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I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

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Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#291

Post by finfinfin »

838812052807016 wrote: post #284
kory wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rampant property crime with no legal repercussions is common here. People shoot up in parks (and now on school property!) and the city is now denying permits for kids to use parks because of the camps. The problem is a learned helplessness of the electorate combined with reasonable voters leaving, resulting in people who want to double down on the status quo replacing them. There is zero political will to enforce vag…

It should be socially acceptable to live in a tent. There shouldn't be a big jump between renting a room and living in a tent. People who live in tents shouldn't be seen as some kind of underclass with the label "homeless". There should be a continuum with painless mobility between a tent, a room, an apartment, a house. Everyone should be expected to follow the law. The system should work for all people, all the way…

I am not sure people complain about the tents. There is a lot more that comes with that. Tents block public areas and sidewalks. There is a lot of trash accumulated around tents. There are usually no bathrooms or showers around which leads to urine and poop, unpleasant smells, dangerous trash like needles, etc.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#292

Post by listenallyall »

pydry wrote: post #213
j8hn wrote: post #139

I don't have any experience with the housing issue in California, but got involved a while back trying to find pragmatic solutions in Seattle. The situation is a mess and there is an entire "homeless industrial complex" complicating matters here, rife with fraud, misspending and cronyism. Every year it seems like many millions of dollars more are spent on this issue but it keeps getting visibly worse. At first I was…

>Every year it seems like many millions of dollars more are spent on this issue but it keeps getting visibly worse. Because home prices and rents keep going up. Homelessness is an inevitable side effect of that. Funneling money on rehab rather than providing places to actually live cant fix that. It's attacking a symptom not the cause. However, attacking the cause (property prices/rents) would make a lot of very rich…

Your "very rich, very powerful" comment is unfounded and a weak attempt to make it seem like a conspiracy. It's the tens of millions of basic, everyday middle-class homeowners who freak out when anything related to their home changes negatively -- lower values, higher taxes, "wrong people" moving into the neighborhood, HOA rules not followed, school system grades declining, traffic increasing, etc etc

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#293

Post by webmaven »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #102
webmaven wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All right, what do you think the people populating such camps should do? Where do you think they should go?

Who are these people? Why are they homeless? Where are their families? Do they want to not be homeless? What is preventing them from not being homeless? Before you try to answer the question of what they should do and where should they go, I think you realistically need to answer these questions.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that these questions have reasonable answers (different in detail for each such person), that the homeless people that live in such encampments do not have a viable alternative to 'living rough', and the best solution they were able to come up with (for whatever reasons) was pitching a tent in a public park.

What alternative are you going to offer them that doesn't present barriers they can't surmount?

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#294

Post by 838812052807016 »

finfinfin wrote: post #291
838812052807016 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be socially acceptable to live in a tent. There shouldn't be a big jump between renting a room and living in a tent. People who live in tents shouldn't be seen as some kind of underclass with the label "homeless". There should be a continuum with painless mobility between a tent, a room, an apartment, a house. Everyone should be expected to follow the law. The system should work for all people, all the way…

I am not sure people complain about the tents. There is a lot more that comes with that. Tents block public areas and sidewalks. There is a lot of trash accumulated around tents. There are usually no bathrooms or showers around which leads to urine and poop, unpleasant smells, dangerous trash like needles, etc.

We need a socially acceptable mode of habitation which is less expensive than renting a room. Tents seem like the obvious and established answer.

What I had in mind is that we need to solve those accompanying problems in order to make living in tents socially acceptable.

Tents show up on public areas and sidewalks because there are no better established places for them.

Trash accumulates around tents because there is no established garbage collection procedure like there is for buildings.

Maybe the solution is some kind of campground with a low fee.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#295

Post by jdavis703 »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #172
jdavis703 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve posted detailed numbers here before, but the overwhelming numbers of homeless people in the Bay Area came from the Bay Area. Source: https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSu...

There’s some nuance to that. 70% were already in SF when they became homeless, but the vast majority of San Franciscans aren’t from here. Only a third we’re even born in California. So it seems like people move here, become homeless, and stay. And 30% coming here after becoming homeless isn’t peanuts.

Many of those people from outside SF came from neighboring counties or within California. It’s a tiny minority coming from out of state.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#296

Post by etempleton »

It is true, California, namely SF, has the highest density of homeless people I have ever seen. Climate, as the author points out is a huge factor, but it is really a confluence of climate, housing costs, and lenient policies toward vagrancy.

A. It is possible to be homeless in much of California’s coastal cities and towns and not die of exposure. In DC and NY you could easily die of heat stroke in the summer, hypothermia in the winter, or a hurricane or tropical storm if living in a tent or on the sidewalk, so eventually everyone needs to find shelter.

B. Housing is so incredibly expensive on the west coast that you can effectively be working a full-time job and still not be able to afford basic housing. This is not really true of anywhere on the east coast. Sure, cities like DC and NY are expensive, but you don’t have to go too far from the city center to find moderately priced housing. In other east coast cities on the east coast homes and rent can be downright cheap and you could live with a roof over your head, albeit not well, working full time at minimum wage.

C. SF is very lenient and tolerant of homelessness. NY and almost every east coast city, is much less so. Police will clear streets and not allow encampments or people to loiter or sleep in certain areas. These street clearing policies certainly do not solve homelessness, but it does reduce visibility of homelessness. During my last visit to SF homeless people were pretty much everywhere, in every neighborhood and every park.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#297

Post by etempleton »

dukeyukey wrote: post #274
postalrat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you favor blaming rent for homelessness instead of lack of jobs that pay well enough? Why can some people afford the rent while others can't? If you are after a single root cause of homelessness you will be disappointed. Unless you only care to push an agenda.

> Why do you favor blaming rent for homelessness instead of lack of jobs that pay well enough? In most countries, homelessness is concentrated in wealthy, but expensive cities e.g. London, NYC. There are plenty of well-paying jobs (even relatively unskilled ones) but high rents more than make up for it. I felt significantly more housing-secure living in a cheap area with a shitty job than in an expensive area with a…

If everyone is paid more but the housing supply remains limited housing prices will simply increase further.

My friend in California makes twice as much as I do on the east coast. I can afford a home and he can’t.

Supply and demand. Housing prices will only go down when there is significant excess supply.

If you want to help homelessness build more housing. Not specifically low income housing, just lots of housing. No it is not going to help the people living on the street right now, but it is the only real solution.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#298

Post by Robotbeat »

seattle_spring wrote: post #253
Robotbeat wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link local minimum wage to three times median rent for a 2 bedroom apartment, then. Solve both problems! :) (EDIT: assuming you have policy to maintain full employment…)

I've never understood why working the most entry level job should afford you a midrange 2br. Why not link minimum wage to 3x rent for an entry level apartment?

Good enough for me, but the difference isn’t huge.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#299

Post by mbrodersen »

aazaa wrote: post #243

Maybe a shift of perspective is in order. What if the homeless "problem" is merely the most visible symptom of a modern depression that has been underway for many years? You expect a homeless problem in a depression. You expect drug use to cripple large segments of society in a depression. You don't expect the problems that come with a depression to be fixable. And you expect those with means to jealously guard them…

What is also not recognised is that there is a growing percentage of people who is unable to perform any job available in a modern society. Because of mental/IQ/education/soft skill problems. The result is a growing underclass of people that the rest of society try to ignore or (especially in the US) punish for “being lazy”.

Re: I believe California is the dumping ground for America's homeless problem

#300

Post by mbrodersen »

j8hn wrote: post #139

I don't have any experience with the housing issue in California, but got involved a while back trying to find pragmatic solutions in Seattle. The situation is a mess and there is an entire "homeless industrial complex" complicating matters here, rife with fraud, misspending and cronyism. Every year it seems like many millions of dollars more are spent on this issue but it keeps getting visibly worse. At first I was…

What continues to amaze me is that the US completely ignore successful programs run in other countries. The US spent more $ per person on education, healthcare, homelessness etc. and get consistently worse results than countries in Europe for example. I wonder if it is a weird “US #1” kinda thing that makes it impossible to admit that the US can learn from other countries? Or is there some other explanation? Perhaps an unwillingness to actually solve those problems because of a general individualistic/selfish/not my problems mentality?
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