4 ms·

I know a guy who is currently homeless again. He works at Whole Foods and doesn't use alcohol or drugs, doesn't have a car and has a years rent in the bank. He

I know a guy who is currently homeless again. He works at Whole Foods and doesn't use alcohol or drugs, doesn't have a car and has a years rent in the bank. He is one of the people I am very keen to help because he is literally sleeping in the park with screaming, violent drug addicts. He's told me he can't get section 8 housing or any other help as he has money. He has told me if he was an addict he knows he would be getting state payouts and 'help'. He has lived in rented rooms in the past and I think a boarding house model for clean, sober low income workers is essential. I was the first post on this thread. I feel we have to be extremely aggressive with the Honduran cartels who run the drugs into SF and sell them, and to triage people on the streets into appropriate facilities, including rural substance abuse recovery incarceration centers with appropriate services. Once drugs have rewired your brain you are turned into a zombie that has been reprogrammed to do whatever it takes to keep the flow of your addiction coming. We have to break this cycle.

jelliclesfarm 4y ago
Why is he in one of the most expensive cities living on the streets when he has enough money to rent for a year? I have lived in circumstances that I did not prefer but made decisions for safer/stable alternatives only because my survival instinct was stronger than my need to establish my need for freedom. I try to be empathetic but I can’t wrap my head around this kind of logic.
- olivermarks 4y ago
  He's been here 10 years. I feel people who have a track record of living, working and paying taxes in place should have better access to resources than someone who just got off a bus from Tennessee with an advocate provided checklist of how to find resources to help support their drug habit.
  - jelliclesfarm 4y ago
    OTOH: Thousands of immigrants on H1 visa have a track record of living, working and paying taxes in the United States, but will never get to vote or change a job or even leave the country. There is no guarantee that we will always get what we want. We have a system where every individual has the freedom to live within the law of the land and using their own resources. When living in San Francisco becomes untenable and yet the choice is made, the individual should accept responsibility for their decision.
    - olivermarks 4y ago
      Citizenship is a totally separate topic.
      - jelliclesfarm 4y ago
        I agree. But you are claiming that the number of years having domicile in a location is an entitlement despite not being able to afford cost of living. How is that relevant/not irrelevant?
        notch656a 4y ago
        I'm unsure of the reasoning, but one plausible reasoning is that if one has been paying taxes to the most local unit (state/local) for the past 10 years or whatever by working at whole foods and buying things with his productive labor, that means that both he may have paid in enough society can help him and still break even, as well as provide some historical basis to presume the investment to help him get housed will pay in dividends in continuing taxes down the line. One might argue if someone just shows up from afar in SF, you get them housed and their life back together, there's comparably (to the 10 year person) little reason to believe they're gonna stick around to pay back into the system and produce the kind of ROI on the localities investment that whole foods guy may give I'm not saying this is a "good" argument per se, but it would one that would make sense to me. If someone put a gun to my head and said "figure out how to use taxes, and only taxes, to help the homeless" I would probably rank cities by unskilled income : cost of living, then build rehabilitation facilities in those areas and use a nationwide distributed tax model to offer people voluntary relocation and rehabilitation in partnership with local businesses which is jointly funded nationwide to avoid the situation seen such as in SF where the minute you give the homeless more benefits you get them coming from all around to benefit. If you give homeless benefits just for showing up it's gonna end up as a race to the bottom, IMO, where whoever is the most 'helpful' sees a landslide of immigration of people needing help, which isn't practical when the load isn't shared. SF locals are probably not going to want to be the ones known as the person that foots the rehab bill for anyone who hitchhikes to town and then merrily walks away never to pay it back as soon as they get their heads on straight.

jelliclesfarm 4y ago

Why is he in one of the most expensive cities living on the streets when he has enough money to rent for a year? I have lived in circumstances that I did not prefer but made decisions for safer/stable alternatives only because my survival instinct was stronger than my need to establish my need for freedom. I try to be empathetic but I can’t wrap my head around this kind of logic.

olivermarks 4y ago
He's been here 10 years. I feel people who have a track record of living, working and paying taxes in place should have better access to resources than someone who just got off a bus from Tennessee with an advocate provided checklist of how to find resources to help support their drug habit.
- jelliclesfarm 4y ago
  OTOH: Thousands of immigrants on H1 visa have a track record of living, working and paying taxes in the United States, but will never get to vote or change a job or even leave the country. There is no guarantee that we will always get what we want. We have a system where every individual has the freedom to live within the law of the land and using their own resources. When living in San Francisco becomes untenable and yet the choice is made, the individual should accept responsibility for their decision.
  - olivermarks 4y ago
    Citizenship is a totally separate topic.
    - jelliclesfarm 4y ago
      I agree. But you are claiming that the number of years having domicile in a location is an entitlement despite not being able to afford cost of living. How is that relevant/not irrelevant?
      - notch656a 4y ago
        I'm unsure of the reasoning, but one plausible reasoning is that if one has been paying taxes to the most local unit (state/local) for the past 10 years or whatever by working at whole foods and buying things with his productive labor, that means that both he may have paid in enough society can help him and still break even, as well as provide some historical basis to presume the investment to help him get housed will pay in dividends in continuing taxes down the line. One might argue if someone just shows up from afar in SF, you get them housed and their life back together, there's comparably (to the 10 year person) little reason to believe they're gonna stick around to pay back into the system and produce the kind of ROI on the localities investment that whole foods guy may give I'm not saying this is a "good" argument per se, but it would one that would make sense to me. If someone put a gun to my head and said "figure out how to use taxes, and only taxes, to help the homeless" I would probably rank cities by unskilled income : cost of living, then build rehabilitation facilities in those areas and use a nationwide distributed tax model to offer people voluntary relocation and rehabilitation in partnership with local businesses which is jointly funded nationwide to avoid the situation seen such as in SF where the minute you give the homeless more benefits you get them coming from all around to benefit. If you give homeless benefits just for showing up it's gonna end up as a race to the bottom, IMO, where whoever is the most 'helpful' sees a landslide of immigration of people needing help, which isn't practical when the load isn't shared. SF locals are probably not going to want to be the ones known as the person that foots the rehab bill for anyone who hitchhikes to town and then merrily walks away never to pay it back as soon as they get their heads on straight.