A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#261

Post by lwouis » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #184

nuerow wrote: post #171

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 (...) 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?

I'll try to defend the argument of "first hand anecdotal data vs statistics". At least i'll provide some arguments.

Imagine going to any place of work for a week. Let's say a trading center. How much will you learn from first hand but short-term experience? People tend to say you need 10,000 hours of practice to be good at a given skill. In a week you are barely starting to get familiar and it's already over. You haven't experienced any depth or any breadth of the domain.

Another example would be: how much of a country can you learn by visiting 1 city? At some point to fit the huge problem space into 1 mind you need to generalize and use statistics. In addition to practical experience so you're not lost in abstract concepts.

Personally i think that both first hand experience and stats/theoretical knowledge are necessary to be effective at a domain. So I'm glad to see a politician getting personally involved.

To the defense of the other side, I would say first-hand experience tend to be more engaging than theory/stats, especially to politicians (usually non STEM profiles who got where they are through developing EQ, not critical thinking). This results in politicians only engaging with that type of approach, and typically having a limited/personal understanding of the problems they are in charge of.

I wish for instance that a politician in charge of a topic would have to go through a mandatory 1 week intense course from domain experts to broaden their perspective and understanding. Instead it tends to be all emotion, all urgency, and leaning the way most people are pulling, whatever the rational merits of that position.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#262

Post by taurath » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 9:19 AM UTC

freyir wrote: post #220

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…

San Francisco already has among the highest number of people placed in supportive housing per capita of any city in the country. How many more people need to be placed in supportive housing in San Francisco before this problem is solved? If homes are abundant in Charlotte, why do so many homeless people live on the streets in San Francisco instead, where there’s not even sufficient housing to support working middle c…

One of the solutions they’re trying now is for the state to give development quotas to municipalities, and threaten to break up single family zoning areas if not.

That it’s such a huge issue in 2 separate massive municipalities makes me agree - it’s a problem that needs solutions at a higher level (often by forcing lower levels to do what is necessary)

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#263

Post by taurath » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

bojangleslover wrote: post #242

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.

Politically it seems impossible though, because the hit will always be avoided by those with the most power

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#264

Post by thepasswordis » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

Why do so many of the comments here want to strip these people of their human agency?

They make bad decisions, and those decisions have effects. It isn’t always some opaque “the system”. Sometimes you’ll have to see that these people are humans just like you are, and just like you are responsible for your decisions, so are they.

Anything else, which aims to make them less than you, is a problem. Treat these people like human beings.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#265

Post by crate_barre » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 9:30 AM UTC

sien wrote: post #221

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…

Sleeping Rough and not affording homes are related. The Bay Area definitely needs to build more houses. However, in San Fransicko and in other places it is pointed out that New York City, that also has astronomical housing prices and also doesn't build enough, has a fraction of the people sleeping rough that SF does. NYC has lots of temporary shelter for people who are homeless. SF doesn't have enough. From https://m…

NYC has winters, it’s not temperate all year round. Think about all the poor people that would freeze to death in places like India or SF - if they had winters like the northeast). Warmer places will have the temperature to sustain a homeless population.

NYC, prior to our current Democratic mayor, had aggressive law enforcement during Giuliani and Bloomberg terms. They would corral the homeless into specific areas (the poor neighborhoods) and push them out of sight (actual strategy to hide the homeless). You can be homeless in NYC, just not around areas where ‘decent’ folk live. Interpret that however you want.

If SF corralled the homeless to the ghettos, no one would notice.

Overall, if we take a census of the homeless, we’d easily learn that a good percentage of them are mentally ill and/or drug addicts. It’s much cheaper to build tents for them than provide institutional treatment (prolonged stay in clinics and mental health wards of hospitals). Generally these hospitals don’t have enough beds for everyone and constantly try to release everyone within 72 hours, no matter how severe the situation is. Plus, the cost of healthcare is immense (I’d say orders of magnitude over the tent housing solution).

These are forsaken people, we will never solve this. I would recommend SF hide their homeless and get them off the beaches and boardwalks, and put the tents out of sight somewhere desolate. We as a society don’t have a sustainable altruism to succeed here.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#266

Post by 2Gkashmiri » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 9:55 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #121

no_butterscotch wrote: post #39

The book's author was recently on Joe Rogan where they discussed the book and many of the policies in SF. They discussed: de-criminalization, the "Portugal approach", progressive policies, policing, etc. Also the use of language such as "homeless camps" which envisages a camp of homeless people just trying to live. Versus the reality which when social workers and mayors (mayor of Denver) went into these camps underco…

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…

Not an american, so don't take it personally. I understand in many big cities, most if not all are migrants from other places. If a person has left his home town to say SF, they live there, work there but if they become homeless there, why do they stick around?

Is the stigma of "living with your mom/parents" that people are willing to live on a park bench and not go to their homes and live with their parents for free? Do the parents have problem accepting back "children who have flown the nest"?

Genuinely curious. In India, when we have " migrants" living somewhere, locally or abroad even. If something happens or job loss or whatever, people just return home and survive. india on the whole does have some homeless problem but its not an epidemic level stuff. last year when the lockdown hit, the entire nation basically walked to their home towns and villages because they knew no work meant no rent and no place to sleep so everyone just packed their bags and returned homes. same for a lot of expat population, they all just returned home. i wonder if that happens there in the US or not?

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#267

Post by i_am_proteus » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 10:04 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #230

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…

As long as California is willing to pay market value for said house, then sure. Otherwise, they have no more right to my property than anyone else. The USA isn't a communist country or a dictatorship, and property rights dominate except in the most dire circumstances. So it really isn't a “solved problem”. What would work is shutting the NIMBY's down and letting housing get rezoned by developers for multi-home units.

How does one determine the correct "market value" of a property where government zoning laws prevent building more dense housing?

Perhaps you advocate for removing these zoning laws and then letting the market clear?

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#268

Post by zemvpferreira » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 10:06 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #255

freyir wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco already has among the highest number of people placed in supportive housing per capita of any city in the country. How many more people need to be placed in supportive housing in San Francisco before this problem is solved? If homes are abundant in Charlotte, why do so many homeless people live on the streets in San Francisco instead, where there’s not even sufficient housing to support working middle c…

> San Francisco already has among the highest number of people placed in supportive housing per capita of any city in the country. Is it actually higher in SF than in NYC? > When Newsom tried this approach as mayor, his conclusion was that for every homeless person they put into housing, two more would show up the street. This is a fascinating idea. Does this mean that kicking one person out of housing somehow remove…

If I remember correctly from my time there many of SF's homeless are migrants: they're not people who lived in SF and became destitute, but people who moved in/were moved (tales of cities putting homeless en masse on Greyhounds to SF abound) from places with worse weather and economies.

In that sense I understand Newsom's position: if homeless are already migrating from all over the US due to life being easier in San Francisco, it might only get worse in the city if conditions improve for individuals. It sucks, but we can't expect SF to solve America's homeless problem alone.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#269

Post by aqme28 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 10:07 AM UTC

dandotway wrote: post #85

mgummelt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author argues that housing prices are not a significant factor: "Throughout it, they emphasized that the homeless were just like you and me, just poorer. Today, many of California’s leading homelessness advocates insist that the current crisis is due mostly to the housing shortage. Homelessness experts and advocates disagree. 'I’ve rarely seen a normal able-bodied able-minded non-drug-using homeless person who’s…

> I’ve rarely seen a normal able-bodied able-minded non-drug-using homeless person who’s just down on their luck This right here. Nearly all homeless I've worked with were non-neuronormative and/or drug abusers. They're almost never just normal folks who have fallen on hard times. The reason they aren't rooming with a family member or friend is because their behavioral outbursts and/or stealing things to buy drugs ha…

> They're almost never just normal folks who have fallen on hard times

Why do those have to be two distinct types of people? It seems to me that normal people who fall on hard times might have a tendency to become "non-neuronormative and/or drug abusers"? I wonder how strong that conversion is.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#270

Post by trompetenaccoun » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 10:09 AM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #239

refurb wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quote the exact statement by the mayor that you feel is unfair and/or unhelpful?

Sure but, I feel like you're gonna try and deeply litigate it so, I'm skeptical it'll be productive: "What isn’t working is spending more money on it without changing behaviors. People are never going to [move] forward with their lives. You don’t want to be in a situation with public policy where you’re enabling really bad, destructive behavior." It might sound kind of anodyne, but it's basically what leaders say whe…

There are policies that increase homelessness. But even if you do everything right, you won't be able to solve the problem completely in liberal societies. In some more authoritarian countries, homeless people are simply arrested, taken back to their hometowns, put in institutions or just driven out of the cities. That's one way to deal with it.

It's absolutely right to put emphasis on self agency, there's actually a very concerning trend in society that people expect the government to solve all problems and ideally even pay them for simply existing (see the antiwork movement). Should this sort of thinking gain popular support the problem is going to get much bigger than it already is.