5 ms·

Although undoubtedly an excellent program, Loaves and fishes is projected to provides housing for 200 people at some point in the future. SF currently has somew

Although undoubtedly an excellent program, Loaves and fishes is projected to provides housing for 200 people at some point in the future. SF currently has somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 homeless people living on the streets right now. From that SF Chronicle article: "A decade and roughly $1.5 billion later, the city has succeeded in moving 19,500 homeless people off its streets, roughly equivalent to relocating the entire Castro district. But despite that major effort, the homeless population hasn’t budged, showing that as one homeless person is helped, another takes his place." I mean, that's just incredible. They relocated nearly 20,000 people off the streets. What else are they supposed to do? You can't accuse them of not trying. They moved 100x more people off the streets than that Loaves and Fishes housing project is projected to do at some point in the future. It's a tremendously difficult problem to actually solve within the constraints of the constitution, and human decency.

olivermarks 6y ago
You've missed the fundamental flaw in the logic - as you spend lavishly to 'house' (actually pay to put in a flophouse) one person another shows up, having heard through the grapevine the pickings are excellent in San Francisco. The 'nearly 20k people off the streets' was proven to be wildly inaccurate. Austin's Loaves and Fishes was just a small scale example, there are lots of practical ways to manage the rapidly increasing transient population and help with addiction and mental health issues that don't involve inner city camp sites and hotel rooms.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  This is a problem I want to see solved very much. If there are practical ways, throw some bullet-points down, and I'll be happy to consider them. It there are easy solutions, I am as interested in anyone to see them.
  - smaryjerry 6y ago
    The general principle is that incentives work. Make one option better than another and people will flock to it. Current implementation is that you will get fed, housed, medical care, and even paid with no participation on your part. You are incentivized to continue what got you homeless, usually drug use or not attempting to work. The simple solution is require recovery to receive benefits - require drug tests, require attendance to lectures, require applying for jobs or that you get one. The point is to make good behavior better than the alternative. Another way to incentivize good behavior is to make programs benefit both parties. Can collecting was one such program, litter is collected and people without other options make at least some money. When you give people the money there is little benefit to a city in return. A lot of the complaints can be rectified by cleaning jobs in particular.
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      That is a great approach for people without mental illness.
      - olivermarks 6y ago
        If you're in California get involved! I have http://www.sonomacountyhomeless.com http://www.sonomacountyhomeless.com It's no good asking to have ideas presented to you for critique and evaluation. Go and talk to street people and get their perspective. Challenge out of touch politicians and root out corruption or it will get worse.
        phobosanomaly 6y ago
        The irony is, the point of my comments in this thread were to move from Zhenya's bagging on both politicians and homeless people without offering any constructive solutions, to having a productive discussion about how to make things better. It worked to some extent. It generated a lot of ideas, and I learned a lot. I hope it helped others too. I'm happy with my contribution involving keeping my own severely mentally-ill relatives off the streets. If our family hadn't gotten lucky with some county programs, a couple of people close to me would now be living on the street due to no fault of their own. They're sick, and it's a full-time job split between various family members to keep them above water. Thanks for your input. I apologize if I come across as overly argumentative. I'm just bored and interested in the subject. If we were in person, I'd buy you a beer.
- foolmeonce 6y ago
  Why does SF get to embrace all the tech talent it atttacts, but not need to deal with rising population of less desirable demographics? Is there something about California that makes it more worthy of the countries wealth than the communities with less resources?
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >You've missed the fundamental flaw in the logic - as you spend lavishly to 'house' (actually pay to put in a flophouse) one person another shows up, having heard through the grapevine the pickings are excellent in San Francisco. Correct. Why is the homeless problem in San Francisco so much worse than in San Diego, despite the latter having nicer climate? Because the goodies are in San Francisco and people know it.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    San Diego has more homeless people than SF. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/dec/17/san-diego-has-fourth-highest-homeless-population/ https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/dec/17/san-diego-has-fourth-h... It's less visible because SD is way larger geographically than SF (231 square miles vs. 372 sq miles in the city proper), plus there's no bay to the East, it just goes into more urban area. But, yeah, there's a big skid-row tent-city southeast of the Padres stadium. SF is a small city and it just squeeeeezes everyone together so it's in your face.
    - TMWNN 6y ago
      San Diego County (not city) also has more than three times the population of San Francisco, so all the more dilution of the homeless. But there's no way that you can tell me that the homeless problem is worse in San Diego than in San Francisco. My comment was to point out why this is so, despite the former's much nicer climate.
      - phobosanomaly 6y ago
        What does 'worse' mean? If you mean in-your-face, I'm thinking it's an urban density thing. SF is small and incredibly dense. So, the homeless people that are there are packed into this tiny space along with everyone else and you literally have to step over them on the way to work. If the population of SD was packed into the geographic area of SF with no available land to the North, East, and West, everyone would be stepping over homeless people on the way to work there too. Same with LA. People come and jam themselves wherever they can fit. If there's fewer miles of sidewalk, density of homeless people goes up, it's more visible, and you get people living on your front doorstep. On the list of urban density, SF is number 6 and SD doesn't even make the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density#Metropolitan_areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

olivermarks 6y ago

You've missed the fundamental flaw in the logic - as you spend lavishly to 'house' (actually pay to put in a flophouse) one person another shows up, having heard through the grapevine the pickings are excellent in San Francisco. The 'nearly 20k people off the streets' was proven to be wildly inaccurate. Austin's Loaves and Fishes was just a small scale example, there are lots of practical ways to manage the rapidly increasing transient population and help with addiction and mental health issues that don't involve inner city camp sites and hotel rooms.

phobosanomaly 6y ago
This is a problem I want to see solved very much. If there are practical ways, throw some bullet-points down, and I'll be happy to consider them. It there are easy solutions, I am as interested in anyone to see them.
- smaryjerry 6y ago
  The general principle is that incentives work. Make one option better than another and people will flock to it. Current implementation is that you will get fed, housed, medical care, and even paid with no participation on your part. You are incentivized to continue what got you homeless, usually drug use or not attempting to work. The simple solution is require recovery to receive benefits - require drug tests, require attendance to lectures, require applying for jobs or that you get one. The point is to make good behavior better than the alternative. Another way to incentivize good behavior is to make programs benefit both parties. Can collecting was one such program, litter is collected and people without other options make at least some money. When you give people the money there is little benefit to a city in return. A lot of the complaints can be rectified by cleaning jobs in particular.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    That is a great approach for people without mental illness.
    - olivermarks 6y ago
      If you're in California get involved! I have http://www.sonomacountyhomeless.com http://www.sonomacountyhomeless.com It's no good asking to have ideas presented to you for critique and evaluation. Go and talk to street people and get their perspective. Challenge out of touch politicians and root out corruption or it will get worse.
      - phobosanomaly 6y ago
        The irony is, the point of my comments in this thread were to move from Zhenya's bagging on both politicians and homeless people without offering any constructive solutions, to having a productive discussion about how to make things better. It worked to some extent. It generated a lot of ideas, and I learned a lot. I hope it helped others too. I'm happy with my contribution involving keeping my own severely mentally-ill relatives off the streets. If our family hadn't gotten lucky with some county programs, a couple of people close to me would now be living on the street due to no fault of their own. They're sick, and it's a full-time job split between various family members to keep them above water. Thanks for your input. I apologize if I come across as overly argumentative. I'm just bored and interested in the subject. If we were in person, I'd buy you a beer.
foolmeonce 6y ago
Why does SF get to embrace all the tech talent it atttacts, but not need to deal with rising population of less desirable demographics? Is there something about California that makes it more worthy of the countries wealth than the communities with less resources?
TMWNN 6y ago
>You've missed the fundamental flaw in the logic - as you spend lavishly to 'house' (actually pay to put in a flophouse) one person another shows up, having heard through the grapevine the pickings are excellent in San Francisco. Correct. Why is the homeless problem in San Francisco so much worse than in San Diego, despite the latter having nicer climate? Because the goodies are in San Francisco and people know it.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  San Diego has more homeless people than SF. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/dec/17/san-diego-has-fourth-highest-homeless-population/ https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/dec/17/san-diego-has-fourth-h... It's less visible because SD is way larger geographically than SF (231 square miles vs. 372 sq miles in the city proper), plus there's no bay to the East, it just goes into more urban area. But, yeah, there's a big skid-row tent-city southeast of the Padres stadium. SF is a small city and it just squeeeeezes everyone together so it's in your face.
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    San Diego County (not city) also has more than three times the population of San Francisco, so all the more dilution of the homeless. But there's no way that you can tell me that the homeless problem is worse in San Diego than in San Francisco. My comment was to point out why this is so, despite the former's much nicer climate.
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      What does 'worse' mean? If you mean in-your-face, I'm thinking it's an urban density thing. SF is small and incredibly dense. So, the homeless people that are there are packed into this tiny space along with everyone else and you literally have to step over them on the way to work. If the population of SD was packed into the geographic area of SF with no available land to the North, East, and West, everyone would be stepping over homeless people on the way to work there too. Same with LA. People come and jam themselves wherever they can fit. If there's fewer miles of sidewalk, density of homeless people goes up, it's more visible, and you get people living on your front doorstep. On the list of urban density, SF is number 6 and SD doesn't even make the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density#Metropolitan_areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...