600k per year per person? With that amount of funding you may as well buy every homeless person a house
This strategy has in fact been tried in a few places and while it's not a cure-all, it seems to work pretty good.
Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
11–20 of 184 posts
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#12Man, I did not sign up to subsidize the homeless of the entire western US, and neither did my fellow Californians. We definitely need to reduce the social programs and put that $20bn somewhere else. No matter how you slice it, $609,000/yr per homeless person is simply absurd.
Where should the money go if not the social safety net? Will your suggestion get people off the streets? Or should they just rot there?
Well, there is no current social safety net.
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#13How about instead repealing the misconceived law that is fueling the problem?
Just another example of how off-the-rails the WSJ opinion page is: repealing what law? You mean the eight amendment to the United States Constitution? Thing is, the opinion piece isn't wrong. But to just ramble on for a whole page, and then the offered solution is to repeal a law that is never mentioned in the opinion piece (unless the author truly suggests that we suspend the Constitution), well, I don't think "sloppy" begins to cover it.
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#14> Since 2016 San Francisco’s homeless budget has ballooned to $672 million from $224 million, yet the number of homeless in shelters has increased by a mere 736. That equates to $609,000 in higher annual spending for each additional person in shelter.
Where's the breakdown of where that $896K goes?
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#15Because the bay area is home to many extremely rich people who give absolutely nothing back to their communities, encourage rampant gentrification and generally despise poor people and advocate for anti-worker policies.
Take a scroll through the likes of some of the famous VCs who constantly complain about SF's homelessness and crime. They tend to be more mask off far-right in their likes vs tweets (some will straight up tweet it though).
If I had >$1B I would simply stop complaining and start doing something to fix the problem.
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#16Man, I did not sign up to subsidize the homeless of the entire western US, and neither did my fellow Californians. We definitely need to reduce the social programs and put that $20bn somewhere else. No matter how you slice it, $609,000/yr per homeless person is simply absurd.
Of course you didn't, it's called the "social contract".
I don't think there is any hope for California, you need to wait for them to crash completely and then you can rebuild from the ashes.
Of course this is especially hard because a lot of profit is made and taxed in California which helps keeping the circus running.
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#17Interesting this article primarily cites federal policies that have led to the current situation and then vilifies Democrats in Sacramento and Progressives in SF. No comment on the politics, just seems like an inconsistent and thin argument (probably one that has no business on HN). >San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as lon…
So you're implying SF Democrats would solve the problem, if not for those Sacramento and US Democrats tying their hands?
As the article states:
>San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as long as its homeless population exceeds available shelter beds. As we recently explained, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment creates a right to vagrancy.
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#18https://archive.ph/eDCri
Unrelated to the topic at hand, but in the last couple of days I've become completely unable to use the Archive. Infinite loops of CAPTCHAs and 429 Too Many Requests in console :(
Really sad, it feels like I'm losing access to some really core, basic internet infrastructure.
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#19Interesting this article primarily cites federal policies that have led to the current situation and then vilifies Democrats in Sacramento and Progressives in SF. No comment on the politics, just seems like an inconsistent and thin argument (probably one that has no business on HN). >San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as lon…
This explains quite a lot about that:
Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
#20What I don’t understand is that if making it illegal to build whatever living structure you want on public land is “cruel and unusual punishment”, why is it still illegal to build the living structure of your choice on private land that you own? Isn’t such a law even more restrictive?
How have we willingly ceded so much authority to bureaucratic busybodys who have nothing better to do than micromanage the size, shape, and even color of private housing? Regulating for safety is one thing, but the current state is absurd. California, and many other states like Texas, need to drastically deregulate their housing markets.
Also I hardly think the WSJ editorial board is really interested in solutions here. They just enjoy throwing punches.