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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

#21

Post by devadvance »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

("in San Francisco") From 2005 to 2020 the estimated number of unsheltered homeless people nearly doubled, even as homelessness declined nationwide. One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. We have a nationwide shortage of housing. Both in person and online, I continue to hear homeless people plan to move someplace relatively warm and dry while stuck on…

Disclaimer: I have read the Economist article but not the book it appears to synopsizing/marketing.

It doesn't seem like trying to simplify challenges in large cities to a single dimension like housing is a path to success. Basic needs and social services beyond housing go a long way in supporting people, which (sadly) can't be provided by just addressing a housing shortage/affordability gap.

It's worth taking a look at the SF Point in Time and Housing Inventory Counts data [1] to provide context on this conversation.

[1] https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/research-and-reports/pit-hic/

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#22

Post by mrobot »

I think the article is implying the answer to the failed 'left' policies is to replace them with more 'right-wing' policies. I've seen bills popping up that involve criminalizing the homeless or making camping illegal except in designated areas [1], [2]. These are really just 'out of sight, out of mind bills'. Homeless will not respond to criminalization of being homeless just as addicted people don't respond to legislation criminalizing drug use. We are even wasting money on Boston Dynamics robot dogs in Hawaii to patrol the homeless [3]. The right-wing policies almost always seem like they will just end up being violent. However, i do agree the 'left' policies are insufficient. They are bandaids on the real problem: that rental housing is not 100% public and that even mentioning this gets you laughed at and shunned. Public housing could easily work and be healthy, well-maintained, and great, really. The only thing preventing it from working is the forces of private real estate. Any mention of it, everyone will respond with just random pictures of housing they claim to be some socialist country's public housing, saying "is THIS what you want?!?!?". The idea that you couldn't build and maintain excellent public housing is laughable. It's fine, we should seek it.

[1]: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2021/10/13/bill-calls-for-stat... [2]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/using-new-law-la-city-coun... [3]: https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/01/honolulu-police-spent-1500...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#23

Post by mc32 »

bsder wrote: post #15
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. >I think the nation as a whole needs substantially more affordable housing. And San Francisco will never be a place with affordable housing. Modesto, ok. Manteca, ok. Not SF. No one ever thinks, I'm homeless, lemme go to SF and see if I can find something there. It's political. Otherwise you'd see more homeless i…

San Diego does have quite a lot of homeless, but it isn't as concentrated geographically. I'd argue that part of the issue with San Francisco is the concentration of the homeless into a small area. You don't see homeless in Atherton, for example. The wealthy enclaves in the Bay Area have zero problem with pushing the homeless out of their areas into somewhere else. In the Bay Area, there aren't that many "somewhere e…

San Diego county has roughly half the homeless pop of SF city/county while having triple the population.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#24

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

("in San Francisco") From 2005 to 2020 the estimated number of unsheltered homeless people nearly doubled, even as homelessness declined nationwide. One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. We have a nationwide shortage of housing. Both in person and online, I continue to hear homeless people plan to move someplace relatively warm and dry while stuck on…

Exactly. While I think there is an argument to be made that many of SF's/California's policies are counterproductive (e.g. treating all theft The same thing is happening in Austin. As a liberal city in Texas with relatively homeless-friendly policies, it was been well-documented that many rural areas in Texas are giving their homeless one-way bus tickets to Austin.

So we're left with the dilemma that relatively liberal cities have their homeless problems blamed on their policies, when a fairer criticism is just that these liberal policies attract homeless to their locales.

Without a national or at least comprehensive state-wide solution for homelessness, this will be a difficult problem to solve.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#25

Post by adventured »

systemvoltage wrote: post #18
azinman2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FINAL-PIT-R... is full of a lot of good data.

The data does not support GP's assertion: 70% from San Francisco 22% from rest of California 8% from out of state Also, the data disagrees with the general sentiment of "Mental Health" issues amongst Homeless people. Only 5% were homeless because of mental health problems. Most of them, almost a quarter are homeless because they lost their job. Basically, many things in this report goes against the general opinion of…

That's absolutely correct. San Francisco should be a city lined with gold given the wealth and income base. Given its fortunate context it should be more like Singapore and a lot less like a slightly nicer Los Angeles.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#27

Post by tyoma »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #24
DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

("in San Francisco") From 2005 to 2020 the estimated number of unsheltered homeless people nearly doubled, even as homelessness declined nationwide. One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. We have a nationwide shortage of housing. Both in person and online, I continue to hear homeless people plan to move someplace relatively warm and dry while stuck on…

Exactly. While I think there is an argument to be made that many of SF's/California's policies are counterproductive (e.g. treating all theft The same thing is happening in Austin. As a liberal city in Texas with relatively homeless-friendly policies, it was been well-documented that many rural areas in Texas are giving their homeless one-way bus tickets to Austin. So we're left with the dilemma that relatively liber…

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.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#28

Post by adventured »

TedShiller wrote: post #12

I have some bad news for "housing advocates": More housing will never be the solution to the homeless problem. You want to see a lot of drug users and homeless people? You'll find them in areas of dense housing. Secondly, there is no "housing shortage". You're just looking in the wrong place. That's like saying there is a shortage of air in outer space.

One of the most important things for San Francisco - regarding homelessness - is to utilize housing first principles to remove the homeless from the streets. There is not plenty of housing for that in SF and there is very little will to change that.

They have the wealth base to do it, they have the income base to do it. They're a mix of cowards and immoral misers (those who refuse to act).

2019: "Bolstered by its transformative tech industry, San Francisco has the most billionaires per capita than any other city, according to a new study from Wealth-X that measures the number of billionaires and where they live in the world. For every 11,612 people in San Francisco, the study says, there's one billionaire. And that's a much smaller ratio than the second most billionaire-dense city. In New York City, there are 81,211 inhabitants for every one billionaire."

https://money.com/san-francisco-billionaire-density-income-i...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#29

Post by edderly »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

("in San Francisco") From 2005 to 2020 the estimated number of unsheltered homeless people nearly doubled, even as homelessness declined nationwide. One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. We have a nationwide shortage of housing. Both in person and online, I continue to hear homeless people plan to move someplace relatively warm and dry while stuck on…

Who came up with the hypothesis that California is the dumping ground for the nation's homeless? I'd like to know if it stands up to scrutiny.

California itself has a population which is the size of a medium sized European country. It is large enough to have a sizable homeless population. If you are homeless are your chances of getting food and services better in the central valley or in SF? Also, are there significantly less homeless people on the East coast by comparison?

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