8 ms·

Honestly, it's getting so bad in the Bay Area, I'm having trouble seeing how this will end. Everywhere I walk in the East Bay (mostly Oakland), there are tents

by e40 7y ago

Honestly, it's getting so bad in the Bay Area, I'm having trouble seeing how this will end. Everywhere I walk in the East Bay (mostly Oakland), there are tents.

geogra4 7y ago
There needs to be some kind of basic housing guarantee. A society cannot survive like this for long.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  I am in favor of the notion but it seems like revoking Prop 13 and rezoning the area over the objections of NIMBYists is just as likely to occur and probably prudent whatever else happens.
  - scotty79 7y ago
    Nimby should be fixed in the law. Value of your own property should be just your own concern. If whatever happens around it doesn't emit toxic substances or horrible smells or noises and doesn't lower insolation of your property below some minimum levels then you should have no saying in what happens not on your land.
    - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
      Isn't that basically how it works in Houston?
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
We stopped sending people to the RSA conference a couple of years ago because no one wanted to go to San Francisco anymore.
dry_soup 7y ago
It's truly amazing that an incredibly rich city full of companies trying to "change the world" chooses over and over again to not solve its homelessness problem. It requires no new technological developments, no moonshots, just an ounce of empathy and maybe some raised taxes. But that seems to be too hard.
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  Most homeless people don’t really want to address their root issues.
- mlyle 7y ago
  The amount of resources going towards the homeless are ridiculously large. The net result is that favorable weather and resource availability draws more people in from other places, and the problem is too large for any individual locality to solve. e.g. The City of San Francisco is spending over $300M/year directly on services towards easing homelessness. This does not count state expenditures focused in the area, private expenditures, expenditures by surrounding areas, and the wealth of indirect expenses. Versus a homeless population of 10,000, this is $30,000 per year per homeless person in the City of SF-- just direct expenses by City of SF. Clearly an overall change in approach is needed-- not just additional resources spent the same way.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    The key would be that all US cities/towns/villages take care of their homeless instead of busing them to California. I can see the financial incentive - a bus ticket is like, what, couple hundred tops across the country? while the police, healthcare and other resources in a single year can easily reach five to six figures - but morally it is absolutely disgusting behavior. Ideally federal agencies should take care of this and make sure that every US citizen in need is taken care of where he lives.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      At the very least we need to strictly regulate programs that bus homeless other places. Yes, there are circumstances where throwing someone on a bus to a locality where he has some family or other connections is the best move for all involved. But we need to make sure that is actually the case, not based on some tenuous connection and a desire to displace the costly individual somewhere else. This isn't enough, though. Even without explicit governmental support to move, homeless people know that there are localities where it's "better" to be homeless and will move themselves.
almost_usual 7y ago
I’ve volunteered at the encampments in West Oakland and it’s painfully sad to see. A lot of the homeless I met were 50+ years old and had lived in Oakland all their life. It was a stark contrast to the homeless in SF.
- scotty79 7y ago
  So solution is basically simple. Provide state sponsored flat monthly amount retirement money to all people over 50 and build a bunch of homes owned by the state and rent them exclusively to 50+ at the cost that can be comfortable covered out of retirement amount. It just needs money and that should be easy in richest large country on Earth.
plumednom 7y ago
Change your perspective if you want to help. Those aren't tents. Those are sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers with nowhere else to go, with drug and /or emotional problems. Those are soldiers who fought our oil wars and came home broken and abandoned. Those aren't "tents", they're you if you made the wrong choice or had the wrong thing happen to you.
- nine_k 7y ago
  Brothers? Sisters? Mothers? Sons? Do their siblings, children not want to help them out so much that they end up homeless? I bet most of the homeless have their normal social ties severed, and shame, guilt, hate and other such things keep them away from their former friends and relatives. Also, I bet the great majority of them don't have a job, or another occupation, and lives on handouts and petty crime. Overcoming this first is required to make these people feel like fathers, sisters, sons, etc again, and agree to come back into the society.
  - plumednom 7y ago
    > Brothers? Sisters? Mothers? Sons? Do their siblings, children not want to help them out so much that they end up homeless? Americans have this "rugged individualism" to our culture. I left my own home when I was still 15, most people at 17 or 18. I live in Istanbul, and the first thing I noticed was the lack of homeless people in this city of 15-20million (depending on with whom you are talking). This is because Turks have a much stronger family structure, and most people live with their parents until they're married at the very least. I'm from San Francisco and have known many of my friends to become homeless over the past 20 years through combinations of, as I stated before, substance abuse, trauma, and a lack of a strong family / social support structure. My closest friend is a homeless violinist hippy in San Francisco (who just returned after 4 years in Istanbul). He keeps tents in 6 or 7 spots around the bay, most of them with breathtaking views. He just likes being homeless. (Brilliant guy. Oliver. He plays mostly in Bart, the Mission, and North Beach. Say hi in any language, he knows it) I also know a lot of kids from my various music scenes who are homeless on purpose. The street punks, for example, find a stronger family structure drinking 40s on telegraph or the haight all day than they ever did in their own middle-class homes. (PS: Fuck the kids on haight. They're basically an aging street gang, I used to be in a band with one of them.)
tiredwired 7y ago
Someone is profiting selling tents and camping supplies to these people. The more homeless the more profit.
GycDH6mb 7y ago
You're not wrong, and maybe "hostile architecture" like this is cruel, but damn if I owned a business and I had homeless people setting up tents or loitering outside my door every night I'd probably find a way to stop it too. Spikes are a cheap and easy-to-deploy deterrent. In a similar vein, I volunteer with a pigeon and dove rescue organization, and it's no secret that businesses install spikes on eaves and ledges to deter birds too. Although it always makes me sad to see them, I can understand and appreciate why they do it.
- inetsee 7y ago
  > I volunteer with a pigeon and dove rescue organization So, you're more concerned about the welfare of birds than you are about people?
  - serf 7y ago
    choosing one problem over another doesn't say much to the person's priorities; perhaps they just thought they'd have more impact in that field. Furthermore, that attitude drives people away from philanthropic work by alienating them about what image their proposed good deed generates. Just do good, any way you find.
  - dang 7y ago
    That crosses into personal attack. Please don't. Please do follow the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

by e40 7y ago

Honestly, it's getting so bad in the Bay Area, I'm having trouble seeing how this will end. Everywhere I walk in the East Bay (mostly Oakland), there are tents.

geogra4 7y ago

There needs to be some kind of basic housing guarantee. A society cannot survive like this for long.

wavefunction 7y ago
I am in favor of the notion but it seems like revoking Prop 13 and rezoning the area over the objections of NIMBYists is just as likely to occur and probably prudent whatever else happens.
- scotty79 7y ago
  Nimby should be fixed in the law. Value of your own property should be just your own concern. If whatever happens around it doesn't emit toxic substances or horrible smells or noises and doesn't lower insolation of your property below some minimum levels then you should have no saying in what happens not on your land.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    Isn't that basically how it works in Houston?

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

We stopped sending people to the RSA conference a couple of years ago because no one wanted to go to San Francisco anymore.

dry_soup 7y ago

It's truly amazing that an incredibly rich city full of companies trying to "change the world" chooses over and over again to not solve its homelessness problem. It requires no new technological developments, no moonshots, just an ounce of empathy and maybe some raised taxes. But that seems to be too hard.

GhettoMaestro 7y ago
Most homeless people don’t really want to address their root issues.
mlyle 7y ago
The amount of resources going towards the homeless are ridiculously large. The net result is that favorable weather and resource availability draws more people in from other places, and the problem is too large for any individual locality to solve. e.g. The City of San Francisco is spending over $300M/year directly on services towards easing homelessness. This does not count state expenditures focused in the area, private expenditures, expenditures by surrounding areas, and the wealth of indirect expenses. Versus a homeless population of 10,000, this is $30,000 per year per homeless person in the City of SF-- just direct expenses by City of SF. Clearly an overall change in approach is needed-- not just additional resources spent the same way.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  The key would be that all US cities/towns/villages take care of their homeless instead of busing them to California. I can see the financial incentive - a bus ticket is like, what, couple hundred tops across the country? while the police, healthcare and other resources in a single year can easily reach five to six figures - but morally it is absolutely disgusting behavior. Ideally federal agencies should take care of this and make sure that every US citizen in need is taken care of where he lives.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    At the very least we need to strictly regulate programs that bus homeless other places. Yes, there are circumstances where throwing someone on a bus to a locality where he has some family or other connections is the best move for all involved. But we need to make sure that is actually the case, not based on some tenuous connection and a desire to displace the costly individual somewhere else. This isn't enough, though. Even without explicit governmental support to move, homeless people know that there are localities where it's "better" to be homeless and will move themselves.

almost_usual 7y ago

I’ve volunteered at the encampments in West Oakland and it’s painfully sad to see. A lot of the homeless I met were 50+ years old and had lived in Oakland all their life. It was a stark contrast to the homeless in SF.

scotty79 7y ago
So solution is basically simple. Provide state sponsored flat monthly amount retirement money to all people over 50 and build a bunch of homes owned by the state and rent them exclusively to 50+ at the cost that can be comfortable covered out of retirement amount. It just needs money and that should be easy in richest large country on Earth.

plumednom 7y ago

Change your perspective if you want to help. Those aren't tents. Those are sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers with nowhere else to go, with drug and /or emotional problems. Those are soldiers who fought our oil wars and came home broken and abandoned. Those aren't "tents", they're you if you made the wrong choice or had the wrong thing happen to you.

nine_k 7y ago
Brothers? Sisters? Mothers? Sons? Do their siblings, children not want to help them out so much that they end up homeless? I bet most of the homeless have their normal social ties severed, and shame, guilt, hate and other such things keep them away from their former friends and relatives. Also, I bet the great majority of them don't have a job, or another occupation, and lives on handouts and petty crime. Overcoming this first is required to make these people feel like fathers, sisters, sons, etc again, and agree to come back into the society.
- plumednom 7y ago
  > Brothers? Sisters? Mothers? Sons? Do their siblings, children not want to help them out so much that they end up homeless? Americans have this "rugged individualism" to our culture. I left my own home when I was still 15, most people at 17 or 18. I live in Istanbul, and the first thing I noticed was the lack of homeless people in this city of 15-20million (depending on with whom you are talking). This is because Turks have a much stronger family structure, and most people live with their parents until they're married at the very least. I'm from San Francisco and have known many of my friends to become homeless over the past 20 years through combinations of, as I stated before, substance abuse, trauma, and a lack of a strong family / social support structure. My closest friend is a homeless violinist hippy in San Francisco (who just returned after 4 years in Istanbul). He keeps tents in 6 or 7 spots around the bay, most of them with breathtaking views. He just likes being homeless. (Brilliant guy. Oliver. He plays mostly in Bart, the Mission, and North Beach. Say hi in any language, he knows it) I also know a lot of kids from my various music scenes who are homeless on purpose. The street punks, for example, find a stronger family structure drinking 40s on telegraph or the haight all day than they ever did in their own middle-class homes. (PS: Fuck the kids on haight. They're basically an aging street gang, I used to be in a band with one of them.)

tiredwired 7y ago

Someone is profiting selling tents and camping supplies to these people. The more homeless the more profit.

GycDH6mb 7y ago

You're not wrong, and maybe "hostile architecture" like this is cruel, but damn if I owned a business and I had homeless people setting up tents or loitering outside my door every night I'd probably find a way to stop it too. Spikes are a cheap and easy-to-deploy deterrent. In a similar vein, I volunteer with a pigeon and dove rescue organization, and it's no secret that businesses install spikes on eaves and ledges to deter birds too. Although it always makes me sad to see them, I can understand and appreciate why they do it.

inetsee 7y ago
> I volunteer with a pigeon and dove rescue organization So, you're more concerned about the welfare of birds than you are about people?
- serf 7y ago
  choosing one problem over another doesn't say much to the person's priorities; perhaps they just thought they'd have more impact in that field. Furthermore, that attitude drives people away from philanthropic work by alienating them about what image their proposed good deed generates. Just do good, any way you find.
- dang 7y ago
  That crosses into personal attack. Please don't. Please do follow the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.