7 ms·

If you were building cheap homes, say at 120k a pop, you could build 2,000 such homes every year. The total homeless pop in SF is 6,000. In three years you coul

by x5n1 10y ago

If you were building cheap homes, say at 120k a pop, you could build 2,000 such homes every year. The total homeless pop in SF is 6,000. In three years you could build 6,000 such homes in say Mississippi or some other middle of nowhere place where land is very cheap.

thrownaway2424 10y ago
That's not where the money goes. The money goes to responding to every drug addict with a stubbed toe with a giant firetruck and its crew, and then taking the aforementioned drug addict to SF General for the world's most expensive emergency room bath. A little bit of prevention here would be far cheaper.
- abalone 10y ago
  Actually over half of the money does go into housing. Check your facts. Source: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Myths-like-homeless-problem-not-going-away-7238304.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Myths-like-homele...
0xfaded 10y ago
240m / 6000 = 40000. That would make an interesting basic income experiment.
- muzz 10y ago
  Using 6000 as the divisor is post-$240M, not pre. If instead the $240M helped every single homeless person become un-homeless except for 1, it's not the case that SF is spending $240M on the one homeless guy.
marcoperaza 10y ago
Homelessness isn't caused by a lack of homes. These are people who have checked out of society; many of them are very mentally ill or addicted to drugs. Where I live in the Pacific Northwest there's also a tragically misguided subculture of people who choose to be homeless.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  It's really dangerous to make generalizations like that. Some homeless people are societal dropouts, drug addicts, mentally disabled, etc. Some are people who are trying their best to make ends meet but just can't. I used to know an older fellow who lived out of a van half-full of tools, and did odd jobs where he could. I saw him around my favorite coffee shop; I think he got free coffee in exchange for fixing stuff sometimes. There was an article on HN not too long ago about a guy who went from an nice house and a swanky tech job to homeless and living out of his car in less than a year; he managed to crawl back out by doing freelance work on his laptop, but things were pretty awful for him for a while. It's way too easy to say that homeless people are all beyond help, and therefore we can ignore them and leave them to rot with a clear conscience. But it's not true. And even for the people you mentioned--die-hard "lifestyle" homeless may be out of reach, but public assistance programs can sometimes give the addicts and the crazies a hand up, or (better) prevent them from ever becoming homeless in the first place.
  - geebee 10y ago
    In fairness to marcoperaza, this is partly a problem with the term "homeless". It is ambiguous, and in a way that can cause problems in meaningful discussions. San Francisco has a number of problems with "homelessness". Our most visible problem is a very serious one - there are a lot of alcoholic, drug addicted, and mentally ill people living on the street, some of whom are prone to erratic, aggressive, and violent behavior. There is also a large and less visible problem with people who are not addicted or mentally ill, but who are in difficult economic circumstances and who are having great difficulty finding a safe place to sleep. These two things are related some of the time, but I don't believe that they are simply two sides of the same coin, they also exist as acute if not orthogonal problems. I appreciate that "homeless" was, at least in part, intended as a more humane term than various derisive terms like bum, vagrant, and so forth. This I am in favor of - regardless of how you feel, I see no benefit in derisive terms, I don't think it requires a derisive term to express an opinion, even if it's an unsympathetic one. But while it's a mouthful, I do think it's probably more descriptive to say that SF (and other cities as well) have a serious problem with "mentally ill and/or addicted people who live on the streets" when discussing that specific issue, rather than using the blanket term "homeless" which encompasses much more than this. The story about the couple having sex in a tent on a busy street with the flaps open while a pit bull stands sentry, or a person getting chased around by a crazed man with a sharpened screwdriver - well, I hope we all know that there exists a large population of of people who desperately try to maintain appearances (and sanity) but are actually in pretty dire economic circumstances. You don't necessarily notice them. The two situations call for very different solutions.
yason 10y ago
Homelessness isn't necessarily about not having homes, it's about being unable to hold on to one. There obviously are homeless people who have a work and their lives mostly in order but who just can't literally afford to rent but in general, homelessness is more of a symptom rather than the actual problem. The problems are social, medical, mental, addictions, abuse, and many others and they make these people deranged enough to prevent them from functioning fully in the society.
- x5n1 10y ago
  Not all homeless people are like that, there are significant ones that would live in homes if you gave them one. So you might as well as give them one so they are not staying on the streets. And perhaps provide some sort of care for them, just enough to keep them going. 6,000 people is not a lot of people. Yet it causes huge problems for everyone else.
c0nducktr 10y ago
Utah had a similar idea. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic...
- x5n1 10y ago
  Rugged individualism causes all sorts of problems, and they are totally surprised when the most obvious solutions actually work.
  - mynameisnoone 10y ago
    There are unfortunately, metric tons of libertarian, Ayn Rand-bible thumping, neoliberal, utopian, upper-middle class opinionated tech workers whom have never had to sleep just one night awkwardly at a railway station on outdoor benches purposely made to be as uncomfortable as possible. Lord of the Flies is just as toxic of an over-reaction as the condition it's supposedly out to prevent (Communism). Every other country in the world other than America seems to do just about every social net program better (see also: Where to Invade Next) with ideas that originated in America.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      Since you just finished insulting me, here's my story: My petite SO made the mistake of parking in the wrong parking spot outside a verizon store next to Tenderloin and a homeless person chased her around our car trying to stab her with a screwdriver. In the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. And because it's sf, a couple guys saw what was happening and crossed the street to avoid getting involved, and the useless sf police took 8+ minutes to show up. SF tolerates street trash acting up and acting out in ways real cities -- eg nyc -- simply don't. I get off at the civic center bart station and coworkers are regularly worried about their safety. I don't know what the solution is, but I don't care about them. It's fundamentally unreasonable to expect people to be unsafe walking around sf in the middle of the afternoon.
logfromblammo 10y ago
> ...building cheap homes, say at 120k a pop... Cheap homes are $20k a pop. $10k for materials, and $10k for contracted labor. If you allocate another $20k for the land itself, and completing utility connections to it whenever they do not already exist, that's $40k total. If you had $240M to spend each year, you could build 5000 houses every year, and have $40M left over for rudimentary commercial strips, administrative buildings, libraries, schools, firehouses, and cop shops. You could stamp out a new municipality every year in 10 undeveloped adjacent square-mile survey sections. 6400 acres would be 5000 for the houses, and 1400 for the commons and businesses. You don't even need to go as far as Mississippi from SF. There are huge tracts of undeveloped land on the Great Plains between I-25 and I-35. They're actually cheaper than Mississippi, mostly because they have a less reliable fresh water supply.
- mcguire 10y ago
  "...because they have a less reliable fresh water supply." Congratulations! You've reinvented the reservation system!
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Now the only problem would be getting them from SF to the new town. There would have to be some kind of road of wretchedness, or boulevard of bitterness, or something...
- DrScump 10y ago
  If you allocate another $20k for the land itself The tricky part is finding those $20K plots of land in SF.

by x5n1 10y ago

thrownaway2424 10y ago

That's not where the money goes. The money goes to responding to every drug addict with a stubbed toe with a giant firetruck and its crew, and then taking the aforementioned drug addict to SF General for the world's most expensive emergency room bath. A little bit of prevention here would be far cheaper.

abalone 10y ago
Actually over half of the money does go into housing. Check your facts. Source: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Myths-like-homeless-problem-not-going-away-7238304.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Myths-like-homele...

0xfaded 10y ago

240m / 6000 = 40000. That would make an interesting basic income experiment.

muzz 10y ago
Using 6000 as the divisor is post-$240M, not pre. If instead the $240M helped every single homeless person become un-homeless except for 1, it's not the case that SF is spending $240M on the one homeless guy.

marcoperaza 10y ago

Homelessness isn't caused by a lack of homes. These are people who have checked out of society; many of them are very mentally ill or addicted to drugs. Where I live in the Pacific Northwest there's also a tragically misguided subculture of people who choose to be homeless.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
It's really dangerous to make generalizations like that. Some homeless people are societal dropouts, drug addicts, mentally disabled, etc. Some are people who are trying their best to make ends meet but just can't. I used to know an older fellow who lived out of a van half-full of tools, and did odd jobs where he could. I saw him around my favorite coffee shop; I think he got free coffee in exchange for fixing stuff sometimes. There was an article on HN not too long ago about a guy who went from an nice house and a swanky tech job to homeless and living out of his car in less than a year; he managed to crawl back out by doing freelance work on his laptop, but things were pretty awful for him for a while. It's way too easy to say that homeless people are all beyond help, and therefore we can ignore them and leave them to rot with a clear conscience. But it's not true. And even for the people you mentioned--die-hard "lifestyle" homeless may be out of reach, but public assistance programs can sometimes give the addicts and the crazies a hand up, or (better) prevent them from ever becoming homeless in the first place.
- geebee 10y ago
  In fairness to marcoperaza, this is partly a problem with the term "homeless". It is ambiguous, and in a way that can cause problems in meaningful discussions. San Francisco has a number of problems with "homelessness". Our most visible problem is a very serious one - there are a lot of alcoholic, drug addicted, and mentally ill people living on the street, some of whom are prone to erratic, aggressive, and violent behavior. There is also a large and less visible problem with people who are not addicted or mentally ill, but who are in difficult economic circumstances and who are having great difficulty finding a safe place to sleep. These two things are related some of the time, but I don't believe that they are simply two sides of the same coin, they also exist as acute if not orthogonal problems. I appreciate that "homeless" was, at least in part, intended as a more humane term than various derisive terms like bum, vagrant, and so forth. This I am in favor of - regardless of how you feel, I see no benefit in derisive terms, I don't think it requires a derisive term to express an opinion, even if it's an unsympathetic one. But while it's a mouthful, I do think it's probably more descriptive to say that SF (and other cities as well) have a serious problem with "mentally ill and/or addicted people who live on the streets" when discussing that specific issue, rather than using the blanket term "homeless" which encompasses much more than this. The story about the couple having sex in a tent on a busy street with the flaps open while a pit bull stands sentry, or a person getting chased around by a crazed man with a sharpened screwdriver - well, I hope we all know that there exists a large population of of people who desperately try to maintain appearances (and sanity) but are actually in pretty dire economic circumstances. You don't necessarily notice them. The two situations call for very different solutions.

yason 10y ago

Homelessness isn't necessarily about not having homes, it's about being unable to hold on to one. There obviously are homeless people who have a work and their lives mostly in order but who just can't literally afford to rent but in general, homelessness is more of a symptom rather than the actual problem. The problems are social, medical, mental, addictions, abuse, and many others and they make these people deranged enough to prevent them from functioning fully in the society.

x5n1 10y ago
Not all homeless people are like that, there are significant ones that would live in homes if you gave them one. So you might as well as give them one so they are not staying on the streets. And perhaps provide some sort of care for them, just enough to keep them going. 6,000 people is not a lot of people. Yet it causes huge problems for everyone else.

c0nducktr 10y ago

Utah had a similar idea. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic...

x5n1 10y ago
Rugged individualism causes all sorts of problems, and they are totally surprised when the most obvious solutions actually work.
- mynameisnoone 10y ago
  There are unfortunately, metric tons of libertarian, Ayn Rand-bible thumping, neoliberal, utopian, upper-middle class opinionated tech workers whom have never had to sleep just one night awkwardly at a railway station on outdoor benches purposely made to be as uncomfortable as possible. Lord of the Flies is just as toxic of an over-reaction as the condition it's supposedly out to prevent (Communism). Every other country in the world other than America seems to do just about every social net program better (see also: Where to Invade Next) with ideas that originated in America.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    Since you just finished insulting me, here's my story: My petite SO made the mistake of parking in the wrong parking spot outside a verizon store next to Tenderloin and a homeless person chased her around our car trying to stab her with a screwdriver. In the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. And because it's sf, a couple guys saw what was happening and crossed the street to avoid getting involved, and the useless sf police took 8+ minutes to show up. SF tolerates street trash acting up and acting out in ways real cities -- eg nyc -- simply don't. I get off at the civic center bart station and coworkers are regularly worried about their safety. I don't know what the solution is, but I don't care about them. It's fundamentally unreasonable to expect people to be unsafe walking around sf in the middle of the afternoon.

logfromblammo 10y ago

> ...building cheap homes, say at 120k a pop... Cheap homes are $20k a pop. $10k for materials, and $10k for contracted labor. If you allocate another $20k for the land itself, and completing utility connections to it whenever they do not already exist, that's $40k total. If you had $240M to spend each year, you could build 5000 houses every year, and have $40M left over for rudimentary commercial strips, administrative buildings, libraries, schools, firehouses, and cop shops. You could stamp out a new municipality every year in 10 undeveloped adjacent square-mile survey sections. 6400 acres would be 5000 for the houses, and 1400 for the commons and businesses. You don't even need to go as far as Mississippi from SF. There are huge tracts of undeveloped land on the Great Plains between I-25 and I-35. They're actually cheaper than Mississippi, mostly because they have a less reliable fresh water supply.

mcguire 10y ago
"...because they have a less reliable fresh water supply." Congratulations! You've reinvented the reservation system!
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Now the only problem would be getting them from SF to the new town. There would have to be some kind of road of wretchedness, or boulevard of bitterness, or something...
DrScump 10y ago
If you allocate another $20k for the land itself The tricky part is finding those $20K plots of land in SF.