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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

#271

Post by ralusek »

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…

Homelessness of this kind has very little to do with housing, if at all. What you've said here is all true as it relates to the affordability of housing, but that's not why these people are homeless. I've said it before, and I'll said it again: people seem to act as if the only two options are having a house in the most expensive city in the world, or being homeless in the most expensive city in the world. If I can't afford a house in the most expensive city in the world, my immediate thought isn't going to be "well I guess I can't live anywhere then, streets it is."

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#272

Post by aqme28 »

moneycantbuy wrote: post #50
squabble wrote: post #26

I wonder if this situation is intentionally maintained. Does anyone benefit from it?

landlords

You got downvoted but this is true.

It's not a deliberate relationship, but housing prices correlate with homelessness. If landlords and property owners see their properties increase in value, that means that people on the margins are becoming homeless.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#273

Post by lm28469 »

mrandish wrote: post #13
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.

> with their well-intentioned policies they’ve reinforced what they most wanted to destroy: a society of the haves and have-nots. As a newly-former SF resident and worker, what I witnessed over the past decade confirms your sad summary. The unintended consequences of misguided yet well-intentioned political policies.

That's what happens when you put your ideology glasses on, you stop seeing reality. People fight for what they value as good even if everything tells them it doesn't work in the real world, as if the idea itself was more valuable than its manifestations.

We're seeing that all over the world, especially in Europe with the remains of the Lumières ideals, ideals which don't scale nor work in our globalized/capitalist world

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#274

Post by vlovich123 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #268
vkou wrote: post #255

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. 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…

Hmmm… I‘ve heard conflicting sources on this and that studies show that SF homeless don’t have a higher degree of having moved from elsewhere. The vast majority has been here a considerable amount of time. Maybe I’m misremembering though.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#275

Post by [deleted] »

jjav wrote: post #258
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…

> Charlotte, NC, a city with a lower population, built 160,000 new units. Charlotte, NC also has way more open space to expand than SF, which has none, surrounded by water on three sides and other cities to the south.

[deleted]

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#276

Post by m0llusk »

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…

The social problem of homelessness is thus an issue of the intentions of a specific political group? And their manners? They sneered, did they? Not nice, but that seems like a distraction. Political groups and intentions are apart from the business of dealing with the problem. What you are dismissing as "wokeness" might just be familiarity as this problem has festered for a while now.

There is some evidence that this just clean up the streets approach is part of the reason so many ended up here after having been cleared out of wherever else they started. In Berkeley/Oakland cleaning up the streets just shifted people around at great cost so now the focus is on cleanup and portable toilets for basic sanitation.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#277

Post by arpinum »

rented_mule wrote: post #208

I often hear treatment promoted, but it's interesting that I rarely hear a topic right next to this come up in such discussions: a for-profit healthcare system that not-only leaves these people behind, but helps to put many of them there in the first place. I can't find anything in this thread about health insurance, universal access to healthcare, etc. I have excellent health insurance by US standards (the most expe…

My experience of mental healthcare in the UK and China is not what what you imply. Your description of mental care for homeless in USA is close to what is available for the majority of the working class in the UK.

I worked in mental health in the UK. In my area an initial mental health consult has a 6 month wait. You are unlikely to receive ongoing care in the first 2 years after the initial consult, but most will never be offered ongoing care. Lack of treatment pushes people out of the job market and into destructive behaviour. The fact that it is free at the point of care matters little when poor health is itself financially destructive.

I also cared for a relative's health in China. If you want a basic level of hygiene you will pay for everything. If you want clean sheets and avoid bed sores you may need to pay extra. Bring a good blanket, the hospital may not have a heating system.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#278

Post by sizzle »

honkdaddy wrote: post #254
sizzle wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gamb…

If you walk down many streets in the Mission and look a certain way, people will offer you weed, crack, or smack openly on the sidewalk in broad daylight. That's not an exaggeration, and if you haven't been to your city's equivalent I highly encourage it. If you imagine a society crippled by gambling addiction, perhaps the best place to start would be by closing some casinos.

I see homeless who are speaking to themselves like they are hearing voices e.g. schizophrenia and other mental illness indicators more often than not. Maybe being homeless causes symptoms of mental Illness, or having untreated mental illness will force you to not hold a job and be employable like neurotypical workers in SF.

Just because your experience is seeing rampant drug use in the homeless population doesn’t mean it’s the main reason they are on the street. Drug addiction is not mutually exclusive from having mental illness and from having a degree in neuroscience, I learned that being neuroatypical with an imbalanced brain chemistry, e.g. dopamine regulation disorders and other neurotransmitter issues can easily result in the symptoms of risky behavior and substance abuse and addiction, which further damages your brain and neurodegeneration, thus having more mental illness.

Being sober from substance abuse is a huge factor to achieving gainful employment and rejoining society. Having untreated mental illness is increasing the difficulty mode of your life because you are not in control of your full brain if it’s imbalanced and addiction is an emergent neurochemical response to reinforcing pathways in your brain from a hyper pleasurable activity that lights up your imbalanced brain. Sorry I’m rambling but mental illness and homelessness is never really talked about they are destined to be left out of society if they can’t utilize their full cognitive abilities due to untreated mental illness and psychiatric intervention.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#279

Post by ZeroGravitas »

inglor_cz wrote: post #259
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…

Norway has 5 million people in total, and used to be very homogeneous. I think it was Robert Putnam who showed that with increasing diversity, you will get less solidarity and openness/trust towards strangers. Homelessness may be a solved problem in Norway , but it does not mean that Norwegian solution is readily transplantable into San Francisco. Much like we failed to transplant modern way of life to Afghanistan.

> Much like we failed to transplant modern way of life to Afghanistan.

Which attempt are you talking about. The 3 times the British empire invaded, the three times the Soviet Union invaded or the latest Nato-American invasion.

(Historically there was the Sikh, Mugal, Muslim invasions too, etc. etc.)

Possibly the locals got a poor view of western "civilization" by being on the wrong end of its armies multiple times.

Strangely, I agree with your general point, but possibly from the opposite direction.

For example, when Finland was doing its equivalent of the New Deal, I find it unlikely there were any Finn's that would try to use that as political leverage to delay anti-lynching laws and vice-versa.

Racists seem to be one of the most corrosively self-defeating forces in human society.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#280

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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…

Once you recognize this problem, it can be solved by grandfathering people in, basically paying off the people who used to benefit so that the rules can be changed to be fairer in the future.

This feels a bit icky but is a recurring pattern. For example, when slaves were emancipated the previous owners were often compensated, because if not they would politically block it happening.

I feel it's going to get to a crunch in some places before people do anything about it but various places will start adopting variants of this to deflate the bubble.

Basically passing some of the land value tax onto the lucky current property owners as an annuity, and allowing them to move somewhere cheaper and decouple safely from the local property market.

Probably needs enough of a threat that they'll just be forced to pay the full tax before they'll cave though, so it's just politics at that point. Who has more power and/or propaganda will decide the outcome.

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