6 ms·

Can they let the homeless stay in the unused floors? Surely they can find a spot in their heart to help out people down on their luck during Christmas.

xyzelement 4y ago
Just curious - do you house the homeless in the spare spaces in your dwelling? If not, how can you comment on what others ought to be doing and their hearts?
mberning 4y ago
Sounds nice until they piss, shit, and do drugs everywhere and get your entire company evicted by the building owner.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ncr100 4y ago
  This is the sad truth. I used to live nearby Twitter HQ and that description is unfortunately accurate to my experience, of the majority of the homeless who spent time at Van Ness and Market Street SF. HOUSING is what is needed, for sure though. Just be serious about it, and not "diamond-mine trust-fund hyper vigilant ego-abusive maniac" about it.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Elon is rich because PayPal investors paid him to go away. Nothing that happened in his life before that matters at all or gave him any extra starting privilege, diamond mine or no.
    - jiveturkey 4y ago
      Simply being white gave him extra starting privilege. I’m sure you meant, vs other cis white males coming from a middle class (at least) family though.
    - runeb 4y ago
      That is not accurate. Have you seen the video of "multi-millionaire entrepreneur" Elon Musk taking delivery of a $1 million dollar McLaren car, before PayPal?
      - astrange 4y ago
        Eh, that was from Zip2 for $22 million, right? That's something but it's not PayPal money. I think he just had "average Stanford student" levels of privilege to do that.
        metadat 4y ago
        This is warped, average Stanford grad is well off but not supercar level finances.
        astrange 4y ago
        The rest is luck.
duxup 4y ago
Assuming they could just ignore local zoning: The cost of security, social services, policing, and hygiene related issues (it’s an office not a home) would seem substantial. Some locals not far from me tried doing that with an abandoned hotel. It was a mess of crime drugs and etc in the end.
lazide 4y ago
Many homeless won’t stay in homeless shelters due to ‘draconian’ rules like no drugs, no dangerous animals, etc. Any attempt to do something like you’re proposing in a nice space not explicitly setup for the purpose is going to go pretty badly quite quickly.
- fineIllregister 4y ago
  Usually what keeps people out of shelters is that they are not staffed/resourced enough to maintain safety. One person being violent can ruin the resource for everyone else. Poor access to health care and hygiene also can destroy a shelter's utility. Most people don't want to get assaulted, robbed, or infected with disease/pests. That is a reason why empty office space doesn't solve anything. There's already plenty of of it without Twitter HQ. Running a temporary shelter is more about the logistics/support than it is the physical space.
  - lazide 4y ago
    It’s impossible to provide adequate staffing without restricting what people can bring, what people can do, etc. Someone with a knife requires 4-5 people to subdue minimum, etc. Someone with an out of control dog will cause serious, potentially fatal injuries before anyone can react. That people often get these things and want them to protect themselves just makes the problem more intractable, because when you add drugs and mental illness into the mix, the people are impossible to predict too. Empty office space definitely doesn’t solve it. But doubling staffing at the homeless shelters won’t either.

xyzelement 4y ago

Just curious - do you house the homeless in the spare spaces in your dwelling? If not, how can you comment on what others ought to be doing and their hearts?

mberning 4y ago

Sounds nice until they piss, shit, and do drugs everywhere and get your entire company evicted by the building owner.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ncr100 4y ago
This is the sad truth. I used to live nearby Twitter HQ and that description is unfortunately accurate to my experience, of the majority of the homeless who spent time at Van Ness and Market Street SF. HOUSING is what is needed, for sure though. Just be serious about it, and not "diamond-mine trust-fund hyper vigilant ego-abusive maniac" about it.
- astrange 4y ago
  Elon is rich because PayPal investors paid him to go away. Nothing that happened in his life before that matters at all or gave him any extra starting privilege, diamond mine or no.
  - jiveturkey 4y ago
    Simply being white gave him extra starting privilege. I’m sure you meant, vs other cis white males coming from a middle class (at least) family though.
  - runeb 4y ago
    That is not accurate. Have you seen the video of "multi-millionaire entrepreneur" Elon Musk taking delivery of a $1 million dollar McLaren car, before PayPal?
    - astrange 4y ago
      Eh, that was from Zip2 for $22 million, right? That's something but it's not PayPal money. I think he just had "average Stanford student" levels of privilege to do that.
      - metadat 4y ago
        This is warped, average Stanford grad is well off but not supercar level finances.
        astrange 4y ago
        The rest is luck.

duxup 4y ago

Assuming they could just ignore local zoning: The cost of security, social services, policing, and hygiene related issues (it’s an office not a home) would seem substantial. Some locals not far from me tried doing that with an abandoned hotel. It was a mess of crime drugs and etc in the end.

lazide 4y ago

Many homeless won’t stay in homeless shelters due to ‘draconian’ rules like no drugs, no dangerous animals, etc. Any attempt to do something like you’re proposing in a nice space not explicitly setup for the purpose is going to go pretty badly quite quickly.

fineIllregister 4y ago
Usually what keeps people out of shelters is that they are not staffed/resourced enough to maintain safety. One person being violent can ruin the resource for everyone else. Poor access to health care and hygiene also can destroy a shelter's utility. Most people don't want to get assaulted, robbed, or infected with disease/pests. That is a reason why empty office space doesn't solve anything. There's already plenty of of it without Twitter HQ. Running a temporary shelter is more about the logistics/support than it is the physical space.
- lazide 4y ago
  It’s impossible to provide adequate staffing without restricting what people can bring, what people can do, etc. Someone with a knife requires 4-5 people to subdue minimum, etc. Someone with an out of control dog will cause serious, potentially fatal injuries before anyone can react. That people often get these things and want them to protect themselves just makes the problem more intractable, because when you add drugs and mental illness into the mix, the people are impossible to predict too. Empty office space definitely doesn’t solve it. But doubling staffing at the homeless shelters won’t either.