Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca • Hacker News Board

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#81

Post by bloopernova » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #26

hypeit wrote: post #15

Because the bay area is home to many extremely rich people who give absolutely nothing back to their communities, encourage rampant gentrification and generally despise poor people and advocate for anti-worker policies. Take a scroll through the likes of some of the famous VCs who constantly complain about SF's homelessness and crime. They tend to be more mask off far-right in their likes vs tweets (some will straigh…

Or just take a scroll through the comments here today and also every week when this comes up on HN. The cruelty of the consensus here is astounding.

There's a huge majority of people here who seem to have immense privilege and think that anyone can just get a tech job paying 6 figures.

The selfishness on display is frightening.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#82

Post by jpcfl » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #13

How about instead repealing the misconceived law that is fueling the problem? Just another example of how off-the-rails the WSJ opinion page is: repealing what law? You mean the eight amendment to the United States Constitution? Thing is, the opinion piece isn't wrong. But to just ramble on for a whole page, and then the offered solution is to repeal a law that is never mentioned in the opinion piece (unless the auth…

The law mentioned four sentences prior to that sentence (Prop. 47).

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#83

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

evancox100 wrote: post #20

What I don’t understand is that if making it illegal to build whatever living structure you want on public land is “cruel and unusual punishment”, why is it still illegal to build the living structure of your choice on private land that you own? Isn’t such a law even more restrictive? How have we willingly ceded so much authority to bureaucratic busybodys who have nothing better to do than micromanage the size, shape…

[deleted]

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#84

Post by wingspar » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

evancox100 wrote: post #54

tedivm wrote: post #30

I think it's important to note a couple of things. > The city of San Francisco released data last week showing that 55% of homeless individuals rejected shelter when offered it I think it's very important to understand why people turn down the beds. There are several reasons- * Shelters have very restricted hours, so if someone has a job that includes nights they likely can't use a shelter. A large number of homeless…

I think well meaning liberals want to believe that all of society’s problems can be solved without any form of coercion, and that is simply not the case. If someone is homeless and has a dog, and there is a shelter bed for them, you may just need to force them to give up their dog and move to the shelter (or else face arrest). There are overriding concerns greater than letting people keep their pets. I recognize the…

I wonder how homeless shelter housing intersects with FHA 'emotional support animal' requirements. Presumably, someone homeless with a dog, would use the dog as an emotional support animal, but not have any of the required documentation. https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/fair-housing-act-and...

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#85

Post by kevingadd » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #37

hypeit wrote: post #15

Because the bay area is home to many extremely rich people who give absolutely nothing back to their communities, encourage rampant gentrification and generally despise poor people and advocate for anti-worker policies. Take a scroll through the likes of some of the famous VCs who constantly complain about SF's homelessness and crime. They tend to be more mask off far-right in their likes vs tweets (some will straigh…

The things we've tried to fix the problem have only made it worse. You have to be honest and accept that given the choice, some small percentage of people prefer to live on the streets with zero responsibility. Who is the one not giving back to the community, the billionaire VC who is funding hundreds of high-paying jobs, or the person who shits in the street and demands to be fed and provided with a host of other se…

Ignoring the fact that you're generalizing about the vast homeless population and implying that they all are homeless by choice and being a public nuisance by choice...

It's worth considering the context that if no business will allow an unhoused person to use the toilet (okay, totally fair - private property!) and we refuse to maintain a sufficient number of public toilets, where are they supposed to defecate?

During COVID this got really extreme. You could be going on a road trip (like when I moved cross-state) and be a paying customer at a gas station or restaurant or grocery store and they all tell you "sorry, no public restroom". What are you supposed to do? Obviously, defecating in public is uncivilized, but we're not giving people many options.

For example, a city as large as San Francisco has a grand total of 25 public toilets: https://www.sfpublicworks.org/services/public-toilets

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#86

Post by scarmig » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #70

scarmig wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) your two points are at odds: some proportion of the homeless refuse shelter under any circumstances. What, then, is the point of wildly overprovisioning shelter beds, when ones are going unused today? 2) So, the idea is that until the government guarantees a free rental unit that accepts pets and provides a storage unit for all of a homeless person's stuff, it should be prevented from enforcing any laws about camp…

You're missing the point. The reason they don't give things up is because the shelter is temporary, but they results of using it aren't. If you tell a homeless person you're going to shelter them for six months, the vast majority will take the shelter. If you tell them they have to move and you'll give them a bed for a night then many of them will see that as a shitty deal (which it is). As for the legal stuff, you'l…

You're missing the point: requiring the government to provide permanent housing that has storage units and allows pets (and alcohol, and drugs, and...) before it can take action on homelessness is not an effective approach. Temporary housing is useful, even though it might mean having to give up a dog. The fact that most of those remaining on the streets don't want it has no bearing on whether the government should be able to enforce public safety and sanitation laws.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#87

Post by NovemberWhiskey » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #66

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those terrible, misleading statistics. Most of the "homelessness" budgets in large cities go towards preventing people from becoming unsheltered - i.e. on housing support and prevention. Two-thirds of San Francisco's homelessness budget is spent on housing and prevention: https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/budget/overview-previous-budgets... By definition, the best spent homelessness budget would be the one t…

> By definition, the best spent homelessness budget would be the one that resulted in zero people in shelters right? Well, no, otherwise “have no shelters” would be the cheapest optimal strategy.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

Fundamentally, the denominator that we ought to be using is "number of people diverted from being unsheltered", not "number of people in temporary shelters".

If a city spends $100M on homelessness and prevents 9,900 people from being unsheltered by housing them and only keeps 100 people in shelters, that looks like $1M per person on the bad metric.

But that situation is obviously better than spending $100M on sheltering 1,000 people (leaving 9,000 on the streets) instead of providing housing support, albeit that the cost looks only like $100K per person that way.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#88

Post by archagon » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

evancox100 wrote: post #54

tedivm wrote: post #30

I think it's important to note a couple of things. > The city of San Francisco released data last week showing that 55% of homeless individuals rejected shelter when offered it I think it's very important to understand why people turn down the beds. There are several reasons- * Shelters have very restricted hours, so if someone has a job that includes nights they likely can't use a shelter. A large number of homeless…

I think well meaning liberals want to believe that all of society’s problems can be solved without any form of coercion, and that is simply not the case. If someone is homeless and has a dog, and there is a shelter bed for them, you may just need to force them to give up their dog and move to the shelter (or else face arrest). There are overriding concerns greater than letting people keep their pets. I recognize the…

How utterly cruel. Imagine a homeless life where not only do you not have any friends or relatives to lean on, but everyone who passes you by on the street either ignores you or outright loathes you. A dog that loves you unconditionally would quite literally be a life-saver.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#89

Post by otikik » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #4

Man, I did not sign up to subsidize the homeless of the entire western US, and neither did my fellow Californians. We definitely need to reduce the social programs and put that $20bn somewhere else. No matter how you slice it, $609,000/yr per homeless person is simply absurd.

I wouldn't be surprised that most of that money already went somewhere else - mostly middlemen, with the homeless seeing none of it. Perhaps that will give you some piece of mind - you are not giving money to the homeless, you are helping local businesses.

Re: Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

#90

Post by nemo44x » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

kevingadd wrote: post #43

nemo44x wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people that earn it. Cut taxes and put that money back in the people’s hands.

How does that solve the problem though? I certainly would be happy if my tax bill went down, but that money is being spent and a lot of it is spent on important things. Are you okay with just ignoring every problem that doesn't personally affect you? Or only this one in particular? I'm not seeing the dots connected here. You need to make at least a somewhat clear argument for how your proposed policy is sound instead…

The first step is to stop incentivizing this kind of behavior. The world runs on incentives and this is no different.

Able bodied drug addicts should be arrested and put into jail. It’s in their best interests. For the rest we have shelters and free food and free skills development and free mental health. Incentive improving one’s condition.