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San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

city-journal.org

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Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#61

Post by awayyyythrow »

m0nsoon wrote: post #58
awayyyythrow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is building houses . When you put people in houses they cease to be homeless. They did it in Helsinki, and it worked: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Very simple deductive reasoning actually, I wonder how people did not come up with it yet.

>>>No other American city has built as much affordable housing per capita, according to the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. From 2004 to 2014, the city spent $2 billion on nearly 3,000 new units of permanent supportive housing. You’re conflating addressing “housing transience” with addressing “addiction, mental illness, and criminal antisocial behavior”. Additional housing units don’t resolve this problem.

I'm curious, what do you suggest should be done? Build more mental health wards? Put everyone behind bars? For how long? What do you do once they're released from prison? Or maybe there should be some sort of camps where they could be rounded up and concentratred away from the city? You obviously have something on your mind, say it.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#62

Post by lazyjones »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #24
jahaja wrote: post #20

Wow, that article's rhetoric is seething with social darwinistic class hatred. All these voluntary homeless seems to be conspicuously absent in western Europe. At least at this scale. Insisting on, which the author clearly does according to a quick googling, firmly supporting and perpetuating an economic system that creates these dystopian features and then calling for their forceful removal, through weasel language,…

Lets do an experiment. Go to a park in the middle of London, and set up a tent, and scatter used needles on the sidewalk. You'll be involuntarily moved out of the park within a couple of hours. Since your governments go ahead and remove people who are trying to live in public spaces, you don't see them, and you assume they don't exist. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/berlin-has-been-payin... https://www.politi…

Berlin is a bad example and a complete failure, there the drug dealers get assigned special spots in parks so they don't disturb other visitors too much.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/09/berlin-park-sets...

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#63

Post by lazyjones »

awayyyythrow wrote: post #42
kelnos wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the alternative, not enforcing laws, is clearly not working. Law enforcement everywhere is about moving crime out to the margins. It will never stamp out all crime, but it does tend to reduce the quantity of it. And I'm not even convinced that "moving it elsewhere" is necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather have most crime concentrated in a small area than distributing it over a large area. Regardless, people should…

The alternative is building houses . When you put people in houses they cease to be homeless. They did it in Helsinki, and it worked: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Very simple deductive reasoning actually, I wonder how people did not come up with it yet.

Here's a different take:

https://www.politico.eu/article/to-help-the-homeless-helsink...

> Called Housing First, the Finnish model aggressively closed homeless shelters, calling them traps

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#64

Post by NeedMoreTea »

lazyjones wrote: post #63
awayyyythrow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is building houses . When you put people in houses they cease to be homeless. They did it in Helsinki, and it worked: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle... Very simple deductive reasoning actually, I wonder how people did not come up with it yet.

Here's a different take: https://www.politico.eu/article/to-help-the-homeless-helsink... > Called Housing First, the Finnish model aggressively closed homeless shelters, calling them traps

Not really a different take at all. It also notes that the policy is very effective. Close the homeless shelters and hostels, give them housing.

The rest of the part you quote is revealing:

"Finland’s experiment in ending rough sleeping has caught the attention of policymakers for one reason: It’s working.

Called Housing First, the Finnish model aggressively closed homeless shelters, calling them traps, and did not require participants battling addictions to recover before receiving keys to a home."

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#65

Post by Grumbledour »

lazyjones wrote: post #62
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets do an experiment. Go to a park in the middle of London, and set up a tent, and scatter used needles on the sidewalk. You'll be involuntarily moved out of the park within a couple of hours. Since your governments go ahead and remove people who are trying to live in public spaces, you don't see them, and you assume they don't exist. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/berlin-has-been-payin... https://www.politi…

Berlin is a bad example and a complete failure, there the drug dealers get assigned special spots in parks so they don't disturb other visitors too much. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/09/berlin-park-sets...

As I remember it, the park manager decided to create these zones (And I don't remember reading about a gag order so he could not talk to the press, but rather reading an interview with him, though I can't find it at short notice now). And it's important to note that the park manager is more a lone social worker than anyone really in authority here. And from this point, the solutions does not seem unreasonable. He can't himself get rid of the drug dealers but tried to contain them, that despite them being there the park could be used by other people. Of course that does not solve the problem overall and the city of Berlin surely does so many things wrong, it is reasonable to conclude they could do better here as well, but the story itself seems to get quite blown out of proportion.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#66

Post by flurdy »

pjc50 wrote: post #59
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets do an experiment. Go to a park in the middle of London, and set up a tent, and scatter used needles on the sidewalk. You'll be involuntarily moved out of the park within a couple of hours. Since your governments go ahead and remove people who are trying to live in public spaces, you don't see them, and you assume they don't exist. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/10/berlin-has-been-payin... https://www.politi…

Edinburgh has people living in tents. There was someone I used to see from the bus who lived on a park bench for months , surrounded by a pile of black bags of his stuff. Nicely situated park bench too, just far enough out to be away from the tourists but with a great view of the hills. I hear reports of a used needle problem but haven't seen any myself. The problem in northern Europe is not so much that the police w…

I wonder how this compares to US cities that gets proper winters, like Detroit, Denver or Minneapolis, etc.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#67

Post by maxlybbert »

flurdy wrote: post #66
pjc50 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edinburgh has people living in tents. There was someone I used to see from the bus who lived on a park bench for months , surrounded by a pile of black bags of his stuff. Nicely situated park bench too, just far enough out to be away from the tourists but with a great view of the hills. I hear reports of a used needle problem but haven't seen any myself. The problem in northern Europe is not so much that the police w…

I wonder how this compares to US cities that gets proper winters, like Detroit, Denver or Minneapolis, etc.

I can say that there are plenty of homeless people in New York. And some do freeze to death each winter, but the city spends a lot of money to avoid that as much as possible.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#68

Post by maxlybbert »

m0llusk wrote: post #7

It is strange that this subject gets so much attention but so little actual investigation. It is asserted that San Francisco simply backed off from enforcement and then this happened, but the reality is far more complex. Heavy ongoing use of incarceration caused both a backlash and extreme expense. Troubled people from all over the globe come to San Francisco. Most homeless only stay in the City for a couple of weeks…

> Making it sound like deciding to enforce crimes would be easy and cheap and fix ...

San Francisco used to enforce these quality of life laws, and things were different. The thing is that San Franciscans didn’t like that world. Sure, people got in trouble for crapping on the sidewalk, but they didn’t have better places to crap.

Instead of creating better places to crap, San Francisco decided not to hassle people for crapping on the sidewalk. I agree that’s a little more compassionate, but it’s not paradise.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#69

Post by maxlybbert »

airnomad wrote: post #6

Why do we expect that people should live in house or have a home? Maybe we need to design our cities and public places in a way that they would be approachable for people living outside? Why we wouldn't have camping spots in cities with infrastructure that supports living outside?

Roughly every news article I’ve read about homelessness includes an interview with somebody who doesn’t like the rules at a local shelter and is, in some way, voluntarily on the street. I know the intention is to suggest that “build more shelters” won’t help everyone, but since it shows up in every single article, I think it gives people a very distorted view of things.

Re: San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless

#70

Post by [deleted] »

jahaja wrote: post #20

Wow, that article's rhetoric is seething with social darwinistic class hatred. All these voluntary homeless seems to be conspicuously absent in western Europe. At least at this scale. Insisting on, which the author clearly does according to a quick googling, firmly supporting and perpetuating an economic system that creates these dystopian features and then calling for their forceful removal, through weasel language,…

[deleted]
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