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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

#241

Post by alexashka »

RobLach wrote: post #191

Homelessness is a solved problem. SF residents don't want the solution. Real estate is the primary wealth building asset class of long-term residents who bought property ages ago or inherited it. In California property taxes as assessed at time of sale, so you hold onto properties realistically valued at multiple millions while paying taxes at rate appropriate to tens of thousands. Bulldozing a single family home to…

You've given this some thought.

What I don't understand is why you think cities should provide shelter for people who don't contribute to them.

If you can't make a city a better place - you should have shelter, somewhere cheap and distant. If you get your life together there, you can come and try living in a city again.

Living in a city should be a privilege, not a right - cities take a lot of work and if you aren't doing your part - it's ok and you should live with dignity and respect (because we have plenty of food and electricity to go around, for now), but you don't get to live off of other people's efforts by insisting that you get to stay in a city because you were born in one or whatever.

Cities are like night clubs, if you don't get the ratio of men to women right, the night club sucks. The same applies to productive and unproductive citizens.

Just because we can let anyone into a night club, doesn't mean it won't make it suck for everyone involved.

Following the night club analogy, what needs to happen is we need to lower the barrier to opening up new night clubs. There is no reason why we can't build new towns that make use of modern technology that people would flock to - it is not a resource issue, it is an imagination, competence and regulation issue (implementing land value tax to get rid of rent seeking on land), much like everything else in human society.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#242

Post by bojangleslover »

RobLach wrote: post #191

Homelessness is a solved problem. SF residents don't want the solution. Real estate is the primary wealth building asset class of long-term residents who bought property ages ago or inherited it. In California property taxes as assessed at time of sale, so you hold onto properties realistically valued at multiple millions while paying taxes at rate appropriate to tens of thousands. Bulldozing a single family home to…

The blow to property values would be lessened though by the fact that you don't have to see "homelessness" every time you eat at an outdoor restaurant or walk your dog.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#243

Post by swearwolf »

systemvoltage wrote: post #193
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It seems to me that homelessness is a desired state by the far-left progressives. I don't get the sense from talking to people here in Berkeley/Oakland that they want to eradicate homelessness. If you offer a few discussion points about possible solutions, you get sneered at and shot down. The arguments are weak and don't hold up, so they are varnished with emotional appeal (be kind to homeless) and other soft-tactic…

Desired state seems like a stretch, but the cynical part of me does wonder sometimes whether having visible homelessness around is seen as inevitable proof that the capitalist system is irredeemable and must be replaced.

A more likely explanation is the way that paternalistic administration of care is anathema to the current way of thinking. That is to say that one should never presuppose how to solve someone else’s problems, but rather one should listen to their lived experiences and give them what they say they need to solve their own problems. This is a good principle to follow in most situations, but like all prescriptive outlooks it fails when exposed to certain edge cases. In this case, the edge case is people who lack the executive function to know how to better their situation, or even to take advantage of situations that will when they’re presented.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#244

Post by afiori »

nuerow wrote: post #203
jmspring wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Do you understand that you are talking about funding homeless shelters? The job of a homeless shelter is to provide homeless people with temporary shelter instead of having them living on the streets. It is not in th…

The expected outcome could be "allow/convince homeless people to sleep in the shelter rather than on the streets".

Not every non-profit needs to solve every problem, but most of them should work to solve al least one of them; having that problem clearly specified helps in distinguishing efficient use of public money from inefficient use.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#245

Post by peterthehacker »

profeatur wrote: post #228

Whenever this topic comes up the conversation always centers around money or housing or other brute physical facts. It should be obvious by now that this problem is not about material resources but is something deeper and much more intractable. American society has died. Many here will reply that that’s a good thing, and then continue complaining about the wealth divide or housing or whatever else fits their politica…

> Whenever this topic comes up the conversation always centers around money or housing or other brute physical facts

That’s not what the article is about. It’s about bad governing and policing as the primary cause of SF’s homelessness problem.

> He[Michael Shellenberger] blames San Francisco’s woes on a culture of permissive lawlessness and a mistaken view of what constitutes moral policymaking. For example, many on the left believe the lax prosecution of laws is compassionate.

The article also mentioned that this is a problem that’s specific to SF and homelessness in the rest of the country is not as bad.

While I’m as much of a fan of philosophical rants about the decline of human civilization as the next guy, that’s not what the article is about. Also, some comments are unrealistically pessimistic

> The family is the center of a human’s life, and we’ve destroyed it… We look away from our families and attach ourselves to a reactionary “culture” that’s completely…

I see where you’re coming from, but many people’s lives are not like this. The world might be heading this way with all the challenges we’ve faced transitioning society online, but the internet is still very young. We can learn from our mistakes and build healthier social systems.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#246

Post by RobLach »

alexashka wrote: post #241
RobLach wrote: post #191

Homelessness is a solved problem. SF residents don't want the solution. Real estate is the primary wealth building asset class of long-term residents who bought property ages ago or inherited it. In California property taxes as assessed at time of sale, so you hold onto properties realistically valued at multiple millions while paying taxes at rate appropriate to tens of thousands. Bulldozing a single family home to…

You've given this some thought. What I don't understand is why you think cities should provide shelter for people who don't contribute to them. If you can't make a city a better place - you should have shelter, somewhere cheap and distant. If you get your life together there, you can come and try living in a city again. Living in a city should be a privilege, not a right - cities take a lot of work and if you aren't…

Because it’s cheaper in the long term, not even considering the social/humanitarian benefits.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#247

Post by TedShiller »

icelancer wrote: post #139
adventured wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tra…

Money is not the issue. NIMBYism is. And many so-called leftist people love the idea of affordable public housing... just not near them.

I wish for dense housing, because I could then buy a house.

However, I also know it won't solve any of those problems it's supposed to solve.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#248

Post by sizzle »

zarkov99 wrote: post #66
bryan0 wrote: post #7

Since I moved out of SF I’ve wondered if there will ever be some public epiphany that with their well-intentioned policies they’ve reinforced what they most wanted to destroy: a society of the haves and have-nots.

The issue is not poverty at all . The issue is addiction. This constant framing of the homeless as dispossessed victims, rather than substance abusers with agency, makes it impossible to solve the issue.

No the issue is lack of mental health intervention because the field of Psychiatry and our collective understanding of brain chemistry imbalances is very rudimentary, the science just isn’t there yet. So people with mental health problems can’t hold jobs and function in society like people with neurotypical brain chemistry.

Addiction can be linked to dopamine regulation disorder e.g. ADHD and risky behavior like gambling addiction, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, etc.

We need to address the mental health problem underlying homelessness

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#249

Post by musicale »

azinman2 wrote: post #80
musicale wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catch-22: Top cited primary cause of homelessness: "Lost Job" (26%) Top cited obstacle to obtaining employment: "No Permanent Address" (28%)

No permanent address is self reported. In general those who aren't employable are unreliable for self-assessments as to why (although I don't doubt the lack of address is a hinderance -- for sure it would be). Similarly, lost job tells us little about the bigger picture. What led to them being a lost job away from being homeless? Was it living beyond their means? No family? No friends willing to take them in? Being r…

> the amount of money ($1B+) SF spends on homeless yearly

> TOTAL NUMBER OF PERSONS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS, 2013-2019 > 7,008 (2013) 6,775 (2015) 6,858 (2017) 8,011 (2019)

Are both of these figures correct?

Wikipedia[1] says it was $241M in 2016 but notes

"However, much of this spending is focused on housing the formerly homeless, or those at risk, and not the currently homeless"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Franci...

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