> When you send your (surplus) taxes to the city or state (or feds), you don’t get to earmark it. I don't know where you're from, but in California, we regular

> When you send your (surplus) taxes to the city or state (or feds), you don’t get to earmark it. I don't know where you're from, but in California, we regularly vote on ballot propositions to levy taxes earmarked for specific purposes. For example, in the most recent election cycle, Proposition C was on the SF ballot, which raised $300 million in taxes to address homelessness. Due to our fondness for direct democracy, any interested citizen can write a ballot proposition for everyone else to vote on. So yes, you certainly can earmark taxes. You can push for propositions to reduce homelessness, and you can vote for them, and encourage your friends and family and coworkers to vote for them. > For example the city of SF spends inordinate amounts on homelessness but the problem only gets bigger. That's false. SF spends only about $3.8k/year per homeless person: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Businesses-must-contribute-more-to-city-s-13178743.php# https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Bu... At any rate, even if SF were spending an inordinate amount trying to house the homeless, it would only make sense to, given how damn high the rents are. > Don’t believe me? Propose homelessness solutions that cut out these orgs and see how well your ideas are received. Yeah, I don't believe you, because the people who get into working with the homeless don't do it because they like money. I'm a software developer. I certainly don't do it because I need the money. It's not even sexy work, as far as non-profits go. Assuming that the same incentives that work on the military apply to do-gooders doing thankless work is just lazy. There is also the small problem wherein if the org I volunteer with on occasion, Food not Bombs, were cut out, homeless people would literally starve. So yes, I _would_ be very opposed to that, unless the city took it upon itself to feed the homeless instead. The biggest obstacle to solving homelessness, as with many other problems, is not the people who care about the homeless, but the people who don't: the NIMBYs. The SF NIMBYs recently put $250k and a lawsuit into the effort to defeat the Embarcadero Navigation Center, which has only 200 beds. Thankfully, it has failed, but there are only seven centers, and a homeless population of 7-8k, so it's not going to make much of a dent. When every attempt to build a good homeless shelter meets this much opposition, it's just deeply wrongheaded, and, dare I say, callous, to blame the people helping a population who so many hate.