8 ms·

How many board of supervisors meetings have you been to? Various programs and policies related to homelessness are discussed constantly. Can you name a supervi

How many board of supervisors meetings have you been to? Various programs and policies related to homelessness are discussed constantly. Can you name a supervisor you think is more concerned with plastic straws than homelessness?

marcoperaza 8y ago
If they're just as concerned, they're certainly not as effective. I can't believe they have their priorities straight when they are willing to allocate enforcement resources to a plastic straw ban, which will accomplish absolutely nothing, while there is rampant open defecation, used needles on the streets, openly feuding gangs (which the city protects from deportation), and an absolute epidemic of car break-ins (30,000 smash-and-grabs per year, only 1.7% of which someone is arrested for).
- ribosometronome 8y ago
  Well, sure? Banning straws is easy. Solving homelessness is not. It's not as if the SF Supes can just have a "No more homelessness" vote.
  - door4 8y ago
    Sure they could. Just pay for housing for all homeless SF residents. The only reason it doesn't happen is because people with money and power don't care enough to make the material sacrifices required to solve the problem.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      Homelessness is rooted in two things: very serious personal problems that have no easy answer combined with a dire shortage of genuinely affordable housing in the US.* We need to dramatically improve availability of affordable housing. That would get a lot of retirees and the like off the street. But the ones who would, say, burn the house down while you weren't looking need a lot more than a free place to live. If you care deeply about this issue, work on affordable housing. But please stop acting like homeless people are all puppies that need to be adopted by some well-meaning stranger. It's incredibly dehumanizing and tends to compound the problem. * https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-poverty-west-coast-no-30-affordable-homes/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove...
      - wdewind 8y ago
        I've been reading you on here for a while and I respect your experience and deep thoughtfulness on these issues so I'm really interested in your opinion on this: what about the other half of the problem? How can we navigate the balance of providing mental health services vs. forced incarceration? I want this to be government funded, but our government has a track record on mental health that literally includes long periods in which "put them on an island" was the official policy for "treating" wide varieties of mentally ill people. What things could we do that would actually make a difference here? Is there any meaningful way to make progress without reducing the freedom of the mentally ill?
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Better nutrition would help a whole lot. It is more effective and more humane than the drugs we prefer. If psychoactive drugs help a mental health issue, you can assume it has medical roots for at least a portion of the problem. Treating the medical roots, which can include various infections, is a good path forward. There used to be an article online called "Diseases of the mind." One thing it talked about: When antibiotics were invented, thousands of people in asylums were successfully treated for syphilis and then set free. Another point it made: Mental illness tends to occur in demographic clusters exactly like infectious disease, which implies it might actually be due to infectious disease. Let me suggest this for a little related reading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867 Edit: This is what I am working on: http://pocketputer.com http://pocketputer.com Being homeless and helpless is crazy-making. I want to help people start making money, setting goals, etc while still homeless, like I did. Video from The Loneliness Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYc85A8f2CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYc85A8f2CM It's aimed at the issue if isolation in the elderly. Homeless people also suffer from social isolation. It's late. I'm tired. I will add that not all personal problems are about being crazy. Some people have learning disabilities or other barriers to regular employment. I feel like this answer really sucks because of the framing of the problem in this subthread. I have tried to answer your actual question, which is a legitimate question, but I think the problem is more complicated than that. :/
      - 8y ago
    - ribosometronome 8y ago
      Do you earnestly think that setting up a fine for places that continue to use plastic straws is not considerably more trivial than creating a program to pay for housing for all the homeless in SF?
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - remote_phone 8y ago
      See my comment above. SF spends $300M on roughly 7500 homeless people per year.
    - woah 8y ago
      SF spends as much money on streets and parks as they do on the homeless. It is a huge part of the city’s budget.
    - dang 8y ago
      We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. Would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- petersellers 8y ago
  That's not a fair characterization. I would argue that dealing with the homeless population is significantly more complex of an issue than dealing with plastic straws.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  Well, consider that SF has a diverse population, with several different factions who disagree dramatically about homelessness, help for drug addicts, housing policy, etc., and many other topics of “concern”. It sounds like you personally are not at all involved politically, other than maybe occasionally voting and chatting on this forum where none of the stakeholders or policymakers involved are likely to see it. The way the American system of government works (and to some extent any system of government), problems get addressed when someone cares enough about them to spend their time and attention working on them, organizing, looking for compromises with other stakeholders, etc. There are folks out there working on increasing Bay Area’s housing supply, helping the homeless get the help they need, building public bathrooms, drug rehabilitation, lobbying the city to change police priorities, and so on. You can look them up and lend some of your time / money to projects you think are important. City government is done by you/us, the residents of the city. It’s not some abstract force beyond human comprehension, but people just like you who are willing to put in the effort to make things work. Though, fair warning, it seems like you are more concerned with judging/condemning the less fortunate and maybe chasing them out of your town than really fixing any of the root problems. If you go into working on government/policy problems with that attitude, be prepared for a lot of frustration. Actually, be prepared for frustration regardless; democratic government is inherently frustrating.
  - xg15 8y ago
    > Well, consider that SF has a diverse population, with several different factions who disagree dramatically about homelessness, help for drug addicts, housing policy, etc., and many other topics of “concern”. Yes. Like home owners and people looking for a place to live.
- on_and_off 8y ago
  That's the dumbest and most abhorrent strawman I have heard in a while.
  - dang 8y ago
    Maybe so, but please don't react by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes this place worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
remote_phone 8y ago
SF spends over $300M a year on homeless and we still have homeless people defecating openly on Market Street during the day. They don’t even collect metrics to figure out if the money is working (which it’s not) or have any accountability.
- komali2 8y ago
  It seems you're implying that we should pull that money out of "on homeless" (not exactly sure what that means, can you clarify?) So then what happens? The homeless die? What solution do you want?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    how about measuring the effectiveness of the programs using that money, and improving them at least even if you want to keep at the same budget? why is bad acceptable when you spend 300M a year?
    - komali2 8y ago
      Do you have evidence that the city council is not measuring the effectiveness of that money, and improving methodologies?
      - ekianjo 8y ago
        If they are, then it looks like they are pretty bad at what they are doing. And since its a public program all measurements should be public as well, by definition.
  - woah 8y ago
    There’s a common refrain that “SF doesn’t spend enough money on the homeless, because they are rich and greedy etc etc. if only there was some compassion!!!!” In fact SF spends as much money on the homeless as they spend on the streets and parks. This shows that throwing money at the problem hasn’t helped.

marcoperaza 8y ago

If they're just as concerned, they're certainly not as effective. I can't believe they have their priorities straight when they are willing to allocate enforcement resources to a plastic straw ban, which will accomplish absolutely nothing, while there is rampant open defecation, used needles on the streets, openly feuding gangs (which the city protects from deportation), and an absolute epidemic of car break-ins (30,000 smash-and-grabs per year, only 1.7% of which someone is arrested for).

ribosometronome 8y ago
Well, sure? Banning straws is easy. Solving homelessness is not. It's not as if the SF Supes can just have a "No more homelessness" vote.
- door4 8y ago
  Sure they could. Just pay for housing for all homeless SF residents. The only reason it doesn't happen is because people with money and power don't care enough to make the material sacrifices required to solve the problem.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Homelessness is rooted in two things: very serious personal problems that have no easy answer combined with a dire shortage of genuinely affordable housing in the US.* We need to dramatically improve availability of affordable housing. That would get a lot of retirees and the like off the street. But the ones who would, say, burn the house down while you weren't looking need a lot more than a free place to live. If you care deeply about this issue, work on affordable housing. But please stop acting like homeless people are all puppies that need to be adopted by some well-meaning stranger. It's incredibly dehumanizing and tends to compound the problem. * https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-poverty-west-coast-no-30-affordable-homes/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove...
    - wdewind 8y ago
      I've been reading you on here for a while and I respect your experience and deep thoughtfulness on these issues so I'm really interested in your opinion on this: what about the other half of the problem? How can we navigate the balance of providing mental health services vs. forced incarceration? I want this to be government funded, but our government has a track record on mental health that literally includes long periods in which "put them on an island" was the official policy for "treating" wide varieties of mentally ill people. What things could we do that would actually make a difference here? Is there any meaningful way to make progress without reducing the freedom of the mentally ill?
      - DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Better nutrition would help a whole lot. It is more effective and more humane than the drugs we prefer. If psychoactive drugs help a mental health issue, you can assume it has medical roots for at least a portion of the problem. Treating the medical roots, which can include various infections, is a good path forward. There used to be an article online called "Diseases of the mind." One thing it talked about: When antibiotics were invented, thousands of people in asylums were successfully treated for syphilis and then set free. Another point it made: Mental illness tends to occur in demographic clusters exactly like infectious disease, which implies it might actually be due to infectious disease. Let me suggest this for a little related reading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867 Edit: This is what I am working on: http://pocketputer.com http://pocketputer.com Being homeless and helpless is crazy-making. I want to help people start making money, setting goals, etc while still homeless, like I did. Video from The Loneliness Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYc85A8f2CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYc85A8f2CM It's aimed at the issue if isolation in the elderly. Homeless people also suffer from social isolation. It's late. I'm tired. I will add that not all personal problems are about being crazy. Some people have learning disabilities or other barriers to regular employment. I feel like this answer really sucks because of the framing of the problem in this subthread. I have tried to answer your actual question, which is a legitimate question, but I think the problem is more complicated than that. :/
    - 8y ago
  - ribosometronome 8y ago
    Do you earnestly think that setting up a fine for places that continue to use plastic straws is not considerably more trivial than creating a program to pay for housing for all the homeless in SF?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - remote_phone 8y ago
    See my comment above. SF spends $300M on roughly 7500 homeless people per year.
  - woah 8y ago
    SF spends as much money on streets and parks as they do on the homeless. It is a huge part of the city’s budget.
  - dang 8y ago
    We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. Would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
petersellers 8y ago
That's not a fair characterization. I would argue that dealing with the homeless population is significantly more complex of an issue than dealing with plastic straws.
jacobolus 8y ago
Well, consider that SF has a diverse population, with several different factions who disagree dramatically about homelessness, help for drug addicts, housing policy, etc., and many other topics of “concern”. It sounds like you personally are not at all involved politically, other than maybe occasionally voting and chatting on this forum where none of the stakeholders or policymakers involved are likely to see it. The way the American system of government works (and to some extent any system of government), problems get addressed when someone cares enough about them to spend their time and attention working on them, organizing, looking for compromises with other stakeholders, etc. There are folks out there working on increasing Bay Area’s housing supply, helping the homeless get the help they need, building public bathrooms, drug rehabilitation, lobbying the city to change police priorities, and so on. You can look them up and lend some of your time / money to projects you think are important. City government is done by you/us, the residents of the city. It’s not some abstract force beyond human comprehension, but people just like you who are willing to put in the effort to make things work. Though, fair warning, it seems like you are more concerned with judging/condemning the less fortunate and maybe chasing them out of your town than really fixing any of the root problems. If you go into working on government/policy problems with that attitude, be prepared for a lot of frustration. Actually, be prepared for frustration regardless; democratic government is inherently frustrating.
- xg15 8y ago
  > Well, consider that SF has a diverse population, with several different factions who disagree dramatically about homelessness, help for drug addicts, housing policy, etc., and many other topics of “concern”. Yes. Like home owners and people looking for a place to live.
on_and_off 8y ago
That's the dumbest and most abhorrent strawman I have heard in a while.
- dang 8y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't react by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes this place worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

remote_phone 8y ago

SF spends over $300M a year on homeless and we still have homeless people defecating openly on Market Street during the day. They don’t even collect metrics to figure out if the money is working (which it’s not) or have any accountability.

komali2 8y ago
It seems you're implying that we should pull that money out of "on homeless" (not exactly sure what that means, can you clarify?) So then what happens? The homeless die? What solution do you want?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ekianjo 8y ago
  how about measuring the effectiveness of the programs using that money, and improving them at least even if you want to keep at the same budget? why is bad acceptable when you spend 300M a year?
  - komali2 8y ago
    Do you have evidence that the city council is not measuring the effectiveness of that money, and improving methodologies?
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      If they are, then it looks like they are pretty bad at what they are doing. And since its a public program all measurements should be public as well, by definition.
- woah 8y ago
  There’s a common refrain that “SF doesn’t spend enough money on the homeless, because they are rich and greedy etc etc. if only there was some compassion!!!!” In fact SF spends as much money on the homeless as they spend on the streets and parks. This shows that throwing money at the problem hasn’t helped.