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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

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was without benefit, whatsoever. But it's not a net positive. Now you have a bunch of people who the local populace is going to be bitter at, because they get subsidized shelter. There's no jobs to be had, so you have people living there who are now going to be taking more from local social services (and they're not contributing particularly to local taxes). There's not much of anything to do there (a…

> Now you have a bunch of people who the local populace is going to be bitter at, because they get subsidized shelter Versus the love they're getting from the populace now? Perfect is the enemy of the good. San Francisco is three quarters of the way towards spending its median income on its homeless [1][2][3]. That is how you generate a toxic backlash against a subgroup. Has anyone asked the homeless in San Francisco…

> Versus the love they're getting from the populace now?

Right. So they're getting no love in either place. So why is this better?

> San Francisco is three quarters of the way towards spending its median income on its homeless

The median income in Willard is $26,000, so how far do we think that's going to go?

But like you say, there's no love in either place, so moving these people from San Francisco to Willard (I know, hypothetical) has very little to do with what's best for them, but instead "what's best for the residents of SF". Nothing much changes except SF residents don't see them and don't pay for them now.

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

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us all about Willard's booming economy and the wide swathes of open jobs available to new residents there... ... in a town of 250 people, where nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line. The ONLY people that benefits is the residents of SF or wherever, that successfully managed to "make it someone else's problem".

People with non-tech jobs already can't afford to live in SF. Unless you're expecting the formerly unhoused to suddenly become a Senior Machine Learning Engineer at FAANG, they aren't going to have a great time trying to make ends meet in SF. It's not a city where you want to rediscover yourself in, unless you inherited property from a previous generation or you're one of the lucky few whose career is benefiting from…

I do entirely get this, but I also think it's a little disingenuous for some to act like their consideration is any more about what's best for that homeless population, versus what's best for those residents.

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

#164
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I remember seeing prostitutes on Capp street (and Polk St) 15-20 years ago in the aughts. Not anymore. I routinely ride my bike with preschooler in tow on Capp at 8AM and 5PM and haven’t seen any in the past two years.

I work from a co-working space on Mission & 20th and see them all the time.

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

#165
So then provide city-wide free wifi. Honestly, the cruelty and barbarism of latte liberals is unmatched.

No bathrooms, no wifi, no housing, no policing, no medicine. Pull yourselves up from your own bootstraps like the rest of the self-made billionaires. And do it out of our sights.

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

#166
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.

The solution to it isn’t to cut off a vital comms channel. It is to end their lives. The problem is that nobody wants to say it.

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

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is your proposed solution? All I hear is "they gotta go". Go where? On who's dime?

To be fair there's gotta be a more cost-effective place to house the unhoused than the Castro, West Village or Beverly Hills. I'm sure we can find cheaper stretches of land somewhere in the US.

Send them to the Pelosi’s or Breed’s or Newsom’s home. “Leaders” should be leading by being in the thick off it, personally.

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

#168

>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…

I completely agree with this.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in hopes the Castro neighborhood’s unhoused population would move on. We really need to implement solutions better than "go be homeless somewhere else."

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/…

The problem is that we don't police the shelters too. What ends up happening in some cities especially the West Coast people steal from each other even being as poor.

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

#170
post #7

This is such a lazy approach to social issues. Being poor and homeless is so hard. The system is built with countless chicken-egg problems that make it almost impossible to climb out of poverty. On top of this, elitists who are so disconnected are arbitrarily enforcing this kind of amoral depraved nonsense. Should we just keep stripping the needy of more and more resources until eventually maybe they'll just disappea…

I don't think either of those things will work. Having a drug problem is a huge issue here. If more people worked there would be more business, more business more opportunity.

The real unemployment numbers are the issue. The reason we keep raising the retirement age is to prevent a drop out of the workforce, you can only raise it for so long before you lose the valuable workforce you need to sustain a region.

Many homeless people are jobless and without income. Providing federal jobs isn't helpful because,

1.) Criminal Records. Some have these. 2.) Lost Identity. Without an identity rightful employment is hard. 3.) The government doesn't have enough work. State / Federal

If we want to overcome this challenge of homelessness you need to divide the homeless into the categories of need and provide services equal to that need.

Down on luck just need a home and a job.

Druggies need to be locked up to get clean. But not the way we traditionally lock them up, I'm sick of our penetentrary system it sucks, but there are other ways to criminal drug use. We just need to adapt like other countries.

Mentally ill just need a together home with other people who can provide vocational, mentoring and emotional guidance.

It isn't simple but we lump them into HOMELESS and then we remain fucked.

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