9 ms·

Homelessness: The Problem That Even Silicon Valley Can’t Seem to Solve

43 points by MindGods 6y ago

pavel_lishin 6y ago
Why "even"? Why are we still pretending that Silicon Valley has the answers to everything, that tech in general is an all-purpose panacea?
- ixtli 6y ago
  It’s part of the myth. The brand.
- infinity0 6y ago
  I just read it ironically, lol
- ggregoire 6y ago
  Also, Silicon Valley is all about making money. How do you make money solving homelessness?
  - convolvatron 6y ago
    tradeable morality credits
  - fortran77 6y ago
    There's money in homelessness, just like there's money in for-profit prisons. A great many people are employed in San Francisco working for publicly funded homeless programs. > Between 2011 and 2012, SF spent $157 million on homeless services. By the 2015-2016 fiscal year, it was up to $242 million. In the most recent 2019-2020 budget proposals, the figure hit more than $364 million. But the consensus remains that more is needed. (Source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/19/21027974/san-francisco-homeless-decade-2010s-kositsky-navigation-center-friedenbach https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/19/21027974/san-francisco-home... ) That money's not going to the homeless people. It's going to the people who run the services to support them. You think they'd want to see homelessness end? And, indirectly, the Police make money from homelessness because they can use it to get their budgets increased.
    - flashdance 6y ago
      > That money's not going to the homeless people. It's going to the people who run the services to support them. You think they'd want to see homelessness end? Yes, I think those people want to see homelessness end. Why else would you want a career in that field? Climate scientists also want action to be taken to fight climate change, even if it might put them out of a job. Folks who work for the UN to tackle world hunger want world hunger to end, even if it puts them out of a job. I don't think rank-and-file workers are psychopaths.
      - fortran77 6y ago
        Do you think the Police would like to see crime go to zero?
      - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
        HN is downvoting you for saying that some people honestly want to improve the world.
        kortilla 6y ago
        It’s hard for “honestly wanting to improve the world” to scale to organizations of thousands of people.
        eeZah7Ux 6y ago
        > Climate scientists also want action to be taken to fight climate change, even if it might put them out of a job The parent is talking about individual's good intentions. And look at that, I'm getting downvoted as well.
        dang 6y ago
        Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop breaking the rules when posting here? We've had to ask you multiple times before.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
    If anything is the opposite: you make money by inflating the cost of housing, and homelessness is a product of inequality. Give free or extremely cheap housing to every homeless person and the lucrative real estate companies and investment funds will disappear.
    - loco5niner 6y ago
      unfortunately, you will also end up with destroyed houses.
  - pengaru 6y ago
    It's the vulnerable populations that get taken advantage of the most. There's obviously huge opportunity potential in solving homelessness. But the money might have to come from the government. Private prisons don't seem to mind.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - mam2 6y ago
      Well then do it yourself.
      - pengaru 6y ago
        Surely you know the ability to identify an opportunity and the ability to capitalize on it are entirely orthogonal.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kiliantics 6y ago
    Right, homelessness is a consequence of structuring society around the accumulation of wealth, concentrating it into the hands of the few at the expense of the many (and at the serious expense of some very unfortunate people, leading to issues like homelessness). And Silicon Valley has proven itself very good at concentrating wealth. How can they act in a way that avoids this consequence without completely overturning their raison d'etre? This is very closely related to the idea of reform vs. revolution. Sometimes you just need to burn the whole thing down to get the outcome you want.
- wuxiekeji 6y ago
  Why? It creates clickbait, commentbait, and sharebait for computerhistory.org, which is good for them.
- corysama 6y ago
  No need to argue extremes. The title makes it clear that lots of groups have failed to solve the problem. And, that SV puts it self out as the source of solutions for the world. Yet they have to step over homeless to get into their offices in the morning. What I wrote is a bit long for a headline. What they wrote sums it up nicely.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    The thing is SV fails to solve a lot of peoples. It tends to be so detached from the reality a lot of people live in that any problem specific or more common for such people tend to be fundamentally mishandled by SV. E.g. the idea that you can handle fundamental social problems though purly technological solutions if absurd but exactly that idea is commonly pushed by SV.
    - twblalock 6y ago
      > E.g. the idea that you can handle fundamental social problems though purly technological solutions if absurd but exactly that idea is commonly pushed by SV. Really? Which SV companies are pushing that idea?
- pacala 6y ago
  One reason for 'even'. Silicon Valley contains some of the richest zip codes, richest corporations and highest paying jobs in the country. Yet all this monetary wealth doesn't seem to help with a major humanitarian crisis unfolding on its doorstep.
- proc0 6y ago
  Because it's an area with a lot of rich companies, presumably they have more money to solve the problem. I don't agree with that, the solution is moral and pragmatic in nature, not monetary.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Housing more people is an engineering problem: materials, construction techniques, density, cost. It’s the aesthetics and social justice crowd insisting that the engineering techniques we have must not be used (for example demanding onsite union labor at prevailing local wages instead of trucking in prefab components from a cheaper labor market).
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    No. Housing more people is a people/politics/wealth distribution problem. The engineering portion is trivial. Even if you truck in prefab, where will you put it if no one will zone or sell you the land to place it on? Everyone wants to be upwardly mobile, and many signal status with their housing. Would you live in a trailer park with your kids? Would you invite your coworkers over for game night to the double wide? No one wants to live next to trailer parks, I know because I try to buy and build them. Existing trailer parks are valuable because zoning for new ones is incredibly difficult, and the cap rates (return on investment) are higher than single family homes or smaller multi family. Perhaps you'll argue that prefab isn't a trailer. Fair. People still want to live in the best neighborhood with the best schools their money can buy, which is rarely a prefab or inexpensively constructed community (see: signaling, with a dash of entrenched interests such as taxing authorities and builder profits). Remember white flight? Very similar. Humans are tribal, will always seek status, and always measure themselves against others. These are deep rooted socioeconomic problems to solve. It's not just a matter of spitting housing out of a factory Gigafactory style.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      I think we are in agreement here. The technical solutions exist but are excluded for emotional reasons.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        Agreed.
  - darksaints 6y ago
rustybolt 6y ago
Homelessness: The Problem That Silicon Valley Doesn't Even Want to Solve Because you know, it isn't clear how and if solving homelessness will make you money.
- js8 6y ago
  Yeah, it reminds me of the Monty Python's Merchant Banker sketch: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwql1 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwql1
- twblalock 6y ago
  Why would you expect businesses to solve social problems? That's the government's job. Be careful what you wish for -- at least you can vote people out of office when you don't think the government is doing a good job. I'd hate to see welfare policies managed by Google.
ixtli 6y ago
Worth noting that the solution is simple. If you want to end homelessness, you give the homeless houses. It turns out we have a ton of empty houses and apartments in America. If that’s not palatable I’d be more interested in looking at why.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- daenz 6y ago
  That doesn't solve homelessness, it solves houselessness.
- twblalock 6y ago
  That doesn't solve the problem. If you just gave housing to most homeless people and walked away, the majority of them would be homeless again after a short time. You'd need to commit to ongoing, indefinite financial support for the person and for the maintenance of the housing.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    Your comment indicates the assumption that homeless people are homeless not for situational factors, but because of personal characteristics. However, I think it's more accurate to recognize that homelessness is a trap that makes it hard for a person to attain employment and healthy living. For example, a homeless person must invest far more energy to suit up for an interview than a non-homeless person. I see homelessness as a poverty trap. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_trap
    - twblalock 6y ago
      Homelessness is not simply a money problem. A lot of homeless people have mental illnesses, drug addictions, and other significant health problems. Many of them are suspicious of shelters and especially of the police and other forms of government authority because of bad past experiences. Even for people who initially became homeless because they couldn't afford housing, a lot of those other factors have become part of what keeps them homeless. Just giving them housing doesn't solve any of those other problems.
dyeje 6y ago
Homelessness seems easy enough to solve. Build a bunch of free housing, but giving away housing doesn't jive with our society so nobody is motivated to do it. Least of all Silicon Valley.
- flaque 6y ago
  I don't know why this is being down voted. Building housing and giving it to homeless folks would, by definition, make those folks not-homeless. Though I'd believe that the folks in Silicon Valley are more likely to propose and implement this sort of solution than many other parts of the country.
  - bifrost 6y ago
    Its probably because its supposition disproven by facts. You can give someone who's homeless a home, but that gives them zero tools to keep it. There's an assumption that the person doesn't need supplimental support to have a productive path forward, and thats just wrong. SF presumed that putting more public toilets on the street would keep people from defecating on the street, that was disproven in several areas, people would just relieve themselves wherever they felt like. I unfortunately would routinely see someone drop a #2 on the street less than 100 feet away from the very well maintained public bathroom.
    - asdff 6y ago
      Would you rather pee in the open air, knowing you won't get cited, or in an unventilated public restroom that doesn't ever get cleaned? I'd pee on the street, too. Capital improvements always need maintenance and service, and homes for homeless, addicted, and/or mentally unwell people are no exception.
      - bifrost 6y ago
        I take it that you haven't seen SF's "pitstop" system. They're incredibly clean/hygenic and ventilated. Yet people still befoul the streets. The unfortunate "why" is that they DGAF, I wish I was making that up.
daenz 6y ago
>Besides showing great concern about homelessness, the poll indicated that while Silicon Valley residents are anxious to help alleviate the problem, they are less enthusiastic when the solutions include providing homeless shelters and housing in their own neighborhoods. I think that says most of it right there. We've cultivated an environment where paying lip service towards a cause is more important than actually doing anything about it. Real solutions are too easy to attack, so the only safe position is speaking platitudes.
- qaq 6y ago
  I am not in SV but is there a reason housing for homeless needs to be located on pretty much the most expansive land in the world?
  - aerostable_slug 6y ago
    No, but there's a persistent sense of entitlement where people honestly believe they have the Right to live in San Francisco. It's mind-boggling, like commuting is some special Hell only they experience. Nobody bats an eye when Manhattan schoolteachers are in the bridge & tunnel crowd, but if you listen to some folks they will assure you that San Francisco's children deserve teachers who live near their schools, and anything else would be a travesty. Think of the children!
    - neilparikh 6y ago
      There’s also a sense of entitlement from homeowners who believe they should be able to stop any and all changes to their neighborhoods, while paying property tax rates from 1980s (and thus having all their services paid for by the income tax of those “commuters”, who won’t even be able to use the services they pay for).
  - mayneack 6y ago
    I don't know about SV specifically, but a majority of the homeless in LA County have been here for more than 10 years and weren't homeless when they arrived. Seems like the rising cost of housing is one of the causes of homelessness in the first place.
angel_j 6y ago
Where are the A.I. designed self-erecting superstructures? Too radical "even" for old tech money.
fizixer 6y ago
In a related story: Koko-the-Economist-Gorilla flings poo at Human-the-technologist and asks "If you so smart how come I can fling at you the mess I created?"
vr46 6y ago
Homeless is an outcome, not a thing that looks the same from every angle. It’s a feature not a bug and the steps that lead to it need to be addressed for a meaningful fix. Money and commitment needs a plan and a clue. The idea that you can just add more physical buildings and hey presto is bunk. I have spent two decades of my life volunteering to help and I too started thinking about buildings and homes, but that isn’t the real problem.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Correct, it is a multifaceted problem. It's an affordability issue, but it is also a mental health issue (pre-homelessness) and/or drug usage issue for a lot of people. And here's the tricky part, if one city puts more money on the problem, the problem will only get bigger, because it will attract homeless people from other cities (though I can't blame them). This is not an issue that's solvable only from the criminality/police side but not exclusively from the social side neither.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    > Correct, it is a multifaceted problem. It's an affordability issue, but it is also a mental health issue (pre-homelessness) and/or drug usage issue for a lot of people. The vast majority of homeless people are homeless for financial reasons, like the loss of income or the lack of affordable housing. The fastest growing demographic of homeless people are entire families, because of financial reasons.
  - hypewatch 6y ago
    This is not true and a toxic stereotype. Most homeless people are homeless for financial reasons. Income inequality is the biggest driver of homelessness. Therefore the most effective solutions are economic and perhaps anti-trust.
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      I guess I stand corrected https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_... Though affordability issues seem to be the main issue today (especially) in CA and also that some statistics consider homeless people that are living with family or acquaintances by necessity.
joefourier 6y ago
Sure the big tech companies have no direct financial interest in simply reducing homelessness, but one way to accomplish that would be to lower the cost of housing in San Francisco. How is it in the interest of tech companies to have skyrocketing real estate prices and as a result, the need to pay huge salaries to their employees so they can afford the cost of living in SF? Surely it would be in the interest of Google, Facebook et al. to be able to pay their employees less and have the cost of their own commercial real estate fall? Do they not have enough political influence? Or is it not in their interests somehow?
- conanbatt 6y ago
  I think this is why Facebook wants to build their own complexes. If they buy the land themselves, they could achieve increasing housing units on one hand, and also provide housing as a benefit which means going around the 50% tax bracket for their employees.
  - toast0 6y ago
    Disclosure: I worked at Facebook. You do not want your landlord and your employer to be the same. (Unless you're a live in manager of the property, then it's more likely to make sense). For one thing, it makes looking for another job much harder, because you'll presumably have to move as well. For another, because an employee that lives at the employer's housing may never interact with people who aren't employees, and end up even more disconnected from the community at large. It may make sense for Facebook (or others) to put their money to work increasing housing supply by building denser housing, or by financing such building, but they need to divest as soon as practical. If the issue is employees can't live near work, because housing is too expensive, increasing the supply near work should help with that, even if you don't restrict the new units to employees.
wallflower 6y ago
Solving homelessness is more a question of addressing mental illness. There is unfortunately a strong correlation between untreated mental illness and homelessness. One of my hospital friends has told me about homeless people who regularly hang out near the ER entrance, hoping to be admitted for treatment. If they are admitted, they are discharged right away. The Reagan era got rid of the "Mental Health Systems Act of 1980" which provided funding for community support of mental institutions. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...
- bifrost 6y ago
  The Reagan canard is, well, wrong. It has way more to do with the ACLU suing Florida and the resulting SCOTUS decision was that it was illegal to involuntarily commit someone. Yes, that means you can't put someone who's out of their mind into an institution until they're actually dangerous and they commit a crime. The longest psych hold (5150) is only about 72 hours, its not long enough to treat a serious condition.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    I think the comment above is talking about voluntary admissions. Even people who want help with their mental illnesses struggle to get help.
    - bifrost 6y ago
      I agree its hard to get treatment. There is absolutely no "one size fits all govt approved treatment plan" and that makes almost every case unique. Since POTUS44 its been mandatory to purchase commercial health insurance and those who cannot afford it have been left with a problem. I'll overshare a bit but my exgirlfriend was bipolar, she had great care and she still killed herself. Mental healthcare is a big problem for a variety of reasons and SF and the bay area are a magnet because of how many services are available. I got to spend a lot of time with a social worker in the bay area who dealt with this exact problem, they basically confirmed that people came here for money and services and the success rate was sub 25%. This is not a problem that tech can solve. This is not a problem that the homeless industrial complex will solve for a variety of reasons. This is a problem that govt has to solve, and the govt has more than enough money to figure it out and yet they don't.
adamnemecek 6y ago
OK maybe SV are bad for this. The govt needs to solve this by building low income housing but lol building low income housing in the US. Finland figured it out https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...
- bifrost 6y ago
  Finnish society is extremely different, their solutions are non-transplantable to the US.
neilparikh 6y ago
> But there is only so much developable land, which keeps supply low. Repeating this line is a horrible idea. It gives ammunition to those pushing the idea that Silicon Valley homelessness is the “natural order” rather than the direct result of bad policies by those living here. There’s more than enough land to solve the issue, it’s just that it would mean people who already own homes would have to make some minor sacrifices that’s they’re not willing to make.
hypewatch 6y ago
This is one reason why the “making the world a better place” rhetoric from big tech companies comes off so tone-deaf. Fundamentally, tech companies have been a major driver in increasing income inequality. For all the productivity gains we get from automation, low-income jobs are lost - at least in the short term. A popular solution is UBI, but I fear that it’s overly-simplistic and could have unintended negative consequences.
proc0 6y ago
You get what you Fn deserve, Bay Area. Many cities there, especially San Francisco have chosen homeless people over hardworking, tax paying citizens. These leaders literally chose to keep people on the street over the rent-payers. While they get free needles, normal people are forced to move again and again because of the disgusting streets, unbearable noise, and unfair law enforcement. All while paying extremely high taxes and rent. Homeless people have been around forever, what's happening now is a failure to send the message out to everyone that living outside IS NOT OK. Can you not afford San Francisco, THEN MOVE. If you are not paying rent it should be even easier, but instead it's the rent paying people that have to spend money they can't really afford just to get away from all the madness. You wanted to be nice to these people who are obviously taking advantage of the system? Well enjoy your post-apocalyptic shithole.
- loco5niner 6y ago
  You're being downvoted, but you're right. (It would have been nice for you to have said it a little less crassly though)
totalZero 6y ago
Work-from-home will reduce centralization of residence demand, eventually thinning out the population in urban areas and permitting technocrats to live in high-appeal remote areas. That will reduce rental demand and thus bring about a reduction in prices for renters and buyers.
wiseleo 6y ago
I always wonder why owners of those RVs are considered part of the problem. They are not on the streets. Most of them do not pollute the streets either. Those who are should be contacted for appropriate enforcement. They likely can afford to pay for a traditional housing unit far away but choose to be closer to their work. Spending 2-4 hours in traffic daily just to go to bed makes no sense as a single person. I choose to not pay rent since 2015. I make enough money to at least split an apartment with someone, but I see no benefit in doing so. All my stuff is either sold or in storage. I only need a parking spot where to park my vehicle. My minivan converts into a 8x4x4' bedroom and many people walk past it without giving it a second look. If a city wants to provide a secure parking lot, that is great and I'd certainly park there, but otherwise I have no need for their help. The challenge with this is that whenever such things are mentioned, the city wants to add arbitrary rules. Opponents then at times label secure parking zones as concentration camps. We need to get people without a tent off the street. They are definitely in danger. Those in tents can be remarkably comfortable with the right gear, but they need land to set them up and the right gear is expensive. They likely don't have it. Sidewalks are not the right land for that, so they need special attention. Those of us in vehicles are comfortable enough to not be concerned with. If we are able to maintain a registered insured vehicle, that suggests we do not have mental problems.

43 points by MindGods 6y ago

Why "even"? Why are we still pretending that Silicon Valley has the answers to everything, that tech in general is an all-purpose panacea?

ixtli 6y ago
It’s part of the myth. The brand.
infinity0 6y ago
I just read it ironically, lol
ggregoire 6y ago
Also, Silicon Valley is all about making money. How do you make money solving homelessness?
- convolvatron 6y ago
  tradeable morality credits
- fortran77 6y ago
  There's money in homelessness, just like there's money in for-profit prisons. A great many people are employed in San Francisco working for publicly funded homeless programs. > Between 2011 and 2012, SF spent $157 million on homeless services. By the 2015-2016 fiscal year, it was up to $242 million. In the most recent 2019-2020 budget proposals, the figure hit more than $364 million. But the consensus remains that more is needed. (Source: https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/19/21027974/san-francisco-homeless-decade-2010s-kositsky-navigation-center-friedenbach https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/19/21027974/san-francisco-home... ) That money's not going to the homeless people. It's going to the people who run the services to support them. You think they'd want to see homelessness end? And, indirectly, the Police make money from homelessness because they can use it to get their budgets increased.
  - flashdance 6y ago
    > That money's not going to the homeless people. It's going to the people who run the services to support them. You think they'd want to see homelessness end? Yes, I think those people want to see homelessness end. Why else would you want a career in that field? Climate scientists also want action to be taken to fight climate change, even if it might put them out of a job. Folks who work for the UN to tackle world hunger want world hunger to end, even if it puts them out of a job. I don't think rank-and-file workers are psychopaths.
    - fortran77 6y ago
      Do you think the Police would like to see crime go to zero?
    - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
      HN is downvoting you for saying that some people honestly want to improve the world.
      - kortilla 6y ago
        It’s hard for “honestly wanting to improve the world” to scale to organizations of thousands of people.
        eeZah7Ux 6y ago
        > Climate scientists also want action to be taken to fight climate change, even if it might put them out of a job The parent is talking about individual's good intentions. And look at that, I'm getting downvoted as well.
        dang 6y ago
        Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop breaking the rules when posting here? We've had to ask you multiple times before.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  If anything is the opposite: you make money by inflating the cost of housing, and homelessness is a product of inequality. Give free or extremely cheap housing to every homeless person and the lucrative real estate companies and investment funds will disappear.
  - loco5niner 6y ago
    unfortunately, you will also end up with destroyed houses.
- pengaru 6y ago
  It's the vulnerable populations that get taken advantage of the most. There's obviously huge opportunity potential in solving homelessness. But the money might have to come from the government. Private prisons don't seem to mind.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mam2 6y ago
    Well then do it yourself.
    - pengaru 6y ago
      Surely you know the ability to identify an opportunity and the ability to capitalize on it are entirely orthogonal.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kiliantics 6y ago
  Right, homelessness is a consequence of structuring society around the accumulation of wealth, concentrating it into the hands of the few at the expense of the many (and at the serious expense of some very unfortunate people, leading to issues like homelessness). And Silicon Valley has proven itself very good at concentrating wealth. How can they act in a way that avoids this consequence without completely overturning their raison d'etre? This is very closely related to the idea of reform vs. revolution. Sometimes you just need to burn the whole thing down to get the outcome you want.
wuxiekeji 6y ago
Why? It creates clickbait, commentbait, and sharebait for computerhistory.org, which is good for them.
corysama 6y ago
No need to argue extremes. The title makes it clear that lots of groups have failed to solve the problem. And, that SV puts it self out as the source of solutions for the world. Yet they have to step over homeless to get into their offices in the morning. What I wrote is a bit long for a headline. What they wrote sums it up nicely.
- dathinab 6y ago
  The thing is SV fails to solve a lot of peoples. It tends to be so detached from the reality a lot of people live in that any problem specific or more common for such people tend to be fundamentally mishandled by SV. E.g. the idea that you can handle fundamental social problems though purly technological solutions if absurd but exactly that idea is commonly pushed by SV.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    > E.g. the idea that you can handle fundamental social problems though purly technological solutions if absurd but exactly that idea is commonly pushed by SV. Really? Which SV companies are pushing that idea?
pacala 6y ago
One reason for 'even'. Silicon Valley contains some of the richest zip codes, richest corporations and highest paying jobs in the country. Yet all this monetary wealth doesn't seem to help with a major humanitarian crisis unfolding on its doorstep.
proc0 6y ago
Because it's an area with a lot of rich companies, presumably they have more money to solve the problem. I don't agree with that, the solution is moral and pragmatic in nature, not monetary.
closeparen 6y ago
Housing more people is an engineering problem: materials, construction techniques, density, cost. It’s the aesthetics and social justice crowd insisting that the engineering techniques we have must not be used (for example demanding onsite union labor at prevailing local wages instead of trucking in prefab components from a cheaper labor market).
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  No. Housing more people is a people/politics/wealth distribution problem. The engineering portion is trivial. Even if you truck in prefab, where will you put it if no one will zone or sell you the land to place it on? Everyone wants to be upwardly mobile, and many signal status with their housing. Would you live in a trailer park with your kids? Would you invite your coworkers over for game night to the double wide? No one wants to live next to trailer parks, I know because I try to buy and build them. Existing trailer parks are valuable because zoning for new ones is incredibly difficult, and the cap rates (return on investment) are higher than single family homes or smaller multi family. Perhaps you'll argue that prefab isn't a trailer. Fair. People still want to live in the best neighborhood with the best schools their money can buy, which is rarely a prefab or inexpensively constructed community (see: signaling, with a dash of entrenched interests such as taxing authorities and builder profits). Remember white flight? Very similar. Humans are tribal, will always seek status, and always measure themselves against others. These are deep rooted socioeconomic problems to solve. It's not just a matter of spitting housing out of a factory Gigafactory style.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    I think we are in agreement here. The technical solutions exist but are excluded for emotional reasons.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Agreed.
- darksaints 6y ago

rustybolt 6y ago

Homelessness: The Problem That Silicon Valley Doesn't Even Want to Solve Because you know, it isn't clear how and if solving homelessness will make you money.

js8 6y ago
Yeah, it reminds me of the Monty Python's Merchant Banker sketch: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwql1 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwql1
twblalock 6y ago
Why would you expect businesses to solve social problems? That's the government's job. Be careful what you wish for -- at least you can vote people out of office when you don't think the government is doing a good job. I'd hate to see welfare policies managed by Google.

ixtli 6y ago

Worth noting that the solution is simple. If you want to end homelessness, you give the homeless houses. It turns out we have a ton of empty houses and apartments in America. If that’s not palatable I’d be more interested in looking at why.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
daenz 6y ago
That doesn't solve homelessness, it solves houselessness.
twblalock 6y ago
That doesn't solve the problem. If you just gave housing to most homeless people and walked away, the majority of them would be homeless again after a short time. You'd need to commit to ongoing, indefinite financial support for the person and for the maintenance of the housing.
- totalZero 6y ago
  Your comment indicates the assumption that homeless people are homeless not for situational factors, but because of personal characteristics. However, I think it's more accurate to recognize that homelessness is a trap that makes it hard for a person to attain employment and healthy living. For example, a homeless person must invest far more energy to suit up for an interview than a non-homeless person. I see homelessness as a poverty trap. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_trap
  - twblalock 6y ago
    Homelessness is not simply a money problem. A lot of homeless people have mental illnesses, drug addictions, and other significant health problems. Many of them are suspicious of shelters and especially of the police and other forms of government authority because of bad past experiences. Even for people who initially became homeless because they couldn't afford housing, a lot of those other factors have become part of what keeps them homeless. Just giving them housing doesn't solve any of those other problems.

dyeje 6y ago

Homelessness seems easy enough to solve. Build a bunch of free housing, but giving away housing doesn't jive with our society so nobody is motivated to do it. Least of all Silicon Valley.

flaque 6y ago
I don't know why this is being down voted. Building housing and giving it to homeless folks would, by definition, make those folks not-homeless. Though I'd believe that the folks in Silicon Valley are more likely to propose and implement this sort of solution than many other parts of the country.
- bifrost 6y ago
  Its probably because its supposition disproven by facts. You can give someone who's homeless a home, but that gives them zero tools to keep it. There's an assumption that the person doesn't need supplimental support to have a productive path forward, and thats just wrong. SF presumed that putting more public toilets on the street would keep people from defecating on the street, that was disproven in several areas, people would just relieve themselves wherever they felt like. I unfortunately would routinely see someone drop a #2 on the street less than 100 feet away from the very well maintained public bathroom.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Would you rather pee in the open air, knowing you won't get cited, or in an unventilated public restroom that doesn't ever get cleaned? I'd pee on the street, too. Capital improvements always need maintenance and service, and homes for homeless, addicted, and/or mentally unwell people are no exception.
    - bifrost 6y ago
      I take it that you haven't seen SF's "pitstop" system. They're incredibly clean/hygenic and ventilated. Yet people still befoul the streets. The unfortunate "why" is that they DGAF, I wish I was making that up.

daenz 6y ago

>Besides showing great concern about homelessness, the poll indicated that while Silicon Valley residents are anxious to help alleviate the problem, they are less enthusiastic when the solutions include providing homeless shelters and housing in their own neighborhoods. I think that says most of it right there. We've cultivated an environment where paying lip service towards a cause is more important than actually doing anything about it. Real solutions are too easy to attack, so the only safe position is speaking platitudes.

qaq 6y ago
I am not in SV but is there a reason housing for homeless needs to be located on pretty much the most expansive land in the world?
- aerostable_slug 6y ago
  No, but there's a persistent sense of entitlement where people honestly believe they have the Right to live in San Francisco. It's mind-boggling, like commuting is some special Hell only they experience. Nobody bats an eye when Manhattan schoolteachers are in the bridge & tunnel crowd, but if you listen to some folks they will assure you that San Francisco's children deserve teachers who live near their schools, and anything else would be a travesty. Think of the children!
  - neilparikh 6y ago
    There’s also a sense of entitlement from homeowners who believe they should be able to stop any and all changes to their neighborhoods, while paying property tax rates from 1980s (and thus having all their services paid for by the income tax of those “commuters”, who won’t even be able to use the services they pay for).
- mayneack 6y ago
  I don't know about SV specifically, but a majority of the homeless in LA County have been here for more than 10 years and weren't homeless when they arrived. Seems like the rising cost of housing is one of the causes of homelessness in the first place.

angel_j 6y ago

Where are the A.I. designed self-erecting superstructures? Too radical "even" for old tech money.

fizixer 6y ago

In a related story: Koko-the-Economist-Gorilla flings poo at Human-the-technologist and asks "If you so smart how come I can fling at you the mess I created?"

vr46 6y ago

Homeless is an outcome, not a thing that looks the same from every angle. It’s a feature not a bug and the steps that lead to it need to be addressed for a meaningful fix. Money and commitment needs a plan and a clue. The idea that you can just add more physical buildings and hey presto is bunk. I have spent two decades of my life volunteering to help and I too started thinking about buildings and homes, but that isn’t the real problem.

raverbashing 6y ago
Correct, it is a multifaceted problem. It's an affordability issue, but it is also a mental health issue (pre-homelessness) and/or drug usage issue for a lot of people. And here's the tricky part, if one city puts more money on the problem, the problem will only get bigger, because it will attract homeless people from other cities (though I can't blame them). This is not an issue that's solvable only from the criminality/police side but not exclusively from the social side neither.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Correct, it is a multifaceted problem. It's an affordability issue, but it is also a mental health issue (pre-homelessness) and/or drug usage issue for a lot of people. The vast majority of homeless people are homeless for financial reasons, like the loss of income or the lack of affordable housing. The fastest growing demographic of homeless people are entire families, because of financial reasons.
- hypewatch 6y ago
  This is not true and a toxic stereotype. Most homeless people are homeless for financial reasons. Income inequality is the biggest driver of homelessness. Therefore the most effective solutions are economic and perhaps anti-trust.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    I guess I stand corrected https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_... Though affordability issues seem to be the main issue today (especially) in CA and also that some statistics consider homeless people that are living with family or acquaintances by necessity.

joefourier 6y ago

Sure the big tech companies have no direct financial interest in simply reducing homelessness, but one way to accomplish that would be to lower the cost of housing in San Francisco. How is it in the interest of tech companies to have skyrocketing real estate prices and as a result, the need to pay huge salaries to their employees so they can afford the cost of living in SF? Surely it would be in the interest of Google, Facebook et al. to be able to pay their employees less and have the cost of their own commercial real estate fall? Do they not have enough political influence? Or is it not in their interests somehow?

conanbatt 6y ago
I think this is why Facebook wants to build their own complexes. If they buy the land themselves, they could achieve increasing housing units on one hand, and also provide housing as a benefit which means going around the 50% tax bracket for their employees.
- toast0 6y ago
  Disclosure: I worked at Facebook. You do not want your landlord and your employer to be the same. (Unless you're a live in manager of the property, then it's more likely to make sense). For one thing, it makes looking for another job much harder, because you'll presumably have to move as well. For another, because an employee that lives at the employer's housing may never interact with people who aren't employees, and end up even more disconnected from the community at large. It may make sense for Facebook (or others) to put their money to work increasing housing supply by building denser housing, or by financing such building, but they need to divest as soon as practical. If the issue is employees can't live near work, because housing is too expensive, increasing the supply near work should help with that, even if you don't restrict the new units to employees.

wallflower 6y ago

Solving homelessness is more a question of addressing mental illness. There is unfortunately a strong correlation between untreated mental illness and homelessness. One of my hospital friends has told me about homeless people who regularly hang out near the ER entrance, hoping to be admitted for treatment. If they are admitted, they are discharged right away. The Reagan era got rid of the "Mental Health Systems Act of 1980" which provided funding for community support of mental institutions. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...

bifrost 6y ago
The Reagan canard is, well, wrong. It has way more to do with the ACLU suing Florida and the resulting SCOTUS decision was that it was illegal to involuntarily commit someone. Yes, that means you can't put someone who's out of their mind into an institution until they're actually dangerous and they commit a crime. The longest psych hold (5150) is only about 72 hours, its not long enough to treat a serious condition.
- leereeves 6y ago
  I think the comment above is talking about voluntary admissions. Even people who want help with their mental illnesses struggle to get help.
  - bifrost 6y ago
    I agree its hard to get treatment. There is absolutely no "one size fits all govt approved treatment plan" and that makes almost every case unique. Since POTUS44 its been mandatory to purchase commercial health insurance and those who cannot afford it have been left with a problem. I'll overshare a bit but my exgirlfriend was bipolar, she had great care and she still killed herself. Mental healthcare is a big problem for a variety of reasons and SF and the bay area are a magnet because of how many services are available. I got to spend a lot of time with a social worker in the bay area who dealt with this exact problem, they basically confirmed that people came here for money and services and the success rate was sub 25%. This is not a problem that tech can solve. This is not a problem that the homeless industrial complex will solve for a variety of reasons. This is a problem that govt has to solve, and the govt has more than enough money to figure it out and yet they don't.

adamnemecek 6y ago

OK maybe SV are bad for this. The govt needs to solve this by building low income housing but lol building low income housing in the US. Finland figured it out https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...

bifrost 6y ago
Finnish society is extremely different, their solutions are non-transplantable to the US.

neilparikh 6y ago

> But there is only so much developable land, which keeps supply low. Repeating this line is a horrible idea. It gives ammunition to those pushing the idea that Silicon Valley homelessness is the “natural order” rather than the direct result of bad policies by those living here. There’s more than enough land to solve the issue, it’s just that it would mean people who already own homes would have to make some minor sacrifices that’s they’re not willing to make.

hypewatch 6y ago

This is one reason why the “making the world a better place” rhetoric from big tech companies comes off so tone-deaf. Fundamentally, tech companies have been a major driver in increasing income inequality. For all the productivity gains we get from automation, low-income jobs are lost - at least in the short term. A popular solution is UBI, but I fear that it’s overly-simplistic and could have unintended negative consequences.

proc0 6y ago

You get what you Fn deserve, Bay Area. Many cities there, especially San Francisco have chosen homeless people over hardworking, tax paying citizens. These leaders literally chose to keep people on the street over the rent-payers. While they get free needles, normal people are forced to move again and again because of the disgusting streets, unbearable noise, and unfair law enforcement. All while paying extremely high taxes and rent. Homeless people have been around forever, what's happening now is a failure to send the message out to everyone that living outside IS NOT OK. Can you not afford San Francisco, THEN MOVE. If you are not paying rent it should be even easier, but instead it's the rent paying people that have to spend money they can't really afford just to get away from all the madness. You wanted to be nice to these people who are obviously taking advantage of the system? Well enjoy your post-apocalyptic shithole.

loco5niner 6y ago
You're being downvoted, but you're right. (It would have been nice for you to have said it a little less crassly though)

totalZero 6y ago

Work-from-home will reduce centralization of residence demand, eventually thinning out the population in urban areas and permitting technocrats to live in high-appeal remote areas. That will reduce rental demand and thus bring about a reduction in prices for renters and buyers.

wiseleo 6y ago

I always wonder why owners of those RVs are considered part of the problem. They are not on the streets. Most of them do not pollute the streets either. Those who are should be contacted for appropriate enforcement. They likely can afford to pay for a traditional housing unit far away but choose to be closer to their work. Spending 2-4 hours in traffic daily just to go to bed makes no sense as a single person. I choose to not pay rent since 2015. I make enough money to at least split an apartment with someone, but I see no benefit in doing so. All my stuff is either sold or in storage. I only need a parking spot where to park my vehicle. My minivan converts into a 8x4x4' bedroom and many people walk past it without giving it a second look. If a city wants to provide a secure parking lot, that is great and I'd certainly park there, but otherwise I have no need for their help. The challenge with this is that whenever such things are mentioned, the city wants to add arbitrary rules. Opponents then at times label secure parking zones as concentration camps. We need to get people without a tent off the street. They are definitely in danger. Those in tents can be remarkably comfortable with the right gear, but they need land to set them up and the right gear is expensive. They likely don't have it. Sidewalks are not the right land for that, so they need special attention. Those of us in vehicles are comfortable enough to not be concerned with. If we are able to maintain a registered insured vehicle, that suggests we do not have mental problems.