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This is a genuine question: have the tech companies done much to help out with the homelessness and crime rate? For example, through funding homeless shelters?

This is a genuine question: have the tech companies done much to help out with the homelessness and crime rate? For example, through funding homeless shelters? I ask because I thought SF wasn’t a very nice city, due to the large scale of homelessness. Seeing how much money there was, I wondered why tech companies didn’t just throw money at the problem so that they’d have a nicer environment to live in. I know that homelessness is a multifaceted problem, but (especially in the states) high housing costs and lack of public services are major, solvable, factors. In my home city in the U.K. we have a major homelessness problem, but we don’t have the wealth to do much about it. Looking at SF it’s not clear that generating wealth helps. And my overriding impression of Americans is that they’re far more generous with their cash than the English.

maccaw 6y ago
Yes, they threw a huge amount of money at the problem. https://rsmus.com/what-we-do/services/tax/state-and-local-tax/income-and-franchise/san-francisco-business-taxes-in-2021-what-you-need-to-know.html https://rsmus.com/what-we-do/services/tax/state-and-local-ta...
- randomsearch 6y ago
  There's an assumption that if you pay taxes, then you have no social responsibilities beyond that. It's subjective perhaps, but to me that's such a weird way to look at the world. Helping people is one of the main purposes to life, and - particularly if you're partly to blame for the problem - why wouldn't you want to help as much as you could? In this case, it'd even be partly selfish to help, as your employees would presumably be happier if they didn't have to step over homeless people on their way to work. We can't rely on the "system" to be perfect. You can't say "As long as it's legal it's good" and you can't say "so long as I pay the tax I have to all is well." You have to develop a conscience.

maccaw 6y ago

Yes, they threw a huge amount of money at the problem. https://rsmus.com/what-we-do/services/tax/state-and-local-tax/income-and-franchise/san-francisco-business-taxes-in-2021-what-you-need-to-know.html https://rsmus.com/what-we-do/services/tax/state-and-local-ta...

randomsearch 6y ago
There's an assumption that if you pay taxes, then you have no social responsibilities beyond that. It's subjective perhaps, but to me that's such a weird way to look at the world. Helping people is one of the main purposes to life, and - particularly if you're partly to blame for the problem - why wouldn't you want to help as much as you could? In this case, it'd even be partly selfish to help, as your employees would presumably be happier if they didn't have to step over homeless people on their way to work. We can't rely on the "system" to be perfect. You can't say "As long as it's legal it's good" and you can't say "so long as I pay the tax I have to all is well." You have to develop a conscience.