12 ms·

S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered

56 points by NoRagrets 4y ago

prpl 4y ago
So the city says it's legal in light of Martin v. Boise because, while they don't have enough shelter for everyone, the there's enough shelter for those who accept shelter. I guess we'll find out in 2024 if that argument has legs.
abeppu 4y ago
I think in the context of a legal action, the term "charged" in the current title ("S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered") is confusing, and doesn't match the Chronicle title.
- jelliclesfarm 4y ago
  They literally changed the title on the website. Lol. The original title was : “S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps activists charge city with criminalizing unsheltered” that I edited due to limits on title length on HN submission.
bergenty 4y ago
Screw that, clean the homeless up. Can’t believe we have let the problem get so bad.
- ska 4y ago
  > clean the homeless up I'm curious - what do you imagine that looks like?
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Moving them to the shelters and telling them to stay off the street. If there’s no room in the shelter, providing them housing outside the city. If you have a shelter/provided housing it’s a crime to sleep on the streets. Alternatively start up workhouses and sanitariums again. Government work in exchange for a safe, clean place to sleep and food for the day. Mental sanitariums for those people that are too far gone. That should provide enough of a disincentive over time to camp on the streets.
    - ska 4y ago
      So, a form of incarceration? An observation: most of the "simple answer" approaches to this seem to have failed badly in practice when/where they are attempted. There has to be some complexity, no?
      - km3r 4y ago
        And the current approach of leaving them to the streets is failing much much worse in practice. Of the politically and economically viable options, kicking them off the street and sending them to shelter (which they can refuse, but they can't stay on the street) is the best option I have seen. Long term we absolutely need to address the issues that cause homelessness, and I think we are overall heading that direction, but the problems of today need to be addressed with solutions for today.
        ska 4y ago
        Isn't that exactly what is being tried and currently failing in other places? I'm pretty sure I saw an article to that effect about Vancouver this year-ish (the one in Canada, not the one in Washington). What is it about the shelters (other than lack of spaces) that is making people opt not to use them?
    - rtkwe 4y ago
      The whole area is one massive housing crisis there's barely space to put people with money for livable rates much less trying to house the entire homeless population.
    - Bud 4y ago
    - gwbas1c 4y ago
      Some of the replies point out that it's always more complicated than that. One part of the problem is that the sheer cost of housing in San Francisco (and the surrounding) area is out of control. Some homeless people are simply priced out of the market. That generally is caused by a general lack of new construction in San Francisco and the Bay Area. But, I doubt that magically increasing the housing stock overnight will "solve" homelessness. (Because there are many reasons for homelessness.) When I lived in the S.F. Bay area for almost a decade, I was shocked that the homeless problem was so bad. Where I'm from, the weather does put a sense of urgency on homelessness, because it's much more difficult to camp unsheltered in the winter. The Bay Area doesn't have the late October-November urgency to get people into shelters; nor do the homeless have the urgency to follow someone else's rules for a bit or risk freezing to death. What I would suggest is to try to avoid seeing homeless as "others." Many people are homeless for different reasons; and it's important to empathize with the person who doesn't want the tent on their front door as much as it's important to empathize with the person in the tent.
  - throwawayb150us 4y ago
    https://nypost.com/2022/09/13/latino-sfpd-cop-branded-racist-for-arresting-hispanic-drug-dealers/amp/ https://nypost.com/2022/09/13/latino-sfpd-cop-branded-racist... : This smells like Cartel involvement at high levels of government.
  - m0llusk 4y ago
    One potential foundation is the tradition of reading the Riot Act. Normally citizens are allowed to move freely and gather. This is suspended during a riot for public safety. Homeless in general and encampments specifically can be seen as also a menace to public health and safety. Observe and record incidents of disruptive behavior, public drug use and pooping, and calls to responders and at certain level issue a warning then take action. These problem cases can cost communities hundreds of thousands. At some point something has to be done.
    - nerb 4y ago
      > These problem cases can cost communities hundreds of thousands so let's continue to spend more on incarcerating them as a bandage rather than fixing the issues :) > incidents of... pooping... i'm sure they just do this outside for preference rather than utter lack of access to public facilities. why couldn't they be like me during my trip to SF where i could just patronize a business to use their bathroom when i needed to go? > menace to public health and safety love to see the intentional split between "public" and whatever group you'd put houseless people in (those "menaces"!)
- blacksmith_tb 4y ago
  Well, the problem there is that simply being homeless isn't a crime (which I will say seems to me to be reasonable - the alternative is things like the Victorian Poorhouses). Throwing trash all over the place (since there are no public trash services to speak of in most cities, and homeless people don't have service from trash haulers) is a crime, but if they were issued citations, they couldn't pay, and still don't have any way to get rid of their trash... I would think that using public money to haul away trash would have a pretty good return on investment for everyone concerned.
  - maerF0x0 4y ago
    > but if they were issued citations, they couldn't pay, and still don't have any way to get rid of their trash... I would think that using public money to haul away trash would have a pretty good return on investment for everyone concerned. One of the points of the justice system is to ensure that people are sufficiently disincentivized from doing things that society has decided shouldnt be done. We shouldnt consider it a good investment to enable bad behavior.
    - nerb 4y ago
      that "[point] of the justice system" only works if you consider everyone in a vacuum and have the false notion everyone has equal access to resources. parent already outlined why people living on the street don't have the means to throw away trash in the right place, but you're focused on it "enabl[ing] bad behavior" and (i assume) in support of giving people that have no money fines (which also unfairly impact poorer people, but i'm sure that's lost on you as well). we have immense resources to provide public utilities like roads, why can't there be more public garbage cans (which benefit everyone; last time i visited SF it was a pain carrying trash everywhere)
      - maerF0x0 4y ago
        > eryone has equal access to resources No false notions required -- all living people have a risk of loss of freedoms, which is why prison works. > why can't there be more public garbage cans I suppose this mostly makes sense until we start to have local businesses using them for free trash disposal. Why would I be more in favor of public trash cans you ask? (so you dont have to continue presuming...) Because it's enabling and encouraging an ideal behavior -- people dispose of their trash in an orderly manner.
- dirtmerchant 4y ago
  Please enlighten us. What do you mean by "clean up"? Keep in mind, we're all engineers here, so details matter. I'll wait.
  - cultofmetatron 4y ago
    undefined behavior. implementation details left to discretion of implementer
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Get them off the street. Move them to workhouses or sanitariums.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Further clarification requires far more nuance and assessment than is likely to be read. There's probably not even one single cause but a multitude of social ills. Some people in this situation might experience one, but are probably each a unique snowflake of mixed problems. Unaffordable housing, mental illness (across a huge spectrum of many different illnesses, probably several different experts just for this), even the occasional grifter who just happens to prefer panhandling or urban scavenging to scrape by. My belief is that homelessness / 'unsheltered' is a catchall result of all the gaps in society's integration of individuals; and it's also a national level problem since the individuals can also be shipped around like those migrants that made the news recently. At least in America, but I've also heard that one of the emotionally motivating factors of Brexit were migrants from outside of the EU, we refuse to even provide a path and set of requirements for those who do want to participate in the system that's setup (instead in the US it's "build the wall" or "war at the border" extremes). Closing gaps in social safety nets and providing pathways for those who are troubled to integrate into society in mutually useful ways, or perhaps even caring for those who are incapable of such self care when provided help getting out of that hole, logically seems like a far harder challenge than any single city can face in a vacuum when we can't even handle easier issues on a national level.
spanktheuser 4y ago
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  This suit is the kick-it-down-the-road and make someone else pay for it answer. Most of these homeless are not from SF or nearby. Moreover, their salvation isn't going to be sitting in an open drug camp. People are acting like SF is pulling people out of hospital beds or something when they actually try to help. The correct answer is what Portugal does. Detain and imprison drug users for three to five years in a non-voluntary, non-criminal, detox programs where they don't receive a criminal record from merely non-violent crimes.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    This or build massive drug cities in the desert, where people can go and live their drug-addicted lives away from everyone else.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      If the drug addicted were capable of operating their own cities, they already would be. They obviously need a non drug addicted population to support them.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Certainly - and said drug cities would have billions poured into them, and outside assistance. Still cheaper than prisons.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        So non drug addicted people work to help and support drug addicted people enjoy life?
        4y ago
ada1981 4y ago
nostromo 4y ago
> The lawsuit alleges that the city violates state and federal laws, its own policies and homeless individuals’ rights by “punishing residents who have nowhere to go,” They have shelter beds available. People need to stop repeating falsehoods from activists and well-meaning people who keep saying this. Some homeless people prefer not to use them for a variety of reasons -- usually because shelters tend to be drug- and alcohol-free -- but also for reasons like not accepting pets or not housing couples of opposite gender together.
- deathanatos 4y ago
  > officials estimate 20,000 people will be homeless in San Francisco over the course of this year and demand can’t keep up despite the city having 13,299 supportive housing units and 3,571 shelter spots as of last week.
  - nostromo 4y ago
    There are beds available. That's all you need to know. When police go to an illegal camp and say, you need to go to a shelter, it's not accurate to say they have nowhere to go. They do have somewhere to go. Handwaving this away and saying, well, maybe according to some estimate we may run out of beds in the future -- when we haven't run out of beds and never do, is not a serious argument.
- criddell 4y ago
  Why not have a variety of shelters to better serve the people who need them? It seems like you could more efficiently provide services when people of similar needs are clustered together.
- omegaworks 4y ago
  >usually because shelters tend to be drug- and alcohol-free Shelters are rife with abuse and have no place for you to store your belongings. >for reasons like not accepting pets or not housing couples of opposite gender together. You so casually dismiss the fundamental human desire to be close to the people and animals that you trust while being inside a facility that offers you the absolute barest of minimum and is sometimes outright designed to expose you to predation.
olivermarks 4y ago
'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived to take the places of those who have been given resources. https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homelessness-Thousands-in-S-F-30431.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homeles... There is a lot of land and resources in California to help these individuals focus on recovery and it should be possible to keep the cartel drug dealers away from them in a non urban area.
- crhulls 4y ago
  Why is this comment getting downvoted? I understand in progressive circles this statement maybe controversial, but I've always admired hacker news for being slightly more sensible when it comes to shunning people for statements that are not politically correct.
  - zackees 4y ago
    [dead]
  - Zigurd 4y ago
    It is getting downvoted because "sweeps" are a showy way for the cops to look like they are part of the solution. Don't buy in to copaganda. More police is a high-cost, unaccountable, self-perpetuating approach demonstrated for decades not to work. In conservative Utah, they know their housing-first approach works. It isn't 100% effective, but it is more effective than police-based approaches.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    See HN’s guidelines on commenting on voting: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - 4y ago
gamblor956 4y ago
California has enough shelter space and housing for the true (involuntary) homeless, meaning those who are homeless because they can't afford housing, or because they have a mental illness and can't maintain housing on their own. Almost all of our shelters are sober facilities, meaning no drugs or alcohol, which is what led to the formation of homeless camps: drug addicts don't have to get rid of their drugs if they set up camp on a sidewalk. The point of the sweeps is to make the camps an undesirable option compared to shelters, or moving back home, by increasing the friction and hassle of camping vs the alternatives. Most of CA's homeless aren't local to SF, LA, or SD, or even to California. For example, LAT reporting on the subject has confirmed that as much as 75% of Hollywood's homeless may be from the Midwest. Several Midwestern states (specifically, Texas and Oklahoma) openly brag about shipping their homeless to CA to avoid dealing with the costs of caring for their own residents. Moreover, the great majority of the drug-addicted homeless population is comprised of out-of-state residents, and drug addicts are more than half of California's homeless. Camp sweeps are a good thing. They disincentivize drug hotspots, get the mentally ill into shelters where they can be treated, and improve safety for everyone else.
- convolvatron 4y ago
  ignoring the plight of the homeless for a second. these camps are a serious problem for the rest of us in SF that are trying to lead quasi-normal lives. it just cant be acceptable to have dogs trained to harass and attack people running around free on the streets. i'm hardly a law and order kind of person, but methheads arguing outside your window every night is real problem. it really hard to run a retail business when there are 5-6 seriously messed up people living right outside you door who have reluctantly agreed to keep a tiny path free. it really sucks to have to pick up their biological waste because they cant be bothered. as a society, not just the city of SF, we should really wonder what we're trying to accomplish here and how this situation came to exist instead of wondering if there is another rug we can push this all under.
- abeppu 4y ago
  > Camp sweeps are a good thing. They disincentivize drug hotspots, get the mentally ill into shelters where they can be treated, and improve safety for everyone else. I think if it disincentivizes drug hotspots, the effect is weak. I would say it temporarily moves the same people by a very short distance. You still see the same issues in the same neighborhoods, week after week. Similarly, if this is meant to be a mechanism for helping people with mental illness get to help, it's not effective. I see the same characters over and over again. I would also argue it doesn't improve safety for everyone else. If anything, when a sweep happens, it creates a sudden stream of agitated, physically and emotionally unsettled people, moving through the street. Normally in my neighborhood walking _past_ an encampment isn't too bad. Walking home when a sweep has just happened nearby is much less comfortable. I think what's really happening is theater. Local officials and institutions need to appear to be active more than they need to be actually effective. So while we're not actually solving problems, we're having the most visible homelessness shepherded from block to block.
jl6 4y ago
> The complaint estimates it would take $4.8 billion to build the thousands of units San Francisco says it needs When they say “units”, do they just mean housing, or does it also include mental health and rehab units?
- killjoywashere 4y ago
  Keep in mind the total number of homeless outside SF vastly exceeds the number inside, so this dose of money will no doubt create "vacancies on the street" which will be quickly filled by homeless from other areas, and require an additional dose of money. As word gets out, the problem would likely get larger, not smaller. This seems like a losing proposition for one city, surrounded by water on 3 sides, to try and solve on their own.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
m0llusk 4y ago
The worst thing about this is it is extremely unlikely to help with homelessness, but it will almost certainly earn big bucks for lawyers involved in the homeless industrial complex. The level of perverse corruption here is phenomenal.
- azinman2 4y ago
  > homeless industrial complex First time I’m hearing of such a complex that sounds oxymoronic. How big is this complex? Who are the players? How do they make so much money to become a complex industry?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Apparently there was a decent amount of money being spent in Houston I think it was, that wasn't effectively housing hardly anyone until all the agencies got together and started working together. There was an HN post on it.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    See motel owners getting paid $100k and even $250k+ per key by the government: https://mynorthwest.com/2744155/seattles-two-new-hotel-homeless-shelters-are-now-officially-opened/ https://mynorthwest.com/2744155/seattles-two-new-hotel-homel... The motels would be worth nowhere near that much if sold as a motel, and it is happening all up and down west coast cities. I know one property that sold for $150k per key, which would have sold for half that to a non government buyer, and the kicker is that it sits empty except for housing 2 guests that were already living there when the government bought it in summer 2021.
    - azinman2 4y ago
      I’m not suggesting there aren’t people who profit in some way from the money spent on services for the homeless. But calling it an industrial complex elevates it. The motels are not a single uniform entity intertwined with the government to extract profits this way while trying to undermine the mission of public policy in order to make even more money. I’m not an economist but I’m certain there is a high bar to become an industrial complex.
mancerayder 4y ago
"The ultimate goal of the lawsuit is to push the city to instead spend billions on affordable housing to provide shelter for everyone and fix its homelessness crisis, which the lawsuit says is a result of decades of failed policies and underinvestment." .. "Mayor London Breed has touted her effort to expand shelter beds and permanent supportive housing. Still, officials estimate 20,000 people will be homeless in San Francisco over the course of this year and demand can’t keep up despite the city having 13,299 supportive housing units and 3,571 shelter spots as of last week." Demand, it says. Here's the problem with homeless advocates and their goals: they're idealistic and absolute. What percentage of homeless people are locals? Maybe 50 percent or less? We live in a country of over 320 million people and porous-by-law borders between 49 other states. What do you think would happen to a place that would create supportive housing structure, have the most liberal laws on public drug use and property crimes, with volunteers on stand-by to provide needles and medical attention as needed. It's all a bit perplexing to me that people keep touting "housing shortages." I live surrounded by homeless people. They're not homeless because rents are high, they're homeless because of a slew of other psychological and addiction issues. And almost no one was born in the city that they're homeless in.
- scelerat 4y ago
  > What percentage of homeless people are locals? Maybe 50 percent or less? 70% by recent counts. 22% from California (and 14% from other bay area counties). The remaining 8% are from out of state. https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDReport_SanFrancisco_FinalDraft-1.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep... > And almost no one was born in the city that they're homeless in Not clear on why that is particularly relevant. Almost no one I know lives in the town they were born in, myself included. Of the few homeless people I know personally here in Oakland, all of them were born and raised in Oakland.
- jl6 4y ago
  Is there data showing a migration of homeless people towards SF? Presumably we would see a reduction in homelessness elsewhere if SF was acting as a magnet?
entwife 4y ago
It would be impossible to build enough housing in San Francisco for everyone who wants to live there.
- masterof0 4y ago
  I fail to understand why people feel entitled to live in a place they can't afford. I would love to live in Beverly Hills, but I can't.
  - clint 4y ago
    Because they are there and they don't have money to go elsewhere, its not about "Where they feel entitled to live"
- clint 4y ago
  A bald face lie if I've ever heard one
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Kowloon walled city had a density of 3.2 million people/sq. mile. SFs 47 sq. miles would be enough for 150 million people.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jelliclesfarm 4y ago
I would recommend that anyone who pays taxes boycott and cancel San Francisco. it will only make a dent, but it’s a start. Everyday, there is a missed opportunity to clean up the streets: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/alleged-stalker-san-francisco-17468951.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article... [..]In what has become a five-alarm fire for many women in the city — spread on social media — several alleged victims have posted photos of the distinctive-looking Hobbs, a 6-foot-4 white man with a buzz cut and a body covered in tattoos, including the E-V-I-L tag on his fingers. The fact that a San Francisco Superior Court judge dismissed a case against Hobbs in which he was accused of following and grabbing a 15-year-old girl — first reported in this column — is well known by now. So is the fact that he’s back on the streets despite a long arrest record in four counties, despite admitting to me in a phone interview that he follows women he finds attractive, and despite the flood of new complaints. But it turns out city officials had another chance to intervene on Aug. 11 — and again came up short.[..] [..]A police report states that he entered a home on Avila Street in the Marina while the owner, who left the door unlocked, was out walking his dog. When the owner returned and found Hobbs standing in his hallway, he called police and told them the intruder kept saying, “I want a house like this.” Hobbs, according to the report, initially told officers he was “Scott Peterson,” using the name of the California man who notoriously killed his pregnant wife.[..]
andirk 4y ago
Rent should be < 30% of income [1]. If the cost of housing is far more than that, then homelessness is expected. Where do service workers live? Do they drive from hours away via expensive gas? It's unsustainable unless there are artificial balances such as tax-paid subsidized housing. Anyone who is chronically homeless should be offered jobs and paid housing. If that doesn't work, then they become a ward of the state and treated as a child. [1] https://www.chase.com/personal/banking/education/budgeting-saving/how-much-income-should-go-to-rent#:~:text=A%20popular%20standard%20for%20budgeting,gross%20income)%20on%20your%20rent https://www.chase.com/personal/banking/education/budgeting-s....
- horns4lyfe 4y ago
  That’s going to be most of them, as most are drug addicts. And no I don’t have any stats for you, frankly just walk around SF or Portland, it’s obvious.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    > frankly just walk around SF or Portland Have you considered that you only notice the addicts and mentally ill? Because they don't give a shit about being seen as homeless. Everyone else is probably trying to keep up appearances by hanging out in libraries or coffee shops during the day.
    - Ancapistani 4y ago
      ... and the people who do that are not the reason this is widely seen as a problem. They're also very unlikely to remain homeless for long periods.
      - triceratops 4y ago
        Why do they ever become homeless at all?
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Most homeless are effectively hiding from you. The ones you see are the ones who don't care about being seen, the mental/addicted.
volkhavaar 4y ago
There's quite a bit of confusion in this thread regarding "chronic homelessness" vs "temporary/short-term homelessness". The solution for short-term homelessness is generally the use of "emergency shelters", of which San Francisco has many. However, emergency shelters do little to nothing to address chronic homelessness, which requires long-term supportive housing, something San Francisco has very little of. This difference, which gets lost in discussions such as the one here, leads to bad-faith statements by politicians and others regarding the true amount of housing available for homeless people. For example, the number of "available beds" touted by Newsom and others are almost entirely within short-term emergency shelters, which do not address the real problem (chronic homelessness) much at all. Instead, this "number-of-beds" statistic is used to gloss over the fact that a real solution has not been found, and then justify (probably illegal) police action against homeless people. The true intent of such actions is probably to cause regular disruption in the lives of homeless people to increase the difficulty of simply being homeless in San Francisco. Whether or not you agree with such police action is up to you, but it's important to acknowledge that the argument that "there is available housing" is a bad faith argument, and that this argument is simply used to redirect attention from both police action against homeless people as well as the fact that a real solution has not been found. Here's a citation that describes the differences between short term emergency housing and long term housing, which illuminates why the current approach being taken by San Francisco is not genuine as well as approaches that might actually work: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). Permanent supportive housing: Evaluating the evidence for improving health outcomes among people experiencing chronic homelessness.
jelliclesfarm 4y ago
https://twitter.com/chezpim/status/1574824441854324736 https://twitter.com/chezpim/status/1574824441854324736 : reading this thread, I found out that it’s possible to buy stun guns. What does the law in CA say about using stun guns for self defense? And where does one buy them?
protomyth 4y ago
As to the drug-addicted or mentally unwell folks, we are going to have to figure out some other method than asylums, in neighborhood group homes, or the streets. All of these had major scandals and disfavor from the communities affected. Its going to have to be an involuntary solution (yes, incarceration), and its probably going to involve moving people to a ranch-like area away from the city with a much different housing setup than some cells or apartments, maybe something with individual shelters with outside spaces. I expect its going to be a commitment of years or forever for some of these people. Working on people's mental health and addiction is not some 30 day process. Just the dentist bill alone will be scary, but its not going to get better in a tent in SF. Society cannot last with this level of filth and crime in major cities. The homeless because of cost folks, well, move to somewhere else or we are going to need a wave of mini-apartments approved at some point, but SF doesn't like such things.
_blz2 4y ago
It is amusing the usual 'war on drugs' sentiment is completely absent in this thread. Everyone is nimby is one way or the other.

56 points by NoRagrets 4y ago

prpl 4y ago

So the city says it's legal in light of Martin v. Boise because, while they don't have enough shelter for everyone, the there's enough shelter for those who accept shelter. I guess we'll find out in 2024 if that argument has legs.

abeppu 4y ago

I think in the context of a legal action, the term "charged" in the current title ("S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps: city charged with criminalizing unsheltered") is confusing, and doesn't match the Chronicle title.

jelliclesfarm 4y ago
They literally changed the title on the website. Lol. The original title was : “S.F. sued over homeless camp sweeps activists charge city with criminalizing unsheltered” that I edited due to limits on title length on HN submission.

bergenty 4y ago

Screw that, clean the homeless up. Can’t believe we have let the problem get so bad.

ska 4y ago
> clean the homeless up I'm curious - what do you imagine that looks like?
- bergenty 4y ago
  Moving them to the shelters and telling them to stay off the street. If there’s no room in the shelter, providing them housing outside the city. If you have a shelter/provided housing it’s a crime to sleep on the streets. Alternatively start up workhouses and sanitariums again. Government work in exchange for a safe, clean place to sleep and food for the day. Mental sanitariums for those people that are too far gone. That should provide enough of a disincentive over time to camp on the streets.
  - ska 4y ago
    So, a form of incarceration? An observation: most of the "simple answer" approaches to this seem to have failed badly in practice when/where they are attempted. There has to be some complexity, no?
    - km3r 4y ago
      And the current approach of leaving them to the streets is failing much much worse in practice. Of the politically and economically viable options, kicking them off the street and sending them to shelter (which they can refuse, but they can't stay on the street) is the best option I have seen. Long term we absolutely need to address the issues that cause homelessness, and I think we are overall heading that direction, but the problems of today need to be addressed with solutions for today.
      - ska 4y ago
        Isn't that exactly what is being tried and currently failing in other places? I'm pretty sure I saw an article to that effect about Vancouver this year-ish (the one in Canada, not the one in Washington). What is it about the shelters (other than lack of spaces) that is making people opt not to use them?
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    The whole area is one massive housing crisis there's barely space to put people with money for livable rates much less trying to house the entire homeless population.
  - Bud 4y ago
  - gwbas1c 4y ago
    Some of the replies point out that it's always more complicated than that. One part of the problem is that the sheer cost of housing in San Francisco (and the surrounding) area is out of control. Some homeless people are simply priced out of the market. That generally is caused by a general lack of new construction in San Francisco and the Bay Area. But, I doubt that magically increasing the housing stock overnight will "solve" homelessness. (Because there are many reasons for homelessness.) When I lived in the S.F. Bay area for almost a decade, I was shocked that the homeless problem was so bad. Where I'm from, the weather does put a sense of urgency on homelessness, because it's much more difficult to camp unsheltered in the winter. The Bay Area doesn't have the late October-November urgency to get people into shelters; nor do the homeless have the urgency to follow someone else's rules for a bit or risk freezing to death. What I would suggest is to try to avoid seeing homeless as "others." Many people are homeless for different reasons; and it's important to empathize with the person who doesn't want the tent on their front door as much as it's important to empathize with the person in the tent.
- throwawayb150us 4y ago
  https://nypost.com/2022/09/13/latino-sfpd-cop-branded-racist-for-arresting-hispanic-drug-dealers/amp/ https://nypost.com/2022/09/13/latino-sfpd-cop-branded-racist... : This smells like Cartel involvement at high levels of government.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  One potential foundation is the tradition of reading the Riot Act. Normally citizens are allowed to move freely and gather. This is suspended during a riot for public safety. Homeless in general and encampments specifically can be seen as also a menace to public health and safety. Observe and record incidents of disruptive behavior, public drug use and pooping, and calls to responders and at certain level issue a warning then take action. These problem cases can cost communities hundreds of thousands. At some point something has to be done.
  - nerb 4y ago
    > These problem cases can cost communities hundreds of thousands so let's continue to spend more on incarcerating them as a bandage rather than fixing the issues :) > incidents of... pooping... i'm sure they just do this outside for preference rather than utter lack of access to public facilities. why couldn't they be like me during my trip to SF where i could just patronize a business to use their bathroom when i needed to go? > menace to public health and safety love to see the intentional split between "public" and whatever group you'd put houseless people in (those "menaces"!)
blacksmith_tb 4y ago
Well, the problem there is that simply being homeless isn't a crime (which I will say seems to me to be reasonable - the alternative is things like the Victorian Poorhouses). Throwing trash all over the place (since there are no public trash services to speak of in most cities, and homeless people don't have service from trash haulers) is a crime, but if they were issued citations, they couldn't pay, and still don't have any way to get rid of their trash... I would think that using public money to haul away trash would have a pretty good return on investment for everyone concerned.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  > but if they were issued citations, they couldn't pay, and still don't have any way to get rid of their trash... I would think that using public money to haul away trash would have a pretty good return on investment for everyone concerned. One of the points of the justice system is to ensure that people are sufficiently disincentivized from doing things that society has decided shouldnt be done. We shouldnt consider it a good investment to enable bad behavior.
  - nerb 4y ago
    that "[point] of the justice system" only works if you consider everyone in a vacuum and have the false notion everyone has equal access to resources. parent already outlined why people living on the street don't have the means to throw away trash in the right place, but you're focused on it "enabl[ing] bad behavior" and (i assume) in support of giving people that have no money fines (which also unfairly impact poorer people, but i'm sure that's lost on you as well). we have immense resources to provide public utilities like roads, why can't there be more public garbage cans (which benefit everyone; last time i visited SF it was a pain carrying trash everywhere)
    - maerF0x0 4y ago
      > eryone has equal access to resources No false notions required -- all living people have a risk of loss of freedoms, which is why prison works. > why can't there be more public garbage cans I suppose this mostly makes sense until we start to have local businesses using them for free trash disposal. Why would I be more in favor of public trash cans you ask? (so you dont have to continue presuming...) Because it's enabling and encouraging an ideal behavior -- people dispose of their trash in an orderly manner.
dirtmerchant 4y ago
Please enlighten us. What do you mean by "clean up"? Keep in mind, we're all engineers here, so details matter. I'll wait.
- cultofmetatron 4y ago
  undefined behavior. implementation details left to discretion of implementer
- bergenty 4y ago
  Get them off the street. Move them to workhouses or sanitariums.
mjevans 4y ago
Further clarification requires far more nuance and assessment than is likely to be read. There's probably not even one single cause but a multitude of social ills. Some people in this situation might experience one, but are probably each a unique snowflake of mixed problems. Unaffordable housing, mental illness (across a huge spectrum of many different illnesses, probably several different experts just for this), even the occasional grifter who just happens to prefer panhandling or urban scavenging to scrape by. My belief is that homelessness / 'unsheltered' is a catchall result of all the gaps in society's integration of individuals; and it's also a national level problem since the individuals can also be shipped around like those migrants that made the news recently. At least in America, but I've also heard that one of the emotionally motivating factors of Brexit were migrants from outside of the EU, we refuse to even provide a path and set of requirements for those who do want to participate in the system that's setup (instead in the US it's "build the wall" or "war at the border" extremes). Closing gaps in social safety nets and providing pathways for those who are troubled to integrate into society in mutually useful ways, or perhaps even caring for those who are incapable of such self care when provided help getting out of that hole, logically seems like a far harder challenge than any single city can face in a vacuum when we can't even handle easier issues on a national level.

spanktheuser 4y ago

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
This suit is the kick-it-down-the-road and make someone else pay for it answer. Most of these homeless are not from SF or nearby. Moreover, their salvation isn't going to be sitting in an open drug camp. People are acting like SF is pulling people out of hospital beds or something when they actually try to help. The correct answer is what Portugal does. Detain and imprison drug users for three to five years in a non-voluntary, non-criminal, detox programs where they don't receive a criminal record from merely non-violent crimes.
- bombcar 4y ago
  This or build massive drug cities in the desert, where people can go and live their drug-addicted lives away from everyone else.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    If the drug addicted were capable of operating their own cities, they already would be. They obviously need a non drug addicted population to support them.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Certainly - and said drug cities would have billions poured into them, and outside assistance. Still cheaper than prisons.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        So non drug addicted people work to help and support drug addicted people enjoy life?
        4y ago

ada1981 4y ago

nostromo 4y ago

> The lawsuit alleges that the city violates state and federal laws, its own policies and homeless individuals’ rights by “punishing residents who have nowhere to go,” They have shelter beds available. People need to stop repeating falsehoods from activists and well-meaning people who keep saying this. Some homeless people prefer not to use them for a variety of reasons -- usually because shelters tend to be drug- and alcohol-free -- but also for reasons like not accepting pets or not housing couples of opposite gender together.

deathanatos 4y ago
> officials estimate 20,000 people will be homeless in San Francisco over the course of this year and demand can’t keep up despite the city having 13,299 supportive housing units and 3,571 shelter spots as of last week.
- nostromo 4y ago
  There are beds available. That's all you need to know. When police go to an illegal camp and say, you need to go to a shelter, it's not accurate to say they have nowhere to go. They do have somewhere to go. Handwaving this away and saying, well, maybe according to some estimate we may run out of beds in the future -- when we haven't run out of beds and never do, is not a serious argument.
criddell 4y ago
Why not have a variety of shelters to better serve the people who need them? It seems like you could more efficiently provide services when people of similar needs are clustered together.
omegaworks 4y ago
>usually because shelters tend to be drug- and alcohol-free Shelters are rife with abuse and have no place for you to store your belongings. >for reasons like not accepting pets or not housing couples of opposite gender together. You so casually dismiss the fundamental human desire to be close to the people and animals that you trust while being inside a facility that offers you the absolute barest of minimum and is sometimes outright designed to expose you to predation.

olivermarks 4y ago

'Unsheltered' is a propaganda word and a fig leaf for the very sad reality that we have a chronic opioid and meth crisis which tips many people over into serious mental illness. Giving these individuals expensive housing is not going to solve anything. California is a magnet for substance abuse casualties and as then SF mayor Newsom found at the end of his grandiose plan to 'end homelessness' ever more people arrived to take the places of those who have been given resources. https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homelessness-Thousands-in-S-F-30431.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/archive/item/A-decade-of-homeles... There is a lot of land and resources in California to help these individuals focus on recovery and it should be possible to keep the cartel drug dealers away from them in a non urban area.

crhulls 4y ago
Why is this comment getting downvoted? I understand in progressive circles this statement maybe controversial, but I've always admired hacker news for being slightly more sensible when it comes to shunning people for statements that are not politically correct.
- zackees 4y ago
  [dead]
- Zigurd 4y ago
  It is getting downvoted because "sweeps" are a showy way for the cops to look like they are part of the solution. Don't buy in to copaganda. More police is a high-cost, unaccountable, self-perpetuating approach demonstrated for decades not to work. In conservative Utah, they know their housing-first approach works. It isn't 100% effective, but it is more effective than police-based approaches.
- O__________O 4y ago
  See HN’s guidelines on commenting on voting: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 4y ago

gamblor956 4y ago

California has enough shelter space and housing for the true (involuntary) homeless, meaning those who are homeless because they can't afford housing, or because they have a mental illness and can't maintain housing on their own. Almost all of our shelters are sober facilities, meaning no drugs or alcohol, which is what led to the formation of homeless camps: drug addicts don't have to get rid of their drugs if they set up camp on a sidewalk. The point of the sweeps is to make the camps an undesirable option compared to shelters, or moving back home, by increasing the friction and hassle of camping vs the alternatives. Most of CA's homeless aren't local to SF, LA, or SD, or even to California. For example, LAT reporting on the subject has confirmed that as much as 75% of Hollywood's homeless may be from the Midwest. Several Midwestern states (specifically, Texas and Oklahoma) openly brag about shipping their homeless to CA to avoid dealing with the costs of caring for their own residents. Moreover, the great majority of the drug-addicted homeless population is comprised of out-of-state residents, and drug addicts are more than half of California's homeless. Camp sweeps are a good thing. They disincentivize drug hotspots, get the mentally ill into shelters where they can be treated, and improve safety for everyone else.

convolvatron 4y ago
ignoring the plight of the homeless for a second. these camps are a serious problem for the rest of us in SF that are trying to lead quasi-normal lives. it just cant be acceptable to have dogs trained to harass and attack people running around free on the streets. i'm hardly a law and order kind of person, but methheads arguing outside your window every night is real problem. it really hard to run a retail business when there are 5-6 seriously messed up people living right outside you door who have reluctantly agreed to keep a tiny path free. it really sucks to have to pick up their biological waste because they cant be bothered. as a society, not just the city of SF, we should really wonder what we're trying to accomplish here and how this situation came to exist instead of wondering if there is another rug we can push this all under.
abeppu 4y ago
> Camp sweeps are a good thing. They disincentivize drug hotspots, get the mentally ill into shelters where they can be treated, and improve safety for everyone else. I think if it disincentivizes drug hotspots, the effect is weak. I would say it temporarily moves the same people by a very short distance. You still see the same issues in the same neighborhoods, week after week. Similarly, if this is meant to be a mechanism for helping people with mental illness get to help, it's not effective. I see the same characters over and over again. I would also argue it doesn't improve safety for everyone else. If anything, when a sweep happens, it creates a sudden stream of agitated, physically and emotionally unsettled people, moving through the street. Normally in my neighborhood walking _past_ an encampment isn't too bad. Walking home when a sweep has just happened nearby is much less comfortable. I think what's really happening is theater. Local officials and institutions need to appear to be active more than they need to be actually effective. So while we're not actually solving problems, we're having the most visible homelessness shepherded from block to block.

jl6 4y ago

> The complaint estimates it would take $4.8 billion to build the thousands of units San Francisco says it needs When they say “units”, do they just mean housing, or does it also include mental health and rehab units?

killjoywashere 4y ago
Keep in mind the total number of homeless outside SF vastly exceeds the number inside, so this dose of money will no doubt create "vacancies on the street" which will be quickly filled by homeless from other areas, and require an additional dose of money. As word gets out, the problem would likely get larger, not smaller. This seems like a losing proposition for one city, surrounded by water on 3 sides, to try and solve on their own.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

m0llusk 4y ago

The worst thing about this is it is extremely unlikely to help with homelessness, but it will almost certainly earn big bucks for lawyers involved in the homeless industrial complex. The level of perverse corruption here is phenomenal.

azinman2 4y ago
> homeless industrial complex First time I’m hearing of such a complex that sounds oxymoronic. How big is this complex? Who are the players? How do they make so much money to become a complex industry?
- bombcar 4y ago
  Apparently there was a decent amount of money being spent in Houston I think it was, that wasn't effectively housing hardly anyone until all the agencies got together and started working together. There was an HN post on it.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  See motel owners getting paid $100k and even $250k+ per key by the government: https://mynorthwest.com/2744155/seattles-two-new-hotel-homeless-shelters-are-now-officially-opened/ https://mynorthwest.com/2744155/seattles-two-new-hotel-homel... The motels would be worth nowhere near that much if sold as a motel, and it is happening all up and down west coast cities. I know one property that sold for $150k per key, which would have sold for half that to a non government buyer, and the kicker is that it sits empty except for housing 2 guests that were already living there when the government bought it in summer 2021.
  - azinman2 4y ago
    I’m not suggesting there aren’t people who profit in some way from the money spent on services for the homeless. But calling it an industrial complex elevates it. The motels are not a single uniform entity intertwined with the government to extract profits this way while trying to undermine the mission of public policy in order to make even more money. I’m not an economist but I’m certain there is a high bar to become an industrial complex.

mancerayder 4y ago

"The ultimate goal of the lawsuit is to push the city to instead spend billions on affordable housing to provide shelter for everyone and fix its homelessness crisis, which the lawsuit says is a result of decades of failed policies and underinvestment." .. "Mayor London Breed has touted her effort to expand shelter beds and permanent supportive housing. Still, officials estimate 20,000 people will be homeless in San Francisco over the course of this year and demand can’t keep up despite the city having 13,299 supportive housing units and 3,571 shelter spots as of last week." Demand, it says. Here's the problem with homeless advocates and their goals: they're idealistic and absolute. What percentage of homeless people are locals? Maybe 50 percent or less? We live in a country of over 320 million people and porous-by-law borders between 49 other states. What do you think would happen to a place that would create supportive housing structure, have the most liberal laws on public drug use and property crimes, with volunteers on stand-by to provide needles and medical attention as needed. It's all a bit perplexing to me that people keep touting "housing shortages." I live surrounded by homeless people. They're not homeless because rents are high, they're homeless because of a slew of other psychological and addiction issues. And almost no one was born in the city that they're homeless in.

scelerat 4y ago
> What percentage of homeless people are locals? Maybe 50 percent or less? 70% by recent counts. 22% from California (and 14% from other bay area counties). The remaining 8% are from out of state. https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDReport_SanFrancisco_FinalDraft-1.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep... > And almost no one was born in the city that they're homeless in Not clear on why that is particularly relevant. Almost no one I know lives in the town they were born in, myself included. Of the few homeless people I know personally here in Oakland, all of them were born and raised in Oakland.
jl6 4y ago
Is there data showing a migration of homeless people towards SF? Presumably we would see a reduction in homelessness elsewhere if SF was acting as a magnet?

entwife 4y ago

It would be impossible to build enough housing in San Francisco for everyone who wants to live there.

masterof0 4y ago
I fail to understand why people feel entitled to live in a place they can't afford. I would love to live in Beverly Hills, but I can't.
- clint 4y ago
  Because they are there and they don't have money to go elsewhere, its not about "Where they feel entitled to live"
clint 4y ago
A bald face lie if I've ever heard one
colinmhayes 4y ago
Kowloon walled city had a density of 3.2 million people/sq. mile. SFs 47 sq. miles would be enough for 150 million people.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jelliclesfarm 4y ago

I would recommend that anyone who pays taxes boycott and cancel San Francisco. it will only make a dent, but it’s a start. Everyday, there is a missed opportunity to clean up the streets: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/alleged-stalker-san-francisco-17468951.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article... [..]In what has become a five-alarm fire for many women in the city — spread on social media — several alleged victims have posted photos of the distinctive-looking Hobbs, a 6-foot-4 white man with a buzz cut and a body covered in tattoos, including the E-V-I-L tag on his fingers. The fact that a San Francisco Superior Court judge dismissed a case against Hobbs in which he was accused of following and grabbing a 15-year-old girl — first reported in this column — is well known by now. So is the fact that he’s back on the streets despite a long arrest record in four counties, despite admitting to me in a phone interview that he follows women he finds attractive, and despite the flood of new complaints. But it turns out city officials had another chance to intervene on Aug. 11 — and again came up short.[..] [..]A police report states that he entered a home on Avila Street in the Marina while the owner, who left the door unlocked, was out walking his dog. When the owner returned and found Hobbs standing in his hallway, he called police and told them the intruder kept saying, “I want a house like this.” Hobbs, according to the report, initially told officers he was “Scott Peterson,” using the name of the California man who notoriously killed his pregnant wife.[..]

andirk 4y ago

Rent should be < 30% of income [1]. If the cost of housing is far more than that, then homelessness is expected. Where do service workers live? Do they drive from hours away via expensive gas? It's unsustainable unless there are artificial balances such as tax-paid subsidized housing. Anyone who is chronically homeless should be offered jobs and paid housing. If that doesn't work, then they become a ward of the state and treated as a child. [1] https://www.chase.com/personal/banking/education/budgeting-saving/how-much-income-should-go-to-rent#:~:text=A%20popular%20standard%20for%20budgeting,gross%20income)%20on%20your%20rent https://www.chase.com/personal/banking/education/budgeting-s....

horns4lyfe 4y ago
That’s going to be most of them, as most are drug addicts. And no I don’t have any stats for you, frankly just walk around SF or Portland, it’s obvious.
- triceratops 4y ago
  > frankly just walk around SF or Portland Have you considered that you only notice the addicts and mentally ill? Because they don't give a shit about being seen as homeless. Everyone else is probably trying to keep up appearances by hanging out in libraries or coffee shops during the day.
  - Ancapistani 4y ago
    ... and the people who do that are not the reason this is widely seen as a problem. They're also very unlikely to remain homeless for long periods.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      Why do they ever become homeless at all?
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Most homeless are effectively hiding from you. The ones you see are the ones who don't care about being seen, the mental/addicted.

volkhavaar 4y ago

There's quite a bit of confusion in this thread regarding "chronic homelessness" vs "temporary/short-term homelessness". The solution for short-term homelessness is generally the use of "emergency shelters", of which San Francisco has many. However, emergency shelters do little to nothing to address chronic homelessness, which requires long-term supportive housing, something San Francisco has very little of. This difference, which gets lost in discussions such as the one here, leads to bad-faith statements by politicians and others regarding the true amount of housing available for homeless people. For example, the number of "available beds" touted by Newsom and others are almost entirely within short-term emergency shelters, which do not address the real problem (chronic homelessness) much at all. Instead, this "number-of-beds" statistic is used to gloss over the fact that a real solution has not been found, and then justify (probably illegal) police action against homeless people. The true intent of such actions is probably to cause regular disruption in the lives of homeless people to increase the difficulty of simply being homeless in San Francisco. Whether or not you agree with such police action is up to you, but it's important to acknowledge that the argument that "there is available housing" is a bad faith argument, and that this argument is simply used to redirect attention from both police action against homeless people as well as the fact that a real solution has not been found. Here's a citation that describes the differences between short term emergency housing and long term housing, which illuminates why the current approach being taken by San Francisco is not genuine as well as approaches that might actually work: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). Permanent supportive housing: Evaluating the evidence for improving health outcomes among people experiencing chronic homelessness.

jelliclesfarm 4y ago

https://twitter.com/chezpim/status/1574824441854324736 https://twitter.com/chezpim/status/1574824441854324736 : reading this thread, I found out that it’s possible to buy stun guns. What does the law in CA say about using stun guns for self defense? And where does one buy them?

protomyth 4y ago

As to the drug-addicted or mentally unwell folks, we are going to have to figure out some other method than asylums, in neighborhood group homes, or the streets. All of these had major scandals and disfavor from the communities affected. Its going to have to be an involuntary solution (yes, incarceration), and its probably going to involve moving people to a ranch-like area away from the city with a much different housing setup than some cells or apartments, maybe something with individual shelters with outside spaces. I expect its going to be a commitment of years or forever for some of these people. Working on people's mental health and addiction is not some 30 day process. Just the dentist bill alone will be scary, but its not going to get better in a tent in SF. Society cannot last with this level of filth and crime in major cities. The homeless because of cost folks, well, move to somewhere else or we are going to need a wave of mini-apartments approved at some point, but SF doesn't like such things.

_blz2 4y ago

It is amusing the usual 'war on drugs' sentiment is completely absent in this thread. Everyone is nimby is one way or the other.