3 ms·

> The numbers are that of the $300-350 million/year SF budget for homeless, 60% goes to permanent rent subsidies (low-income long-term residents.) Any idea how

> The numbers are that of the $300-350 million/year SF budget for homeless, 60% goes to permanent rent subsidies (low-income long-term residents.) Any idea how much effort goes into converting these individuals to productive members? Ie, getting jobs/education/etc to then exit this system?

redis_mlc 6y ago
It's a good question. I would focus on helping the 50% of mentally stable homeless first, since many of those just need a temporary bridge to normalcy (fixed mailing address, Internet, shower, methadone, etc.) Just speaking in general of how the long-term rent subsidy works in SF, you can research further starting with: 1) STEM workers can reinvent their careers fairly easily, but for most other people, it's very unlikely switching careers will work later in life. So when plants or mines close, social workers generally try to get them on long-term disability status (see below.) So we would have to work on that as a society. 2) a lot would be single moms, who automatically qualify for various subsidies 3) a lot would be people who figured out how to get on long-term disability, whether physical or mental. This becomes a retirement plan, regardless of how young they started. Only around 50% - 60% of employable adults work these days. You may read that unemployment is in the 5% range, but that's just the "U" measures. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm You can get a glimpse of that in the fact that we're in a corona lockdown, but there's been minimal apparent effect on our economy so far - bacause a large percent of the population wasn't working in the first place. All of this relates to the fact that America is so weak on policy that SF can spend $300 million a year on homeless, but has no plan to do anything about it. The only groups with a sustained agenda are the public unions, who spend $1 billion/year to get their way. I might do a website in 2021 because things in writing are more actionable than sound bites.

redis_mlc 6y ago

It's a good question. I would focus on helping the 50% of mentally stable homeless first, since many of those just need a temporary bridge to normalcy (fixed mailing address, Internet, shower, methadone, etc.) Just speaking in general of how the long-term rent subsidy works in SF, you can research further starting with: 1) STEM workers can reinvent their careers fairly easily, but for most other people, it's very unlikely switching careers will work later in life. So when plants or mines close, social workers generally try to get them on long-term disability status (see below.) So we would have to work on that as a society. 2) a lot would be single moms, who automatically qualify for various subsidies 3) a lot would be people who figured out how to get on long-term disability, whether physical or mental. This becomes a retirement plan, regardless of how young they started. Only around 50% - 60% of employable adults work these days. You may read that unemployment is in the 5% range, but that's just the "U" measures. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm You can get a glimpse of that in the fact that we're in a corona lockdown, but there's been minimal apparent effect on our economy so far - bacause a large percent of the population wasn't working in the first place. All of this relates to the fact that America is so weak on policy that SF can spend $300 million a year on homeless, but has no plan to do anything about it. The only groups with a sustained agenda are the public unions, who spend $1 billion/year to get their way. I might do a website in 2021 because things in writing are more actionable than sound bites.