17 ms·

Homeless Population Jumps by Thousands Across the San Francisco Bay Area

238 points by ilamont 7y ago

chiefalchemist 7y ago
It seems to be funding, services and counting are all related. That is, open a new shelter and you're going to serve (read: count) more homeless. I'm not disputing there have been increases in homelessness. And we are our brothers' / sisters' keeper, so I'm not taking a stand against funding such efforts. What I'm wondering (out loud) about is the accuracy of previous counting. That is, how much is an actual increase, and how much is due to the thoroughness of the counting?
- mosdl 7y ago
  Yup, there are lots of services in places like SF and San Jose for them, so they are flocking here.
  - shereadsthenews 7y ago
    The vast majority of homeless in SFBA were living here when they became homeless. They are not flocking here.
    - b_tterc_p 7y ago
      Do you have an intuition why? It doesn’t seem rational. If you’re a low end service worker, and economic conditions push you into homelessness, why wouldn’t you go somewhere else? Does perhaps your perception of economic conditions make it feel like it’ll be shit everywhere and so you’re better off with your local social network?
      - lazyasciiart 7y ago
        Your local network and your existing paycheck, instead of significant expenses to relocate and then search for a job, while dealing with everyone in the new place shitting on you for moving to their location to sponge off them.
        b_tterc_p 7y ago
        Why would you have serious costs to relocate if you don’t have a home (and thus, stuff that costs money to move)?
        lazyasciiart 7y ago
        Are you expecting them to live on the streets in the new town while they search for a job?
        b_tterc_p 7y ago
        I’m getting downvoted for pursuing this line of questioning, but... yes? I really don’t see why this is controversial. Let’s ignore edge cases. You’re a single dude. You’re used to living in a house. Suddenly your local environment is too expensive to live in a house with your current levels of employability. Option 1 is to live on the streets with your current job. Given the derivative of the economy you will not be able to afford housing in the near future. Option 2 is to move and seek a similar low paying job in an area with lower cost of living. Try to find a job, to acquire food and shelter. Option 2 feels to me like it could be much safer. Both require living on the streets, but the second one provides a path to not doing that. I get that both are unpleasant. But why not?
        lazyasciiart 7y ago
        I’m not sure how much you understand about how people become homeless. I don’t think anyone ever says they became homeless because “suddenly the area is too expensive”. The majority of people who become homeless are actually only homeless for a short time. Their roommate kicked them out, or they were sick and couldn’t make rent once, or or other individual crisis events, and they don’t think “welp that’s it, I can’t make it in this city any more”.
      - shereadsthenews 7y ago
        Moving from one city to another surprisingly enough costs money that homeless people don't happen to have. Many of them have children in schools, and the school is the only place the child is ever warm or fed. Yes, in American society we will let children sleep under bridges. And if you do move to another city that seems to offer more opportunity you'll still be homeless and then 15-year-old Libertarian fuckwits on forums like this one will deride you as someone who "flocked here" for the welfare handouts.
- cheriot 7y ago
  From what I've seen of the canvasing, it's pretty thorough. They walk around all the neighborhoods with clipboards.
  - chiefalchemist 7y ago
    Yes. But that still doesn't support there are more. The depth and breadth of this canvasing could have improved (note: as it should). It's also possible the homeless are more willing to be seen and counted. That is, the stigma has softened.
    - cheriot 7y ago
      One can always identify something unknown and question the result. Is there an actual reason to think this count was different? Especially with governments, betting they did the same thing they've always done has the highest probability.
- shawndrost 7y ago
  This explanation doesn't seem to jibe with my understanding of the facts/trends surrounding % of homeless residents that came from outside the bay (generally pretty steady and a small %).
- hirundo 7y ago
  I'm feeding more bread crumbs to the pigeons than ever, but even more pigeons are coming. It's such a paradox.
  - moduspol 7y ago
    Have you tried safe injection sites?
    - downrightmike 7y ago
      Seattle's homeless shelter also doubles as a library
    - objectivetruth 7y ago
      I'll go ahead and respond to your shitty bad-faith metaphor: if the pigeons were spreading HIV and Hep C all over, yeah, we'd do something about it. Now that's where your metaphor falls apart for the rest of us, because the way human society treats an animal disease vector is to exterminate it or mitigate it, and our society is unwilling to do either of those when it comes to the human homeless. And I'd wager from your joking treatment of this issue that you'd be perfectly happy voting for the route that completely ignores their human dignity.
dforrestwilson 7y ago
Hopefully, this does not get down-voted. I have lived all over the US, and noticed that only in California do I find young homeless people. They generally seem happy and even have dogs. I never saw this in NYC or anywhere else on the East Coast or in the Midwest. Is there a reason why the demographics would be different?
- klipt 7y ago
  Weather?
- lostgame 7y ago
  Weather. I used to be homeless in Toronto (at lived in the Don Valley forest for a time) and it's actually kinda fun - in the summer. As soon as that first cold spike hits, you feel like death inside.
  - yostrovs 7y ago
    Can you help clarify why so many of these young homeless with dogs also prefer camo as their clothing color of choice?
    - b_tterc_p 7y ago
      Camo is fairly popular among young people, homeless or otherwise. I would venture to guess it’s cheap and requires less washing too.
    - badpun 7y ago
      Dirt is less visible on them?
    - pixxel 7y ago
      Their tuxedos are at the dry cleaners.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Because BDUs/ACUs and similar are cheap, common enough at thrift stores and highly durable. I make almost 6 figures and I have BDUs I use when I'm doing manual labor.
sneakernets 7y ago
>San Francisco has seen rental prices skyrocket Add deinstitutionalization on top of that, The Opioid epidemic, And that the majority of the population still think in bootstraps, You're going to see it only get worse. Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not.
- lostgame 7y ago
  >> Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not. I've never heard is phrase and I really like how you phrased it. There's no way to determine the apathy of humanity more than being homeless and seeing just how little people give a damn. We're trained to ignore these people, and then when we become one, we see just how awful we have been. There was actually a 1985 Twilight Zone episode about this...
  - red_admiral 7y ago
    > I've never heard is phrase Based off Genesis 4:9.
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    It is a biblical quote. Cain kills his brother. Then God asks where his brother is, and Cain says idk, he’s not my problem.
- bsder 7y ago
  > Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not. However, you need to be careful not to apply that with too heavy a hand. "When do you take someone's freedom of choice away?" should always be a heavy decision.
quxbar 7y ago
My brother lives in Humboldt county, I thought he was exaggerating the situation there but now I can't help but believe him. The stats are staggering - Humboldt's homeless population is up 157% in two years!
sgt 7y ago
I initially read this as "Homeless population jumps by thousands across the San Francisco Bay".
roseway4 7y ago
It would be great to understand why the Bay Area is seeing this increase. I haven't seen any studies that attempt to quantify this viz. the effects of local cost of housing increases vs arrivals from elsewhere vs mental health system failures vs ? It strikes me that understanding the root cause-through interviews etc-would be an important input to a policy response.
- shawndrost 7y ago
  SF does a homeless census every 2 years. It answers many of the questions you might have. Eg in the 2017 census: * 69% were from SF and 21% from elsewhere in CA (10% out of state) * 39% reported psychiatric or emotional conditions http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in-Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Poin...
- sfkdjf9j3j 7y ago
  Where have you looked? I followed the citations on the wikipedia page about homelessness in the Bay Area and found this in about 30 seconds: https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2017-10-23/homelessness-bay-area https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2017-10-2...
- deathanatos 7y ago
  > vs arrivals from elsewhere This particular attribute (what was the person's place of residence at time of homelessness) is answered by the study. (Called the PIT Count or Point-In-Time count). As the article notes, the study that the article is referencing is not released yet, so we can't see the stats for this particular iteration of the study. However, in the previous study[1] (2017, these are done every two years), 69% of respondents were from SF, and another 21% from some other county in CA. [1] The results of previous studies: http://hsh.sfgov.org/research-reports/san-francisco-homeless-point-in-time-count-reports/ http://hsh.sfgov.org/research-reports/san-francisco-homeless... ; I presume the new one will be posted there once it is released. The article says that will be in July
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
I can't help but notice that all the people saying they have similiar symptoms in non-CA cities are mentioning cities that are popular places for people moving out of CA to go to and cities where there is a lot of complaining about the newcomers enacting the kind of public policy that gave CA it's problem. I know this is just correlation and doesn't mean anything by itself but I can't help but notice it.
misiti3780 7y ago
Does anyone know where the data came from that made this plot ? https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xdae/more-people-pooping-in-san-francisco-than-ever-all-time-high-vgtrn https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xdae/more-people-poopin... I could not it in the pages or article ?
bradlys 7y ago
https://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-breed-announces-new-homelessness-prevention-funding-city-releases-initial-homelessness https://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-breed-announces-new-homele... > The increase in unsheltered people was driven largely by people living in vehicles, accounting for 68% of the increase in unsheltered people. Seems people are using vehicles more and that looks to be the largest contributor. Me and my SO have considered such an idea because we've been open to the idea of living in tiny houses, etc. (We live in a 400sqft in-law unit now) We also know people who have lived out of them. Quite happily btw. Things like this don't really give you an idea if it's forced or willing homelessness. Sure, maybe everyone would love a $3m home in Palo Alto (also known as "a home" in the rest of the country) but they're willing to suffer a bit to save some serious $$$ like we all do in various ways. Anyway - would like more insight and look forward to the full report coming out whenever it does.
- roguecoder 7y ago
  There's a continuum of "forced" versus "willing": raising the cost of rent beyond what someone can comfortably afford, but maybe they could manage if they didn't buy anything else and ate only beans and rice is only slightly less coercive than raising the rent beyond what they can afford at all.
the_economist 7y ago
San Francisco gives homeless people $520/month in cash. Unclear whether other Bay Area cities do the same. This is quite the incentive for homeless from around the state to move here, though. Whether or not it causes people to move here, it certainly funds much of the drug-fueled insanity we see on the streets. This program gives out around $25 mil/year: https://www.sfhsa.org/services/jobs-money/county-adult-assistance-programs-caap https://www.sfhsa.org/services/jobs-money/county-adult-assis... Most of the money is given out in the Tenderloin: https://www.sfhsa.org/file/7161/download?token=ywGXXXRl https://www.sfhsa.org/file/7161/download?token=ywGXXXRl More info: https://www.sfhsa.org/about/reports-publications/human-services-reports https://www.sfhsa.org/about/reports-publications/human-servi...
- shawndrost 7y ago
  The phenomenon you're talking about wouldn't explain much of the problem, given that most homeless people lived here before they were homeless. In the 2017 census, 69% of SF homeless were from SF, and 21% were from elsewhere in CA. 10% out of state.
  - geebee 7y ago
    Got a link to the methodology? I'd be interested in knowing what timeframe they use for "lived here". 3 years, 5 years? Also, how long were they housed, and what kind of housing was it (public assistance, private room rental).
  - sologoub 7y ago
    Are these self-reported numbers or from some sort of verifiable source? It’s plausible to consider that people being asked would be reluctant to say they are not from the locality for fear of being told to leave and “go back to where you came from”. While resources are limited, if this cash program is shown to make improvements, then it should be considered to be scaled out to other areas, not contracted for fear of additional migration.
    - chrisdhoover 7y ago
mesozoic 7y ago
We've solve the mystery of where the poop is coming from!
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't do this here.
  - sbarker 7y ago
    You should be telling that to the homeless :/
itsaidpens 7y ago
Someone please smash together a chart of Tesla vehicle sales and homelessness rates in California. I think it would be very interesting.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
homeless_sad 7y ago
We can't really reckon with our homeless problem without reckoning with the way we treat the severely mentally ill. At this point, we don't treat them. Many of the homeless, and a majority of the chronically homeless, are people who are severely mentally ill. We used to have a state psychiatric hospital system. That system has been destroyed. Now, the severely mentally ill, when they get any treatment at all, are primarily treated in American prisons. https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-mental-health-boarding.html https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-m... https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s... https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/deinstitutionalization-people-mental-illness-causes-and-consequences/2013-10 https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/deinstitutional... https://www.amazon.com/American-Psychosis-Government-Destroyed-Treatment/dp/0199988714 https://www.amazon.com/American-Psychosis-Government-Destroy... "Many times individuals who really do require intensive psychiatric care find themselves homeless or more and more in prison," Sisti says. "Much of our mental health care now for individuals with serious mental illness has been shifted to correctional facilities." The percentage of people with serious mental illness in prisons rose from .7 percent in 1880 to 21 percent in 2005, according to the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights. A consensus of other experts estimates that the total number of state beds required for acute and long-term care would be more like 50 beds per 100,000 in the population [5]. At the peak of availability in 1955, there were 340 beds per 100,000 [5]. In 2010, the number of state beds was 43,318 or 14.1 beds per 100,000 [7].
crimsonalucard 7y ago
The solution to this homeless problem is trivial. There should be a law that makes it a requirement to have paid residency, confirmed accommodation, or a job to be in the city for more than a week. If not and you're caught there is a one way bus that you will have to get onto that ships you to a jail where they have to reside for a month. This "jail" is actually a homeless zone outside of the city where homeless people are shipped too and given free food and shelter. They are also provided access to education and care and a dedicated team with the objective of data driven rehabilitation. It's really this simple. The reason why we aren't doing it is because the problem is made complex by all kinds of irrelevant issues. Do I want to live in a city thats covered in feces? or do I want to live in a city where I have all the freedom and right to use the city sidewalks as a public toilet? Of course I prefer to have the right to take a dump where-ever I want and whenever I want. I have rights, this is America. In singapore if you sell heroin. You're dead. Simple.
- bgorman 7y ago
  Unlike Singapore, most cities in the world do not have their own border control. Lots of people commute in and out of San Francisco for work. Are you going to check if every vehicle entering the city is carrying a "legal" person?
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    The police would use this new law selectively. Meaning only on people who are obviously homeless. The point of the law is not 100% technical enforcement to the written word fairly on all people. The spirit of the law is to make the city live-able and not covered with feces and people shooting themselves up with needles on market.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Absolutely nothing about what you just wrote would be "simple", not even explaining why I think it's a moral failure to seriously suggest it.
  - 7y ago
geebee 7y ago
There is an ambiguity in the term "homeless" that can obscure discussion. I believe the term "homeless" was adopted in part to avoid more pejorative terms like "bum" or "vagrant". However, there may be some differences. You may not notice the majority of the homeless. They may very well hang out in libraries, coffee shops, and park benches, but these folks may be people with no mental illness or addiction, victims of the economy, or a restrictive housing supply. Alternatively, they may be people with personal health (including mental health) challenges that do severely impede their ability to work (or just cope with the world), but they have no immediate outward appearance of distress or addiction, and they don't pass out on city streets or, worse, intimidate, berate, threaten, stalk, harass, or assault fellow citizens. The term homeless has come in the vernacular to refer to the people I referenced in that last sentence as the "homeless", almost to the point where the word is detached from home and less. It means a severely addicted and mentally ill person who lives on the street. I don't know which one is increasing. I've lived in SF my whole life (SF, not the Bay Area, I took urban muni routes home from middle school), I'm in my late 40s, and I've never seen it so bad. I've always been a big public transportation taker, but I'm less enthusiastic about it now. What were occasional bad moments in the 80s and 90s have become an every other ride experience in some locations, and the lows are starting to get really, really low.
- harlanji 7y ago
  I'm one of the homeless you speak of, since last year. I came to the BA in 2011 after graduating Uni and worked as a programmer, to SF in 2014, and then had my reputation destroyed in 2016 by a false assault allegation by my old boss to HR--limiting job prospects via black list. I've an uncommon name and rare specialization. I think of "destitute" as the keyword, at various layers of Maslow's hierarchy. The ones you talk about are destitute socially but probably have food and temporary sleeping provisions, seldom rising above the 3rd layer into esteem tho. I have a bit of my old network supporting me, and I sometimes think I'll get off the street. I work as a waiter 30hr/wk in Mountain View at minimum wage, and don't make enough money yet to have housing prospects. Answering interview questions without needs being met sends overwhelmingly negative signals. I have all my professional stuff like books and computers in a storage unit, but rarely have a place to use it. I don't apply for high paying jobs in my field because I know that I lack the basic necessities to make a good impression. I've tried and do entertain opportunities that fall on my lap, but I always make a blunder due to not having the resources I need and they fade away. It feels safter to not try, given domino effects of interviewing poorly (permanent record, data). "Learned helplessness" for sure. I was hired to my current job on the spot, thankfully, and almost didn't get it due to logistic issues that I'm intentionally vague about. Personally I was not a supporter of Prop C and take no government assistance, instead fasting and meditating when I can't earn money and nobody in my network can help me out. We'll get through this. I'm staying strong.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
itry2develop 7y ago
Sanctuary city....
hhanesand 7y ago
Wouldn’t more spending homelessness at the state level incentivize homeless migration into the state, therefore possibly counteracting the effects of the spending? To me it seems like this is something which needs to be addressed at the federal level. Anyone have any research they can point to about this possible issue?
throw2016 7y ago
There is a homeless epidemic. Anyone who lives in the US can see it. But these issues are being closely tracked and discussed widely in political problem solving contexts, and HN is more of an observer reacting to the most extreme examples that make news usually with very little empathy focused mainly on the consequences to others, so the discussions are weirdly 'disconnected' and stuck in 'first principles'. Look at every single homeless discussion on HN over the last 5 years, its homeless people are bums, weirdoes who enjoy living in poverty without homes or people who are 'choosing this lifestyle' based on anecdotal evidence mostly focused on how they negatively impact the commentators life, untill the next article. Is having this same discussion over and over again helpful to anyone? The software community used to be associated with freedom, liberty and not being jerks, more connected to the human experience and with empathy. Now they build surveillance systems, are increasingly authoritarian in their outlook and are snarky about others suffering. There may be a serious problem of homelessness but it seems this absence of empathy is a much more serious problem for any society leaving it unequal to any social challenge.
- closeparen 7y ago
  It’s easy to preach empathy from a leafy suburb. I certainly used to. When you are actually inhaling piss, stepping over feces, and weaving through tents every time you go outside, the situation is a bit different. Much of HN lives in urban SF and moves around the city without a glass and steel cage. In that light, homelessness moves down Maslow’s hierarchy from a moral reasoning problem to a visceral disgust/fear, a threat to the safety and dignity of home. It’s one thing to be “against” mass incarceration and the criminalization of the poor, another to be okay with zero police response to your own assault/burglary. It’s one thing to be pro legalization, another to be okay with street dealers on your block. One thing to believe homeless people have a right to go where they please, another to stay committed when they decide to camp at your doorstep. Maybe I am the only fake/uncommitted liberal but I get the sense that this kind of right-shifting after a few years in SF is not uncommon.
  - the_snooze 7y ago
    Indeed, I feel the Bay Area has made me more hard-hearted and conservative when it comes to the homeless over years. I'm happy to donate to local charities that try to give them the help they need, but it's best for me to keep my distance from street folks day-to-day, as they produce in me a deep instinctive threat response with their smell and unpredictable behavior.
nradov 7y ago
People tend to focus on San Francisco because the homeless sleeping on sidewalks are so visible, but it seems like the situation in San Jose is getting worse at an accelerating rate. The problem just isn't as visible there because the city is less dense and more spread out. Take a ride along the Guadalupe River Trail, Los Gatos Creek Trail, and the Coyote Creek Trail, and look carefully under the bushes: you'll be shocked at the number of homeless encampments. I don't have population numbers but subjectively it's noticeably worse than it was 5 years ago. It's a terrible situation for people, but at the same time after helping out with a few river cleanup efforts my sympathy is wearing thin (I do continue donating to several local charities serving the homeless population). Even when there are public garbage cans within walking distance many of the homeless population have been throwing their garbage on the ecologically sensitive river banks — including drug paraphernalia and other hazardous waste. Our rivers are turning into landfills and the city crews can't keep up. I was in Reno a few weeks ago and the banks of the Truckee River are one solid homeless encampment for several miles. They've completely taken over several public parks. Locals complained that they no longer felt safe going there.
- downrightmike 7y ago
  The situation has been around for a long time, what we're seeing is a bum-rush. Groups of people just come in and take over areas: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bum-rush https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bum-rush
purplezooey 7y ago
Wow double digit growth. Meanwhile AB50 is stalled. This is probably the worst part of the BA which is otherwise wonderful. Its utter helplessness in confronting it's housing problem.
jondubois 7y ago
I don't understand how a country can maintain a coherent system of law when there are so many homeless people and almost 1% of the entire population is in prison.
- downrightmike 7y ago
  The percent is only so high because JFK closed the mental wards and expected communities to pick up the difference.
  - downrightmike 7y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/opinion/out-of-the-asylum-into-the-cell.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/opinion/out-of-the-asylum...
lamarpye 7y ago
I think we should bring back involuntary confinement. I have read on the history of this issue and no doubt a lot ugly stuff happened in the past. I think the solutions to these problems went too far in creating barriers to involuntary confinement. I have to believe that medicine and treatment in 2019 would be a lot as opposed to the 1950's. We should get the mentally ill off the streets, on the proper meds and in stable housing. This should help the people that can respond to treatment a chance to get better and return to society. The people that don't respond to treatment will have to be confined for the rest of their lives.
weeksie 7y ago
Build. More. Shelters. I live in New York and we have more homeless people per capita than San Francisco but we don't have the same kinds of problems. The very simple solution is to build shelters. The rate of homeless that are sheltered in NY is WAY higher and as a result we don't have the same kind of problems. In SF 492/100k residents sleep on the street. In NYC the rate is 45/100k. Source: https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-homelessness-and-it-basically-succeeded-ab27f3ec5a65 https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-h... (among others, these aren't controversial numbers)
- demosthenes14 7y ago
  Seems like this could be heavily correlated with weather.
  - weeksie 7y ago
    Weather has something to do with the amount of shelters? I'm not sure I follow.
    - demosthenes14 7y ago
      There are (legitimate) drawbacks to living/sleeping in a shelter and with moderate weather on the west coast many homeless choose to sleep outside. Shelters here already have empty beds so building more isn’t going to solve anything - there just isn’t a tangible benefit over sleeping in a private tent outside.
      - weeksie 7y ago
        That's one hypothesis I suppose.
- heimatau 7y ago
  Weather is a driving factor that one shouldn't overlook. SV has a massive housing problem. Let's not defer the issue. It's a substantial issue.
diogenescynic 7y ago
It's honestly an epidemic and people have to admit it's mostly due to meth and heroin--it's not all due to housing prices. Yes, housing affordability is absolutely a real issue and there are people being displaced and actually are homeless from it--but that's not the real source if this crisis. We literally have THOUSANDS of mentally ill and criminally insane drug addicts all over the city in a constant state of anarchy. For example, I live in a decent area (near Noe Valley) and constantly have homeless people in our carport area of our building. The landlord refuses to install a security camera, and actually removed the dummy security cameras which is now making the problem worse. I have had my car broken into like 8 times in 5 years. Every single night there are 2-3 of the same tweakers and addicts down there doing drugs, screaming all night, leaving needles and feces all over. I call the cops 2-3x a day and the cops show up probably 1/50 times but they never actually do anything but shoo them along and then they come back in 2 hours. I've left messages for the local SFPD Sergeant, I've gone to community meetings and asking for more patrols, I've written my supervisor. NOTHING has changed. This is a miserable way to live when you already have a stressful job and have hard work. I truly do not want to live my life in a city like this. The cops do nothing, DAs don't prosecute, juries don't convict, and judges don't sentence--yet housing prices are $2.5M for the privilege of having a tweaker camp outside your house. I just don't get it. This video is of Seattle, but it's basically the same situation in SF but 25% worse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw
Proven 7y ago
When you pay for something, you get more of it. Socialists have turned the place is a shit magnet.
heimatau 7y ago
From my personal experience from helping actual homeless people and being one (with my family). I find the homeless population is struggling. The numbers are GROWING...all around the greater bay area (up to Sacramento, where I currently reside). The majority aren't suffering from mental health problems, which to me, is terrifying for our society. If the US has a 'growing economy' what will happen when we start to see this recession/depression that many are saying is eminent? I can't help but agree with the world leaders that the entire global economy is very fragile. We can build our way out of this but I'm skeptical that California could build it's way out due to the private interests of powerful people (even single/one home-owners).
- shereadsthenews 7y ago
  It’s not unthinkable that a recession could indirectly help by lowering construction costs.
  - heimatau 7y ago
    > It's not unthinkable It's highly unlikely. SV is an economic engine for Cali and the USA. Unions and bureaucracies (local govt red tape) are the driving forces to high construction costs.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    No, this wont happen. A recession will push the ones on the bottom to unemployement which spirals them into poverty. Recessions are most cruel to the poor.

238 points by ilamont 7y ago

It seems to be funding, services and counting are all related. That is, open a new shelter and you're going to serve (read: count) more homeless. I'm not disputing there have been increases in homelessness. And we are our brothers' / sisters' keeper, so I'm not taking a stand against funding such efforts. What I'm wondering (out loud) about is the accuracy of previous counting. That is, how much is an actual increase, and how much is due to the thoroughness of the counting?

mosdl 7y ago
Yup, there are lots of services in places like SF and San Jose for them, so they are flocking here.
- shereadsthenews 7y ago
  The vast majority of homeless in SFBA were living here when they became homeless. They are not flocking here.
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    Do you have an intuition why? It doesn’t seem rational. If you’re a low end service worker, and economic conditions push you into homelessness, why wouldn’t you go somewhere else? Does perhaps your perception of economic conditions make it feel like it’ll be shit everywhere and so you’re better off with your local social network?
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      Your local network and your existing paycheck, instead of significant expenses to relocate and then search for a job, while dealing with everyone in the new place shitting on you for moving to their location to sponge off them.
      - b_tterc_p 7y ago
        Why would you have serious costs to relocate if you don’t have a home (and thus, stuff that costs money to move)?
        lazyasciiart 7y ago
        Are you expecting them to live on the streets in the new town while they search for a job?
        b_tterc_p 7y ago
        I’m getting downvoted for pursuing this line of questioning, but... yes? I really don’t see why this is controversial. Let’s ignore edge cases. You’re a single dude. You’re used to living in a house. Suddenly your local environment is too expensive to live in a house with your current levels of employability. Option 1 is to live on the streets with your current job. Given the derivative of the economy you will not be able to afford housing in the near future. Option 2 is to move and seek a similar low paying job in an area with lower cost of living. Try to find a job, to acquire food and shelter. Option 2 feels to me like it could be much safer. Both require living on the streets, but the second one provides a path to not doing that. I get that both are unpleasant. But why not?
        lazyasciiart 7y ago
        I’m not sure how much you understand about how people become homeless. I don’t think anyone ever says they became homeless because “suddenly the area is too expensive”. The majority of people who become homeless are actually only homeless for a short time. Their roommate kicked them out, or they were sick and couldn’t make rent once, or or other individual crisis events, and they don’t think “welp that’s it, I can’t make it in this city any more”.
    - shereadsthenews 7y ago
      Moving from one city to another surprisingly enough costs money that homeless people don't happen to have. Many of them have children in schools, and the school is the only place the child is ever warm or fed. Yes, in American society we will let children sleep under bridges. And if you do move to another city that seems to offer more opportunity you'll still be homeless and then 15-year-old Libertarian fuckwits on forums like this one will deride you as someone who "flocked here" for the welfare handouts.
cheriot 7y ago
From what I've seen of the canvasing, it's pretty thorough. They walk around all the neighborhoods with clipboards.
- chiefalchemist 7y ago
  Yes. But that still doesn't support there are more. The depth and breadth of this canvasing could have improved (note: as it should). It's also possible the homeless are more willing to be seen and counted. That is, the stigma has softened.
  - cheriot 7y ago
    One can always identify something unknown and question the result. Is there an actual reason to think this count was different? Especially with governments, betting they did the same thing they've always done has the highest probability.
shawndrost 7y ago
This explanation doesn't seem to jibe with my understanding of the facts/trends surrounding % of homeless residents that came from outside the bay (generally pretty steady and a small %).
hirundo 7y ago
I'm feeding more bread crumbs to the pigeons than ever, but even more pigeons are coming. It's such a paradox.
- moduspol 7y ago
  Have you tried safe injection sites?
  - downrightmike 7y ago
    Seattle's homeless shelter also doubles as a library
  - objectivetruth 7y ago
    I'll go ahead and respond to your shitty bad-faith metaphor: if the pigeons were spreading HIV and Hep C all over, yeah, we'd do something about it. Now that's where your metaphor falls apart for the rest of us, because the way human society treats an animal disease vector is to exterminate it or mitigate it, and our society is unwilling to do either of those when it comes to the human homeless. And I'd wager from your joking treatment of this issue that you'd be perfectly happy voting for the route that completely ignores their human dignity.

dforrestwilson 7y ago

Hopefully, this does not get down-voted. I have lived all over the US, and noticed that only in California do I find young homeless people. They generally seem happy and even have dogs. I never saw this in NYC or anywhere else on the East Coast or in the Midwest. Is there a reason why the demographics would be different?

klipt 7y ago
Weather?
lostgame 7y ago
Weather. I used to be homeless in Toronto (at lived in the Don Valley forest for a time) and it's actually kinda fun - in the summer. As soon as that first cold spike hits, you feel like death inside.
- yostrovs 7y ago
  Can you help clarify why so many of these young homeless with dogs also prefer camo as their clothing color of choice?
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    Camo is fairly popular among young people, homeless or otherwise. I would venture to guess it’s cheap and requires less washing too.
  - badpun 7y ago
    Dirt is less visible on them?
  - pixxel 7y ago
    Their tuxedos are at the dry cleaners.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Because BDUs/ACUs and similar are cheap, common enough at thrift stores and highly durable. I make almost 6 figures and I have BDUs I use when I'm doing manual labor.

sneakernets 7y ago

>San Francisco has seen rental prices skyrocket Add deinstitutionalization on top of that, The Opioid epidemic, And that the majority of the population still think in bootstraps, You're going to see it only get worse. Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not.

lostgame 7y ago
>> Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not. I've never heard is phrase and I really like how you phrased it. There's no way to determine the apathy of humanity more than being homeless and seeing just how little people give a damn. We're trained to ignore these people, and then when we become one, we see just how awful we have been. There was actually a 1985 Twilight Zone episode about this...
- red_admiral 7y ago
  > I've never heard is phrase Based off Genesis 4:9.
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  It is a biblical quote. Cain kills his brother. Then God asks where his brother is, and Cain says idk, he’s not my problem.
bsder 7y ago
> Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not. However, you need to be careful not to apply that with too heavy a hand. "When do you take someone's freedom of choice away?" should always be a heavy decision.

quxbar 7y ago

My brother lives in Humboldt county, I thought he was exaggerating the situation there but now I can't help but believe him. The stats are staggering - Humboldt's homeless population is up 157% in two years!

sgt 7y ago

I initially read this as "Homeless population jumps by thousands across the San Francisco Bay".

roseway4 7y ago

It would be great to understand why the Bay Area is seeing this increase. I haven't seen any studies that attempt to quantify this viz. the effects of local cost of housing increases vs arrivals from elsewhere vs mental health system failures vs ? It strikes me that understanding the root cause-through interviews etc-would be an important input to a policy response.

shawndrost 7y ago
SF does a homeless census every 2 years. It answers many of the questions you might have. Eg in the 2017 census: * 69% were from SF and 21% from elsewhere in CA (10% out of state) * 39% reported psychiatric or emotional conditions http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in-Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Poin...
sfkdjf9j3j 7y ago
Where have you looked? I followed the citations on the wikipedia page about homelessness in the Bay Area and found this in about 30 seconds: https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2017-10-23/homelessness-bay-area https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2017-10-2...
deathanatos 7y ago
> vs arrivals from elsewhere This particular attribute (what was the person's place of residence at time of homelessness) is answered by the study. (Called the PIT Count or Point-In-Time count). As the article notes, the study that the article is referencing is not released yet, so we can't see the stats for this particular iteration of the study. However, in the previous study[1] (2017, these are done every two years), 69% of respondents were from SF, and another 21% from some other county in CA. [1] The results of previous studies: http://hsh.sfgov.org/research-reports/san-francisco-homeless-point-in-time-count-reports/ http://hsh.sfgov.org/research-reports/san-francisco-homeless... ; I presume the new one will be posted there once it is released. The article says that will be in July

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

I can't help but notice that all the people saying they have similiar symptoms in non-CA cities are mentioning cities that are popular places for people moving out of CA to go to and cities where there is a lot of complaining about the newcomers enacting the kind of public policy that gave CA it's problem. I know this is just correlation and doesn't mean anything by itself but I can't help but notice it.

misiti3780 7y ago

Does anyone know where the data came from that made this plot ? https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xdae/more-people-pooping-in-san-francisco-than-ever-all-time-high-vgtrn https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xdae/more-people-poopin... I could not it in the pages or article ?

bradlys 7y ago

https://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-breed-announces-new-homelessness-prevention-funding-city-releases-initial-homelessness https://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-breed-announces-new-homele... > The increase in unsheltered people was driven largely by people living in vehicles, accounting for 68% of the increase in unsheltered people. Seems people are using vehicles more and that looks to be the largest contributor. Me and my SO have considered such an idea because we've been open to the idea of living in tiny houses, etc. (We live in a 400sqft in-law unit now) We also know people who have lived out of them. Quite happily btw. Things like this don't really give you an idea if it's forced or willing homelessness. Sure, maybe everyone would love a $3m home in Palo Alto (also known as "a home" in the rest of the country) but they're willing to suffer a bit to save some serious $$$ like we all do in various ways. Anyway - would like more insight and look forward to the full report coming out whenever it does.

roguecoder 7y ago
There's a continuum of "forced" versus "willing": raising the cost of rent beyond what someone can comfortably afford, but maybe they could manage if they didn't buy anything else and ate only beans and rice is only slightly less coercive than raising the rent beyond what they can afford at all.

the_economist 7y ago

San Francisco gives homeless people $520/month in cash. Unclear whether other Bay Area cities do the same. This is quite the incentive for homeless from around the state to move here, though. Whether or not it causes people to move here, it certainly funds much of the drug-fueled insanity we see on the streets. This program gives out around $25 mil/year: https://www.sfhsa.org/services/jobs-money/county-adult-assistance-programs-caap https://www.sfhsa.org/services/jobs-money/county-adult-assis... Most of the money is given out in the Tenderloin: https://www.sfhsa.org/file/7161/download?token=ywGXXXRl https://www.sfhsa.org/file/7161/download?token=ywGXXXRl More info: https://www.sfhsa.org/about/reports-publications/human-services-reports https://www.sfhsa.org/about/reports-publications/human-servi...

shawndrost 7y ago
The phenomenon you're talking about wouldn't explain much of the problem, given that most homeless people lived here before they were homeless. In the 2017 census, 69% of SF homeless were from SF, and 21% were from elsewhere in CA. 10% out of state.
- geebee 7y ago
  Got a link to the methodology? I'd be interested in knowing what timeframe they use for "lived here". 3 years, 5 years? Also, how long were they housed, and what kind of housing was it (public assistance, private room rental).
- sologoub 7y ago
  Are these self-reported numbers or from some sort of verifiable source? It’s plausible to consider that people being asked would be reluctant to say they are not from the locality for fear of being told to leave and “go back to where you came from”. While resources are limited, if this cash program is shown to make improvements, then it should be considered to be scaled out to other areas, not contracted for fear of additional migration.
  - chrisdhoover 7y ago

mesozoic 7y ago

We've solve the mystery of where the poop is coming from!

dang 7y ago
Please don't do this here.
- sbarker 7y ago
  You should be telling that to the homeless :/

itsaidpens 7y ago

Someone please smash together a chart of Tesla vehicle sales and homelessness rates in California. I think it would be very interesting.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

homeless_sad 7y ago

We can't really reckon with our homeless problem without reckoning with the way we treat the severely mentally ill. At this point, we don't treat them. Many of the homeless, and a majority of the chronically homeless, are people who are severely mentally ill. We used to have a state psychiatric hospital system. That system has been destroyed. Now, the severely mentally ill, when they get any treatment at all, are primarily treated in American prisons. https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-mental-health-boarding.html https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-m... https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s... https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/deinstitutionalization-people-mental-illness-causes-and-consequences/2013-10 https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/deinstitutional... https://www.amazon.com/American-Psychosis-Government-Destroyed-Treatment/dp/0199988714 https://www.amazon.com/American-Psychosis-Government-Destroy... "Many times individuals who really do require intensive psychiatric care find themselves homeless or more and more in prison," Sisti says. "Much of our mental health care now for individuals with serious mental illness has been shifted to correctional facilities." The percentage of people with serious mental illness in prisons rose from .7 percent in 1880 to 21 percent in 2005, according to the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights. A consensus of other experts estimates that the total number of state beds required for acute and long-term care would be more like 50 beds per 100,000 in the population [5]. At the peak of availability in 1955, there were 340 beds per 100,000 [5]. In 2010, the number of state beds was 43,318 or 14.1 beds per 100,000 [7].

crimsonalucard 7y ago

The solution to this homeless problem is trivial. There should be a law that makes it a requirement to have paid residency, confirmed accommodation, or a job to be in the city for more than a week. If not and you're caught there is a one way bus that you will have to get onto that ships you to a jail where they have to reside for a month. This "jail" is actually a homeless zone outside of the city where homeless people are shipped too and given free food and shelter. They are also provided access to education and care and a dedicated team with the objective of data driven rehabilitation. It's really this simple. The reason why we aren't doing it is because the problem is made complex by all kinds of irrelevant issues. Do I want to live in a city thats covered in feces? or do I want to live in a city where I have all the freedom and right to use the city sidewalks as a public toilet? Of course I prefer to have the right to take a dump where-ever I want and whenever I want. I have rights, this is America. In singapore if you sell heroin. You're dead. Simple.

bgorman 7y ago
Unlike Singapore, most cities in the world do not have their own border control. Lots of people commute in and out of San Francisco for work. Are you going to check if every vehicle entering the city is carrying a "legal" person?
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  The police would use this new law selectively. Meaning only on people who are obviously homeless. The point of the law is not 100% technical enforcement to the written word fairly on all people. The spirit of the law is to make the city live-able and not covered with feces and people shooting themselves up with needles on market.
lazyasciiart 7y ago
Absolutely nothing about what you just wrote would be "simple", not even explaining why I think it's a moral failure to seriously suggest it.
- 7y ago

geebee 7y ago

There is an ambiguity in the term "homeless" that can obscure discussion. I believe the term "homeless" was adopted in part to avoid more pejorative terms like "bum" or "vagrant". However, there may be some differences. You may not notice the majority of the homeless. They may very well hang out in libraries, coffee shops, and park benches, but these folks may be people with no mental illness or addiction, victims of the economy, or a restrictive housing supply. Alternatively, they may be people with personal health (including mental health) challenges that do severely impede their ability to work (or just cope with the world), but they have no immediate outward appearance of distress or addiction, and they don't pass out on city streets or, worse, intimidate, berate, threaten, stalk, harass, or assault fellow citizens. The term homeless has come in the vernacular to refer to the people I referenced in that last sentence as the "homeless", almost to the point where the word is detached from home and less. It means a severely addicted and mentally ill person who lives on the street. I don't know which one is increasing. I've lived in SF my whole life (SF, not the Bay Area, I took urban muni routes home from middle school), I'm in my late 40s, and I've never seen it so bad. I've always been a big public transportation taker, but I'm less enthusiastic about it now. What were occasional bad moments in the 80s and 90s have become an every other ride experience in some locations, and the lows are starting to get really, really low.

harlanji 7y ago
I'm one of the homeless you speak of, since last year. I came to the BA in 2011 after graduating Uni and worked as a programmer, to SF in 2014, and then had my reputation destroyed in 2016 by a false assault allegation by my old boss to HR--limiting job prospects via black list. I've an uncommon name and rare specialization. I think of "destitute" as the keyword, at various layers of Maslow's hierarchy. The ones you talk about are destitute socially but probably have food and temporary sleeping provisions, seldom rising above the 3rd layer into esteem tho. I have a bit of my old network supporting me, and I sometimes think I'll get off the street. I work as a waiter 30hr/wk in Mountain View at minimum wage, and don't make enough money yet to have housing prospects. Answering interview questions without needs being met sends overwhelmingly negative signals. I have all my professional stuff like books and computers in a storage unit, but rarely have a place to use it. I don't apply for high paying jobs in my field because I know that I lack the basic necessities to make a good impression. I've tried and do entertain opportunities that fall on my lap, but I always make a blunder due to not having the resources I need and they fade away. It feels safter to not try, given domino effects of interviewing poorly (permanent record, data). "Learned helplessness" for sure. I was hired to my current job on the spot, thankfully, and almost didn't get it due to logistic issues that I'm intentionally vague about. Personally I was not a supporter of Prop C and take no government assistance, instead fasting and meditating when I can't earn money and nobody in my network can help me out. We'll get through this. I'm staying strong.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

itry2develop 7y ago

Sanctuary city....

hhanesand 7y ago

Wouldn’t more spending homelessness at the state level incentivize homeless migration into the state, therefore possibly counteracting the effects of the spending? To me it seems like this is something which needs to be addressed at the federal level. Anyone have any research they can point to about this possible issue?

throw2016 7y ago

There is a homeless epidemic. Anyone who lives in the US can see it. But these issues are being closely tracked and discussed widely in political problem solving contexts, and HN is more of an observer reacting to the most extreme examples that make news usually with very little empathy focused mainly on the consequences to others, so the discussions are weirdly 'disconnected' and stuck in 'first principles'. Look at every single homeless discussion on HN over the last 5 years, its homeless people are bums, weirdoes who enjoy living in poverty without homes or people who are 'choosing this lifestyle' based on anecdotal evidence mostly focused on how they negatively impact the commentators life, untill the next article. Is having this same discussion over and over again helpful to anyone? The software community used to be associated with freedom, liberty and not being jerks, more connected to the human experience and with empathy. Now they build surveillance systems, are increasingly authoritarian in their outlook and are snarky about others suffering. There may be a serious problem of homelessness but it seems this absence of empathy is a much more serious problem for any society leaving it unequal to any social challenge.

closeparen 7y ago
It’s easy to preach empathy from a leafy suburb. I certainly used to. When you are actually inhaling piss, stepping over feces, and weaving through tents every time you go outside, the situation is a bit different. Much of HN lives in urban SF and moves around the city without a glass and steel cage. In that light, homelessness moves down Maslow’s hierarchy from a moral reasoning problem to a visceral disgust/fear, a threat to the safety and dignity of home. It’s one thing to be “against” mass incarceration and the criminalization of the poor, another to be okay with zero police response to your own assault/burglary. It’s one thing to be pro legalization, another to be okay with street dealers on your block. One thing to believe homeless people have a right to go where they please, another to stay committed when they decide to camp at your doorstep. Maybe I am the only fake/uncommitted liberal but I get the sense that this kind of right-shifting after a few years in SF is not uncommon.
- the_snooze 7y ago
  Indeed, I feel the Bay Area has made me more hard-hearted and conservative when it comes to the homeless over years. I'm happy to donate to local charities that try to give them the help they need, but it's best for me to keep my distance from street folks day-to-day, as they produce in me a deep instinctive threat response with their smell and unpredictable behavior.

nradov 7y ago

People tend to focus on San Francisco because the homeless sleeping on sidewalks are so visible, but it seems like the situation in San Jose is getting worse at an accelerating rate. The problem just isn't as visible there because the city is less dense and more spread out. Take a ride along the Guadalupe River Trail, Los Gatos Creek Trail, and the Coyote Creek Trail, and look carefully under the bushes: you'll be shocked at the number of homeless encampments. I don't have population numbers but subjectively it's noticeably worse than it was 5 years ago. It's a terrible situation for people, but at the same time after helping out with a few river cleanup efforts my sympathy is wearing thin (I do continue donating to several local charities serving the homeless population). Even when there are public garbage cans within walking distance many of the homeless population have been throwing their garbage on the ecologically sensitive river banks — including drug paraphernalia and other hazardous waste. Our rivers are turning into landfills and the city crews can't keep up. I was in Reno a few weeks ago and the banks of the Truckee River are one solid homeless encampment for several miles. They've completely taken over several public parks. Locals complained that they no longer felt safe going there.

downrightmike 7y ago
The situation has been around for a long time, what we're seeing is a bum-rush. Groups of people just come in and take over areas: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bum-rush https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bum-rush

purplezooey 7y ago

Wow double digit growth. Meanwhile AB50 is stalled. This is probably the worst part of the BA which is otherwise wonderful. Its utter helplessness in confronting it's housing problem.

jondubois 7y ago

I don't understand how a country can maintain a coherent system of law when there are so many homeless people and almost 1% of the entire population is in prison.

downrightmike 7y ago
The percent is only so high because JFK closed the mental wards and expected communities to pick up the difference.
- downrightmike 7y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/opinion/out-of-the-asylum-into-the-cell.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/opinion/out-of-the-asylum...

lamarpye 7y ago

I think we should bring back involuntary confinement. I have read on the history of this issue and no doubt a lot ugly stuff happened in the past. I think the solutions to these problems went too far in creating barriers to involuntary confinement. I have to believe that medicine and treatment in 2019 would be a lot as opposed to the 1950's. We should get the mentally ill off the streets, on the proper meds and in stable housing. This should help the people that can respond to treatment a chance to get better and return to society. The people that don't respond to treatment will have to be confined for the rest of their lives.

weeksie 7y ago

Build. More. Shelters. I live in New York and we have more homeless people per capita than San Francisco but we don't have the same kinds of problems. The very simple solution is to build shelters. The rate of homeless that are sheltered in NY is WAY higher and as a result we don't have the same kind of problems. In SF 492/100k residents sleep on the street. In NYC the rate is 45/100k. Source: https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-homelessness-and-it-basically-succeeded-ab27f3ec5a65 https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-h... (among others, these aren't controversial numbers)

demosthenes14 7y ago
Seems like this could be heavily correlated with weather.
- weeksie 7y ago
  Weather has something to do with the amount of shelters? I'm not sure I follow.
  - demosthenes14 7y ago
    There are (legitimate) drawbacks to living/sleeping in a shelter and with moderate weather on the west coast many homeless choose to sleep outside. Shelters here already have empty beds so building more isn’t going to solve anything - there just isn’t a tangible benefit over sleeping in a private tent outside.
    - weeksie 7y ago
      That's one hypothesis I suppose.
heimatau 7y ago
Weather is a driving factor that one shouldn't overlook. SV has a massive housing problem. Let's not defer the issue. It's a substantial issue.

diogenescynic 7y ago

It's honestly an epidemic and people have to admit it's mostly due to meth and heroin--it's not all due to housing prices. Yes, housing affordability is absolutely a real issue and there are people being displaced and actually are homeless from it--but that's not the real source if this crisis. We literally have THOUSANDS of mentally ill and criminally insane drug addicts all over the city in a constant state of anarchy. For example, I live in a decent area (near Noe Valley) and constantly have homeless people in our carport area of our building. The landlord refuses to install a security camera, and actually removed the dummy security cameras which is now making the problem worse. I have had my car broken into like 8 times in 5 years. Every single night there are 2-3 of the same tweakers and addicts down there doing drugs, screaming all night, leaving needles and feces all over. I call the cops 2-3x a day and the cops show up probably 1/50 times but they never actually do anything but shoo them along and then they come back in 2 hours. I've left messages for the local SFPD Sergeant, I've gone to community meetings and asking for more patrols, I've written my supervisor. NOTHING has changed. This is a miserable way to live when you already have a stressful job and have hard work. I truly do not want to live my life in a city like this. The cops do nothing, DAs don't prosecute, juries don't convict, and judges don't sentence--yet housing prices are $2.5M for the privilege of having a tweaker camp outside your house. I just don't get it. This video is of Seattle, but it's basically the same situation in SF but 25% worse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw

Proven 7y ago

When you pay for something, you get more of it. Socialists have turned the place is a shit magnet.

heimatau 7y ago

From my personal experience from helping actual homeless people and being one (with my family). I find the homeless population is struggling. The numbers are GROWING...all around the greater bay area (up to Sacramento, where I currently reside). The majority aren't suffering from mental health problems, which to me, is terrifying for our society. If the US has a 'growing economy' what will happen when we start to see this recession/depression that many are saying is eminent? I can't help but agree with the world leaders that the entire global economy is very fragile. We can build our way out of this but I'm skeptical that California could build it's way out due to the private interests of powerful people (even single/one home-owners).

shereadsthenews 7y ago
It’s not unthinkable that a recession could indirectly help by lowering construction costs.
- heimatau 7y ago
  > It's not unthinkable It's highly unlikely. SV is an economic engine for Cali and the USA. Unions and bureaucracies (local govt red tape) are the driving forces to high construction costs.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  No, this wont happen. A recession will push the ones on the bottom to unemployement which spirals them into poverty. Recessions are most cruel to the poor.