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I don't think these problems are related to tech. Metro areas that engage in these policies--tech or no--have had the same problems. NYC in the 70s to 80s was

I don't think these problems are related to tech. Metro areas that engage in these policies--tech or no--have had the same problems. NYC in the 70s to 80s was the same boat and had dramatic turnarounds during the Giuliani tenure. An article I read recently (https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-homelessness https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-homelessness) > According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Seattle metro area spends more than $1 billion fighting homelessness every year. That’s nearly $100,000 for every homeless man, woman, and child in King County, yet the crisis seems only to have deepened, with more addiction, more crime, and more tent encampments in residential neighborhoods. That statistic should shock people who think that the problem is insufficient government spending or a type of rabid, rich eating the poor Dickensian dystopia. That article also mentions "pathological altruism", which roughly translates into paying $ for guilt in a way that harms the people who are supposed to be helped. It's sad too, because most tech workers I know would not advocate behaviors/policies for themselves that they advocate for the homeless. Any tech startup that basically was content with no standards, endless spending, and no accountability in the corporate or personal sphere would be bankrupt.

techsupporter 8y ago
Just for context, this article was written by Christopher Rufo, a very conservative politician who ran for the Seattle City Council against Mike O'Brien (district 6, Ballard, Loyal Heights, Crown Hill) for roughly two weeks until Rufo dropped out while accusing "O'Brien activists" of "extreme harassment." Rufo's platform, just before he enter-exited the race, can best be described as "arrest them all and do it enough times that they move to Eugene." He's only one in a long line of brief candidates who want to immediately ramp up all kinds of law enforcement activity while we "consider proper funding levels" for social services, with no professed idea for what happens when the people we've arrested for vagrancy walk out of the King County Jail in downtown Seattle. The one thing he and I agree on is that the outputs for our inputs are not at all acceptable but I don't agree at all with what little he proposed to do about it.
- abernard1 8y ago
  Ad hominems aside, do you think spending $100K a year per homeless person--and having a dramatically increasing homeless population--is reasonable? Might there be some logic to that article?
  - techsupporter 8y ago
    Yes? No? I don't know; I'm not an expert in these matters. It is entirely possible that spending $100k/year per homeless person and still having an increase in the homeless population is reasonable if the costs are staggeringly high and the underlying problems still exist--perhaps even at an increasing rate--that drive people into homeless. I didn't say that Mr. Rufo was incorrect in his numbers; I said I vehemently disagreed with the proposals he made in his brief campaign. I agree with Mayor Durkan that we need a comprehensive understanding of what the money is being spent towards and the results it is having, something her office is supposed to be working on. But we can't just say "spending is paused until we figure that out." We also can't continue with Seattle being the only government entity spending appreciable money on the problem while surrounding cities and counties cluck their tongues in disdain. This is also the State of Washington's and King County's problem, if nothing else. They should act like it. One last bit, I did not engage in any ad hominems against Rufo; I called him no names (unless you mean "very conservative," which is a label he adopted for himself in his campaign). I denigrated his policy proposals and related an observer's view of what happened to his campaign.
    - abernard1 8y ago
      I think your "Just for context" provided no context at all to the statistic provided or anything to do with my observation that tech workers' treatment of themselves is different than that they advocate for the homeless. You brought the character of the person making a claim about a statistic into a tangent that had nothing to do with my comment. That's an ad hominem. With respect to the $100K a homeless person, I quite frankly find that absurd. If it was a spending problem, you could pay them the money directly and they'd be richer than most Americans.

techsupporter 8y ago

Just for context, this article was written by Christopher Rufo, a very conservative politician who ran for the Seattle City Council against Mike O'Brien (district 6, Ballard, Loyal Heights, Crown Hill) for roughly two weeks until Rufo dropped out while accusing "O'Brien activists" of "extreme harassment." Rufo's platform, just before he enter-exited the race, can best be described as "arrest them all and do it enough times that they move to Eugene." He's only one in a long line of brief candidates who want to immediately ramp up all kinds of law enforcement activity while we "consider proper funding levels" for social services, with no professed idea for what happens when the people we've arrested for vagrancy walk out of the King County Jail in downtown Seattle. The one thing he and I agree on is that the outputs for our inputs are not at all acceptable but I don't agree at all with what little he proposed to do about it.

abernard1 8y ago
Ad hominems aside, do you think spending $100K a year per homeless person--and having a dramatically increasing homeless population--is reasonable? Might there be some logic to that article?
- techsupporter 8y ago
  Yes? No? I don't know; I'm not an expert in these matters. It is entirely possible that spending $100k/year per homeless person and still having an increase in the homeless population is reasonable if the costs are staggeringly high and the underlying problems still exist--perhaps even at an increasing rate--that drive people into homeless. I didn't say that Mr. Rufo was incorrect in his numbers; I said I vehemently disagreed with the proposals he made in his brief campaign. I agree with Mayor Durkan that we need a comprehensive understanding of what the money is being spent towards and the results it is having, something her office is supposed to be working on. But we can't just say "spending is paused until we figure that out." We also can't continue with Seattle being the only government entity spending appreciable money on the problem while surrounding cities and counties cluck their tongues in disdain. This is also the State of Washington's and King County's problem, if nothing else. They should act like it. One last bit, I did not engage in any ad hominems against Rufo; I called him no names (unless you mean "very conservative," which is a label he adopted for himself in his campaign). I denigrated his policy proposals and related an observer's view of what happened to his campaign.
  - abernard1 8y ago
    I think your "Just for context" provided no context at all to the statistic provided or anything to do with my observation that tech workers' treatment of themselves is different than that they advocate for the homeless. You brought the character of the person making a claim about a statistic into a tangent that had nothing to do with my comment. That's an ad hominem. With respect to the $100K a homeless person, I quite frankly find that absurd. If it was a spending problem, you could pay them the money directly and they'd be richer than most Americans.