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> I think the real answer has to involve dispersing the homeless population in SF. Does it? As the article points out, the homeless population is actually dow

by ajross 3y ago

> I think the real answer has to involve dispersing the homeless population in SF. Does it? As the article points out, the homeless population is actually down since 2019. Homelessness is bad, and a hard problem to solve[1], but it's not The Reason Everything Is Wrong, because if it was (1) everything would have been wrong before, when we agree everything was great and (2) other places would be worse, and we all agree they aren't. Really this article is just like all the others on this subject. It's completely innumerate. It takes crisis and calamity as a prior and writes about it, while having to nod repeatedly that the actual measurements don't hold up the hypothesis. It's just shocking to me the extent to which this meme has permeated the tech community. Urban homelessness is just not a new phenomenon, it's not a changed phenomenon, and it's not even a new phenomenon to San Francisco! [1] Largely because it's unsolvable inherently. We've always had a homeless population in our cities going back to the invention of the city. Some people won't/can't/don't-wanna live within the rules of typical society and view street living as acceptable vs. the alternatives. So to that population, attempts to assist them just have the marginal effect of making homelessness more desirable. And... that's just not something that public policy[2] is going to fix. [2] Well, tolerable public policy. Some of our ancestors deployed asylums and other kinds of para-prisons to control this. But even that works only poorly.

rhaway84773 3y ago
Re: 1] I just visited several cities in Europe. I did not see homeless people just strewn all over the place like one does in SF, in countries which are both equivalent and far poorer than the U.S., and in countries which statistically have significantly lower and higher homeless per capita than the U.S. It’s almost like if the govt provides basic services that allow even the poorest then even the homeless will choose to live with some dignity.
- ajross 3y ago
  FWIW: if you walked around San Francisco in the 1990's, you'd see fewer people "strewn all over the place" too. But they were still there! We used to use law enforcement to push them into places you couldn't see. That's not "living with dignity", it's just abuse. I won't speak to what you saw in Europe except to say that Europe too has large homeless populations in most cities. This is a universal thing. But really your point is the point in the linked article. We don't want a solution to the homeless problem. We just don't want to see the homeless. And our community has treated that disconnect by meme-ing the existence of a problem that isn't real.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
carapace 3y ago
I've lived in SF for about half a century. I've also read up on the history of SF. What you're saying about "Urban homelessness is ... not even a new phenomenon to San Francisco!" is very much true, at least since the Gold Rush. I believe our Emperor Norton III was, technically, by modern standards, homeless, although the city was his palace. What changed was the influx of more-or-less normal people. San Francisco has served as a kind of "drain" for the crazies of the rest of the nation since 1849 right up until the late 90's and the "Dot Com boom". Then e.g. Twitter was tricked into opening their office in the middle of skid row and techie culture and "the street" got to rub shoulders daily and it was not so great, eh? I've come to believe that OP has got the right idea: Civic Center and the Tenderloin should be condemned and razed, just like Kowloon. The issue is what to do with the people living there now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City (BTW there have been cities w/o homelessness but they are rare. "We've always had a homeless population in our cities going back to the invention of the city." this is another meme that needs to die, eh?)
- twelve40 3y ago
  > Civic Center and the Tenderloin should be condemned and razed maybe the loin, but how does razing the Civic Center help? that area by itself is one of the nicest areas you can think of: a wide-open park-like place to walk around and enjoy the city. What would you even replace it with? and how would it help the problem of those people still around, who would shift to soma or elsewhere nearby.
  - carapace 3y ago
    I haven't been down to the Civic Center in ages, I just checked it out on the Google st. view and it looks like they already cleared it out.

by ajross 3y ago

rhaway84773 3y ago

Re: 1] I just visited several cities in Europe. I did not see homeless people just strewn all over the place like one does in SF, in countries which are both equivalent and far poorer than the U.S., and in countries which statistically have significantly lower and higher homeless per capita than the U.S. It’s almost like if the govt provides basic services that allow even the poorest then even the homeless will choose to live with some dignity.

ajross 3y ago
FWIW: if you walked around San Francisco in the 1990's, you'd see fewer people "strewn all over the place" too. But they were still there! We used to use law enforcement to push them into places you couldn't see. That's not "living with dignity", it's just abuse. I won't speak to what you saw in Europe except to say that Europe too has large homeless populations in most cities. This is a universal thing. But really your point is the point in the linked article. We don't want a solution to the homeless problem. We just don't want to see the homeless. And our community has treated that disconnect by meme-ing the existence of a problem that isn't real.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

carapace 3y ago

I've lived in SF for about half a century. I've also read up on the history of SF. What you're saying about "Urban homelessness is ... not even a new phenomenon to San Francisco!" is very much true, at least since the Gold Rush. I believe our Emperor Norton III was, technically, by modern standards, homeless, although the city was his palace. What changed was the influx of more-or-less normal people. San Francisco has served as a kind of "drain" for the crazies of the rest of the nation since 1849 right up until the late 90's and the "Dot Com boom". Then e.g. Twitter was tricked into opening their office in the middle of skid row and techie culture and "the street" got to rub shoulders daily and it was not so great, eh? I've come to believe that OP has got the right idea: Civic Center and the Tenderloin should be condemned and razed, just like Kowloon. The issue is what to do with the people living there now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City (BTW there have been cities w/o homelessness but they are rare. "We've always had a homeless population in our cities going back to the invention of the city." this is another meme that needs to die, eh?)

twelve40 3y ago
> Civic Center and the Tenderloin should be condemned and razed maybe the loin, but how does razing the Civic Center help? that area by itself is one of the nicest areas you can think of: a wide-open park-like place to walk around and enjoy the city. What would you even replace it with? and how would it help the problem of those people still around, who would shift to soma or elsewhere nearby.
- carapace 3y ago
  I haven't been down to the Civic Center in ages, I just checked it out on the Google st. view and it looks like they already cleared it out.