5 ms·

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but if you're saying that San Francisco is easy on the homeless, I don't see it. It seems worse these days, the public bathroom

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but if you're saying that San Francisco is easy on the homeless, I don't see it. It seems worse these days, the public bathrooms are often closed. And business's won't let you use their toilet unless you pay them something. It should come as no surprise then when you smell urine, residents haven't taken care of the most basic of needs. Then they'll say, "They spend 15 mins in the bathroom taking a shower in the sink." And again, I wonder where people expect them to clean up. The public showers often aren't turned on or available, except at the beach. Isn't it obvious that the better off folks are doing this to themselves? If your a resident, you've got the money. Build them some public toilets and showers. Heck build them some housing. I think we are only talking about 10-20k units. If you even put $50M a year into this (small potatoes for SF), you'll see some marked improvements in a few (3-4) yrs.

cobookman 10y ago
Where would you put these 10-20k units. How much would land cost? And would the homeless even want to live in these units. I've talked to many homeless on the streets and most don't want to go to the homeless shelters, they prefer their tents. And just about all of them have some sort of mental illness and/or drug addiction. I don't think sf realistically has enough money to properly address the issue. And if we did give the best care in the nation, we'd get even more homeless at our door. My hope is that homelessness becomes a national issue and that we can send the homeless to states with a cheaper cost of living where we can afford to provide them the help which is necessary.
- state_less 10y ago
  I agree, homelessness should be a national issue as part of our other care taking measures/movements (e.g. Single payer health care). That said, a solution is at your doorstep, when you have a desirable place to live, like SF, you have a ton of money flowing in which you can use to take care of folks with less means that want to live in the area. $50M a year isn't too bad and if you've got the support for the money, you ought to be able to get support for some high rises (money often being the harder thing to get support for). Buy a variety of locations, the good ones go to those showing improvements (e.g. getting off hard drugs, going to school). The mid to best spots should easily be better than a tent. Add some gardening programs and community related stuff (helps mental well being). I'm in favor of the government supplying drugs with clean needless and massive disgusting adverts on the needles about how bad it is for you. Saves cost on aids and other diseases related to the problem. Bonus money if you can keep your friend clean. Try to help the community help itself. Stuff like that. Also, I can think of lots of tech that would help the situation, but there isn't a profit motive, so it doesn't exist (yet).
  - cobookman 10y ago
    Not sure where you are getting that 50mil is all it takes number. Sf spends much more than that right now. I believe the cities cost per unit is more then 500k. 50mil of housing in sf would barely make a dent. Now 50mil in Mississippi would go a long way. Which is why I hope this becomes a national issue where we can use money from sf and use it to address the issue in cheaper places. It also might help the cheaper places economies.
    - state_less 10y ago
      $50M for a marked improvement, independent of current spend. Buy houses, bottom floor public baths/shower and upper floors house 10-100x more people than low density housing. Keep at it and you'll see a difference. Was thinking ~3M for property and not sure what the construction crew wants, maybe $2-3M for 30 units (think dorm style, shared bathroom per floor housing) Hotspots get 14 day max stay, inland you stay till u you find another place. Would agree, a sister city with comparable warm weather and you might persuade people to live in other warm areas like Mississippi. Phone makes elaborating challenging , sorry about any confusion.
mindslight 10y ago
Build "them" some public bathrooms? How about building ourselves some public bathrooms! I can't count the number of times I've personally wanted to use a bathroom while out and not already at a business. But like any public infrastructure problem, in the US it gets dropped on the floor. I can generally solve my immediate problem by choosing a business and even getting away with not then-and-there patronizing them due to my social class. But let's not pretend this makes for a good society.
boulos 10y ago
Fundamentally, our budgeting process in San Francisco is pretty broken. While much more than $50M/year is ultimately spent on homelessness, some of it is indirect (funds for San Francisco General Hospital to pay for ER visits), and much isn't re-allocatable. That said, there are folks trying to help. In particular, Lava Mae [1] is providing mobile showers (in old refurbished buses!) but they only have a few. Google.org gave them a small grant to expand to LA [2], which also has a large homeless population but is massively spread out. My hope is that once they've proven the model a bit, that someone like Benioff comes in big (I'm not idealistic enough to hope that we could actually do this through a city bond). [1] http://lavamae.org http://lavamae.org [2] https://blog.google/topics/google-org/bay-area-nonprofits-homelessness/ https://blog.google/topics/google-org/bay-area-nonprofits-ho...
xtracto 10y ago
> It should come as no surprise then when you smell urine, residents haven't taken care of the most basic of needs. Something that surprised me when I visited SF (I am not from the USA) is that the "type" of homeless seem to be people with some mental handicap or drunk. I would imagine that some of these for some reason don't make use of the help provided.
Inconel 10y ago
Apologies for the late response. I didn't mean to imply that it is easy being homeless in SF, only that it is in my experience easier relative to other parts of the country. Again, being homeless in SF sucks and is very difficult, but it sucks less than being homeless in Orange County, or Tampa, or many other parts of the country. I'd also add that solving the problem isn't simply a matter of throwing money at it, although that may be a better alternative than not putting any money towards it. I've seen figures cited that SF spends well over $100 million on homeless issues. Building housing specifically targeting the low income and homeless population, rather than increasing density overall, also doesn't seem like a winning solution. I believe the average BMR unit built by the city of SF ends up costing the city around $700k-$800k per unit.

cobookman 10y ago

Where would you put these 10-20k units. How much would land cost? And would the homeless even want to live in these units. I've talked to many homeless on the streets and most don't want to go to the homeless shelters, they prefer their tents. And just about all of them have some sort of mental illness and/or drug addiction. I don't think sf realistically has enough money to properly address the issue. And if we did give the best care in the nation, we'd get even more homeless at our door. My hope is that homelessness becomes a national issue and that we can send the homeless to states with a cheaper cost of living where we can afford to provide them the help which is necessary.

state_less 10y ago
I agree, homelessness should be a national issue as part of our other care taking measures/movements (e.g. Single payer health care). That said, a solution is at your doorstep, when you have a desirable place to live, like SF, you have a ton of money flowing in which you can use to take care of folks with less means that want to live in the area. $50M a year isn't too bad and if you've got the support for the money, you ought to be able to get support for some high rises (money often being the harder thing to get support for). Buy a variety of locations, the good ones go to those showing improvements (e.g. getting off hard drugs, going to school). The mid to best spots should easily be better than a tent. Add some gardening programs and community related stuff (helps mental well being). I'm in favor of the government supplying drugs with clean needless and massive disgusting adverts on the needles about how bad it is for you. Saves cost on aids and other diseases related to the problem. Bonus money if you can keep your friend clean. Try to help the community help itself. Stuff like that. Also, I can think of lots of tech that would help the situation, but there isn't a profit motive, so it doesn't exist (yet).
- cobookman 10y ago
  Not sure where you are getting that 50mil is all it takes number. Sf spends much more than that right now. I believe the cities cost per unit is more then 500k. 50mil of housing in sf would barely make a dent. Now 50mil in Mississippi would go a long way. Which is why I hope this becomes a national issue where we can use money from sf and use it to address the issue in cheaper places. It also might help the cheaper places economies.
  - state_less 10y ago
    $50M for a marked improvement, independent of current spend. Buy houses, bottom floor public baths/shower and upper floors house 10-100x more people than low density housing. Keep at it and you'll see a difference. Was thinking ~3M for property and not sure what the construction crew wants, maybe $2-3M for 30 units (think dorm style, shared bathroom per floor housing) Hotspots get 14 day max stay, inland you stay till u you find another place. Would agree, a sister city with comparable warm weather and you might persuade people to live in other warm areas like Mississippi. Phone makes elaborating challenging , sorry about any confusion.

mindslight 10y ago

Build "them" some public bathrooms? How about building ourselves some public bathrooms! I can't count the number of times I've personally wanted to use a bathroom while out and not already at a business. But like any public infrastructure problem, in the US it gets dropped on the floor. I can generally solve my immediate problem by choosing a business and even getting away with not then-and-there patronizing them due to my social class. But let's not pretend this makes for a good society.

boulos 10y ago

Fundamentally, our budgeting process in San Francisco is pretty broken. While much more than $50M/year is ultimately spent on homelessness, some of it is indirect (funds for San Francisco General Hospital to pay for ER visits), and much isn't re-allocatable. That said, there are folks trying to help. In particular, Lava Mae [1] is providing mobile showers (in old refurbished buses!) but they only have a few. Google.org gave them a small grant to expand to LA [2], which also has a large homeless population but is massively spread out. My hope is that once they've proven the model a bit, that someone like Benioff comes in big (I'm not idealistic enough to hope that we could actually do this through a city bond). [1] http://lavamae.org http://lavamae.org [2] https://blog.google/topics/google-org/bay-area-nonprofits-homelessness/ https://blog.google/topics/google-org/bay-area-nonprofits-ho...

xtracto 10y ago

> It should come as no surprise then when you smell urine, residents haven't taken care of the most basic of needs. Something that surprised me when I visited SF (I am not from the USA) is that the "type" of homeless seem to be people with some mental handicap or drunk. I would imagine that some of these for some reason don't make use of the help provided.

Inconel 10y ago

Apologies for the late response. I didn't mean to imply that it is easy being homeless in SF, only that it is in my experience easier relative to other parts of the country. Again, being homeless in SF sucks and is very difficult, but it sucks less than being homeless in Orange County, or Tampa, or many other parts of the country. I'd also add that solving the problem isn't simply a matter of throwing money at it, although that may be a better alternative than not putting any money towards it. I've seen figures cited that SF spends well over $100 million on homeless issues. Building housing specifically targeting the low income and homeless population, rather than increasing density overall, also doesn't seem like a winning solution. I believe the average BMR unit built by the city of SF ends up costing the city around $700k-$800k per unit.