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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

#121

Post by colpabar »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #103
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.

It must be all those damn republican mayors they’ve had over the years :^)

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#122

Post by agumonkey »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #81
agumonkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I read you correctly, the social fabric in spain (urban planning, gatherings) makes difficult times bearable ? I'm quite interested in this because I anticipate we'll all need this when climate becomes too dire.

IMO urbanism plays a key role. Spanish cities are very dense, and until recently provided cheap housing with a mix of public-private developments. This isn't the case anymore (price wisw, still dense) and it's having effects on the social fabric.

And how does it manifest in dense cities ? I mean was it a very old tradition of spending time with others, that people kept along centuries ? Is it just sitting at a cafe ? or are there different ideas/rituals (sharing problem fixing, organizing cooking, etc) ?

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#123

Post by idlewords »

flangola7 wrote: post #59
idlewords wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not going to find open-air downtown drug markets, public defecation and decriminalized theft in Mississippi or Arkansas. For that, you need to visit one of our progressive West Coast cities.

Those are much smaller problems than those in the comment you're replying to

That's simple whataboutism. You can always find a worse problem to deflect to.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#124

Post by Pigalowda »

paxys wrote: post #22
franklampard wrote: post #20

The amount of tax revenue and budget is still insanely high. Need to be more efficient

San Francisco spends more on homeless services than most cities its size spend on everything . And the homeless problem is getting worse every year.

Well it’s an expensive place to live so of course you have to hire experts and social workers at $400k/y! Then they make powerpoints and present them to each other. It’s probably the police department’s fault so they better be defunded and that money should be rolled into the homeless social services program so they can hire more people.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#125

Post by [deleted] »

ajross wrote: post #108
rhaway84773 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

[deleted]

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#126

Post by phpisthebest »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #100
phpisthebest wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So why other big cities in other continents have so few homeless compard to SF and LA? We do have people with mental problems here in Spain, but most don't roam the streets and end up living under a bridge. And I can assure you the Spanish institutions are not precisely brilliant dealing with problems.

I have no idea, but I suspect it is combination of factors.

Let me ask, does Spain have and enforce loitering laws that prevent homeless of camping in front of businesses? Is this a factor in driving them to under the bridges instead of roaming the streets?

Because CA prohibits the police from enforcing any of these laws, and many prosecutors refuse to charge anyone with "low level" crime.

SF and LA (and CA in general) has the nicest weather, unlike other parts of the US where you have Extreme cold, extreme heat, or both in many area's LA and SF have mild temperate weather with limited rain fall, this promotes a "roaming the street" style of living.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#127

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #119
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a result, some (particulary Republican) regions give them one way bus tickets to other (particularly Democrat) regions Seattle, Portland, Denver, San Francisco and many other "blue" cities all have "Homeward Bound" one-way bus ticket programs to incentivize homeless people to leave their city. In fact, the City of San Francisco invented the entire concept 15 years ago. This is a primarily liberal strategy to dea…

These programs are always privately run, with the idea that some homeless people are only homeless because they are in the wrong city and they actually have housing available to them somewhere else. But the program has been abused by many who just want a free bus ticket, and don’t have family willing to take them in at the other end. Private programs in conservative states do this as well. Prisons in Texas will give…

San Francisco's Homeward Bound program is run by the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Obviously not privately run.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#128

Post by idlewords »

whythre wrote: post #114
idlewords wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, there is a large municipality right next to San Francisco (Colma) that consists entirely of graveyards. Homelessness in SF is not just a housing problem, but the housing crisis amplifies it and could be instantly ameliorated by just building the hell out of things.

Building ‘the hell out of things’ doesn’t fix drug induced psychosis.

No, but it revitalizes your downtowns and increases density, which keeps city centers from hollowing out and getting taken over by homeless camps. High density also puts pressure on police and city authorities to deal with the violent mentally ill. And abundant, low cost housing gives you blue collar immigrant communities, which have little patience for angry junkies.

Re: Downtown San Francisco is at a tipping-point

#129

Post by phpisthebest »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #115
panarchy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ba…

We could always do what Finland does: admit that these people will never be productive members of society again and get them into housing with social workers on staff. Yes, it’s a constant drain, but Finland says it actually saves money doing it that way, since the services people use on the street turn out to be even more expensive. The big issue is that the USA doesn’t have a national strategy for dealing with home…

>>The big issue is that the USA doesn’t have a national strategy for dealing with homelessness.

This is likely saying "the EU does not have strategy for dealing" remember the USA stands for "United STATES" States here is the key... We are 50 independent states, and most of our problems are because we look to the incompetent and corrupt federal government to solve problems they are not constitutional empowered to solve. There is a reason we are not "America" but instead our United States we seem to be losing that foundation, to our own demise. Not every problem is a national one, and homelessness certainly is not

>>We could always do what Finland does: admit that these people will never be productive members of society again and get them into housing with social workers on staff.

Well we used to do that, after many many many human rights abuses the US stopped doing that, and if you look at the graphs of institutionalization, and homelessness there is a striking correlation as the rate of institutionalization drops the rate of homelessness increases.

I am not sure bringing back institutionalization is going to be a popular solution

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