. Republican Charlie Baker ran the state so well that by the end of his second term the state's "rainy day" fund hit the legal max of 15% of the state's annual budget, so last fall every taxpayer in MA got a check for 13% of their previous years state taxes! And state income taxes are not high, basically a 5% flat tax. I would argue this frequent election of people who have run businesses is what also keeps the state at the top of the list of states in per capita GDP.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#110

Post by PaulHoule »

mschuster91 wrote: post #92
PaulHoule wrote: post #76

As anathema as it may seem to some people I think the real answer has to involve dispersing the homeless population in SF. The SF chronicle did a series on the efforts to house people in shelters and one major problems was that a person who wanted to get clean from opioids is just surrounded by temptation and is just one dose of Fentanyl away from death. Thus these people are more dangerous to each other than they ar…

The problem is that the entire US has zero idea what to do with homeless and mentally ill people, other than "dispersing" them or locking them up. As a result, some (particulary Republican) regions give them one way bus tickets to other (particularly Democrat) regions or deport them outright in sometimes very public stunts - out of sight, out of mind and if it deters others all the better, seems to be the general con…

We've got zero idea how to repair broken brains.

People with severe mental illness are hard to live with. When I was growing up there was a homeless man who spent all day at the public library that people called "The Professor" who was said to be unable to live indoors because he'd wake up screaming every night. We took in a friend who I think had schizoaffective disorder in and she threatened my wife with a knife after she'd lived at our place for 18 months. Schizophrenics are more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators but every so often they do something that is "batshit crazy"

https://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/2017/11/look_back_thanks...

"Housing first" is an improvement over the status quo but people with severe problems are going to make that kind of environment hard to run. "Dispersal" may very well make it possible because that kind of behavior randomly scattered won't break people's ability to cope with it down, whereas concentrating it in one place certainly does. I can't see how anybody who has any moral sensibility at all could stand to go to SF, never mind live there. Just as the rationalists try to break down our moral sensitivities by spamming us with trolley problems, exposure to that filters for a population of people who just don't care.

BTW, the one way bus ticket was tried in SF long ago, just like they've tried the other obvious non-solutions, but they came to the conclusion that the offer of bus tickets away just made it more attractive to go there.

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