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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

#81

Post by mrobot »

paisawalla wrote: post #51
Tiktaalik wrote: post #16

> 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…

Obvious solutions like "just give them houses" are discussed in the book, and previous attempts are evaluated. As you might expect, stuffing severely ill people into apartments without addressing the illness results in poor outcomes.

And you can't just diagnose them then go visit them? Help them with meds etc?

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#82

Post by swiley »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #16

> 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…

>petty theft

That doesn't happen in most of the rest of the country. Sure you can load up the circuit court sites and find it but effectively you don't even need to lock anything

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#83

Post by mrobot »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #53
mrobot wrote: post #22

I think the article is implying the answer to the failed 'left' policies is to replace them with more 'right-wing' policies. I've seen bills popping up that involve criminalizing the homeless or making camping illegal except in designated areas [1], [2]. These are really just 'out of sight, out of mind bills'. Homeless will not respond to criminalization of being homeless just as addicted people don't respond to legi…

I'm sympathetic to a leftist solution here, but let's not ignore the reality of what happened when we built huge public housing buildings in the 50s and 60s. They were a failure for everyone involved, and there aren't any easy solutions.

What is a good source on it that is not written by a bourgeoisie economist or other agent of the wealthy?

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#84

Post by rkk3 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #71

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 d…

Second that EconTalk episode. Alternatively recent Atlantic article that is adapted from his book the least of us https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#85

Post by dandotway »

mgummelt wrote: post #52
DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

("in San Francisco") From 2005 to 2020 the estimated number of unsheltered homeless people nearly doubled, even as homelessness declined nationwide. One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. We have a nationwide shortage of housing. Both in person and online, I continue to hear homeless people plan to move someplace relatively warm and dry while stuck on…

The author argues that housing prices are not a significant factor: "Throughout it, they emphasized that the homeless were just like you and me, just poorer. Today, many of California’s leading homelessness advocates insist that the current crisis is due mostly to the housing shortage. Homelessness experts and advocates disagree. 'I’ve rarely seen a normal able-bodied able-minded non-drug-using homeless person who’s…

> I’ve rarely seen a normal able-bodied able-minded non-drug-using homeless person who’s just down on their luck

This right here. Nearly all homeless I've worked with were non-neuronormative and/or drug abusers. They're almost never just normal folks who have fallen on hard times. The reason they aren't rooming with a family member or friend is because their behavioral outbursts and/or stealing things to buy drugs has exhausted all the goodwill of those who would help them.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#86

Post by iab »

edderly wrote: post #79
iab wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This was surprising to me, in that SF is such a large participant.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#87

Post by Tiktaalik »

moneywoes wrote: post #78
Tiktaalik wrote: post #16

> 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?

Is [big sounding number] supposed to mean anything?

Either we're spending enough money that people can afford to live indoors or not.

$375/month is obviously not enough money for anyone to afford to rent anything anywhere.

Accordingly, the real cost of solving homelessness is more.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#88

Post by edmundsauto »

elefanten wrote: post #72
seehafer wrote: post #60

Earlier 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?

https://sfist.com/2021/07/11/66-year-old-san-francisco-resid...

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/tag/home-invasion-robbery/ for the general category of home invasion. I think that's the technical difference, for anyone googling - robbery when you aren't home, invasion when residents are present.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#89

Post by akira2501 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #24
DoreenMichele wrote: post #3

("in San Francisco") From 2005 to 2020 the estimated number of unsheltered homeless people nearly doubled, even as homelessness declined nationwide. One possible explanation: California has become the dumping ground for the nation's homeless population. We have a nationwide shortage of housing. Both in person and online, I continue to hear homeless people plan to move someplace relatively warm and dry while stuck on…

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…

Their policies are demonstrably at fault though, there are large European cities which face this same dynamic and yet they do not have anywhere near the level of problems that we have in this country.

This seems to be, in large part, due to their policies. Housing is not their primary goal, addiction and psychiatric treatment are. You get housing when you comply, it's the carrot that is used to motivate people to engage with the program.

The author recently did a Joe Rogan podcast and did a very good job of explaining this and it's practical effects and differences in detail.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#90

Post by Tiktaalik »

paisawalla wrote: post #51
Tiktaalik wrote: post #16

> 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…

Obvious solutions like "just give them houses" are discussed in the book, and previous attempts are evaluated. As you might expect, stuffing severely ill people into apartments without addressing the illness results in poor outcomes.

Housing with on site supports is very common.
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