5 ms·

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'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.
    - mschuster91 7y ago
      > At the very least we need to strictly regulate programs that bus homeless other places. That is close to impossible, I'm afraid. And even if federal regulation prohibits the executive branch from such programs, I guarantee that it will be replaced by some "church", neighborhood watch, political action group or whatever...
  - madengr 7y ago
    The homeless problem in CA is not the responsibility of the rest of the country. You want to live in a temperate climate, well so does everyone else, especially the homeless. The magical economy of CA ought to be able to fix the problem.
- yorwba 7y ago
  Wikipedia tells me there are some 500,000 homeless in all of the United States. At $30,000 per year per homeless person, that would amount to $15 billion for all homeless in the US. Certainly a lot of money, but doable for an individual locality like California if people really wanted to do it. (So much that they'd accept a 10% increase of all taxes to make it happen.) Of course spending the money more efficiently would be preferable, but additional resources spent the same way would also work.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    > that would amount to $15 billion for all homeless in the US We are already spending, as a nation, much more than this. We spend roughly $3B federally directly on homelessness (not including other programs aimed at poverty that provide assistance). California spends $1B. California localities spend $3B. New York City spends $3B alone. These are just governmental expenditures, aimed directly at homelessness, and ignore charitable efforts.
    - yorwba 7y ago
      Then I wonder how direct that spending really is. It doesn't seem to involve handing out money to homeless directly... Does it just end up in a general budget that's labeled "homeless", but actually gets used for all kinds of projects?
      - mlyle 7y ago
        A lot of it used to be direct cash assistance to the homeless. This did not work well. The trend has been towards providing services. One caveat with the analysis is that your census of homeless people does not count the people housed as a result of these programs. It also doesn't count the number of people that would have to be served that are not presently considered homeless.
ALittleLight 7y ago
What choice are they ignoring? These cities actually spend a lot on the homeless. The problem is that the better you make things for the homeless, the more you'll be an attractive place for homeless to come to.
pochamago 7y ago
This seems demonstrably untrue. If it were that easy it wouldn't be such a pervasive issue across every society. It is crazy to me to see SF of all places accused of being unwilling to raise taxes
- scotty79 7y ago
  What if you supplied homes directly to homeless?
  - mlyle 7y ago
    SF and state agencies directly house the homeless. http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ But not everyone is willing or able to conform to the rules required for such housing. Further, people migrate to SF and join the homeless population faster than people are housed.
    - danaris 7y ago
      What if you just...gave homes to the homeless, and stopped gatekeeping and moralizing?
      - mlyle 7y ago
        > > SF and state agencies directly house the homeless. http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ There's conditions required for any housing, including housing one owns. I do not think the requirements that SF allows its housing partners to impose are excessive (don't destroy the housing; don't deal drugs from the housing; don't continually create noise/waste/smells that adversely impact your neighbors). SF also requires that nuisance evictions be conducted with plenty of warning and efforts by landlords and caseworkers to cure.. e.g. > Nuisance evictions should include numerous incident reports, tenant complaints, prompt writeups and a “last ditch” tenant conference meeting with notes or a signed agreement. And said tenants are entitled to due process after these numerous writeups and conference meetings, and legal assistance.
voodooranger 7y ago
Raising taxes is not going to increase the supply of housing.
- mlyle 7y ago
  The supply of housing is an important problem (for cost of living, equitable conditions for the poor, etc), but it's not clear how directly related it is to homelessness. That is, if you lowered rents 50% through increased housing supply, it's not clear how many formerly homeless people will now be housed.
- anonymoushn 7y ago
  Repealing prop 13 would actually totally do that
  - joeblow9999 7y ago
    how do you figure that?
    - anonymoushn 7y ago
      one of the many reasons local governments don't approve housing is that tax revenues from housing rapidly decay to 0 while services for the additional residents cost significantly more than 0
      - joeblow9999 7y ago
        do you have any references for this? how does the tax revenue 'decay' to 0. Prop 13 doesn't reduce the tax over time but fixes it at a certain amount upon purchase (if the property is new) or transfer if it's sold. All new houses and transferred properties are taxed at the value they were purchased.
        anonymoushn 7y ago
        No, I have no citations for the claim that inflation is sometimes above 2% or for the claim that the inflation rate for government services (which includes the cost of buying local housing for government employees) is sometimes above 2%. If either of these were true, the tax collected on a given property would increase in nominal terms but decay toward 0 in real terms. Unrelatedly, Brisbane found that they could raise 9 times as much revenue and provide 0 times as much additional services to residents by approving hotels instead of housing. https://brianlui.dog/2018/08/01/housing-shortages/#_edn4 https://brianlui.dog/2018/08/01/housing-shortages/#_edn4
jacobolus 7y ago
Most of the homeless people in the Bay Area are folks who had housing there a few years before and then fell on hard times (e.g. had a medical emergency, lost a job, ...) and couldn’t afford to continue paying for housing. Fixing this requires bringing housing prices way down, which requires a ton of new housing built throughout the Bay Area. This is politically difficult because a substantial proportion of the people who live in suburbs full of single-family houses don’t want to have apartment buildings on the same street, and cities would rather have office buildings (which bring tax revenue but require few services) than housing (which brings less tax revenue and requires many services). It would also help to fix the US health insurance system.
- mlyle 7y ago
  > Most of the homeless people in the Bay Area are folks who had housing there a few years before and then fell on hard times (e.g. had a medical emergency, lost a job, ...) and couldn’t afford to continue paying for housing. These demographic numbers are often misleading. E.g. ~70% of people in San Francisco had some sort of housing in SF at some point before becoming homeless; but that number includes people who were housed through governmental programs or spent a short time on someone's couch, and a majority of this 70% had not been in San Francisco long term. > This is politically difficult because a substantial proportion of the people who live in suburbs full of single-family houses don’t want to have apartment buildings on the same street, and cities would rather have office buildings (which bring tax revenue but require few services) than housing It's especially difficult because when you look at true bedroom communities, they have very low sales tax revenues already, and property tax revenues are low in California, and the share given thereof to cities is small. Expecting these communities to absorb further high-service, low-tax burden is unrealistic.
- madengr 7y ago
  The solution always is to just build more houses. That’s fine, but with that comes sewer treatment plants, power plants, water treatment (not that CA has water anyway) and digging up the existing infrastructure to expand it, etc. All that has to be funded with bonds that will have shitty ratings since there is no tax base to pay them off. You can house all the homeless, and more will take their place on the streets.
nradov 7y ago
Individual cities in California aren't legally allowed to significantly raise taxes. Any major changes would have to be legislated at the state level.
cameronfraser 7y ago
The more money a city spends on homelessness, the more homeless people there are. If you were a homeless person, wouldn't you go to a city where there are more services for homeless? Panhandling for a bus ticket is no big thing for them.

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.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > At the very least we need to strictly regulate programs that bus homeless other places. That is close to impossible, I'm afraid. And even if federal regulation prohibits the executive branch from such programs, I guarantee that it will be replaced by some "church", neighborhood watch, political action group or whatever...
- madengr 7y ago
  The homeless problem in CA is not the responsibility of the rest of the country. You want to live in a temperate climate, well so does everyone else, especially the homeless. The magical economy of CA ought to be able to fix the problem.
yorwba 7y ago
Wikipedia tells me there are some 500,000 homeless in all of the United States. At $30,000 per year per homeless person, that would amount to $15 billion for all homeless in the US. Certainly a lot of money, but doable for an individual locality like California if people really wanted to do it. (So much that they'd accept a 10% increase of all taxes to make it happen.) Of course spending the money more efficiently would be preferable, but additional resources spent the same way would also work.
- mlyle 7y ago
  > that would amount to $15 billion for all homeless in the US We are already spending, as a nation, much more than this. We spend roughly $3B federally directly on homelessness (not including other programs aimed at poverty that provide assistance). California spends $1B. California localities spend $3B. New York City spends $3B alone. These are just governmental expenditures, aimed directly at homelessness, and ignore charitable efforts.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Then I wonder how direct that spending really is. It doesn't seem to involve handing out money to homeless directly... Does it just end up in a general budget that's labeled "homeless", but actually gets used for all kinds of projects?
    - mlyle 7y ago
      A lot of it used to be direct cash assistance to the homeless. This did not work well. The trend has been towards providing services. One caveat with the analysis is that your census of homeless people does not count the people housed as a result of these programs. It also doesn't count the number of people that would have to be served that are not presently considered homeless.

ALittleLight 7y ago

What choice are they ignoring? These cities actually spend a lot on the homeless. The problem is that the better you make things for the homeless, the more you'll be an attractive place for homeless to come to.

pochamago 7y ago

This seems demonstrably untrue. If it were that easy it wouldn't be such a pervasive issue across every society. It is crazy to me to see SF of all places accused of being unwilling to raise taxes

scotty79 7y ago
What if you supplied homes directly to homeless?
- mlyle 7y ago
  SF and state agencies directly house the homeless. http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ But not everyone is willing or able to conform to the rules required for such housing. Further, people migrate to SF and join the homeless population faster than people are housed.
  - danaris 7y ago
    What if you just...gave homes to the homeless, and stopped gatekeeping and moralizing?
    - mlyle 7y ago
      > > SF and state agencies directly house the homeless. http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/housing/ There's conditions required for any housing, including housing one owns. I do not think the requirements that SF allows its housing partners to impose are excessive (don't destroy the housing; don't deal drugs from the housing; don't continually create noise/waste/smells that adversely impact your neighbors). SF also requires that nuisance evictions be conducted with plenty of warning and efforts by landlords and caseworkers to cure.. e.g. > Nuisance evictions should include numerous incident reports, tenant complaints, prompt writeups and a “last ditch” tenant conference meeting with notes or a signed agreement. And said tenants are entitled to due process after these numerous writeups and conference meetings, and legal assistance.

voodooranger 7y ago

Raising taxes is not going to increase the supply of housing.

mlyle 7y ago
The supply of housing is an important problem (for cost of living, equitable conditions for the poor, etc), but it's not clear how directly related it is to homelessness. That is, if you lowered rents 50% through increased housing supply, it's not clear how many formerly homeless people will now be housed.
anonymoushn 7y ago
Repealing prop 13 would actually totally do that
- joeblow9999 7y ago
  how do you figure that?
  - anonymoushn 7y ago
    one of the many reasons local governments don't approve housing is that tax revenues from housing rapidly decay to 0 while services for the additional residents cost significantly more than 0
    - joeblow9999 7y ago
      do you have any references for this? how does the tax revenue 'decay' to 0. Prop 13 doesn't reduce the tax over time but fixes it at a certain amount upon purchase (if the property is new) or transfer if it's sold. All new houses and transferred properties are taxed at the value they were purchased.
      - anonymoushn 7y ago
        No, I have no citations for the claim that inflation is sometimes above 2% or for the claim that the inflation rate for government services (which includes the cost of buying local housing for government employees) is sometimes above 2%. If either of these were true, the tax collected on a given property would increase in nominal terms but decay toward 0 in real terms. Unrelatedly, Brisbane found that they could raise 9 times as much revenue and provide 0 times as much additional services to residents by approving hotels instead of housing. https://brianlui.dog/2018/08/01/housing-shortages/#_edn4 https://brianlui.dog/2018/08/01/housing-shortages/#_edn4

jacobolus 7y ago

Most of the homeless people in the Bay Area are folks who had housing there a few years before and then fell on hard times (e.g. had a medical emergency, lost a job, ...) and couldn’t afford to continue paying for housing. Fixing this requires bringing housing prices way down, which requires a ton of new housing built throughout the Bay Area. This is politically difficult because a substantial proportion of the people who live in suburbs full of single-family houses don’t want to have apartment buildings on the same street, and cities would rather have office buildings (which bring tax revenue but require few services) than housing (which brings less tax revenue and requires many services). It would also help to fix the US health insurance system.

mlyle 7y ago
> Most of the homeless people in the Bay Area are folks who had housing there a few years before and then fell on hard times (e.g. had a medical emergency, lost a job, ...) and couldn’t afford to continue paying for housing. These demographic numbers are often misleading. E.g. ~70% of people in San Francisco had some sort of housing in SF at some point before becoming homeless; but that number includes people who were housed through governmental programs or spent a short time on someone's couch, and a majority of this 70% had not been in San Francisco long term. > This is politically difficult because a substantial proportion of the people who live in suburbs full of single-family houses don’t want to have apartment buildings on the same street, and cities would rather have office buildings (which bring tax revenue but require few services) than housing It's especially difficult because when you look at true bedroom communities, they have very low sales tax revenues already, and property tax revenues are low in California, and the share given thereof to cities is small. Expecting these communities to absorb further high-service, low-tax burden is unrealistic.
madengr 7y ago
The solution always is to just build more houses. That’s fine, but with that comes sewer treatment plants, power plants, water treatment (not that CA has water anyway) and digging up the existing infrastructure to expand it, etc. All that has to be funded with bonds that will have shitty ratings since there is no tax base to pay them off. You can house all the homeless, and more will take their place on the streets.

nradov 7y ago

Individual cities in California aren't legally allowed to significantly raise taxes. Any major changes would have to be legislated at the state level.

cameronfraser 7y ago

The more money a city spends on homelessness, the more homeless people there are. If you were a homeless person, wouldn't you go to a city where there are more services for homeless? Panhandling for a bus ticket is no big thing for them.