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Finally someone realizes that there is a problem. There is no justification in the biggest economy of the world to have this much poverty and homelessness. I am
by dmode 8y ago
Finally someone realizes that there is a problem. There is no justification in the biggest economy of the world to have this much poverty and homelessness. I am amazed every time I travel to Europe, how few homeless people there are, despite their economic growth lagging the US. And it is inherently a solvable problem with adequate resources. We have $1 trillion for the military. Surely, we can spare a few billions and house the downtrodden and provide mental care for those who can't take care of themselves.
- anthanm 8y agoI think Bezos probably realized when he paid a bunch of money and shut down construction of Amazon buildings in order to strongarm the Seattle government into killing a tax that was specifically to go towards reducing homelessness.
- throwaway2048 8y agoIts not like we needed bezo's to come down from the mountain and tell us all what a terrible scourge homelessness is. You are fooling yourself if you think this 2 billion comes anywhere close to correcting the level of homelessness amazon generates.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoMilitary spending is only 16% of Government spending, you'd think we could cover the homeless somehwere in that other 84%.
- dmode 8y agoIf you include all DoD spend include VA, it is well over 20%. Why this portion ? Because it is mostly unnecessary and just needed to foster faux nationalism
- krn 8y ago> I am amazed every time I travel to Europe, how few homeless people there are, despite their economic growth lagging the US. This. I grew up in Eastern Europe where middle-class people would make and eat every single meal at home, but I have never seen such level of poverty as I saw in the streets of the US.
- zouhair 8y agoI'll say "finally" if he doubles the salary of his workers and give them a decent work conditions with a lot less stress. He can keep his charity.
- ageitgey 8y agoAgreed 100%. I live in California which has the same massive homelessness issues as Seattle. I also travel to Europe frequently and have noticed the same stark contrast where they seem to do much better at this. To try to understand why homelessness feels so much worse an California than in Europe, I did some very basic research (which I also posted on a similar thread once before). The numbers are shocking: San Francisco population: 884,363 (2017/Wikipedia) San Francisco unsheltered population (conservative): 6,600 (7,499 SF self-reported homeless count * 88.2% HUD estimated unsheltered rate) Unsheltered population rate (conservative): ~0.75% of residents (my calculation) - nearly 1 in 100! Compare that with London, a city also experiencing a homelessness epidemic due to explosively rising housing costs: London population: 8,825,000 (2017/Wikipedia) London unsheltered population: 1,137 (homeless.org.uk) Unsheltered rate: ~0.01% of residents (my calculation) Homelessness rates in SF are absurdly high. In fact, there are more unsheltered homeless people in SF than the entire country of England(!): San Francisco unsheltered population: 6,600 (2017) England unsheltered population: 4,751 (2017) They are not equivalent situations obviously, but somehow a country with a population greater than the state of California manages to have fewer homeless people than one relatively tiny city in California. Something is very wrong. Homelessness is a complex issue with lots of intertwined causes and no single solution. Not only is affordable housing an issue, but mental health treatment is an equally important problem. I don't have the answers. But I do know that it is a public health crisis and we are currently completely failing to solve it. We need big changes if we actually care about addressing it and we as a country definitely have the resources to do it.
- fosk 8y agoThere is no political will to fix homelessness in San Francisco and it’s actually a big business and money maker for certain people. It’s just a way to funnel tax payers money to those groups. As usual, follow the money.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoYou really can't compare. London is a large city. SF is just a tiny part of a larger metro area. Do you know what the 'homeless' rate in 'The City of Foster City' is? Probably near 0. I think a better comparison would be Bay Area to London.
- jorblumesea 8y agoDo you really think the problem is at the realization phase? I'd say we all know this to be true, but whether we care enough is another question. There's a fair amount of people in this country that see homelessness as "lazy".