Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Helping the homeless in San Francisco

blogs.atlassian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 31 posts

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#21

Post by aseipp »

imh wrote: post #15
bxb1552 wrote: post #12

It's hard to believe that the problem is a lack of funds when the city's 2015-16 budget allocates $241m to help ~7k homeless people. It sounds more like we can't figure out how to deploy these resources effectively.

That sounds like a ton, but for the estimated 7k-10k homeless people in SF, that's $24k-34k per person annually. A lot of money, but not an insane amount given the high local costs of absolutely everything.

Also: is the $241mil estimate the actual literal amount reserved/given to the homeless of SF -- or is it the budget for the entire project of dealing with homelessness in SF? I see this number get thrown around and I don't think I've ever seen anyone clarify this bit? It seems quite obvious and very significant to factor in operation costs if this is the case.

If things like the budget for those shelters and their employees also come out of the $241mil -- even assuming an even split -- you're probably looking at way less than $30k or even $20k per-person already... Assuming it 'only' cost $50 million to run it all, that's about $19k per person at 10,000 homeless, with 25k-at-7k.

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#22

Post by davidjnelson »

Mz wrote: post #17
dfabulich wrote: post #4

> We spend a lot of time in San Francisco and Silicon Valley thinking about ways to make people’s lives easier. And through that innovation, we’ve uncovered amazing opportunities – just think about life before Google Maps! But what if we aimed just 1% of that focus of looking out on what we can invent, in on what we can improve? What if we partnered with folks like those at ECS to match their decades of experience on…

but this sounds to me like the author is inviting us to solve SF homelessness using technology. Technology can be enormously useful in this space. I am homeless and I make money online in part by blogging, in part by doing freelance work. You want to do some good in San Francisco in this space, let me suggest you start a San Francisco version of The San Diego Homeless Survival Guide -- listing important resources lik…

This is super inspiring, thank you for sharing this!

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#23

Post by davidjnelson »

the_economist wrote: post #19

Homelessness is mainly a byproduct of mental illness and drug addiction. If you want to solve homelessness, you need to target those problems. I would suggest that new technology is needed, particularly in the case of mental illness. We do not have a good medicine to treat schizophrenia, for example. The city of San Francisco spends $241 million/year on ~7 thousand homeless, an indication that throwing money at this…

Any idea why there is no effective medicine for it? It seems like a really important thing to solve. It sounds like a _lot_ of people would benefit.

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#24

Post by the_economist »

davidjnelson wrote: post #23
the_economist wrote: post #19

Homelessness is mainly a byproduct of mental illness and drug addiction. If you want to solve homelessness, you need to target those problems. I would suggest that new technology is needed, particularly in the case of mental illness. We do not have a good medicine to treat schizophrenia, for example. The city of San Francisco spends $241 million/year on ~7 thousand homeless, an indication that throwing money at this…

Any idea why there is no effective medicine for it? It seems like a really important thing to solve. It sounds like a _lot_ of people would benefit.

Human biology is hard. We don't have a cure for AIDS, baldness, acne, heart disease, cancer, the common cold, etc.

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#25

Post by xg15 »

the_economist wrote: post #24
davidjnelson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea why there is no effective medicine for it? It seems like a really important thing to solve. It sounds like a _lot_ of people would benefit.

Human biology is hard. We don't have a cure for AIDS, baldness, acne, heart disease, cancer, the common cold, etc.

Also note that "schizophrenia" is not an illness but a family of illnesses (and even that definition is one of the less fuzzy ones). Finding a "universal cure" is as likely as finding a universal cure for cancer. That is, very unlikely.

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#26

Post by xg15 »

Non-SF resident here. From other stories I have read, it seems to me as if housing prices start to reach levels where even average middle-class workers have trouble finding something affordable.

If this is true, can a program like CHEFS actually get someone out of homelessness?

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#27

Post by dangrover »

the_economist wrote: post #19

Homelessness is mainly a byproduct of mental illness and drug addiction. If you want to solve homelessness, you need to target those problems. I would suggest that new technology is needed, particularly in the case of mental illness. We do not have a good medicine to treat schizophrenia, for example. The city of San Francisco spends $241 million/year on ~7 thousand homeless, an indication that throwing money at this…

I read somewhat that this budget also covers around 9k people in shelters (or housed through some other form of aid). If you consider that, you get about $15K/head/year, which is not entirely ridiculous.

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#28

Post by cvwright »

jxramos wrote: post #14

That ECS stuff makes me think about that old Heather MacDonald article about The sidewalks of San Francisco and all various interest groups and cynical factions she unveils in her article which she refers to as "Homelessness, Inc". It's forever changed my skepticism around this topic. http://www.city-journal.org/html/sidewalks-san-francisco-133...

Reminds me of Willamette Week's recent story about Portland's failure to build enough affordable housing. The reported reason? The city funds "cool" projects run by "cool" nonprofits instead of spending money where it will do the most good. Super frustrating but also informative.

http://www.wweek.com/news/2016/09/28/portland-needs-to-build...

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#29

Post by jxramos »

cvwright wrote: post #28
jxramos wrote: post #14

That ECS stuff makes me think about that old Heather MacDonald article about The sidewalks of San Francisco and all various interest groups and cynical factions she unveils in her article which she refers to as "Homelessness, Inc". It's forever changed my skepticism around this topic. http://www.city-journal.org/html/sidewalks-san-francisco-133...

Reminds me of Willamette Week's recent story about Portland's failure to build enough affordable housing. The reported reason? The city funds "cool" projects run by "cool" nonprofits instead of spending money where it will do the most good. Super frustrating but also informative. http://www.wweek.com/news/2016/09/28/portland-needs-to-build...

Pretty good quotes from various involved individuals, such as "Our government is so caught up in efforts to appease so many interests that they step right over that guy on the sidewalk to accomplish other goals,"

Re: Helping the homeless in San Francisco

#30

Post by davidjnelson »

the_economist wrote: post #24
davidjnelson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea why there is no effective medicine for it? It seems like a really important thing to solve. It sounds like a _lot_ of people would benefit.

Human biology is hard. We don't have a cure for AIDS, baldness, acne, heart disease, cancer, the common cold, etc.

Human biology is indeed incredibly complex. I'm inspired by the star trek tricorders and medicine. Some day :-)
Post reply on HN