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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

#351

Post by StanislavPetrov »

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 job of a homeless shelter is to provide homeless people with temporary shelter instead of having them living on the streets.

The job is more than just warehousing people. Its making sure that shelters are clean, safe, sanitary and efficiently operated. Here in New York homeless shelters are filthy, understaffed, overcrowded and filled with violent predators, leaving many homeless to feel safer sleeping on a sidewalk. Like San Fransisco, the problem certainly isn't from lack of funding - its from corruption and mismanagement.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#352

Post by zarkov99 »

randomsearch wrote: post #350
zarkov99 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are misinformed. There is plenty of compassion, specially in the cities discussed in the book, that is not the issue at all, nor is lack of spending at all . Please read the book, or listen to any of the podcasts the author recently did, the Joe Rogan one is good summary. Please, I do not mean to be condescending, just listen or read with an open mind. This is not about compassion vs accountability or l…

> I believe you are misinformed I've travelled all over America and Europe. The difference between attitudes to homeless people and welfare spending is vast. I've heard so many Americans describe homeless people as "bums". > nor is lack of spending at all. The small government and lack of a welfare and healthcare system are the principle criticism aimed at the US by Europeans. It's such a shame, as there are many thi…

Thank you for having an open mind. The book and the author discusses Europe, specifically Holland and Portugal, two countries were I have lived, and that have successfully addressed the issue - and the issue is addiction. The main difference between those two countries and the US is not the level of spending, it is the way the money is spent and the firmness with which the addicts are guided to a solution.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#353

Post by sleepysysadmin »

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 is a solved problem.

It is but I can 100% confirm that nobody in cali wants to solve that problem.

>The only solution viable for these residents is getting rid of homeless people through force.

This solution isn't viable neither. The Cali government policy(ies) is increasing the rate of homelessness. Even if you were to round them all up and send all homeless out of the state, it isn't viably going to solve the problem.

>This in untenable give that these residents also have internalized a set of liberal moral values, which mostly means alleviating guilt by dumping money onto ineffective non-profit organization who at worst are siphoning public funds for themselves or at best are trying their best at executing strategies which have minimal impact.

It's worse than that. You might expect there's some benefit there but this mechanism itself is actually making the situation worse. Though it's certainly not popular to discuss that direction. Afterall what you're saying is road to hell is paved with good intentions.

>Norway has homeless population of 0.07% by mostly doing one thing: building and giving homes to people who don't have them.

Not quite accurate, they dont give away free homes. It's more like bomb shelters and such that the homeless can live in, but even that'snot quite accurate. The sole reason Norway has practically no homeless is because they have no actual minimum wage.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#354

Post by ZeroGravitas »

saargrin wrote: post #349
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. S…

Regarding Afghanistan, you forget to mention that part of history where Afghanis raided and conquered large parts of what is now India (the Durani empire and Babur come to mind) , not to mention raiding into Persia and Merv Its hard to pretend Afghanis' view of "civilization" was formed by the British "invasion" which was not permanent

Excellent additional detail, but not sure how it interacts with my point?

I think someone invading you (3 times) is highly likely to give you an opinion about them and their ideals, even if they fail, but maybe the Afghanis are a bit more "forgive and forget" than most.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#355

Post by xtiansimon »

legutierr wrote: post #282
sien wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not only that north-eastern winters are brutal. There's more to it than that. Yes, NYC housing is very expensive, but that's because Manhattan is the most densely populated island in the world having a population greater than 150,000 people. Yes, you can squeeze a few more people into NYC proper, but there are physical limits that cannot be overcome, and New York is as close to those physical limits as anywhere…

“I have to agree with GP's conclusion that California's problems primarily stem from its tax system”

I live on Long Island where there are no property tax controls like California.

They’re building ‘luxury’ 1-3 br condos 750k-2,700k . No downward pressure on home costs here.

My town has lots of working class families, and many move when their children are grown and they reach retirement, because the taxes are so high. Right when you own your home, and your income is fixed, you’re faced with ever increasing taxes.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#356

Post by crooked-v »

remarkEon wrote: post #219
crooked-v wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're also making the implicit assumption here that people who commit petty theft would actually care about the marginally higher chance of suffering consequences from it in a context where there isn't anything to mitigate the reasons they're committing petty theft in the first place.

And I think you're making the implicit assumption here that people who are the victims of petty theft just had their stuff stolen, and weren't assaulted, brutalized, terrified, or otherwise demeaned in a way that will change how they function or view their lives in society. There's a larger "cost" to petty theft than just the stuff that gets stolen. The reason we have laws, and punishment associated with breaking tho…

> isn't just about incentivizing would-be thieves to not do it

If the law around petty theft doesn't actually reduce the number of petty thefts that happen, then all it's doing on a societal level is wasting money.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#357

Post by graderjs »

Aloha wrote: post #217
nuerow wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you’re saying his own experiences should be dismissed because he didn’t gather information through “official” channels? That's a rather disingenuous take. Isn't it plausible that taking anecdotal evidence at face value doesn't actually add insight to not only the root causes but also the prevalence of some of it's different categories? I mean, spending a week living in a tent isn't exactly a way to gather proper…

I have my own experiences interacting with the homeless in seattle. They're a bunch of overlapping groups. Around 1/4 are short term homeless, just folks at the margins of society who fell off the page, and now cannot make ends meet. Alot of these folks do find their way off the streets of their own, but this is the group that we need to most urgently help. Around 1/2 are long term chronic homeless, often they were j…

I have been reading some of your back comments prompted by your comment about organization policy on my white house fire story and I think you should write blog posts

it's clear you think really deeply about things I think you have a lot of interesting stuff to contribute. And you've had an interesting intersection of experiences and combine that with your good analysis and insights often seemingly to me not obvious, and your easy to read writing style, I think you'd make a really good sort of writer that people would love to read about all kinds of tricky issues so I hope you take up blog posting and share here!

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#358

Post by stjohnswarts »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #267
stjohnswarts wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Market value is market value. Any competent real estate agent can give you a decent estimate.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#359

Post by dclusin »

edderly wrote: post #64
dclusin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/21/nevada... There's multi-billion dollar lawsuits going on because it's been documented as a policy of nevada hospitals.

That is interesting and very concerning but that is 10 people when the homeless population in CA is 151,278 https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/homeless-po...

The thinking is that it's not an isolated incident and lots of PD's & hospitals did this. It's hard to prove because no one will admit to it, and the people being sent aren't always the most reliable witnesses.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#360

Post by m_herrlich »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #76
mrandish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There is nothing well-intentioned about NIMBYism. While all this culture war keeps us busy, cars and short buildings laugh at us.

I'm sick of the NIMBY card. This should not be in ANYONE'S backyard.

NIMBYism is Houston, Atlanta, etc. buying one-way bus tickets to Seattle and SF. Locals who want the problem solved are not NIMBY's.

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