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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

#131

Post by JumpCrisscross »

FireBeyond wrote: post #124
michaelt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The homeless people who get a roof over their heads don't benefit from it? Really?

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 if they'd want a free apartment in Willard? When rates were lower, we could have probably paid for their mortgage for less than it costs to temporarily house them. That is the opportunity cost.

[1] https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci... $70k/shelter bed/year

[2] https://smartasset.com/retirement/average-salary-in-san-fran... $96k/year median individual income

[3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MHICA06075A052NCEN $120k/year median household income

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

#132

Post by seanmcdirmid »

warent wrote: post #98
michaelt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what are you using your wifi for? Pretty sure it's more a matter of location. Normal people only masturbate in the privacy of their own homes. I know San Francisco is a very progressive city, but I don't think they're yet ready to embrace homeless people jerking it on the sidewalk outside the library.

I agree that we need to be mindful about our approach. Homeless people can't be given unlimited luxuries because we can't afford it as a society. That being said, your comment comes across as reductive to the homeless population as being nothing more than a snide, tongue-in-cheek joke. This "Normal people" messaging is what allows us to abstract homeless people into this "other" group, which is dangerous and inhumane…

> reductive to the homeless population as being nothing more than a snide, tongue-in-cheek joke

It is only a joke until you actually see that, then it is no longer a joke, just sad reality.

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

#133

Post by 0xB31B1B »

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…

Correct, ~75% of homeless people are "invisibly homeless", don't have drug use issues, aren't criminals, take showers and don't practice antisocial behaviors. The problem is that the 25% of homeless who are drug addicts and are extremely anti social completely destroy the system for everyone else. We don't have a good vocabulary for this. The issue is that the street campers at the library were meth heads who shit in the street, screamed at each other in the middle of the night, and caused a huge amount of disruption for the people who live near the library (I live 1 block away from here). We need to have far less tolerance for anti social behaviors in SF, including within permanently supportive housing and nightly shelters. The other issue is that when you spend a ton of money to support the invisibly homeless folks, and tolerate the anti social chronically homeless, you create a giant magnet that pulls in drug users and anti social homeless from the nearby communities and state and you become the dumping ground for everyone's chronically homeless. It is not my problem as a resident of SF to pay for the permanent supportive housing of a chronically homeless meth head from Humbolt county who moved here for a 700 dollar monthly check, reliable street sleeping, passive police force, and steady supply of drugs.

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

#134

Post by bsder »

notaustinpowers wrote: post #99
berkle4455 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't care anymore after being verbally assaulted on walks or at parks by random people clearly out of their mind and an endless supply of used needles in public places and playgrounds.

Have some compassion maybe?

Thoughts and prayers are always the least that can be done in any situation.

Yes, you can read that quip both ways.

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

#135

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

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.

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

#136

Post by bsder »

reaperducer wrote: post #8
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…

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

> We really need to implement solutions better than "go be homeless somewhere else."

Until you get the significant cohort of homeless who have serious medical conditions proper treatment, everything is simply rearranging the same deck chairs.

The "homeless" are not a uniform block. The woman fleeing her vengeful, abusive husband, the LGBTQ teenager thrown out of the house, the veteran with a traumatic brain injury, and the woman having succumbed to heroin addiction are all "homeless" but all have VERY different needs for making them "not homeless".

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

#137

Post by [deleted] »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #133
notaustinpowers wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Correct, ~75% of homeless people are "invisibly homeless", don't have drug use issues, aren't criminals, take showers and don't practice antisocial behaviors. The problem is that the 25% of homeless who are drug addicts and are extremely anti social completely destroy the system for everyone else. We don't have a good vocabulary for this. The issue is that the street campers at the library were meth heads who shit in…

[deleted]

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

#138

Post by im3w1l »

scarmig wrote: post #121
politelemon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind to see a comment like this, it is fundamentally based on the assumption that homeless people are subhuman and not deserving of amenities. Further it's looking at the purpose and situation in life as a qualification of usage. A homeless person walking into a library to use it, is now a library patron, would they still be excluded due to them being homeless? If I am upset one day and decide to take a…

Everyone should have access to public amenities. But a widespread homelessness problem ends up denying amenities to people who aren't homeless: when libraries regularly have people smoking meth or shooting up in the bathrooms, that makes it uncomfortable for most people to use. It's easy enough to say "they should just get over it, someone passed out on the bathroom floor is not really a threat to anyone," but that b…

Being homeless isn't the same as making others uncomfortable. The correlation is high, yes, but it's important to distinguish nevertheless. Only by distinguishing can you incentivize good behavior.

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

#139

Post by 0xB31B1B »

politelemon wrote: post #101
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.

It boggles my mind to see a comment like this, it is fundamentally based on the assumption that homeless people are subhuman and not deserving of amenities. Further it's looking at the purpose and situation in life as a qualification of usage. A homeless person walking into a library to use it, is now a library patron, would they still be excluded due to them being homeless? If I am upset one day and decide to take a…

Thats great, the library in question has to call the police multiple times per week for various issues caused by the meth addiction homeless who occupy it. It has completely ruined the concept of library for everyone who isn’t a drug user.

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

#140

Post by scarmig »

im3w1l wrote: post #138
scarmig wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should have access to public amenities. But a widespread homelessness problem ends up denying amenities to people who aren't homeless: when libraries regularly have people smoking meth or shooting up in the bathrooms, that makes it uncomfortable for most people to use. It's easy enough to say "they should just get over it, someone passed out on the bathroom floor is not really a threat to anyone," but that b…

Being homeless isn't the same as making others uncomfortable. The correlation is high, yes, but it's important to distinguish nevertheless. Only by distinguishing can you incentivize good behavior.

Although that is of course true, it's unclear how you translate that into policy. The ideal would be for the city to remove badly behaving people (regardless of homeless status) from public spaces and allow the well-behaved people to go and remain there. In practice, however, the city is unable to make that distinction, and a badly behaving person will, even if removed, return, resulting in the denial of access to the general public.
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