5 ms·

The article itself points out that SF is already spending $305 million a year on homelessness. The number of homeless people is only officially 6500. It's proba

The article itself points out that SF is already spending $305 million a year on homelessness. The number of homeless people is only officially 6500. It's probably closer to 12,000 but how much more do you want to spend? That's $46K per person! You prop up this solution of something vague but close to socialism as a silver bullet, but with no evidence. If $46K per person doesn't show that socialism is failing to work, then what will?

querulous 9y ago
their spending is inefficient largely because of anti-socialist attitudes. it's not politically viable to just give the homeless $30k a year tax free but it's almost certainly the cheapest and most effective way to solve the problem
- topmonk 9y ago
  Giving anyone who shows up and claims they are homeless $30K is the cheapest and most effective way to solve the problem? It sounds like the most effective way to rob SF of its treasury.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    As parent pointed out, they're already at 40k+ per person at the moment. Why would lowering that rob them?
    - topmonk 9y ago
      Because more people would apply. Giving away money doesn't just attract people within your city's borders only.
      - loorinm 9y ago
        "30k spending per person" does not mean each homeless person gets 30k. This money goes to all the workers who go through papers, work at shelters, office people to write papers to try to get more money from the federal government, and all sorts of other bureaucracy. Almost none of it goes to the homeless people themselves.
- mangodrunk 9y ago
  As stated elsewhere, many of them are addicted to drugs and have mental health issues. Giving someone with one or both of those problems $30k won't help.
jonathankoren 9y ago
It seems stupid to blame socialism for this, when really SF's problem is that they throw money at problems but don't care enough about efficacy. The most effective policy for ending homelessness is socialist: The government simply gives the homeless person a house, no questions asked, no strings attached. You want a house, you get one. The homeless person now has a house, and so they're not homeless. (duh!) It's shockingly simple, and ruthlessly effective at not only getting people off the street but solving health, addiction, and employment problems. Oh, and did I mention that it's way cheaper than the traditional patchwork model of mitigating homelessness? Again, and again, simply giving away houses is a cheaper and more effective way at ending this problem. Cases in point: Utah cut homelessness by over 90%. [0] Finland has had similar results. [1] Just today, NPR reported that Chicago hospitals cut ER costs and improved the health of frequent homeless patients by simply giving them an apartment.[2] Housing First works. It's a waste of time and money to do anything else. Oh and it's gasp socialist! [0] https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/22/finland-solved-homelessness-eu-crisis-housing-first https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/22/finl... [2] https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581778796/er-use-goes-down-as-hospital-program-pays-homeless-peoples-rent https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581778796/er-use-goes-down-as...
- topmonk 9y ago
  > The government simply gives the homeless person a house, no questions asked, no strings attached. You want a house, you get one. Your references don't support this. [0] > The idea of Housing First is that housing comes first, services later. Clients do have to pay some rent — either 30 percent of income or up to $50 a month, whichever is greater. They also review every case and only provide housing to those that aren't dealing drugs, and aren't violent. [1] > Tenants pay rent and are entitled to receive housing benefits. Depending on their income, they may contribute to the cost of the services. The rest is covered by the municipalities. They provide the support themselves or buy support from other service providers, mainly from the NGOs. [2] is in reference to Chicago. I don't think that city is a success story.
DrScump 9y ago
SF is already spending $305 million a year... That's $46K per person! That counts only SF expenditures, not state or Federal.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  It probably does count much of the state and federal spending on SF homelessness, which is funneled through the city budget (as revenue that pays for an expense) and not direct state/federal spending that bypasses the City and County.
  - masonic 9y ago
    It probably does count much of the state and federal spending If you're going to directly contradict the article, it would be helpful to give your conflicting source.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      The article doesn't make the claim of excluding federal and state funding, and the usual method of reporting expenditures by a public jurisdiction would include spending which happened to be supported by (e.g., backfilled by partial matching funds, in one common model) money from other jurisdictions at higher levels.
henrikschroder 9y ago
A couple of points: 1) City spending isn't the full picture. How much money does the city lose because tourists/people/businesses choose other places because they perceive SF as a dump? That's the true cost of the problem, and the obvious answer is that as long as you spend below that amount to solve the problem, it's a win. 2) $46k is a crazy amount of money in my mind. What? How? How can you spend all that money and not get any results other than basic survival? Is it incompetence on a massive scale? Corruption? A failure of imagination? 3) Again, my main point is that this is a solved problem. It is not a unique problem. Contrary to what a bunch of other commenters in this thread have said, SF is not a unique snowflake of a city where this problem is magically unsolveable. It's the fucking not-invented-here syndrome from the software world, but applied to city politics. This is not rocket science. This is not uncharted territory. Learn from others, ffs.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
threatofrain 9y ago
Much of that is going into housing, so what little is left is likely not enough for the full gamut of professional services that these individuals likely require.

querulous 9y ago

their spending is inefficient largely because of anti-socialist attitudes. it's not politically viable to just give the homeless $30k a year tax free but it's almost certainly the cheapest and most effective way to solve the problem

topmonk 9y ago
Giving anyone who shows up and claims they are homeless $30K is the cheapest and most effective way to solve the problem? It sounds like the most effective way to rob SF of its treasury.
- viraptor 9y ago
  As parent pointed out, they're already at 40k+ per person at the moment. Why would lowering that rob them?
  - topmonk 9y ago
    Because more people would apply. Giving away money doesn't just attract people within your city's borders only.
    - loorinm 9y ago
      "30k spending per person" does not mean each homeless person gets 30k. This money goes to all the workers who go through papers, work at shelters, office people to write papers to try to get more money from the federal government, and all sorts of other bureaucracy. Almost none of it goes to the homeless people themselves.
mangodrunk 9y ago
As stated elsewhere, many of them are addicted to drugs and have mental health issues. Giving someone with one or both of those problems $30k won't help.

jonathankoren 9y ago

It seems stupid to blame socialism for this, when really SF's problem is that they throw money at problems but don't care enough about efficacy. The most effective policy for ending homelessness is socialist: The government simply gives the homeless person a house, no questions asked, no strings attached. You want a house, you get one. The homeless person now has a house, and so they're not homeless. (duh!) It's shockingly simple, and ruthlessly effective at not only getting people off the street but solving health, addiction, and employment problems. Oh, and did I mention that it's way cheaper than the traditional patchwork model of mitigating homelessness? Again, and again, simply giving away houses is a cheaper and more effective way at ending this problem. Cases in point: Utah cut homelessness by over 90%. [0] Finland has had similar results. [1] Just today, NPR reported that Chicago hospitals cut ER costs and improved the health of frequent homeless patients by simply giving them an apartment.[2] Housing First works. It's a waste of time and money to do anything else. Oh and it's gasp socialist! [0] https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/22/finland-solved-homelessness-eu-crisis-housing-first https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/mar/22/finl... [2] https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581778796/er-use-goes-down-as-hospital-program-pays-homeless-peoples-rent https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581778796/er-use-goes-down-as...

topmonk 9y ago
> The government simply gives the homeless person a house, no questions asked, no strings attached. You want a house, you get one. Your references don't support this. [0] > The idea of Housing First is that housing comes first, services later. Clients do have to pay some rent — either 30 percent of income or up to $50 a month, whichever is greater. They also review every case and only provide housing to those that aren't dealing drugs, and aren't violent. [1] > Tenants pay rent and are entitled to receive housing benefits. Depending on their income, they may contribute to the cost of the services. The rest is covered by the municipalities. They provide the support themselves or buy support from other service providers, mainly from the NGOs. [2] is in reference to Chicago. I don't think that city is a success story.

DrScump 9y ago

SF is already spending $305 million a year... That's $46K per person! That counts only SF expenditures, not state or Federal.

dragonwriter 9y ago
It probably does count much of the state and federal spending on SF homelessness, which is funneled through the city budget (as revenue that pays for an expense) and not direct state/federal spending that bypasses the City and County.
- masonic 9y ago
  It probably does count much of the state and federal spending If you're going to directly contradict the article, it would be helpful to give your conflicting source.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    The article doesn't make the claim of excluding federal and state funding, and the usual method of reporting expenditures by a public jurisdiction would include spending which happened to be supported by (e.g., backfilled by partial matching funds, in one common model) money from other jurisdictions at higher levels.

henrikschroder 9y ago

A couple of points: 1) City spending isn't the full picture. How much money does the city lose because tourists/people/businesses choose other places because they perceive SF as a dump? That's the true cost of the problem, and the obvious answer is that as long as you spend below that amount to solve the problem, it's a win. 2) $46k is a crazy amount of money in my mind. What? How? How can you spend all that money and not get any results other than basic survival? Is it incompetence on a massive scale? Corruption? A failure of imagination? 3) Again, my main point is that this is a solved problem. It is not a unique problem. Contrary to what a bunch of other commenters in this thread have said, SF is not a unique snowflake of a city where this problem is magically unsolveable. It's the fucking not-invented-here syndrome from the software world, but applied to city politics. This is not rocket science. This is not uncharted territory. Learn from others, ffs.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

threatofrain 9y ago

Much of that is going into housing, so what little is left is likely not enough for the full gamut of professional services that these individuals likely require.