4 ms·

Just a little nit: while article says they lived in SF and !had homes! survey linked says they were just SF residents prior to becoming homeless (though it ment

by pound 8y ago

Just a little nit: while article says they lived in SF and !had homes! survey linked says they were just SF residents prior to becoming homeless (though it mentions that 49% of them were living in SF at least 10 years, but don't forget that ~65% of SF residents are renters). Residency usually just based on any bill with city address within last 30 days. I can easy imagine case when someone moved to SF with hope that things will work out in big city, spent savings on few months of rent and with nowhere else to go and no established income ended up on the streets. While it's a sad situation it fits that previous SF residency narrative and in the same time not exactly part of some native san franciscans ending up on streets due to yet another gentrification cycle everybody so keen to bring up whenever homeless origin is being mentioned.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
There's an even bigger problem. There was no validation at all. It was based on self reporting which, in turn, was based on asking [ideally] random homeless individuals, and then extrapolating that outward. There is an incentive for individuals to lie here if they believe that 'native' homeless might be subject to preferential treatment, or if reporting 'native' homeless increases could result in more favorable incentives for the homeless. And given how big of news homelessness and home price issues are in San Francisco, I think this motivation is a major concern. I am curious about the baselines here for other areas though. Even given the incentive to lie, the reported numbers given still seem quite high to me. The most liberal metric is living in the city for at least 10 years, which applied to just below 50% of the homeless. Even if we take the most conservative metric of 'migratory' patterns, with 30% of individuals having moved to San Francisco after becoming homeless, that still seems very high. But I don't really have a baseline for comparison in other major cities and search is not turning up any particularly great sources.
- jshevek 8y ago
  Absolutely. Self reported data like this is nearly worthless in a serious discussion about policies and their consequences.

by pound 8y ago

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

There's an even bigger problem. There was no validation at all. It was based on self reporting which, in turn, was based on asking [ideally] random homeless individuals, and then extrapolating that outward. There is an incentive for individuals to lie here if they believe that 'native' homeless might be subject to preferential treatment, or if reporting 'native' homeless increases could result in more favorable incentives for the homeless. And given how big of news homelessness and home price issues are in San Francisco, I think this motivation is a major concern. I am curious about the baselines here for other areas though. Even given the incentive to lie, the reported numbers given still seem quite high to me. The most liberal metric is living in the city for at least 10 years, which applied to just below 50% of the homeless. Even if we take the most conservative metric of 'migratory' patterns, with 30% of individuals having moved to San Francisco after becoming homeless, that still seems very high. But I don't really have a baseline for comparison in other major cities and search is not turning up any particularly great sources.

jshevek 8y ago
Absolutely. Self reported data like this is nearly worthless in a serious discussion about policies and their consequences.