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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

#181

Post by tayo42 »

nomel wrote: post #178
tayo42 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need to do anything? Whats the problem with people being homeless and keeping to them selves?

They don’t have proper sanitation or garbage services. There are basically no public restrooms in SF. The vast majority are drug abusers that need money to pay for their addictions. They don’t have jobs, but they still get that money. How they get that money is the problem.

We already have laws the prohibit people doing illegal things. Crime isn't exclusive to homelessness.

And i seem to remember public bathrooms near the bart stations. they were like temporary green plastic things. but sure the city should have more in general. those kinds of things help everybody

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#182

Post by aidenn0 »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #119
samschooler wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mayor of Denver never went to these camps. You may be talking about the Mayor of Aurora (city next to Denver) who just decided one day to pretend to be homeless. He didn’t work with any organization or ask about the problem. He just went to the most visible camps, met the most visible people and essentially just increased the stigma. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/auroras-mayor-went-unde...

>He didn’t work with any organization or ask about the problem. If you want to find out what a situation is like, why would asking someone about it be more informative than actually going there and witnessing it yourself? The self proclaimed "experts" are the ones responsible for the policies that have turned San Fransisco into what it is today.

A reporter looking for a story went into my highschool while classes were in session and talked to some kids.

Naturally these kids were skipping class (since classes were in session), and of course they told him everybody does it because in their social circle that was true.

Needless to say the students that he could not have interviewed (since they were actually attending class) would have given him a different perspective

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#183

Post by throwawayboise »

refurb wrote: post #162
nuerow wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you’re saying his own experiences should be dismissed because he didn’t gather information through “official” channels? That's a rather disingenuous take. Isn't it plausible that taking anecdotal evidence at face value doesn't actually add insight to not only the root causes but also the prevalence of some of it's different categories? I mean, spending a week living in a tent isn't exactly a way to gather proper…

No it's not a disingenuous take. I read the article. You have a politician who actually goes and talks to a group of homeless - which is more than 99% would ever do - then come back with his observations. Sure, you can say "that doesn't represent all homeless", but I don't think the mayor was saying that. Here is a direct quote: "We can clearly do more to help people and move them on to stable housing," Coffman said.…

> And the gatekeeping by homeless advocates is really stark in that article.

That's because if you actually solved (or even reduced) homelessness, those people might be out of a job.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#184

Post by DiggyJohnson »

nuerow wrote: post #171
refurb wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not a disingenuous take. I read the article. You have a politician who actually goes and talks to a group of homeless - which is more than 99% would ever do - then come back with his observations. Sure, you can say "that doesn't represent all homeless", but I don't think the mayor was saying that. Here is a direct quote: "We can clearly do more to help people and move them on to stable housing," Coffman said.…

> No it's not a disingenuous take. I read the article. You have a politician who actually goes and talks to a group of homeless (...) Sorry, it actually is. You have a guy who decided to live in a tent for a week as a publicity stunt, and that is supposed to make him an insightful expert on the nature and causes of the problem, in total contrast with the observations and experience of every single person that ever di…

I’ll bite, but I think you ought to know that I cannot so far understand you’re reasoning.

Who, then, is qualified to speak on these issues? Is only aggregate data through official channels, and not individual experience, relevant to the discussion?

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#185

Post by nuerow »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #125
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He didn’t work with any organization or ask about the problem. If you want to find out what a situation is like, why would asking someone about it be more informative than actually going there and witnessing it yourself? The self proclaimed "experts" are the ones responsible for the policies that have turned San Fransisco into what it is today.

Maybe it’s not a simple problem, in engineering we’re used to cause and effect in a system. With human scale problems it’s more like observing a cat than a machine responding to inputs. It seems to me you could fill a page of bullet points with the many causes of homelessness in SF. If that really is true, then it makes sense to have someone familiar Guide you through various aspects of the problem. Especially the no…

> "It seems to me you could fill a page of bullet points with the many causes of homelessness in SF.

That's a far better outcome than mindlessly brushing everything under the rug with baseless knee-jerk reactions of pinning the blame on moral weaknesses and failings of individuals.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#186

Post by whakim »

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.

> China is equally as capitalistic and has more wealth inequality than the US.

Just wanted to point out that this statement isn't true, on number of counts. First, the value of the assets of the state in China is significantly higher than most Western countries, and the Chinese government plays a very strong role in the economy across a number of sectors. Secondly, while it's very difficult to gather estate data in China, most estimates (using the bad data we do have) suggest wealth inequality is higher in the United States.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#187

Post by refurb »

truffdog wrote: post #169
refurb wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In this telling, there's also a huge increase in supply since then- 1980s biker meth was relatively artisinal, but the current situation involves large and professional factories in Mexico.

True, but at least in the 60’s and 70’s most stimulants were legitimate medications. Amphetamine, dextroamphetamine and methamphetamine were widely prescribed and diverted into illegal channels.

There was a “scourge” of truckers taking uppers and driving all night. Stimulant use was really rampant across all social classes. Use decreased when prescriptions were cut off, then meth resurged in the 90’s.

And the other data point is methamphetamine use is the drug of choice in much of Asia. But you don’t see anywhere near the social problems you do in the US.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#188

Post by jmspring »

nuerow wrote: post #180
jmspring wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent many years involved in politics at the city level in Santa Cruz. The Homeless Industrial Complex is a thing. There isn’t a desire to make things better as that will lead to lost jobs. Their insincerity becomes very obvious when you start pushing for accountability - like status reports / reports on progress and effectiveness - when entities get public funds. Another fun one is asking for a reduction in overla…

> Their insincerity becomes very obvious when you start pushing for accountability - like status reports / reports on progress and effectiveness - when entities get public funds. I'm not sure what point you tried to make. I mean, this discussion is about identifying the root causes of a problem in order to actually fix it, but your comment focuses exclusively in organizations which, at worse, only work to mitigate it…

If you are taking public money and come back the following year wanting more, there should be a plan and data showing why you deserve money. Specifically the effectiveness of what you are trying to do. Most of them want money without any accountability.

Most times when you apply for a grant, there is a proposal with a plan and expected outcome.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#189

Post by richiezc »

door103 wrote: post #55

"A culture of permissive lawlessness"? A studio apartment in San Francisco starts at what, $2k? > Mr Shellenberger thinks they are on the streets in part because of a “housing-first” approach, which holds out for permanent, individual homes at the expense of building enough temporary accommodation. So his approach is that San Francisco should have third world-style slums? The solutions are simple: rent control and pu…

Are you aware that starting in 2020 CA has enacted rent control on everything more than 15 years old: https://sfrb.org/article/summary-ab-1482-california-tenant-p...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#190

Post by andreskytt »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #125
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He didn’t work with any organization or ask about the problem. If you want to find out what a situation is like, why would asking someone about it be more informative than actually going there and witnessing it yourself? The self proclaimed "experts" are the ones responsible for the policies that have turned San Fransisco into what it is today.

Maybe it’s not a simple problem, in engineering we’re used to cause and effect in a system. With human scale problems it’s more like observing a cat than a machine responding to inputs. It seems to me you could fill a page of bullet points with the many causes of homelessness in SF. If that really is true, then it makes sense to have someone familiar Guide you through various aspects of the problem. Especially the no…

It is a machine responding to inputs but it involves feedback to the level we don’t usually experience with computers. This introduces non-linearity which is difficult for a human mind to process in terms of cause and effect. They are still there, just more difficult to see.

Consider Jay Forrester in Brooklin in the 70s. He correctly argued (and was apparently almost beat up by saying that), that simply setting up more housing projects increased the problem. The simplified argument went: The word spreads that there’s housing available, people move to the area, housing gets full but the inertia of the word-spread keeps going and people keep coming in. This leads to creation of more projects (as there are still people on the streets) perpetuating the cycle. Meanwhile, the businesses and residents start moving away from the area because of the projects and many homeless, dropping real estate prices and compounding the problem with another feedback loop. Complex stuff. Whatever the solution if SF (that I like very much) is, it better be looking out for that sort of policy resistance.

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