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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

#91

> 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…

housing costs are elastic. constrain supply and only the rich can afford it. economics 101.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#92
post #42
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The difference is that Chesa Boudin, SF's DA, won't prosecute those misdemeanors (and often won't even prosecute felonies). > “We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes,” the DA, Chesa Boudin, said in an interview while he was campaigning for office. “Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted.” Despi…

Please indicate on the crime rate graph the point at which Chesa Boudin was elected.

https://ibb.co/64jbBZ2

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#93
Same exact thing is happening in Seattle as we speak. They are buying hotels and converting them to permanent housing and, get this, do not require that you don't take drugs or look for a job if you live there. How the fuck are people supposed to "exit homelessness" if they're addicted and jobless? The answer is, they don't expect them to _ever_ exit it. I went to a city council meeting and asked actually. They did not have an answer. Moreover, their projection is that the already _insane_ number of homeless people will triple in Seattle area over the next 10 years. That's the _official_, rose colored glasses projection, so it'll probably be even worse than that. It's a billion dollar industry in WA now, and as such it has become self sustaining and grew feedback loops which exacerbate the problems. Nobody is interested in actually solving the problems - for all the beneficiaries if it were, say, a 4 billion dollar industry, it'd only be better. So the cancer will metastasize until things reach SF levels of insanity, and maybe even beyond that. Activists speaking in favor of this stuff in public hearings are all on the take: "executive directors" of something or other. And then within 10 years people will wonder why we have shit on the sidewalks and people shooting heroin in plain view of the public.

Worst part is, like in NY and SF they are often putting these permanent housing units a block or two away from schools, and allow drug addicts, sex offenders, and violent criminals to live there. It's only a matter of time before they commit crimes. Meth makes it difficult not to - gotta have that next hit. Why do this? Fuck me if I know. You can see the problems this will inevitably cause from a mile away.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not against sheltering the homeless and such, _as long as_ you actually make not being homeless the lowest energy state, and take care of their underlying issues. Housing them permanently without that is a recipe for disaster.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#94
post #49
post #38

Earlier 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/...

Excellent article, thank you for sharing it!

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#96

I wonder if this situation is intentionally maintained. Does anyone benefit from it?

The established rich.

Solutions require money, which requires taxes.

The wealthy benefit by doing nothing about homelessness as taxes are kept low and the problem of homelessness is kettled into some tiny district far away from their leafy suburbs where they never have to see it.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#97
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA has 1/2 the population of homeless in the US but only 1/8 of total population. The eastern seaboard has close to half the US population but obviously cannot have nearly the same rate of homeless. Something is at play, though it need not be anything too complicated. Good weather and significant resources dedicated to making the homeless comfortable make California the obvious destination. There are possibly network…

Thank you, is there a link where I could cite that information?

I need to write that I was slightly mistaken, CA houses half of the “unsheltered” in the United States and only a quarter of the “homeless.” The unsheltered are highly visible and make up 70% of the total homeless in CA, the highest rate in the nation.

Here is a detailed link from CA: https://shou.senate.ca.gov/sites/shou.senate.ca.gov/files/Ho...

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#98
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who came up with the hypothesis that California is the dumping ground for the nation's homeless? I'd like to know if it stands up to scrutiny. California itself has a population which is the size of a medium sized European country. It is large enough to have a sizable homeless population. If you are homeless are your chances of getting food and services better in the central valley or in SF? Also, are there significa…

CA has 1/2 the population of homeless in the US but only 1/8 of total population. The eastern seaboard has close to half the US population but obviously cannot have nearly the same rate of homeless. Something is at play, though it need not be anything too complicated. Good weather and significant resources dedicated to making the homeless comfortable make California the obvious destination. There are possibly network…

The economy of California is pretty good vs other states.

People from all over the USA travel to places like California for better economic opportunities.

Misfortunes happen and people become homeless.

Thus you end up with people from "out of state" that are homeless.

Re: A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

#99

The book's author was recently on Joe Rogan where they discussed the book and many of the policies in SF. They discussed: de-criminalization, the "Portugal approach", progressive policies, policing, etc. Also the use of language such as "homeless camps" which envisages a camp of homeless people just trying to live. Versus the reality which when social workers and mayors (mayor of Denver) went into these camps underco…

So what should we do? Locking everyone up seems like it would be even more expensive with even worse long-term results.

I listened to part of the podcast and if I remember correctly his proposed solution is to offer treatment and housing, but it you don’t follow that road: prison.

No idea if that’s a good idea, but living in SF I can definitely say that whatever the city, or even the US as a country, has been doing until now has been useless.

Disclaimer: I used to live in Chicago, and while not as bad as sf, the homeless situation was the worst I had seen in my life at that time. So that sorts of tells me that this might be a national issue, not just an sf issue although it is definitely much more noticable in SF.

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