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A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

economist.com

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Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#141

Post by rkk3 »

baby wrote: post #117
droopyEyelids wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do some work with the homeless in chicago, and the people you see living on the street are, by and large, not drug addicts. In Chicago, drug addicts are transient-homeless. They're in and out of shelters as they get evicted or kicked out of a place, but they find somewhere new (indoors) to live. Some may be periodic homeless. The chronic homeless in Chicago are usually physically and mentally disabled, and while th…

True! Not the same homeless population. Chicago homeless begs aggressively, the one in SF are just zombies.

> Chicago homeless begs aggressively, the one in SF are just zombies.

Have had many outdoor dining experiences in SF that I would consider aggressive begging...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#142

Post by whateveracct »

refurb wrote: post #133
deanCommie wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good that people investigate homelessness and go one level deeper. But why do they stop at drug addiction? Or worse, decide that drug addiction is the underlying root cause that now needs to be treated with rehab, detox, or what have you. Drug addiction is not the cause of poverty. Poverty is the cause of drug addiction. The stories of the people who get into drugs recreationally, then descend into addiction, an…

Poverty is the cause of drug addiction. That explains the rampant drug abuse in the wealthy?

Nobody said poverty is the only cause of drug addiction period.

The point was that with homeless people, the poverty and homelessness tends to be what causes the drug addiction.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#143

Post by refurb »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #102
dandotway wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve rarely seen a normal able-bodied able-minded non-drug-using homeless person who’s just down on their luck This right here. Nearly all homeless I've worked with were non-neuronormative and/or drug abusers. They're almost never just normal folks who have fallen on hard times. The reason they aren't rooming with a family member or friend is because their behavioral outbursts and/or stealing things to buy drugs ha…

Author and journalist Sam Quinones hypotesizes in his book, The Least of Us , that a significant part of the increase in homelessness is due to a change in methamphetamine quality. Prior to about 2010, meth was manufactured in Mexico using high quality precursors. The government cracked down on imports, and cartels started using a much more dirty P2P manufacturing methods, which is anecdotally associated with vastly…

It’s an interesting theory but P2P meth was the standard meth prior to ephedrine being used in the 90’s.

Did we see the same level of homelessness back then?

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#144

Post by whateveracct »

bushbaba wrote: post #54
tyoma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $900 felony rule keeps being brought up on HN, but the felony amount for Texas is $2500. Clearly something other than the misdemeanor/felony classification is at play.

San Jose, and the peninsula don’t have nearly as much petty theft or shoplifting crime. And yet the laws are nearly identical. Only difference I can think of is the local community supporting the police.

Could be. In WA, people like to say that Bellevue, Redmond, and the like will arrest their homeless people so they end up in King County jail..in Seattle. "Problem solved."

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#145

Post by mrobot »

paisawalla wrote: post #118
mrobot wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can't just diagnose them then go visit them? Help them with meds etc?

I'd encourage you to develop some first-hand experience working with this population of resistant addicts.

I have it. My brother is a paranoid schizophrenic who lived in public housing and got care. He was and is an addict and many of the people around him were addicts, but not all of them. I visited quite a bit. Anyway, he stayed alive and was ok because of the care he got, he left everyone alone and didn't ever hurt anyone but himself.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#146

Post by seehafer »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #130
seehafer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Homeless Industrial Complex is as responsible for maintaining the conditions in SF as Chesa and his hands-off enforcement policies are. A lot of strife in our society today can be attributed to non-profits being incentivized to keep their raison d'être continuing in perpetuity.

It's easy to blame the system instead of making people take personal responsibility for their actions.

When “the system” refuses to prosecute dealers of fentanyl because “they’re victims themselves” [1], you’re damn right I’m going to blame the system.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-trial-o...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#147

Post by whateveracct »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #138
Tiktaalik wrote: post #16

> He blames San Francisco’s woes on a culture of permissive lawlessness and a mistaken view of what constitutes moral policymaking. A frequent critique of those that want to solve the homeless problem by sending in the police to crack heads and send everyone to prison. The main goal here of course being to ensure that the homeless "go away" somewhere out of view. In reality most of the "crimes" that people are wringi…

Ah, clearly petty theft is no bother and correcting the injustices of oppressive society! I hope you experience your things being stolen one day and not being able to afford to replace them and change your mind.

Nobody said that. They said incarceration for petty theft is unreasonable.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#148

Post by mrobot »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #129
mrobot wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a good source on it that is not written by a bourgeoisie economist or other agent of the wealthy?

Go take a walk through a housing project in Baltimore or Brooklyn and you won't have any doubts about the situation or have to trust the opinion of someone else. Just make sure you get your affairs in order first.

This doesn't help. I already know "the projects are bad".

If you think "the projects are bad" means "public housing can never work" and you haven't looked at who benefits from public housing failing and how they would control legislation and would alter the course of any project you planned, and how a good example would certainly cost them a lot of money, you aren't really taking the question of developing working public housing seriously.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#149

Post by b9a2cab5 »

whateveracct wrote: post #147
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, clearly petty theft is no bother and correcting the injustices of oppressive society! I hope you experience your things being stolen one day and not being able to afford to replace them and change your mind.

Nobody said that. They said incarceration for petty theft is unreasonable.

Refusing to put thieves in jail leads to thieves not caring if they get caught. Which leads us back to modern day SF.

There is a big difference between petty theft as you'd think petty would mean (<$30 of small stuff) and what the law defines it as (<$950 of stuff).

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#150

Post by mLuby »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #135
deanCommie wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good that people investigate homelessness and go one level deeper. But why do they stop at drug addiction? Or worse, decide that drug addiction is the underlying root cause that now needs to be treated with rehab, detox, or what have you. Drug addiction is not the cause of poverty. Poverty is the cause of drug addiction. The stories of the people who get into drugs recreationally, then descend into addiction, an…

No, it's the result of policies that tolerate and support people refusing to engage with society. Why don't you try going to Chinese slums and seeing if there's homeless? China is equally as capitalistic and has more wealth inequality than the US. And the same problems in housing costs. Homelessness is an American (West Coast liberal) problem. Funny how East Coast cities don't have these problems.

Cold winters drive homelessness out of sight; don't mistake out of sight for not having these problems.
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