The [recent Econtalk episode with Sam Quinoas]( https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-t...) really changed my understanding of the homelessness crisis. The efforts to make it harder to make meth has resulted in the process and ingredients of making meth changing. This results in slightly different meth that has much worse effects. Meth junkies become less socially functioning and have stronger drive to isolate themselves in tents. I cannot recommend the episode strongly enough. It's the best explanation I've heard why we are seeing this dramatic change in quantity and behavior of the homeless.
A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
71–80 of 375 posts
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stealing in Texas is a significantly riskier proposition than stealing from someone in California.
Especially burglary. The scariest stories of post-Chesa SF for my money are the home invasion ones when the owners/tenants are present in the home. Burglaries in Texas don’t happen unless the thief is 100% certain nobody is home.
Got any links on such incidents?
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
>One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. >I think the nation as a whole needs substantially more affordable housing. And San Francisco will never be a place with affordable housing. Modesto, ok. Manteca, ok. Not SF. No one ever thinks, I'm homeless, lemme go to SF and see if I can find something there. It's political. Otherwise you'd see more homeless i…
Isn't San Francisco also much more expensive? It stands to reason that the number of people no longer able to afford their rents would contribute to the problem.
This article was really focusing on the chronic visible homeless; living on the street, public feces, injection drug use etc.
Many people do become homeless because of higher rents but they are able to take advantage of social safety nets so you don't see them on the streets of SF.
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FINAL-PIT-R... is full of a lot of good data.
The data does not support GP's assertion: 70% from San Francisco 22% from rest of California 8% from out of state Also, the data disagrees with the general sentiment of "Mental Health" issues amongst Homeless people. Only 5% were homeless because of mental health problems. Most of them, almost a quarter are homeless because they lost their job. Basically, many things in this report goes against the general opinion of…
Losing one's job is not mutually exclusive with drug addiction and mental illness.
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. While I think there is an argument to be made that many of SF's/California's policies are counterproductive (e.g. treating all theft The same thing is happening in Austin. As a liberal city in Texas with relatively homeless-friendly policies, it was been well-documented that many rural areas in Texas are giving their homeless one-way bus tickets to Austin. So we're left with the dilemma that relatively liber…
The $900 felony rule keeps being brought up on HN, but the felony amount for Texas is $2500. Clearly something other than the misdemeanor/felony classification is at play.
What's different is the enforcement of punishments.
quote from https://saputo.law/criminal-law/texas/theft-crimes/theft/:
* Theft under $100 is a Class C Misdemeanor (punishable by a fine up to $500).
* Theft between $100 and $750 is a Class B Misdemeanor (punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $2000 fine).
If the value of the stolen property is under $100, it is still a Class B Misdemeanor theft if you have been previously convicted of theft of if the property stolen was an identification card like a driver’s license.
* Theft between $750 and $2,500 is a Class A Misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $4000 fine.
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#76Since 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.
There is nothing well-intentioned about NIMBYism. While all this culture war keeps us busy, cars and short buildings laugh at us.
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially burglary. The scariest stories of post-Chesa SF for my money are the home invasion ones when the owners/tenants are present in the home. Burglaries in Texas don’t happen unless the thief is 100% certain nobody is home.
Got any links on such incidents?
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#78> He blames San Francisco’s woes on a culture of permissive lawlessness and a mistaken view of what constitutes moral policymaking. A frequent critique of those that want to solve the homeless problem by sending in the police to crack heads and send everyone to prison. The main goal here of course being to ensure that the homeless "go away" somewhere out of view. In reality most of the "crimes" that people are wringi…
Live in Vancouver and don't we spend around 360 million a year on the DTES?
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I too would like to see some real numbers behind this. But I will say that I took greyhounds and amtrak in / out of CA a lot growing up in the bay area and I had numerous experiences talking to homeless folks who had been put on the train or bus by law enforcement in counties outside CA for destinations including SF and San Diego. I never experienced the inverse of homeless folks getting shipped out of CA. Always stu…
This article is fascinating, and surprising: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
So that appears to imply that in largely more wealthy cities are sending homeless people to less expensive cities and SF has an active program which is doing this too.
Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/FINAL-PIT-R... is full of a lot of good data.
Catch-22: Top cited primary cause of homelessness: "Lost Job" (26%) Top cited obstacle to obtaining employment: "No Permanent Address" (28%)
No permanent address is self reported. In general those who aren't employable are unreliable for self-assessments as to why (although I don't doubt the lack of address is a hinderance -- for sure it would be).
Similarly, lost job tells us little about the bigger picture. What led to them being a lost job away from being homeless? Was it living beyond their means? No family? No friends willing to take them in? Being raised poor with no social net and working jobs making no money?
You have to really do a deep analysis to get in deeper to understand how people ended up in the situation they did, what roads they could have taken but didn't, what are societal ills that brought them there, and thus what to ultimately do about any of it.
Given the amount of money ($1B+) SF spends on homeless yearly, personally I wish we could find a way to use that to actually do something WPA style and employ them to do various jobs to actually improve things (and hopefully their life as well) versus just continue to maintain status quo.