5 ms·

San Francisco spends $61k/year/tent [1] on homeless tents, which is more than median income in the US. The problem is not funding. The problem is that the local

San Francisco spends $61k/year/tent [1] on homeless tents, which is more than median income in the US. The problem is not funding. The problem is that the local population would rather spin performative activism instead of taking real action (i.e. institutionalizing mentally ill people and forcing people off the streets and to stop using heroin and meth). [1] https://sfist.com/2021/03/04/insanely-it-is-costing-san-francisco/ https://sfist.com/2021/03/04/insanely-it-is-costing-san-fran...

woodruffw 4y ago
Forced institutionalization is plainly unconstitutional, and there's no particular evidence that you can disappear whichever group of undesirables you see fit and guarantee that more won't appear. The homeless don't spontaneously generate from other homeless; they come from the same households that you and I do. The solution is what it's always been: a universal housing mandate, and adequate social services (including harm reduction). The things stopping that aren't "performative activism"; it's Seattle's pathological disdain for housing and a polite-society liberal ethos that values property values over human lives.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
  > Forced institutionalization is plainly unconstitutional It is not illegal to arrest someone for stealing/drug use/etc. and then have a psychiatrist examine them to determine whether they should go to jail or be institutionalized. Courts regularly examine criminals for mental fitness to stand trial already. > no particular evidence that you can disappear whichever group of undesirables you see fit and guarantee that more won't appear Funny, because that's exactly what lots of cities do and it works pretty well. Take a look at any wealthy SoCal city and you'll find no homeless. > a universal housing mandate, and adequate social services (including harm reduction) So, spending more than the median American makes per year on tents? Or allowing crazy drug addicts to trash temporary housing and hotels? Because that's what happens in SF. From the SF Chronicle, which is a super left leaning publication: "Residents have threatened to kill staff members, chased them with metal pipes and lit fires inside rooms, incident reports show. At the Henry Hotel on Sixth Street, a tenant was hospitalized after a neighbor, for a second time, streamed bug spray into their eyes, public records show. Last May, less than a mile away at the Winton Hotel, a resident slashed another tenant’s face with a knife, leaving a trail of blood out of the building" [1] And from the director running one of these programs: "“We throw all these people into our hotels who have no demonstrated ability to live independently, who have severe problems and need to be elsewhere,” Shaw said" Clearly the problem is not housing, it's the lack of support around getting mentally ill people the treatment (i.e. institutionalization) they need. And obviously, a crazy person is not going to consent to treatment for their craziness, so you need to force them into institutionalization. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-sros/ https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-sros...
  - solardev 4y ago
    I'm all for forced institutionalization, as long as we start with our politicians.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    > It is not illegal to arrest someone for stealing/drug use/etc. and then have a psychiatrist examine them to determine whether they should go to jail or be institutionalized. Courts regularly examine criminals for mental fitness to stand trial already. It is if the arrest is pretextual; that’s functionally no different from rounding up whichever group you think is bad and working backwards to disappear them. In any case, nobody who lives in a van, tent, or even on the street meets the standard for forced institutionalization by those conditions alone. See the other thread. > Funny, because that's exactly what lots of cities do and it works pretty well. Take a look at any wealthy SoCal city and you'll find no homeless. I was under the impression that Los Angeles is both extremely wealthy and has lots of homeless. I’ve only visited once, however. Either way: you surely understand that “move them somewhere else” is not a sustainable solution. You can’t sweep human lives under the rug in a country that has due process, as threadbare as ours might be. The rest of the comment ignores what “housing mandate” really means: it means a combination of shelters, supported living (including mental institutions), and independent living based on the needs and capabilities of the individual.
    - pandaman 4y ago
      LA itself is not extremely wealthy with the median household income less than national according to a quick search. There are rich cities that people consider "LA" but actually separate cities with own government: Santa Monica,Malibu, Beverly Hills, Calabasas etc.
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
      > It is if the arrest is pretextual I wasn't aware that arresting someone for stealing or illegal drug use was pretextual. Oh wait, it isn't. People committed a legitimate crime. > nobody who lives in a van, tent, or even on the street meets the standard for forced institutionalization by those conditions alone Then you give them a choice: go to treatment or go to jail. It is a strictly better outcome than only giving them the choice to go to jail. > “move them somewhere else” is not a sustainable solution It's a fully sustainable solution for many cities in SoCal, like I've said. Go to Newport Beach some time and you'll see. If you want your city to spend billions supporting people who don't want to be supported, you can do that with your own money and vote. > due process You're not entitled to violate local laws without consequences. Notice I never said to specifically go after people for being homeless, but to go after people for violating actual laws. Illegal drug use, illegal trash dumping, stealing, etc. Just because those actions are associated with homeless people does not make them any less illegal. > supported living (including mental institutions) The entire point is that the political will does not exist to force people who should be in mental institutions but don't want to be, into those institutions. If you steam bug spray into someone's eyes or chase them with a metal pipe, you are a danger to others around you.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  > Forced institutionalization is plainly unconstitutional False. If you are a danger to yourself or others, then you can be involuntarily committed after a hearing with a judge, and it's completely constitutional. https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/civil-commitment-continuum-of-care.pdf https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/civil-commitment-... When you start with an immediate falsehood, why read further? The italics don't help your argument either.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    The context here is homeless or parking encampments. The standard for institutionalization is established in Donaldson, which requires that the state demonstrate that you’re either incapable of surviving on your own or are a danger to yourself or others (like you said). “Danger,” in turn, has been narrowly interpreted by the courts to steer clear of obvious due process concerns: the state generally needs to show than danger is imminent and unavoidable, rather than merely plausible or even likely. In other words: people living in RVs or tents do not prima facie meet either condition for forced institutionalization. People living on the street don’t even meet the conditions necessarily, since there’s no test for “quality of life.” And that’s the way it should be, unless you think that your civil liberties evaporate as soon as you cease to own property.
    - solardev 4y ago
      It's weird to see this sort of legal analysis in this day and age. It feels like a relic of the 90s, when the supreme court was still considered somewhat legitimate, vs the political puppets they are today. The Constitution itself is pretty worthless when it's subject to the whims of a bunch of corrupt asshats. It doesn't really matter what is or isn't constitutional anymore. If any appeal makes it to the court, it's just gonna be a red blue split anyway, and largely ignored or maliciously complied with by agencies leaning the other way. You might as well make it a system based on Facebook likes. That would at least be more democratic and just than what we have today, lol.
- rasz 4y ago
  Did the Emptying of Mental Hospitals Contribute to Homelessness? https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-menta...
  - solardev 4y ago
    So did it? Couldn't find a transcript on that page.
zmgsabst 4y ago
The huge expense per homeless to little effect has been dubbed the “Homeless Industrial Complex”: A lot of money goes to politicians, their supporters, and bourgeois — while only a small percentage goes to fixing homelessness. This is essentially looting the public by corrupt actors under the false guise of moral action.
- dmix 4y ago
  It might sound like some intentional conspiracy but it's mostly just a natural consequence of the stalemate. As long as new home development is crippled by zoning, NIMBYism, and the endless related issues it's only natural for those who care to become cynical and team up with those who don't to find ways to feed the never-ending demand for performative action (backed by millions of dollars) with a supply of expensive temporary solutions.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    i urge you to talk to ppl who have run low income housing. from the people i know who done it they quit bc it cost more to maintain it with all the damage and crime then a modest blue collar unit. "building more housing" dont fix nothing if the ppl who live there treat it like shit attract crime and don't reliably pay.
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      Why do you avoid proper capitalization and spelling out words in full? Have you intentionally modified your auto-correct so that it does not do this?
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    What you just described sounds like an intentional conspiracy: > team up […] to find ways to feed the never-ending demand for performative action (backed by [billions] of dollars) with a supply of expensive temporary solutions [that enrich themselves] If you’re spending most of the money on politicians, their friends, and bourgeois — for the purpose of virtue signaling rather than fixing the problem — you’re a second problem. Government looting the public.
stevage 4y ago
Clarifying that's $61k per year per tent space. Crazy.
- Maursault 4y ago
  So this is not a figure for the cost of the tent itself, but to lease the space the tent occupies? That would make more sense, but not much. For $5000/month I would expect to be able to rent an actual apartment there, you know, with an actual kitchen, den, bathroom and bedroom.
Maursault 4y ago
> San Francisco spends $61k/year on homeless tents, which is more than median income in the US. The problem is not funding. The city has 815,201 residents as of 2021. I think they can spend more than 13¢ per resident per year on this. Maybe there are other details that compound the problem, but the math insists that funding is obviously a massive part of the problem. They should be spending $20M a year at the very least, just to start, and increase from there. $20M/yr is $25 per resident per year. Even a homeless person could probably afford $25/yr, while the median household income in San Francisco is $120K/yr. If they want the problem fixed, paying for it to be fixed is really the only option.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
  To be clear, it's 61k/year/tent. Not 61k/year overall. Overall spending is in the billions [1]. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-has-an-unprecedented-1-1-billion-to-spend-16318448.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-has-an-unpre...
  - Maursault 4y ago
    What the hell kind of a tent costs $61K every year?! I think maybe this is the problem. A $500 tent is about the best you can buy, so spend $1000 per tent for an extremely luxurious tent, and save $60K per year per tent.
    - chmod775 4y ago
      That number is total spending divided by number of tents, not the price of just the tent.
    - solardev 4y ago
      Told ya housing was expensive in San Francisco.
    - rasz 4y ago
      Its a special tent managed by special people.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
the vast majority of the people are not mentally ill, that will do nothing for this. It could possibly help tent cities and homeless. A lot better scheme would be to end crazy restrictive building and zoning laws and letting the market fix it and stop letting NIMBYs keep prices artificially high
- diogenescynic 4y ago
  >the vast majority of the people are not mentally ill The vast majority of homeless people are drug users AND mentally ill. If you are living on the street when we have 3.6% unemployment--it's most likely drugs and mental illness (yes, there are rare exceptions).
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    You are completely wrong. Look up statistics. -Chronically- homeless people are likely drug users. That's the only part where you are partially correct.
  - solardev 4y ago
    These go against every statistic I've seen regarding American homelessness. If you truly believe this, could you please provide a cite?

woodruffw 4y ago

Forced institutionalization is plainly unconstitutional, and there's no particular evidence that you can disappear whichever group of undesirables you see fit and guarantee that more won't appear. The homeless don't spontaneously generate from other homeless; they come from the same households that you and I do. The solution is what it's always been: a universal housing mandate, and adequate social services (including harm reduction). The things stopping that aren't "performative activism"; it's Seattle's pathological disdain for housing and a polite-society liberal ethos that values property values over human lives.

ceeplusplus 4y ago
> Forced institutionalization is plainly unconstitutional It is not illegal to arrest someone for stealing/drug use/etc. and then have a psychiatrist examine them to determine whether they should go to jail or be institutionalized. Courts regularly examine criminals for mental fitness to stand trial already. > no particular evidence that you can disappear whichever group of undesirables you see fit and guarantee that more won't appear Funny, because that's exactly what lots of cities do and it works pretty well. Take a look at any wealthy SoCal city and you'll find no homeless. > a universal housing mandate, and adequate social services (including harm reduction) So, spending more than the median American makes per year on tents? Or allowing crazy drug addicts to trash temporary housing and hotels? Because that's what happens in SF. From the SF Chronicle, which is a super left leaning publication: "Residents have threatened to kill staff members, chased them with metal pipes and lit fires inside rooms, incident reports show. At the Henry Hotel on Sixth Street, a tenant was hospitalized after a neighbor, for a second time, streamed bug spray into their eyes, public records show. Last May, less than a mile away at the Winton Hotel, a resident slashed another tenant’s face with a knife, leaving a trail of blood out of the building" [1] And from the director running one of these programs: "“We throw all these people into our hotels who have no demonstrated ability to live independently, who have severe problems and need to be elsewhere,” Shaw said" Clearly the problem is not housing, it's the lack of support around getting mentally ill people the treatment (i.e. institutionalization) they need. And obviously, a crazy person is not going to consent to treatment for their craziness, so you need to force them into institutionalization. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-sros/ https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/san-francisco-sros...
- solardev 4y ago
  I'm all for forced institutionalization, as long as we start with our politicians.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  > It is not illegal to arrest someone for stealing/drug use/etc. and then have a psychiatrist examine them to determine whether they should go to jail or be institutionalized. Courts regularly examine criminals for mental fitness to stand trial already. It is if the arrest is pretextual; that’s functionally no different from rounding up whichever group you think is bad and working backwards to disappear them. In any case, nobody who lives in a van, tent, or even on the street meets the standard for forced institutionalization by those conditions alone. See the other thread. > Funny, because that's exactly what lots of cities do and it works pretty well. Take a look at any wealthy SoCal city and you'll find no homeless. I was under the impression that Los Angeles is both extremely wealthy and has lots of homeless. I’ve only visited once, however. Either way: you surely understand that “move them somewhere else” is not a sustainable solution. You can’t sweep human lives under the rug in a country that has due process, as threadbare as ours might be. The rest of the comment ignores what “housing mandate” really means: it means a combination of shelters, supported living (including mental institutions), and independent living based on the needs and capabilities of the individual.
  - pandaman 4y ago
    LA itself is not extremely wealthy with the median household income less than national according to a quick search. There are rich cities that people consider "LA" but actually separate cities with own government: Santa Monica,Malibu, Beverly Hills, Calabasas etc.
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago
    > It is if the arrest is pretextual I wasn't aware that arresting someone for stealing or illegal drug use was pretextual. Oh wait, it isn't. People committed a legitimate crime. > nobody who lives in a van, tent, or even on the street meets the standard for forced institutionalization by those conditions alone Then you give them a choice: go to treatment or go to jail. It is a strictly better outcome than only giving them the choice to go to jail. > “move them somewhere else” is not a sustainable solution It's a fully sustainable solution for many cities in SoCal, like I've said. Go to Newport Beach some time and you'll see. If you want your city to spend billions supporting people who don't want to be supported, you can do that with your own money and vote. > due process You're not entitled to violate local laws without consequences. Notice I never said to specifically go after people for being homeless, but to go after people for violating actual laws. Illegal drug use, illegal trash dumping, stealing, etc. Just because those actions are associated with homeless people does not make them any less illegal. > supported living (including mental institutions) The entire point is that the political will does not exist to force people who should be in mental institutions but don't want to be, into those institutions. If you steam bug spray into someone's eyes or chase them with a metal pipe, you are a danger to others around you.
TomSwirly 4y ago
> Forced institutionalization is plainly unconstitutional False. If you are a danger to yourself or others, then you can be involuntarily committed after a hearing with a judge, and it's completely constitutional. https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/civil-commitment-continuum-of-care.pdf https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/civil-commitment-... When you start with an immediate falsehood, why read further? The italics don't help your argument either.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  The context here is homeless or parking encampments. The standard for institutionalization is established in Donaldson, which requires that the state demonstrate that you’re either incapable of surviving on your own or are a danger to yourself or others (like you said). “Danger,” in turn, has been narrowly interpreted by the courts to steer clear of obvious due process concerns: the state generally needs to show than danger is imminent and unavoidable, rather than merely plausible or even likely. In other words: people living in RVs or tents do not prima facie meet either condition for forced institutionalization. People living on the street don’t even meet the conditions necessarily, since there’s no test for “quality of life.” And that’s the way it should be, unless you think that your civil liberties evaporate as soon as you cease to own property.
  - solardev 4y ago
    It's weird to see this sort of legal analysis in this day and age. It feels like a relic of the 90s, when the supreme court was still considered somewhat legitimate, vs the political puppets they are today. The Constitution itself is pretty worthless when it's subject to the whims of a bunch of corrupt asshats. It doesn't really matter what is or isn't constitutional anymore. If any appeal makes it to the court, it's just gonna be a red blue split anyway, and largely ignored or maliciously complied with by agencies leaning the other way. You might as well make it a system based on Facebook likes. That would at least be more democratic and just than what we have today, lol.
rasz 4y ago
Did the Emptying of Mental Hospitals Contribute to Homelessness? https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-menta...
- solardev 4y ago
  So did it? Couldn't find a transcript on that page.

zmgsabst 4y ago

The huge expense per homeless to little effect has been dubbed the “Homeless Industrial Complex”: A lot of money goes to politicians, their supporters, and bourgeois — while only a small percentage goes to fixing homelessness. This is essentially looting the public by corrupt actors under the false guise of moral action.

dmix 4y ago
It might sound like some intentional conspiracy but it's mostly just a natural consequence of the stalemate. As long as new home development is crippled by zoning, NIMBYism, and the endless related issues it's only natural for those who care to become cynical and team up with those who don't to find ways to feed the never-ending demand for performative action (backed by millions of dollars) with a supply of expensive temporary solutions.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  i urge you to talk to ppl who have run low income housing. from the people i know who done it they quit bc it cost more to maintain it with all the damage and crime then a modest blue collar unit. "building more housing" dont fix nothing if the ppl who live there treat it like shit attract crime and don't reliably pay.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    Why do you avoid proper capitalization and spelling out words in full? Have you intentionally modified your auto-correct so that it does not do this?
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  What you just described sounds like an intentional conspiracy: > team up […] to find ways to feed the never-ending demand for performative action (backed by [billions] of dollars) with a supply of expensive temporary solutions [that enrich themselves] If you’re spending most of the money on politicians, their friends, and bourgeois — for the purpose of virtue signaling rather than fixing the problem — you’re a second problem. Government looting the public.

stevage 4y ago

Clarifying that's $61k per year per tent space. Crazy.

Maursault 4y ago
So this is not a figure for the cost of the tent itself, but to lease the space the tent occupies? That would make more sense, but not much. For $5000/month I would expect to be able to rent an actual apartment there, you know, with an actual kitchen, den, bathroom and bedroom.

Maursault 4y ago

> San Francisco spends $61k/year on homeless tents, which is more than median income in the US. The problem is not funding. The city has 815,201 residents as of 2021. I think they can spend more than 13¢ per resident per year on this. Maybe there are other details that compound the problem, but the math insists that funding is obviously a massive part of the problem. They should be spending $20M a year at the very least, just to start, and increase from there. $20M/yr is $25 per resident per year. Even a homeless person could probably afford $25/yr, while the median household income in San Francisco is $120K/yr. If they want the problem fixed, paying for it to be fixed is really the only option.

ceeplusplus 4y ago
To be clear, it's 61k/year/tent. Not 61k/year overall. Overall spending is in the billions [1]. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-has-an-unprecedented-1-1-billion-to-spend-16318448.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-has-an-unpre...
- Maursault 4y ago
  What the hell kind of a tent costs $61K every year?! I think maybe this is the problem. A $500 tent is about the best you can buy, so spend $1000 per tent for an extremely luxurious tent, and save $60K per year per tent.
  - chmod775 4y ago
    That number is total spending divided by number of tents, not the price of just the tent.
  - solardev 4y ago
    Told ya housing was expensive in San Francisco.
  - rasz 4y ago
    Its a special tent managed by special people.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

the vast majority of the people are not mentally ill, that will do nothing for this. It could possibly help tent cities and homeless. A lot better scheme would be to end crazy restrictive building and zoning laws and letting the market fix it and stop letting NIMBYs keep prices artificially high

diogenescynic 4y ago
>the vast majority of the people are not mentally ill The vast majority of homeless people are drug users AND mentally ill. If you are living on the street when we have 3.6% unemployment--it's most likely drugs and mental illness (yes, there are rare exceptions).
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  You are completely wrong. Look up statistics. -Chronically- homeless people are likely drug users. That's the only part where you are partially correct.
- solardev 4y ago
  These go against every statistic I've seen regarding American homelessness. If you truly believe this, could you please provide a cite?