5 ms·

I’m fking tired of seeing human beings sleeping in tents on sidewalks. I don’t care what they did, what drugs they’ve used, who/what they are escaping, many of

by somid3 5y ago

I’m fking tired of seeing human beings sleeping in tents on sidewalks. I don’t care what they did, what drugs they’ve used, who/what they are escaping, many of them are regular people who weee eaten and chewed up by the machine. We have to engineer a dignified a solution. I make about $1mil a year and I can’t believe I haven’t done this sooner.

samspenc 5y ago
Just curious: have you donated to organizations that are solving the homelessness problem? Or do you think the work they are doing is not sufficient and this problem requires another approach.
- somid3 5y ago
  They don’t think at scale, they are not engineers, they are flawed. I’ve donated over $200k in the past to no change in the overall system.
  - throwaway984393 5y ago
    You can't engineer homelessness away.
- somid3 5y ago
  to join the group email me at somid3@gmail.com or text me at +1 323-240-1241
antonpirker 5y ago
I live in Austria and we do not have people living in tents on the sidewalk anywhere. (But we have some homeless people) Part of this is probably due to the fact that I pay 48% of everything I earn in taxes and I am totally fine with it!
- somid3 5y ago
  This is a problem that will get worst in the coming decades.
- somid3 5y ago
  to join the group email me at somid3@gmail.com or text me at +1 323-240-1241
- steelstraw 5y ago
  In San Francisco some pay over 50% in taxes. It's not that the government doesn't have enough money. They have a spending problem and always find new ways to waste it on the homeless industrial complex with very little result. In fact they found a way to spend over $60,000 per tent[1]. Not per home, per tent! 1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-officials-want-15-million-for-tent-sites-16269998.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-officials-w...
  - hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
    You don't pay more than 50% tax. No-one in SF does. THe article linked explains how it costs the gov so much to 'house'the homeless.
    - anm89 5y ago
      There are absolutely empirically people paying a 50% percent of their income in taxes in SF. The highest federal income tax backet is at 37%. the highest california state income tax bracket is 12.7%. San francisco residents pay a .38 payroll tax. This is going to get you pretty darn close to 50% effective tax rate right there but we haven't even started to look at property taxes or sales taxes. So yeah, there are definitely people paying 50% taxes in SF.
      - rsfern 5y ago
        Those are the marginal tax rates. You can’t just add the marginal rates and come up with your actual tax burden, at least in the US. (Can’t speak specifically to property tax in CA) Honestly surprised to see this misapprehension of progressive income tax on HN
jnwatson 5y ago
We have solutions for this. It is called public housing. My grandmother was homeless until a social worker found her on the streets and got her an apartment (in D.C.). The logistics are actually quite simple. $5K houses aren't the main solution. We need inexpensive medium to high density apartments. I will admit in the Bay area, adding a $5K house to every SFH lot might help a bit. In reality it would be $5K house + at least the same in permitting.
- bushbaba 5y ago
  Permits are more like 20-40k in California. An ADU is roughly 150-200k after permits. That’s not including land cost.
pharke 5y ago
Fight for mixed zoning[0] and to repeal laws against boarding houses[1]. Let people solve the problem, we're only in this mess because our hands are tied by regulations that favour certain interest groups. [0] https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning-more-liberal-than-us-zoning/ https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning... [1] https://www.econlib.org/the-case-for-boarding-houses/ https://www.econlib.org/the-case-for-boarding-houses/
gremlinsinc 5y ago
want to team up? I have a plan to buy land, on that land we add like 5 to 10 glamping spots, one of which is a yurt for us to live in temporarily. we Airbnb the spots... to pay for building supplies and other things... maybe earn some income too... we create a big building that is a warehouse basically for common goods that households really don't need to own .. like tools, cleaning supplies, recreational vehicles, etc... the rec vehicles we can also rent to Airbnb's... the idea is every house needs tons of extra space to duplicate things like drills and saws... when you might use those things once a month or year or decade.... if you could just walk down the street and check out some tool... like a library... then maybe we have 3 drills per ten families or whatever we deem necessary to ensure needs are met... the warehouse could have a commercial kitchen too for community meals etc or people could reserve it for special occasions... we then could build cheap housing using containers (easier but a little more costly), or earth bags (very difficult work but affordable... also takes longer) then maybe we charge like 200 per month rent per family member, and if we could duplicate this we could create a share system so people could stay at the Zion Utah one when traveling for free, or Disney land... etc... there might be an opportunity there to also help intentional communities set up glamping camps that maybe keep 50 percent vacancies so it's like a free travel network or plan for residents to travel cheaper so everyone can afford to have more and better experiences via vacations instead of focusing on things and owning more crap we don't need....

by somid3 5y ago

samspenc 5y ago

Just curious: have you donated to organizations that are solving the homelessness problem? Or do you think the work they are doing is not sufficient and this problem requires another approach.

somid3 5y ago
They don’t think at scale, they are not engineers, they are flawed. I’ve donated over $200k in the past to no change in the overall system.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  You can't engineer homelessness away.
somid3 5y ago
to join the group email me at somid3@gmail.com or text me at +1 323-240-1241

antonpirker 5y ago

I live in Austria and we do not have people living in tents on the sidewalk anywhere. (But we have some homeless people) Part of this is probably due to the fact that I pay 48% of everything I earn in taxes and I am totally fine with it!

somid3 5y ago
This is a problem that will get worst in the coming decades.
somid3 5y ago
to join the group email me at somid3@gmail.com or text me at +1 323-240-1241
steelstraw 5y ago
In San Francisco some pay over 50% in taxes. It's not that the government doesn't have enough money. They have a spending problem and always find new ways to waste it on the homeless industrial complex with very little result. In fact they found a way to spend over $60,000 per tent[1]. Not per home, per tent! 1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-officials-want-15-million-for-tent-sites-16269998.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-officials-w...
- hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
  You don't pay more than 50% tax. No-one in SF does. THe article linked explains how it costs the gov so much to 'house'the homeless.
  - anm89 5y ago
    There are absolutely empirically people paying a 50% percent of their income in taxes in SF. The highest federal income tax backet is at 37%. the highest california state income tax bracket is 12.7%. San francisco residents pay a .38 payroll tax. This is going to get you pretty darn close to 50% effective tax rate right there but we haven't even started to look at property taxes or sales taxes. So yeah, there are definitely people paying 50% taxes in SF.
    - rsfern 5y ago
      Those are the marginal tax rates. You can’t just add the marginal rates and come up with your actual tax burden, at least in the US. (Can’t speak specifically to property tax in CA) Honestly surprised to see this misapprehension of progressive income tax on HN

jnwatson 5y ago

We have solutions for this. It is called public housing. My grandmother was homeless until a social worker found her on the streets and got her an apartment (in D.C.). The logistics are actually quite simple. $5K houses aren't the main solution. We need inexpensive medium to high density apartments. I will admit in the Bay area, adding a $5K house to every SFH lot might help a bit. In reality it would be $5K house + at least the same in permitting.

bushbaba 5y ago
Permits are more like 20-40k in California. An ADU is roughly 150-200k after permits. That’s not including land cost.

pharke 5y ago

Fight for mixed zoning[0] and to repeal laws against boarding houses[1]. Let people solve the problem, we're only in this mess because our hands are tied by regulations that favour certain interest groups. [0] https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning-more-liberal-than-us-zoning/ https://marketurbanism.com/2019/03/19/why-is-japanese-zoning... [1] https://www.econlib.org/the-case-for-boarding-houses/ https://www.econlib.org/the-case-for-boarding-houses/

gremlinsinc 5y ago

want to team up? I have a plan to buy land, on that land we add like 5 to 10 glamping spots, one of which is a yurt for us to live in temporarily. we Airbnb the spots... to pay for building supplies and other things... maybe earn some income too... we create a big building that is a warehouse basically for common goods that households really don't need to own .. like tools, cleaning supplies, recreational vehicles, etc... the rec vehicles we can also rent to Airbnb's... the idea is every house needs tons of extra space to duplicate things like drills and saws... when you might use those things once a month or year or decade.... if you could just walk down the street and check out some tool... like a library... then maybe we have 3 drills per ten families or whatever we deem necessary to ensure needs are met... the warehouse could have a commercial kitchen too for community meals etc or people could reserve it for special occasions... we then could build cheap housing using containers (easier but a little more costly), or earth bags (very difficult work but affordable... also takes longer) then maybe we charge like 200 per month rent per family member, and if we could duplicate this we could create a share system so people could stay at the Zion Utah one when traveling for free, or Disney land... etc... there might be an opportunity there to also help intentional communities set up glamping camps that maybe keep 50 percent vacancies so it's like a free travel network or plan for residents to travel cheaper so everyone can afford to have more and better experiences via vacations instead of focusing on things and owning more crap we don't need....