5 ms·

In the last few years I've lived in Cleveland OH (5 years in college), Denver CO / Colorado Springs (3 months), and San Jose / SF Bay area (1 year). All 3 of th

by idrios 9y ago

In the last few years I've lived in Cleveland OH (5 years in college), Denver CO / Colorado Springs (3 months), and San Jose / SF Bay area (1 year). All 3 of these places had homelessness issues and the root causes were very different in each. In Cleveland, the homeless seemed to be mostly folks who grew up in low-income neighborhoods (median reported household income $14,000 [1]) from very broken families, who find themselves adults with few skills no motivation to help themselves because they've never known what hope is. Homelessness in Colorado seemed to stem more from veterans with PTSD who can't hold down a job, or those with other forms of disabilities. Homelessness in the SF Bay area was the most confusing to me. I met people there who could've been myself in 10 years, but they were homeless or had once been homeless just because they couldn't afford a place to live there. I don't know if this area just lacks housing or if it attracts the homeless but I know for certain that being homeless here is nothing like being homeless in Cleveland. It's really not a one-size-fits-all problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hough%2C_Cleveland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hough%2C_Cleveland I'm using this neighborhood as an example because I used to volunteer at a school here, but there are many neighborhoods like it.

harlanji 9y ago
Similar bg: Minneapolis, short time in Denver, probable lifer in BA (currently by the beach in Sunset SF where vagrants abound). It’s just too nice here to leave, even with offers of couches in swank condos in other cities. Wealthy vs. poor, the BA has endless amenities to cultivate the former. Housing is a nice feature. I am literally teetering on the edge, rent 6-7wk late and without real food for weeks (in comm w landlord + 24lbs of Huel stocked and 2x all my products). I’ll move into my car if I lose my appt. I’ve a YT channel/vlog documenting the plight to poverty in SF, “iSpooge Daily” channel. My answer to why is that SFers are aggressively passive, and quick to call abberant behavior any label that kinda fits (“worst possible explanation”) which creats a class of people who can comfortably be treated sub-human. I’ve always remained open to chatting with sober houseless folk, and indeed it could be anyone. I know some guy who’s slept in the same doorways with his cats for all yea years I’ve been in SF while I’ve been pushed around. Makes me question who’s homeless. Green Day was OG from Oakland, their song Android has stuck with me and I’ve come to resonate with this part strongly “hey old man in woman’s shoes / I wonder if he knows I think he’s crazy / when he was young did he have dreams of / wearing woman’s shoes and being crazy” — in truth the crazies are reacting pretty reasonably to their conditions of sub-human treatment and filth. If not for my long term communities and in-tact families and skills, it’d be a lot harder to keep it together mentally. It’s the sense of hope as I’ve never asked for much, thankfully good will and faith etc has life rafts float up as needed.
bsder 9y ago
> Homelessness in the SF Bay area was the most confusing to me. I met people there who could've been myself in 10 years, but they were homeless or had once been homeless just because they couldn't afford a place to live there. Mental illness and drugs (which really should probably be folded into mental illness) is actually a bigger factor. 1) Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the private sector". Consequently, the mentally ill wind up on the streets or in jail--neither of which is actually a good solution. We've only had about 5 years since removing most of the nitwits from the state legislature/Congress (the jungle primaries and redistricting commission have been in effect since 2010 and it flushed most of the Republican nitwits--and Mueller may get the remaining ones), and building/fixing takes more time than dismantling. 2) It also didn't help that some places were actually busing in their mentally ill population to San Francisco. 3) San Francisco weather doesn't kill people. Morbidly, being sufficiently mentally ill in, say, Pittsburgh or Cleveland, probably kills you in winter (and possibly summer).
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  > Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the private sector". "Saint Reagan" hasn't been President for about 30 years, and hasn't been governor of California for about 40. Perhaps it's time to stop blaming him for things? Why didn't Saints Clinton and Obama (on the national level) or Saints Brown, Davis, or Brown II: Electric Boogaloo (on the state level) fix these problems?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the private sector". De-institutionalizing the mentally ill was broadly supported across the political spectrum; the institutionalized system was both ineffective and often inhumane. That both community mental health treatment and poverty support was and remains inadequate are problems, and de-institutionalization certainly highlighted those problems, but let's not create a false historical narrative that de-institutionalization was a policy forced on the country by one political faction.
TylerE 9y ago
I think a big draw for homelessness in SF specifically is the abnormally mild and consistent climate. It rarely gets colder than 45F, or warmer than 90F.
joe_the_user 9y ago
In the last few years I've lived in Cleveland OH (5 years in college), Denver CO / Colorado Springs (3 months), and San Jose / SF Bay area (1 year). All 3 of these places had homelessness issues and the root causes were very different in each. Claims about homelessness having multiple root causes have always seemed flawed to me. I would claim the root cause is the lack of supply of houses at a price people can afford. It's not this root cause that varies from location to location, it's the particular way it manifests that varies from place to place. IE, a relative shortage of housing prevails everywhere, both places with depressed economies and places with active economies. This shortage means those with low skills can't and don't think of leaving depressed areas for greener pastures and even those with high skills wind-up homeless in the areas of high economic activity - and note that the experience of homelessness can "break" people through deprivation and anxiety, leading the "temporarily homeless" to winding-up looking more like the "hardcore homeless".
- bluGill 9y ago
  I know somebody too mentally ill to keep up a house. Even if you gave him a million dollars and a free place to live, in just a few years it would not be inhabitable because he doesn't have the mental ability to think about getting anything broken fixed.
kiliantics 9y ago
There might be many ways in which people fall below the threshold of being able to afford housing. But the fact is that they can't afford it. The government tends to support landowners in keeping land value high and letting them build luxury housing on it to make more money on rent/speculation, rather than making it possible for everyone to afford housing.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  Do a search for land/housing, you can buy a ton of it in rural places for pennies compared to areas like San Francisco. But I think SF is expensive just from market forces alone. Example: Right now on Zillow.com, there appear to be 735 houses for sale at $50k or less in Iowa alone. (this is not auctions or forclusures either) https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/IA/fsba,fsbo,new_lt/house_type/19_rid/0-50000_price/0-198_mp/pricea_sort/44.964797,-87.659913,38.022131,-99.470215_rect/6_zm/0_mmm/ https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/IA/fsba,fsbo,new_lt/ho... These aren't cramped dinky places, these are full multi-bedroom homes with land. And this is one single state. The issue isn't land, space or housing, it's jobs, knowledge and opportunity. (and I am sure other social dynamics...) Edit: I did not verify pricing, so who knows how many are bait-and-switches... but it's still a high number to start with.
baybal2 9y ago
America is not an undeveloped nation, yet it still has homelessness. This does not bode with peace in my mind.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  I lived on the streets when I was a teen. Many people start off there because it's safer than being at home. Not an easy problem to solve, and has nothing to do with how developed the nation is.

by idrios 9y ago

harlanji 9y ago

Similar bg: Minneapolis, short time in Denver, probable lifer in BA (currently by the beach in Sunset SF where vagrants abound). It’s just too nice here to leave, even with offers of couches in swank condos in other cities. Wealthy vs. poor, the BA has endless amenities to cultivate the former. Housing is a nice feature. I am literally teetering on the edge, rent 6-7wk late and without real food for weeks (in comm w landlord + 24lbs of Huel stocked and 2x all my products). I’ll move into my car if I lose my appt. I’ve a YT channel/vlog documenting the plight to poverty in SF, “iSpooge Daily” channel. My answer to why is that SFers are aggressively passive, and quick to call abberant behavior any label that kinda fits (“worst possible explanation”) which creats a class of people who can comfortably be treated sub-human. I’ve always remained open to chatting with sober houseless folk, and indeed it could be anyone. I know some guy who’s slept in the same doorways with his cats for all yea years I’ve been in SF while I’ve been pushed around. Makes me question who’s homeless. Green Day was OG from Oakland, their song Android has stuck with me and I’ve come to resonate with this part strongly “hey old man in woman’s shoes / I wonder if he knows I think he’s crazy / when he was young did he have dreams of / wearing woman’s shoes and being crazy” — in truth the crazies are reacting pretty reasonably to their conditions of sub-human treatment and filth. If not for my long term communities and in-tact families and skills, it’d be a lot harder to keep it together mentally. It’s the sense of hope as I’ve never asked for much, thankfully good will and faith etc has life rafts float up as needed.

bsder 9y ago

> Homelessness in the SF Bay area was the most confusing to me. I met people there who could've been myself in 10 years, but they were homeless or had once been homeless just because they couldn't afford a place to live there. Mental illness and drugs (which really should probably be folded into mental illness) is actually a bigger factor. 1) Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the private sector". Consequently, the mentally ill wind up on the streets or in jail--neither of which is actually a good solution. We've only had about 5 years since removing most of the nitwits from the state legislature/Congress (the jungle primaries and redistricting commission have been in effect since 2010 and it flushed most of the Republican nitwits--and Mueller may get the remaining ones), and building/fixing takes more time than dismantling. 2) It also didn't help that some places were actually busing in their mentally ill population to San Francisco. 3) San Francisco weather doesn't kill people. Morbidly, being sufficiently mentally ill in, say, Pittsburgh or Cleveland, probably kills you in winter (and possibly summer).

Turing_Machine 9y ago
> Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the private sector". "Saint Reagan" hasn't been President for about 30 years, and hasn't been governor of California for about 40. Perhaps it's time to stop blaming him for things? Why didn't Saints Clinton and Obama (on the national level) or Saints Brown, Davis, or Brown II: Electric Boogaloo (on the state level) fix these problems?
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Saint Reagan (/s) dismantled a bunch of the infrastructure to help those with mental illness in the name of, say it with me now, "Efficiency of the private sector". De-institutionalizing the mentally ill was broadly supported across the political spectrum; the institutionalized system was both ineffective and often inhumane. That both community mental health treatment and poverty support was and remains inadequate are problems, and de-institutionalization certainly highlighted those problems, but let's not create a false historical narrative that de-institutionalization was a policy forced on the country by one political faction.

TylerE 9y ago

I think a big draw for homelessness in SF specifically is the abnormally mild and consistent climate. It rarely gets colder than 45F, or warmer than 90F.

joe_the_user 9y ago

In the last few years I've lived in Cleveland OH (5 years in college), Denver CO / Colorado Springs (3 months), and San Jose / SF Bay area (1 year). All 3 of these places had homelessness issues and the root causes were very different in each. Claims about homelessness having multiple root causes have always seemed flawed to me. I would claim the root cause is the lack of supply of houses at a price people can afford. It's not this root cause that varies from location to location, it's the particular way it manifests that varies from place to place. IE, a relative shortage of housing prevails everywhere, both places with depressed economies and places with active economies. This shortage means those with low skills can't and don't think of leaving depressed areas for greener pastures and even those with high skills wind-up homeless in the areas of high economic activity - and note that the experience of homelessness can "break" people through deprivation and anxiety, leading the "temporarily homeless" to winding-up looking more like the "hardcore homeless".

bluGill 9y ago
I know somebody too mentally ill to keep up a house. Even if you gave him a million dollars and a free place to live, in just a few years it would not be inhabitable because he doesn't have the mental ability to think about getting anything broken fixed.

kiliantics 9y ago

There might be many ways in which people fall below the threshold of being able to afford housing. But the fact is that they can't afford it. The government tends to support landowners in keeping land value high and letting them build luxury housing on it to make more money on rent/speculation, rather than making it possible for everyone to afford housing.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
Do a search for land/housing, you can buy a ton of it in rural places for pennies compared to areas like San Francisco. But I think SF is expensive just from market forces alone. Example: Right now on Zillow.com, there appear to be 735 houses for sale at $50k or less in Iowa alone. (this is not auctions or forclusures either) https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/IA/fsba,fsbo,new_lt/house_type/19_rid/0-50000_price/0-198_mp/pricea_sort/44.964797,-87.659913,38.022131,-99.470215_rect/6_zm/0_mmm/ https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/IA/fsba,fsbo,new_lt/ho... These aren't cramped dinky places, these are full multi-bedroom homes with land. And this is one single state. The issue isn't land, space or housing, it's jobs, knowledge and opportunity. (and I am sure other social dynamics...) Edit: I did not verify pricing, so who knows how many are bait-and-switches... but it's still a high number to start with.

baybal2 9y ago

America is not an undeveloped nation, yet it still has homelessness. This does not bode with peace in my mind.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
I lived on the streets when I was a teen. Many people start off there because it's safer than being at home. Not an easy problem to solve, and has nothing to do with how developed the nation is.