4 ms·

Cynical me who moved to and from SF (lived there for a year) and walked Market street everyday worries about this as well. SF does not seem to have the politica

by wpasc 7y ago

Cynical me who moved to and from SF (lived there for a year) and walked Market street everyday worries about this as well. SF does not seem to have the political will to really deal with this issue. Measures such as increased street cleaning and feces remediation have done little to improve the experience of walking on certain parts of Market (at least in my time when I saw new efforts go into effect).

taurath 7y ago
I think of it as resources rather than will. At market rate, it costs a TON of money to place people in homes. They can’t be too nice or it will encourage people to be homeless. They can’t be too bad because then you end up with ghettos or with mobs of angry neighbors. It also costs a lot more money to provide services all spread out amongst the city. European cities are denser, and they have services everywhere. They have housing. Their costs are lower. They don’t have to pay for healthcare a la carte. You can throw people in jail, but that’s untenable to people with conscience, unless you convince people that every homeless person deserves their situation. Anyone struggling to make rent in a city can empathize with people who are homeless due to bad luck or not enough safety net. The problem is there is no mechanism to split up the people who are going to be wards of society no matter what from those just passing through, because there’s nowhere to put them. I think the solution is we go back to centralization. Build a large scale shelter. Also bring back psychiatric hospitals. If you can’t make it in the shelter, you belong either in the psychiatric hospital or jail.
- wpasc 7y ago
  I hear you, but a certain political will could make resources go further. For example, cheap affordable housing costs a ridiculous amount in California due to many government controllable mechanisms (zoning laws, certain overly onerous codes and regulations). There a numerous articles showing the absurd 6 figure per unit construction cost buildings that were meant to be affordable and ballooned to incredible amounts in CA. A certain political will could fix this.

by wpasc 7y ago

taurath 7y ago

I think of it as resources rather than will. At market rate, it costs a TON of money to place people in homes. They can’t be too nice or it will encourage people to be homeless. They can’t be too bad because then you end up with ghettos or with mobs of angry neighbors. It also costs a lot more money to provide services all spread out amongst the city. European cities are denser, and they have services everywhere. They have housing. Their costs are lower. They don’t have to pay for healthcare a la carte. You can throw people in jail, but that’s untenable to people with conscience, unless you convince people that every homeless person deserves their situation. Anyone struggling to make rent in a city can empathize with people who are homeless due to bad luck or not enough safety net. The problem is there is no mechanism to split up the people who are going to be wards of society no matter what from those just passing through, because there’s nowhere to put them. I think the solution is we go back to centralization. Build a large scale shelter. Also bring back psychiatric hospitals. If you can’t make it in the shelter, you belong either in the psychiatric hospital or jail.

wpasc 7y ago
I hear you, but a certain political will could make resources go further. For example, cheap affordable housing costs a ridiculous amount in California due to many government controllable mechanisms (zoning laws, certain overly onerous codes and regulations). There a numerous articles showing the absurd 6 figure per unit construction cost buildings that were meant to be affordable and ballooned to incredible amounts in CA. A certain political will could fix this.