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San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

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Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#141

Post by mAritz »

nubb wrote: post #25

everyone acting so shocked here probably hasn’t had your home robbed, your car windows broken, or been assaulted and/or robbed by a drugged out bum. at some point enough is enough and they gotta go. i think it’s a juvenile attitude to look down your nose at the endless victims and tell them to just be more understanding of the hardships the homeless face.

Let's say we go with your dystopian wishes and round them all up and ship them off to some other place - with all the problems that then causes just ignored.

Someone now loses their home after that - let's say to a fire and they didn't have it insured for that because the house insurance market is either dysfunctional or close to it in some parts of the US. You now have 1 homeless person again. Do you also ship them off again?

Do you just forever keep shipping off the unlucky and downtrodden people to some other place?

What if they lost their house, but have insurance paying soon, the insurance company is just dragging their feet for a few months. They will be fine, they will be able to pay for a new house or rebuilding. But until then they might be without housing. Ship them off anyways?

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#142

Post by cagey »

notaustinpowers wrote: post #72
0xB31B1B wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Library wifi is not a homeless service. An 24 hour open seat on a subway is not a homeless service. Parks where children play is not a homeless service. Public goods being overtaken by an antisocial drug users in the name of homeless support is not progressive.

I hope you never become homeless. I was, for 4 weeks, and my local libraries wifi is what helped me stay in touch with my parents when my phone data was shut off for nonpayment. It helped me secure a job back at home. You need to rethink your idea of what homelessness is. It's not antisocial drug users. It's also LGBT kids thrown out of their home. It's families being evicted because the parents lost their job. Even…

> my local libraries wifi is what helped me stay in touch with my parents when my phone data was shut off for nonpayment.

After today seeing 4 (customer-less) kiosks scattered across my medium-sized AZ town attempting to give away free cell phones, free tablets, and free cell service (presumably to those who qualify on the basis of need, presumably funded by the Federal Government), and then returning home and reading this thread in which it is frequently claimed that open WiFi is providing more or less the last comm link between homeless people (who evidently have phones but not cell service?) and the wider world and the possibilities it might offer, I find myself wondering "[why] don't the homeless qualify for these free [cell phones and] cell services?" Is this simply an oversight by Federal legislators (i.e. requiring a recipient to have a fixed mailing address (or: documentable proof of poverty?)) If so, why is nobody mentioning a need to agitate to remove the legal requirements preventing those most needing this help to be eligible to receive it? Simply providing free (voice & data providing) SIMs (which the Federal Govt already seems to be willing to provide) to homeless persons should obviate this entire sub-issue? Or would this (essentially handing out SIM's to anyone who asks for one) risk destabilizing the entire for-pay cell-service industry sector?

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#143

Post by Sparkyte »

warent wrote: post #42
Sparkyte wrote: post #36

The problem is that we decriminalized drug use. We have a heavily funded homeless system now and it works great but there is one little itsy bitsy problem... drug users and mental health folk. Rather than change the criminalization model, decriminalized drugs makes it more accessible than ever. Makes it so much harder to treat. What should happen is that we change our criminalization model to come health and safety f…

For those with mental health you obviously can not decriminalize this The exact opposite is true. It must be decriminalized for those with mental health issues. Criminalization of drug use was never about crime or drugs. It is to install a pipeline for people in poverty to be directed into a for-profit prison system in which they are used as legal slave labor under the 13th amendment. Drug use is not ever a criminal…

Sorry about that my autocomplete... thanks autocomplete... took criminalize spelt wrong into decriminalize.

Mental health is a serious thing I am not sure where you got the aspect of criminalize from the whole paragraph though my type-o should've been visible.

Mental health homeless often need people around them to help them get their life in order.

Drug use is a criminal issue. It is like be an accessory to a crime. You are not criminalizing their homelessness which should never be criminalized. You are criminalizing substance use, you can arrest someone for being drunk and disorderly on the streets. You can't touch a meth head. The problem with addiction is that often it drives people to lower their inhibitions and do things that which in their right state of mind not do. But here is the thing you are all caught up looking at CRIMINALIZE! like how we treat all criminals. I'm saying that umbrella needs to be bigger and welcome different approaches to criminalization as opposed to throwing everyone and anyone into a jail cell. Specialized help is needed and when it is optional it is more expensive on tax payers.

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#144

Post by Sparkyte »

km3r wrote: post #88
warent wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those with mental health you obviously can not decriminalize this The exact opposite is true. It must be decriminalized for those with mental health issues. Criminalization of drug use was never about crime or drugs. It is to install a pipeline for people in poverty to be directed into a for-profit prison system in which they are used as legal slave labor under the 13th amendment. Drug use is not ever a criminal…

It is a health issue. But it clearly puts you in a state of mind where many people are unwilling to get help. Criminalizing drug trade (and to a far lesser extent, use), allows the government to get people the help they need. Yes we need more medical and addiction care focused prisons, but for now, the streets aren't working.

I completely agree.

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#145

Post by gumby »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #96
gumby wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should we invest this much in our public spaces and then effectively give them away? I wouldnt want somebody sleeping next to my house so he could get WiFi. Public spaces are ours. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” ― Anatole France

The law in practice doesn’t prohibit it. You’re seeing a debate about whether it should, a debate to which this quip adds nothing.

It directly addresses my excerpt of the comment I responded to. The author asked why access to public space should be "given away" and then wrote "public spaces are ours" (emphasis mine).

The cleverness of Anatole France's famous quote is that he framed it in a way that the answers to those questions were automatically obvious, by emphasizing the massive difference in agency and scope of action between the haves and the have nots.

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#147

Post by Tozen »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #135
Tozen wrote: post #16

So, instead of finding ways to help the less fortunate and reduce homelessness, it was seen as better to find ways to get the problem to go elsewhere. As if turning off the WiFi means the homelessness problem will just disappear too.

San Francisco's population of 800k never signed up to single-handedly bankroll the US's homeless population in one of the world's highest CoL cities.

But that's not what's going in this case. Turning on existing WiFi at a specific location or providing more free WiFi throughout the city, is not bankrolling all of the US's homeless.

And regardless, San Francisco's homeless problem won't go away by ignoring it or pretending to. Makes more sense for the city and area to deal with it, by coming up with more effective and humane solutions. To not do so, creates a worldwide bad look and increases the embarrassment. Various people (or groups) are already making fun of the US by constantly reporting on and shooting videos of its huge numbers of homeless, to push back on the bragging, bravado, and hypocrisy.

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#148

Post by hgsgm »

criddell wrote: post #21
joenot443 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC the DHS intakes and beds 60,000 homeless people _every single night_. To say that there aren't solutions in place is incorrect. At least in NYC, the folks you see sleeping on sidewalks have broadly chosen that position over a bed in a shelter. It's a point of pride for many New Yorkers that if you're homeless and willing to get clean, the city will provide a bed for you every night. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/…

Are there similar services for people who won't or can't get clean?

Bureau of Prisons

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#149

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

Tozen wrote: post #147
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco's population of 800k never signed up to single-handedly bankroll the US's homeless population in one of the world's highest CoL cities.

But that's not what's going in this case. Turning on existing WiFi at a specific location or providing more free WiFi throughout the city, is not bankrolling all of the US's homeless. And regardless, San Francisco's homeless problem won't go away by ignoring it or pretending to. Makes more sense for the city and area to deal with it, by coming up with more effective and humane solutions. To not do so, creates a world…

The WiFi debacle is a symptom of the underlying problem of the US dumping its homeless population into an astronomically high CoL, 7x7 mile waterlocked city where regular folk with regular jobs already cannot afford to live, and expecting miracles. And miracles aren't happening despite the $700M/year budget for it obtained from the local polity. I'm not sure where you see "ignoring".

SF is incapable of digging itself out of that hole. Clearly it's not a problem of insufficient spend, and the local politics will not allow for the necessary level of action, so this will continue in perpetuity until there is outside intervention.

"We need to humane harder" is clearly not working. It feels good in the short term, but 10 years later things only get worse and we're scratching our heads wondering why nothing is improving.

Re: San Francisco library turning off WiFi at night to keep homeless from using it

#150

Post by neotrope »

damnesian wrote: post #2

>Neighbors of the library collaborated with the city to urge the library to turn off its Wi-Fi at night in hopes the Castro neighborhood’s unhoused population would move on. Theoretically, wifi access could help people move on by giving them the network access even old tech could use to look for jobs, living situations, long-lost relatives, access e-counseling and telehealth visits, etc. It's not the only thing the h…

> wifi access could help people

This type of thinking is tone deaf and its the reason we're here. If all the homeless needed was wifi, this would have been solved long ago.

It's unquestionably clear the city gov is forcing a wedge between it's residents and the crime, homelessness and business closures by failing to respond.

Did you know the prostitution on Capp St is alive as ever? It's just less visible now that's it's walled off using concrete barriers.

SF already tolerate too much. If residents don't act, nobody will.

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