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Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

wsj.com

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Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#121

Post by evancox100 »

evancox100 wrote: post #20

What 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…

For real though, if you are reading this, are a YIMBY, and are a person of means, why not try to generate a test case for this? Have someone set up a tent encampment on their own private lot and force the case. How can it possibly be legal to set up a tent in a public right of way, and not on your own property?

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#122

Post by AlbertCory »

RC_ITR wrote: post #17
AlbertCory wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read that. You didn't answer the question.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#123

Post by enterprise_cog »

evancox100 wrote: post #94
kevingadd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While objectively correct, the policy you describe is incredibly cruel. People often end up homeless through no fault of their own, and more importantly, temporarily homeless. Should someone lose all their pets just because they end up homeless for a couple days or a week? Do we want to fill the animal shelters up even further and send more animals off to be euthanized? Imagine being a young child, already traumatize…

I think what’s incredibly cruel is blocking people from building additional housing on their own private land that could help affordably house people at ZERO cost to the state. > Imagine being a young child, already traumatized by ending up homeless, and now the pet you've been growing up with gets dragged off by the authorities to be executed. Im sorry but pets die, it’s a part of life. It can be traumatic no matter…

Always amusing to me when people like you say things like that. Treat the trauma like it’s nothing. I’d love to see you get forced into a traumatic situation by the government and keep that same attitude.

Just an utter lack of empathy. People like you should have no say in how a society is run.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#124

Post by tech_ken »

cbeach wrote: post #119
tech_ken wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Texas also has a large homeless population, despite being tough on crime and drug use, so your proposed solutions are clearly deficient. Conservatives love to pretend that every social problem can be resolved by throwing everyone in jail, but this has been shown over and over again to not only make the problem worse, but also cost more money in the long term. IDK what open carry would do, unless you're proposing…

California has more than FIVE TIMES the rate of homelessness of Texas. https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-rate...

It’s cost of living is also much higher than Texas no? To me this seems like a far more probable explanatory factor than laxity towards crime or lack of open carry laws

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#125

Post by evancox100 »

tech_ken wrote: post #120
evancox100 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think you'd be surprised, the prevailing elite opinion in progressive circles seems to be that application of coercive force (which is what makes a government a government) must be avoided at any and all cost. I don't think this is the opinion of most people, but it seems to be where many policy makers and "thought leaders" (:eye-roll:) are at. AND, the current law in place is that ZERO coercion/force can be appl…

>application of coercive force (which is what makes a government a government) must be avoided at any and all cost I think this statement is eminently reasonable. Although a monopoly on coercive force is one important defining feature of government, I think it's desirable to have its minimization as the highest priority. Moreover, I think in the US our baseline for appropriate levels of coercive force is far too high…

> > application of coercive force (which is what makes a government a government) must be avoided at any and all cost

> I think this statement is eminently reasonable. Although a monopoly on coercive force is one important defining feature of government, I think it's desirable to have its minimization as the highest priority. Moreover, I think in the US our baseline for appropriate levels of coercive force is far too high.

Agree to disagree. I think coercive force should applied where appropriate, not avoided at any and all cost (a very strong qualifier). For instance, releasing defendants with GPS monitors prior to trial, and then arresting them and holding them in jail if they violate the terms of the release.

Meanwhile, coercive force in the form of escalating fines and, eventually, imprisonment, is applied to people who would dare to build apartments on their own land and then rent them to others. Where is the outcry over that? It is truly a tragedy of our own making.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#126

Post by evancox100 »

enterprise_cog wrote: post #123
evancox100 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what’s incredibly cruel is blocking people from building additional housing on their own private land that could help affordably house people at ZERO cost to the state. > Imagine being a young child, already traumatized by ending up homeless, and now the pet you've been growing up with gets dragged off by the authorities to be executed. Im sorry but pets die, it’s a part of life. It can be traumatic no matter…

Always amusing to me when people like you say things like that. Treat the trauma like it’s nothing. I’d love to see you get forced into a traumatic situation by the government and keep that same attitude. Just an utter lack of empathy. People like you should have no say in how a society is run.

You're making a lot of assumptions about what traumatic situations I may or may not have been in. Maybe it is because I have been through some shit that I realize sometimes we have to do "mean" things to people, sometimes for their own good but often for the good of those around them.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#127

Post by dllthomas »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #87
dragonwriter wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By definition, the best spent homelessness budget would be the one that resulted in zero people in shelters right? Well, no, otherwise “have no shelters” would be the cheapest optimal strategy.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Fundamentally, the denominator that we ought to be using is "number of people diverted from being unsheltered", not "number of people in temporary shelters". If a city spends $100M on homelessness and prevents 9,900 people from being unsheltered by housing them and only keeps 100 people in shelters, that looks like $1M per person on the bad metric. But that situatio…

I think the point was that there are ways to have nobody in shelters without it being a well spent budget, and practically we don't know that there is a way to spend realistic levels of funding such that no one is in shelters, so while it may be true of some ideal policy it might well not be true of the best real policy.

I think it's a (marginal) nitpick over your wording, not intended as a defense of the metric you were criticizing, though of course dragonwriter can correct me on that if needed.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#128

Post by s1artibartfast »

evancox100 wrote: post #121
evancox100 wrote: post #20

What 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…

For real though, if you are reading this, are a YIMBY, and are a person of means, why not try to generate a test case for this? Have someone set up a tent encampment on their own private lot and force the case. How can it possibly be legal to set up a tent in a public right of way, and not on your own property?

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting thought experiment and social commentary. It's illegal to build a 20 room cinder block dormitory on a private parcel, while legal to build a Shantytown fire hazard in the sidewalk down the street.

You could easily build a SRO sized fireproof, cinderblock room (e.g. 10x10ft) for less than $5,000 per unit in materials.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#129

Post by [deleted] »

tech_ken wrote: post #103
evancox100 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think well meaning liberals want to believe that all of society’s problems can be solved without any form of coercion, and that is simply not the case. If someone is homeless and has a dog, and there is a shelter bed for them, you may just need to force them to give up their dog and move to the shelter (or else face arrest). There are overriding concerns greater than letting people keep their pets. I recognize the…

Let's say this morning you force someone into a shelter bed, euthanizing their dog and throwing away their tent and other bulky property in the process. What are you going to do tomorrow morning? Is that bed now reserved for them going forward? Or can they lose access to it? If it's the latter then you've taken someone who has almost no stability in their life and removed whatever scraps of it they had left, then tos…

[deleted]

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#130

Post by RC_ITR »

AlbertCory wrote: post #122
RC_ITR wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read that. You didn't answer the question.

I am not implying the strawman hypothetical you proposed.

I think the confusion might be that the strawman doesn't even follow logic, TBH.

Were did the Sacramento Democrats comment come in? I simply stated that the article highlighted federal decisions and blamed other governments for the consequences of those decisions. In that set of circumstances, Sacramento Democrats are equal to SF progressives, as they are both bound by a higher power (The Federal Government).

And to answer the question I think that you're asking, yes, I do believe the Federal government has a lot more power to solve homelessness than SF or California does. Do you think otherwise?

EDIT: I also think this fascination with Democrats vs. Republicans really misses the point here. This shouldn't be a competition to lay blame. That's the top symptom of broken government.

It should be a creative endeavor to solve the problems and it saddens me that so many people don't feel that way on this supposed "hacker" forum.

EDIT 2: >Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

I disagree that a city of 800k residents has the resources to solve a problem that's plagued every society ever.

I think the largest and wealthiest government in history is much better suited for the task.

I also think that SF being in the United States 100% makes it the Federal Government's issue, not some isolated thing that most people who live in other places can ignore. Like it or not, most homeless people are American citizens who happen to choose to live in SF right now. They can leave SF, but can't leave America.

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