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The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

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Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#171

Post by techsupporter »

harlanji wrote: post #125
Alex63 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear how homelessness can be meaningfully addressed in a humane way by the federal government (especially if it is constitutional).

I’ve been in SF for about 7 years and became homeless in June. The #1 thing that helps me is cash in my pocket, from day labor (odd jobs) and boosters from family and friends who know I’m not a drug addict/alcoholic. Obviously the latter can’t be offered by a gov because it would be abused, but work for cash saved my life. IME cash in hand is the biggest help. #2 by far is bathroom access... followed by water and foo…

I have a truly genuine question and I swear on my prized and treasured EdgeRouter that I have no ulterior motive except for having a real answer to give to people whenever they also ask this question (often, in my opinion, in bad faith). So, with that, here goes:

Why do you not leave San Francisco for some place cheaper or with more available housing? If it is simply due to lack of funds, would you relocate if money was offered to you for that purpose?

(I won't reply and debate your answer; I'm simply curious and looking to educate myself.)

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#172

Post by pascalxus »

cutler wrote: post #164
Alex63 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear how homelessness can be meaningfully addressed in a humane way by the federal government (especially if it is constitutional).

Simple. Put a ceiling on rents. Allow no-one to own more than one home and insist they live in the one they own. In the UK we have a "bedroom tax" but it is aimed at the poor, not the rich as it should be. Make it illegal to discriminate against anyone based on their income source or the state of their health. Build housing exclusively for low-income occupants instead of throwing everything onto the insidious propert…

And this is exactly why the bay area is in such terrible conditions. Every bit of regulation you add, only decreases the housing available. more regulation is what got us into this mess. The less regulation we have, and less zoning, the more housing we'll have, it's that simple. We simply need more housing, lots more. once that happens prices will come down.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#173

Post by mdavis6890 »

exogeny wrote: post #2

I will go to my grave not understanding why this is so complex and difficult for people to understand and politicians to fix. Wages are stagnant, save for a handful of sectors, in which they're growing quickly. Housing prices are rising due to limited supply and backward policies towards new construction. Inequality therefore expands exponentially, creating a city of haves-and-have nots. Either reduce inequality thro…

"Either reduce inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs, or build more housing supply. Preferably both." >> The latter only. "Reducing inequality through taxes and social re-distribution programs" will not put a single additional person in a house, however noble that goal may be. There are more people in a given area than homes, so some people don't get to live in one. You can force those people to leave, or you can build homes for them, or you can let them be homeless.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#174

Post by jahaja »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #23
DanHulton wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think you're missing a key factor here: politicians require money to be elected. The poor (the folks most affected by these issues) don't have the money to donate. The rich (the ones you propose taxing) do. Thus, the only ones who can get elected are catering to an audience that does not want this problems solved in this way (and indeed, one could argue, does not care to have it solved at all). Until the pr…

> politicians require money to be elected. I feel this is an easy cop out. And while money absolutely influences politics, votes get people elected. And in today's age of connectivity, there should be no reason a candidate can't overcome that money barrier if they appeal to the the wider populace. I think the reality is more we don't want to look at ourselves as architects of the negatives we see. Like how many here…

In this "It's actually votes that counts after all"-scenario, how would you explain the vast difference in worker rights and benefits, who surely constitutes the majority of the eligible voters, compared to West-European countries? I also think you're overestimating the "age of connectivity"-populace with regards to actual voting power.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#175

Post by tropdrop »

atemerev wrote: post #115

You mean, in the bluest cities?

All dense cities are blue. When you live next to an immigrant neighbor with a radically different lifestyle, and you two become friends, you start adopting some blue political leanings. Compound that with density.

Over the past 10 years I frequently visited some suburbs near Ogden, Utah (I lived there before). 10 years ago there were no homeless panhandling anywhere outside of downtown SLC. Now, they're not only in Salt Lake City and Ogden - I see them in the tiny towns of Clinton, of West Point, outside of Walmarts in extremely red, extremely religious, extremely suburban areas. All while the state's official story is how they've "eradicated" [1] homelessness. The visual record, just driving in all these places, does not support that. It looks like what they've done is eliminate shelters, spread people out over the whole state (sometimes by force via operation Rio Grande), then introduced new "numbers" showing how great they've done.

Observing Utah is when it first began to dawn on me how national of an issue homelessness is.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/27/utah-homeles...

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#176

Post by [deleted] »

flaque wrote: post #166
spookthesunset wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> endless money pits The reason they are money pits is because they aren't something that will be solved by a city or even a state. Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. The most effective way for a city or state to "solve" the local homeless problem is to simply pay for one-way bus tickets to somewhere else. But…

> Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. This is just provably false. Utah solved it's homelessness problem by just giving people homes. And it was pretty effective.

[deleted]

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#177

Post by reading-at-work »

> It’s not bad everywhere. Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the nation, has cut its homeless population in half since 2011, in part by creating more housing for them. That’s dampened the effect of rising rents, Zillow found.

This seems like a quick and practical solution that would provide effective assistance while more nuanced factors like mental health are debated about. Why aren't more cities increasing the housing supply given the obvious benefits of doing so?

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#178

Post by ArchTypical »

flaque wrote: post #166
spookthesunset wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> endless money pits The reason they are money pits is because they aren't something that will be solved by a city or even a state. Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. The most effective way for a city or state to "solve" the local homeless problem is to simply pay for one-way bus tickets to somewhere else. But…

> Any attempt to solve the problem locally in a "humane" way has a high risk of just attracting more folks in the same circumstance to the area. This is just provably false. Utah solved it's homelessness problem by just giving people homes. And it was pretty effective.

> This is just provably false

Utah is not an example that proves anything. It's a fairly unusual area when talking about this problem. Utah's entire population is less than Los Angeles.

The claim that 91% of Utah's homeless population was abated is somewhat suspicious, given the remaining 14k would mean they had a previous 155k+ - which outstrips the homeless count of most major cities (including Los Angeles). This is not as cut an dry as "make more housing" because that isn't demonstrated. Certainly not with numbers that are all over the place.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#179

Post by baroffoos »

llamataboot wrote: post #129

Just paying for housing is a surprisingly cost effective and simple solution that is empirically backed as more cost effective and better outcomes for the individuals involved in nearly every study. Housing first, then figure out what support looks like for other issues.

You can't just throw a house at someone and expect everything to be alright. You need to give these people support to return to functioning lives. A lot of those free houses would end up trashed.

Re: The Homeless Crisis Is Getting Worse in America’s Richest Cities

#180

Post by monocularvision »

noobermin wrote: post #60
sharkweek wrote: post #9

Long-time Seattle resident here who volunteered for several years in the homeless community. Homelessness has always been a thing in Seattle, but has definitely become a much larger issue in the past five years. I'll spare my thoughts on any number of reasons as to why we got here as a city, but will say I think we are doing a terrible disservice to actually finding a solution by lumping "anyone who doesn't have a ho…

>Unfortunately, a lot of the solutions are expensive and frankly politically toxic. At the end of the day, everything is political. Instead of shying away from it engage with it because it is the only way you'll change society.

If you believe that changes to society can only be made through government action: yes, everything is political. If you reject that assumption, you may think differently.
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