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The same is said of San Francisco, but it's just not accurate: "The majority - 71 percent in the last count - became homeless while living in San Francisco." h

The same is said of San Francisco, but it's just not accurate: "The majority - 71 percent in the last count - became homeless while living in San Francisco." http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Questions-about-San-Francisco-s-homeless-answered-8323297.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Questions-about-San-Franc... Despite being one of the richest places in the world, California does a terrible job at providing affordable housing and accessible mental health care for its residents. This lack of provision is a result of the choices Californians have made.

WillPostForFood 9y ago
That question doesn't capture the full picture. A high school dropout who arrived in SF w/$250 dollars and lived in a SRO for a year could qualify as becoming homeless while living in SF. I'm looking for more recent numbers, but in the past the number of homeless in SF that had been there more than 5 years was ~33%. For a variety of reasons, SF attracts people living on the margin, and prone to fall into homelessness. A couple numbers for context - only 65% of San Franciscans were even born in the US, and only 37% were born in California, so there is a huge flow of people into the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco
- pkaye 9y ago
  There is a homeless survey that SF does every few years which is comprehensive you can try searching for. In my recollection a majority of the homeless were longterm residents by any reasonable definition but I'm going off memory.
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    They don't ask the question. They only ask where the lived when they became homeless. IMO, they intentionally don't ask because the answer isn't helpful to increasing sympathy for the homeless.
StudentStuff 9y ago
Many places in California don't allow anything besides low density sprawl, creating a situation where you can't build sufficient housing (esp. for the working poor) and real estate prices escalate upward in short order. Should housing in major cities be nearly doubling in price every decade?

WillPostForFood 9y ago

That question doesn't capture the full picture. A high school dropout who arrived in SF w/$250 dollars and lived in a SRO for a year could qualify as becoming homeless while living in SF. I'm looking for more recent numbers, but in the past the number of homeless in SF that had been there more than 5 years was ~33%. For a variety of reasons, SF attracts people living on the margin, and prone to fall into homelessness. A couple numbers for context - only 65% of San Franciscans were even born in the US, and only 37% were born in California, so there is a huge flow of people into the city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco

pkaye 9y ago
There is a homeless survey that SF does every few years which is comprehensive you can try searching for. In my recollection a majority of the homeless were longterm residents by any reasonable definition but I'm going off memory.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  They don't ask the question. They only ask where the lived when they became homeless. IMO, they intentionally don't ask because the answer isn't helpful to increasing sympathy for the homeless.

StudentStuff 9y ago

Many places in California don't allow anything besides low density sprawl, creating a situation where you can't build sufficient housing (esp. for the working poor) and real estate prices escalate upward in short order. Should housing in major cities be nearly doubling in price every decade?