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Los Angeles – scenes from the collapse of a city that’s lost control
- pgnas 7y agoThe polticians have destroyed California. This is your case study for social programs, socialism, unlimited immigration, social justice policy and now they are testing UBI? California should be our wake up call to change, instead, we double down on the same policies.
- nutcracker46 7y agoSan Francisco and Los Angeles are the future of California. California is the future of the United States.
- luckydata 7y agoCool story bro. Except that the real reason for most problems California is facing are of Republican making, it's called Proposition 13 and it's been an unmitigated disaster on the state.
- omosubi 7y agoWhat does reasonable policy regarding homelessness look like? I'm not trying to be snide, I'm genuinely curious. I don't live in California btw.
- ericmcer 7y agoStep one would be acknowledging that a proactive solution is ok. the current policy seems to be almost 100% reactive damage control, i.e. providing food, shelter, medical care to the homeless and attempting to clean up after them without displacing them at all.
- mjevans 7y agoHopefully a moderator pulls (your post) out from under the parent and makes it a top-level reply to the article. To start with, any policy affecting a population that can move and be moved has to operate at the scope that those people are allowed to move. That means the taxing and funding distribution HAS to be on a national level. It probably also means that per-recipient funding needs to be proportional to the cost of living in a given area. (which SHOULD also be calculated realistically.) This would at least stop "poor" communities from dumping a national problem on bigger cities that try to be more kind. It would also encourage longer term solutions over broken window / temporary bandaids. It would also need to be systemic. There are a number of failures in society contributing to the issue. * Single payer healthcare - everyone's covered. * Actual mental healthcare (not just asylums) * Everyone is a worthy being * New New Deal - A job for all, with meaning and value. * Identify and correct market failures. One such market failure is 'housing', where there are jobs, where there is opportunity to build a new and better life, that's where people want to live. However rent-seeking is destroying the ability to build a life, a community, an actual home, family, or future.
- varelse 7y agoSo I agree in principle, but I also think our culture fails on imposing ownership of one's choices in nearly equal and opposite proportion to how much Asian countries overemphasize it. And this came to a boiling point when a Chinese friend insisted the homeless situation was better in China. So I looked up the numbers. Adjusted for population, it isn't, and in fact it's slightly worse. That was a surprise to me. But it's less visible there because it's considered shameful. I personally think everyone deserves a fully belly and a roof over their head. I think the rest is up to them. And I could go with medicare for all as an improvement over the current inequitable situation, but I think we could do better than that, yet I doubt we ever will. And that saddens me.
- mjevans 7y agoIn what way do you think choices reflect on any of the points I was trying to make as changes in social support? I can only see two that are well within the range that might be covered if all the other safety nets fixed individuals that had become injured or otherwise unable to work (this is assuming we have MUCH better tech, like Star Trek / Orville level tech, to actually repair all types of damage). Housing: This is more a choice made by the irrational market, not so much by individual humans. Yes there is less expensive housing, but it's usually not located near jobs or has a high externality / transaction cost of somekind. Referencing the source article, Japan does have a fantastically run transit system that is also reasonably priced. That does extend the range of available locations. Jobs themselves; do you think that job placement systems are not a better idea instead of being "hired" to "look" for a job (which should not be ANYONE's primary life skill!)? If an aptitude test shows that there is untrained area that skill could be acquired in, getting that skill might be the assigned 'job' instead. (retraining/education)
- varelse 7y agoPoints 3 and 4 personally. Feel free to disagree, but some of the homeless are bums IMO (note IMO). I'm willing to help them if it helps everyone else because it's cheaper than any other alternative, but I'm not going to pretend I don't know what they're up to. If I knew a way to reliably isolate the cheaters, I would. I don't, and I'd rather see everyone housed and fed than stay up at night worrying about freeloaders in this age of plenty if only we didn't consistently squander our surplus. I don't tell people what to do with their lives and the thought of a well-intentioned bureaucracy doing so doesn't thrill me (perhaps from being placed in all the slow classes against my will as a child I am biased here). I like the free market for jobs. Empower people to make their own choices. Give them free community college even. But let them make their own minds up. California could turn a lot of its secondary cities into job markets as well as suburbs for the major cities if they could build cost-effective mass transit. It seems incapable of getting that job done though so it seems like the only alternative is remote work, and without a cultural shift, that is piecemeal solution. Also look at what happened to SB50, shot down by effectively friendly fire from NIMBYs, not the conservatives. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/california-sb50-housing-zoning-wiener/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/california-sb50...
- thebradbain 7y agoI genuinely don’t see the homelessness problem as being caused by policy, but by lack of it: California has perhaps one of the largest safety nets of any state in the US, and it is saving a lot of people who have fallen on their luck — by design. The problem is that California, at all levels of government, refuses to fix its core issue: Housing, and the cost of living at a level to hold onto that house, is Too High. Ever notice how California is willing to try anything and everything to fix its homelessness crisis except intervene in the housing market in a meaningful way? In my view, California’s legislation in its current state is a band-aid, not a cure. But a band-aid is (temporarily) better than nothing. Ultimately the free market (* I’ll concede an argument may be made that housing is not a truly free market, since municipalities have created strict zoning legislation to favor homeowners, but my point still stands), directly and indirectly, has failed everyone looking to build a permanent home and life in California (unless your definition of “success” includes a large population unable to afford a home where they live). I’d imagine that without these “social programs, socialism, ... social justice policy” there would be many more homeless people than there currently are.
- masonic 7y agoHousing, and the cost of living at a level to hold onto that house, is Too High But 99.7% of CA has less expensive housing (mostly far less expensive) housing than the 17 square miles that are SF, so using SF as your metric for statewide policy is silly. If you aren't working or going to school in SF, you don't need to be housed there specifically at public expense. Housing and care dollars go much farther elsewhere.
- topkai22 7y agoSF and San Jose metros are crazy, but the entire state has a median housing price well above the national average. In fact, it is 2nd only to Hawaii, at >$500k. It is absolutely fair to say that there is a systemic housing affordability issue in California.
- varelse 7y agoI drove cross country a few years ago. When I hit Barstow, I was struck by how many seemingly homeless were being sheltered in its motels and I spoke with a few of them. They were sent there from Los Angeles. There was trash everywhere as well. California is weird. Out of sight, out of mind I guess.
- nutcracker46 7y agoThere's an ongoing campaign against governance by Democrats which cites homelessness and failure to keep clean streets. Los Angeles has to own its failure and follow the lesson of New York in the 1990s. If you allow your city to be a shitbox, crime and chaos follow.
- davidu 7y agoJust s/Los Angeles/San Francisco/g and it's the same story.
- majormajor 7y agoThere's this fun thing now where American conservatives - popping up in the comments here - want to paint the dangers of unbounded capitalistic success - more high paying jobs! more high paying workers imported! more increases in rent and property values! more low paying workers displaced! more people with nowhere to go but the street! - as outcomes caused by left-leaning policies. Cause, you know, less regulation and more indulgence of those of us who are pushing out existing residents and effecting negative change is obviously the answer. Obviously California isn't ruined for the economically successful class, or the prices would stop going up as the people with the means wouldn't pay them. So if you want these side effects fixed, don't look at what that group of people - myself included - would benefit directly from! Housing is a policy where you can see this agenda hit bipartisanship. The solutions pushed the most - top-of-market new development - favor the wealthy, higher-income, and incoming-new-residents the most, and help the already-there, low-income, at-risk-of-being-kicked-to-the-street the least. This is acknowledged, but handwaved as "eventually top of market housing becomes cheaper housing," ignoring the lack of much help from that today. Rent control? Fuck that, that will make it harder for new people to move in to help fuel the hypergrowth and growing top-of-the-strata class!
- dang 7y agoPlease don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar or generic tangents. Such discussions get more repetitive as they get more intense, leading to the worst combination for discussion here: indignation plus predictability. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.is/xL5FA http://archive.is/xL5FA
- alexnewman 7y agoI talk with the homeless in my neighborhood all the time. I've not met one over 30 who didn't have severe mental or physical illness. Those who call it a housing problem are confusing you. This is a public health crisis in the states where the authorities have no authority to help those who can't help themselves
- bsanr2 7y agoThere are several studies and pilot programs that show that reliable housing is a key component in recovery of homeless people with mental health issues. Conveniently, providing it also solves the homeless problem.
- varelse 7y agoAgreed, and it comes back when you stop providing it... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-homelessness-housing/once-a-national-model-utah-struggles-with-homelessness-idUSKCN1P41EQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-homelessness-housing/...
- WalterSear 7y agoYes, but the housing problem still isn't the homeless problem. Affordable housing won't prevent or cure mental illness, housing support is just a requirement for recovery. They aren't directly related. There's no way to fix housing sufficiently to make it affordable to someone dealing with mental illness and living on the street: that problem has to be addressed separately, and directly.
- alexnewman 7y agoIn San Francisco state supported affordable houses are around 500k. This is a mansion in most states. Anyone who thinks that the people on the street are helped by this program are confused
- alexnewman 7y agoInteresting. Link?
- panarky 7y agoThe natural reflex in the US is to scream "Democrat" or "Republican" as the supposed root cause of every problem. This is just rooting for your favorite team and it doesn't illuminate what policies work or don't work. A better way would be to survey the cities of the world, measure crime and homelessness, and systematically identify the policies that consistently deliver better results.
- dundercoder 7y agoI might be dreaming but I would love for people to be more concerned about what’s right, not who’s right.
- CryptoPunk 7y agoI wish the problematic policies weren't perpetuated almost exclusively by one party, because then I wouldn't sound so partisan. Opposition to laws and policies that set boundaries on the behaviour of drug addicts, like anti-vagrancy laws and forced rebab, comes only from Democrats. Empowering public sector unions that make public servants less accountable and government less effective is promoted primarily by Democrats. The creation of clusters of social housing that creates crime-ridden neighbourhoods that perpetuate anti-social and lawless behaviour, as well as government dependency, is done exclusively by registered Democrats. Look at major cities with severe trash/homelessness problems, and how many of them are run by Democrats. In the short-term, a lot of Democrat policies help the people they set out to help. In the long run, they create government dependency and ghettos, and that harms far more people. If you want law and order, Republicans are the party to vote for. The longer this reality is denied for political correctness reasons, the stronger the populist right-wing political backlash will be when it comes.
- rossdavidh 7y agoSo, in this country, the Democrats tend to do better (electorally) in the big cities, and the Republicans find more success in small towns or rural. So, when a big city is run by Republicans, there is always a very real and ever-present chance of Democrats taking it away at the next election. On the other hand, there are many big cities where Democrats think they will never lose to Republicans, and in some cases (e.g. Chicago) they're right. So there is less of a check on their power. So, the better comparison to Democrats running a big city, would be Republicans running a state where Democrats haven't won state-wide elections in a long time.
- posbehsf 7y agoI don’t know which city is worse, SF or LA, but at least in recent weeks/months SF OK’d construction of a new shelter along the Embarcadero despite money and outcries from nearby condo owners. I still don’t know what the solution is to address the mental health aspect of homelessness. It’s disturbing seeing disheveled people scream at the top of their lungs in the middle of FiDi after work and no one batting an eye.
- hackermailman 7y agoArticle describes many more problems than the homeless, such as rampant illegal street dumping done by businesses and residents, unchecked rodent population and used needles littered everywhere which are definitely things a city mayor could do something about.
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- dundercoder 7y agoIs there a state in the US that is more diverse (geography, economy, etc)? I wonder how much that complicates things. You can drive north for nearly 8 hours from San Diego and still be in the state. You’ll go from inner city to cow pastures and onion fields and back again.
- ReginaldButter 7y ago"The bags, some of which were split open, contained spoiled fruit and trimmings from pineapples and mangoes. That part of town has a lot of produce wholesalers, and it’s no secret that some of the illegal dumping is done by local merchants and customers." The City of Los Angeles doesn't have a composting program?
- CydeWeys 7y agoIllegal dumping happens because enforcement is low and it's easier than the alternatives. It doesn't require alternatives not existing. And in this case, the reason you'd illegally dump is because it's free, whereas commercial trash collection and composting services aren't (which is generally true in most cities).
- ohples 7y agoWhat's with all the dumping? Is it hard to get rid of trash in LA, or have people just stopped caring?
- sjg007 7y agoIt's not hard but can be expensive. Since illegal dumping is not being enforced, people are getting away with it to save money.
- nutcracker46 7y agoSteve Lopez wrote a similar column about the trash dumping problem a few day prior to the one discussed here. I'll give him credit for actually looking at what is going on instead of being a mindless Trumpist hack. It seems that the city granted monopolies to waste collection-recycling companies, who tripled fees charged to downtown businesses. Instead of paying the high prices for waste disposal, the business dump trash in places no one cares to defend: skid row and the like. Solutions: clean up, monitor, enforce trash dosposal regulations. Also, homelessness, with its complex causes, needs to be dealt with. It is not as simple as calling in cops and bulldozers to sweep away shanties, as it is an economic and social problem mostly treated as a crime problem.