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Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca
- junlo 3y agoLet's correct this false notion: "Shelters have very restricted hours, so if someone has a job that includes nights they likely can't use a shelter." This is flat out wrong. MANY shelters will alter their curfew hours based around a person's employment status. Talk to the actual shelters about this policy and you will realize most are more than willing to adapt hours around a person's legitimate employment status.
- gvb 3y agohttps://archive.ph/eDCri https://archive.ph/eDCri
- WaxProlix 3y agoUnrelated to the topic at hand, but in the last couple of days I've become completely unable to use the Archive. Infinite loops of CAPTCHAs and 429 Too Many Requests in console :( Really sad, it feels like I'm losing access to some really core, basic internet infrastructure.
- RC_ITR 3y agoInteresting this article primarily cites federal policies that have led to the current situation and then vilifies Democrats in Sacramento and Progressives in SF. No comment on the politics, just seems like an inconsistent and thin argument (probably one that has no business on HN). >San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as long as its homeless population exceeds available shelter beds. As we recently explained, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment creates a right to vagrancy.
- AlbertCory 3y agoSo you're implying SF Democrats would solve the problem, if not for those Sacramento and US Democrats tying their hands?
- RC_ITR 3y agoAs the article states: >San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as long as its homeless population exceeds available shelter beds. As we recently explained, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment creates a right to vagrancy.
- AlbertCory 3y agoI read that. You didn't answer the question.
- RC_ITR 3y agoI am not implying the strawman hypothetical you proposed. I think the confusion might be that the strawman doesn't even follow logic, TBH. Were did the Sacramento Democrats comment come in? I simply stated that the article highlighted federal decisions and blamed other governments for the consequences of those decisions. In that set of circumstances, Sacramento Democrats are equal to SF progressives, as they are both bound by a higher power (The Federal Government). And to answer the question I think that you're asking, yes, I do believe the Federal government has a lot more power to solve homelessness than SF or California does. Do you think otherwise? EDIT: I also think this fascination with Democrats vs. Republicans really misses the point here. This shouldn't be a competition to lay blame. That's the top symptom of broken government. It should be a creative endeavor to solve the problems and it saddens me that so many people don't feel that way on this supposed "hacker" forum. EDIT 2: >Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. I disagree that a city of 800k residents has the resources to solve a problem that's plagued every society ever. I think the largest and wealthiest government in history is much better suited for the task. I also think that SF being in the United States 100% makes it the Federal Government's issue, not some isolated thing that most people who live in other places can ignore. Like it or not, most homeless people are American citizens who happen to choose to live in SF right now. They can leave SF, but can't leave America.
- xvector 3y agoMan, I did not sign up to subsidize the homeless of the entire western US, and neither did my fellow Californians. We definitely need to reduce the social programs and put that $20bn somewhere else. No matter how you slice it, $609,000/yr per homeless person is simply absurd.
- anononaut 3y agoWho do you trust to put twenty billion dollars "somewhere else?"
- nemo44x 3y agoThe people that earn it. Cut taxes and put that money back in the people’s hands.
- anononaut 3y agoThat's exactly right!
- kevingadd 3y agoHow does that solve the problem though? I certainly would be happy if my tax bill went down, but that money is being spent and a lot of it is spent on important things. Are you okay with just ignoring every problem that doesn't personally affect you? Or only this one in particular? I'm not seeing the dots connected here. You need to make at least a somewhat clear argument for how your proposed policy is sound instead of just pushing problems off on someone else.
- nemo44x 3y agoThe first step is to stop incentivizing this kind of behavior. The world runs on incentives and this is no different. Able bodied drug addicts should be arrested and put into jail. It’s in their best interests. For the rest we have shelters and free food and free skills development and free mental health. Incentive improving one’s condition.
- slifin 3y ago600k per year per person? With that amount of funding you may as well buy every homeless person a house
- kevingadd 3y agoThis strategy has in fact been tried in a few places and while it's not a cure-all, it seems to work pretty good.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoLow income housing projects have been tried in the US too with mixed outcomes. My guess is that the Baseline social behavior and expectation is just lower in the US than in places like Taiwan or Singapore, where it is incredibly successful
- fragmede 3y agoWhat's frustrating is "mixed outcomes" leads to "oh, the whole idea is bad" which then leads to "let's not do that, or try anything remotely resembling that". Low income housing projects are the answer, there's just a lot of cultural changes and reframing and winning hearts and minds; a lot of that sort of work to be done before housing projects are politically viable.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoYeah, it works in some contexts. I think it would be an interesting experiment to try a planned project with high support, high requirements, and zero tolerance for crime. Instead of expecting the worst from people expect the best and hold them to a high standard. Imagine a Gated community where everyone is expected to be in rehab, education, or employment and you get kicked out if you fail to follow through or commit crimes. The point wouldn't be to a provide a catch-all support for everyone, but provide a safe space and support for those working to improve themselves.
- kevingadd 3y ago
- adamsmith143 3y ago[flagged]
- mikestew 3y agoHow about instead repealing the misconceived law that is fueling the problem? Just another example of how off-the-rails the WSJ opinion page is: repealing what law? You mean the eight amendment to the United States Constitution? Thing is, the opinion piece isn't wrong. But to just ramble on for a whole page, and then the offered solution is to repeal a law that is never mentioned in the opinion piece (unless the author truly suggests that we suspend the Constitution), well, I don't think "sloppy" begins to cover it.
- jpcfl 3y agoThe law mentioned four sentences prior to that sentence (Prop. 47).
- mikestew 3y agoThanks. I even skimmed the article a 2nd time to give WSJ the benefit of the doubt, but somehow missed that. (I would also argue the lede is a bit buried down in the penultimate paragraph, but it's still my misreading.)
- jpcfl 3y agoSure thing. So, I don't think that was the most important part of the article--he's not claiming SF is a Homeless Mecca because of Prop. 47. He was just asking a rhetorical question to point out that the dysfunctional Democrat-lead government will throw billions of dollars at a problem before repealing a soft-on-crime law that obviously contributes to the problem. By the way, before anybody calls me out as some right-wing troll for saying the Democrat-led government is dysfunctional: I moved to SF as a D-registered liberal, and still am a liberal in the traditional sense (not a D anymore). But the left wing extremism has caused me to reassess my stance on many issues, especially as I start a family. I am absolutely appalled by the conditions in the city, especially in the Tenderloin, which many don't realize has the highest number of children per capita.
- mindcandy 3y ago> Since 2016 San Francisco’s homeless budget has ballooned to $672 million from $224 million, yet the number of homeless in shelters has increased by a mere 736. That equates to $609,000 in higher annual spending for each additional person in shelter. Where's the breakdown of where that $896K goes?
- rednerrus 3y agoThe homeless industrial complex.
- hypeit 3y agoBecause the bay area is home to many extremely rich people who give absolutely nothing back to their communities, encourage rampant gentrification and generally despise poor people and advocate for anti-worker policies. Take a scroll through the likes of some of the famous VCs who constantly complain about SF's homelessness and crime. They tend to be more mask off far-right in their likes vs tweets (some will straight up tweet it though). If I had >$1B I would simply stop complaining and start doing something to fix the problem.
- buzzert 3y ago> extremely rich people who give absolutely nothing back to their communities + > encourage rampant gentrification Something tells me any attempt to give back to their community would be unwelcome, and labeled as "rampant gentrification". I certainly see it in the Mission, where any attempt at renovating old decrepit buildings is stopped in the name of gentrification. Now there's rats in the ceilings of public schools: https://missionlocal.org/2019/06/rat-droppings-crumbling-ceilings-and-broken-equipment-buena-vista-horace-mann-parents-say-district-allowing-school-to-fester/ https://missionlocal.org/2019/06/rat-droppings-crumbling-cei...
- hypeit 3y agoThere's nothing in that link that suggests either billionaires paying to repair that school or people objecting to it.
- buzzert 3y agoI think that's supposed to come from the extremely high taxes that they already pay. Which, in the context of the original article posted here, is all apparently wasted. I certainly wouldn't want to give any more money to an organization that clearly wastes all of their income currently taken by force.
- hypeit 3y agoI think you might be replying to the wrong comment. I didn't say anything about taxes. I said that billionaires could help with homelessness if they chose to.
- evancox100 3y agoWhat I don’t understand is that if making it illegal to build whatever living structure you want on public land is “cruel and unusual punishment”, why is it still illegal to build the living structure of your choice on private land that you own? Isn’t such a law even more restrictive? How have we willingly ceded so much authority to bureaucratic busybodys who have nothing better to do than micromanage the size, shape, and even color of private housing? Regulating for safety is one thing, but the current state is absurd. California, and many other states like Texas, need to drastically deregulate their housing markets. Also I hardly think the WSJ editorial board is really interested in solutions here. They just enjoy throwing punches.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> What I don’t understand is that if making it illegal to build whatever living structure you want on public land is “cruel and unusual punishment”, why is it still illegal to build the living structure of your choice on private land that you own Your premise is wrong; making rhe first kind of law has not been ruled unconstitutional, only enforcing it when there is no available shelter for the homeless population.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoCouldn't you simply add that conditional statement to the private land case as well? It would be an interesting test case to build an illegal dormitory for homeless on private land and seek enforcement deferment as long as the same conditions are met.
- evancox100 3y agoRight, that’s what I mean. Why is enforcing it in either case ok under that reasoning? Clearly building a structure to house an additional person on private land would help keep people off the streets, even if it’s a shanty town. (Which is what we currently have except it’s on public land!)
- dontmobile 3y agoDeregulation has been getting introduced. ADUs have been approved and you can now do something called SB9 which if deployed to the maximum extent allows you to take a single property split it into two parcels and build two duplexes on each parcel. That 4xs the amount of dwelling spaces per property in theory. But of course the capital and will for a Californian who owns property to go through with it is a different story.
- prpl 3y agoit was a mecca before this. 2014 was about 12-18 months into the tent encampment era (especially around the mission and Division) of homelessness though it was rapidly expanding in numbers and neighborhoods then and after that. Before that, 2012 and before, homelessness in the city tended to look more like people sleeping in doorways.
- gnatman 3y agoCheck out Woody Guthrie's song "Do Re Mi" for the 1940 version of this sentiment. https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Do_Re_Mi.htm
- prpl 3y agoRelated to this, here was an article in 2014 related to this: https://missionlocal.org/2014/09/homeless-encampments-here-to-stay/ https://missionlocal.org/2014/09/homeless-encampments-here-t...
- pastor_bob 3y ago> Mayor London Breed threw her hands up in response. “We can’t force people to accept or stay in shelters and we’re unable to prevent people from setting up an encampment in an area that was just cleaned. This is the situation we are in,” she tweeted Wednesday. > She’s right. San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as long as its homeless population exceeds available shelter beds. As we recently explained, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment creates a right to vagrancy. NYC has a ban against encampments because they provide shelter to homeless. Even after southern states have sent 100,000 penniless migrants to NYC, they still are able to find beds for people. If San Francisco politicians can't create enough shelters, it's on them. There are hotels, parking lots, rec centers, etc if you have to deal with the numbers in the interim before you get housing up.
- RC_ITR 3y ago>As San Francisco progressives are learning, government can build more shelter, but that doesn’t mean the homeless will use them. This is literally the opener to the article. The whole argument it is making is a complete mess.
- pastor_bob 3y ago> a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as long as its homeless population exceeds available shelter beds. If a place to sleep exists, you can demolish the encampments and force them the clear out. As the old saying goes, "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."
- NovemberWhiskey 3y ago>100,000 penniless migrants to NYC, they still are able to find beds for people. These are, by and large, economic migrants who really just want to work and are therefore a very different profile from the unsheltered on typical city streets - for whom mental illness and drug dependency are almost ubiquitous.
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- tedivm 3y agoI think it's important to note a couple of things. > The city of San Francisco released data last week showing that 55% of homeless individuals rejected shelter when offered it I think it's very important to understand why people turn down the beds. There are several reasons- * Shelters have very restricted hours, so if someone has a job that includes nights they likely can't use a shelter. A large number of homeless people are employed. * To accept space at a shelter homeless people often have to abandon their belongings. If they have a tent, for example, these normally aren't allowed. * Getting a bed for one night does not mean that they'll have one the second night. So throwing away their tent for one night in a bed just doesn't make sense. * Shelters often don't allow pets, and a lot of homeless people have dogs. > She’s right. San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as long as its homeless population exceeds available shelter beds. There's a really, really important point here. If every homeless person accepted a bed, there still would be no where near enough to cover the homeless population. This is part of the reason people aren't willing to accept temporary shelter, as they know it's temporary (since there isn't enough for everyone the city basically rotates people around) It's also really important to note that SF has, per capita (of population, not of homeless population), the lowest amount of shelter beds of any major city in the US. The bay area itself is even worse, as some cities don't have any shelter space at all. A huge part of this is because housing is so expensive, as is building. This article tries to play it off as people just choosing to be homeless, but the reality is a lot more nuanced than that.
- babl-yc 3y agoWhat's insane is that the injunction from a single judge will stand until at least April 2024 when the case is finally heard. https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/federal-judge-refuses-to-suspend-injunction-against-sf-encampment-sweeps/ https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/federal-judge-refuses-to...
- xvector 3y agoSF should do the sweeps anyways. Who cares what this ridiculous judge thinks? What is she gonna do, send in the National Guard? That would be an improvement. At a certain point the blathering of these judges is completely irrelevant and simply not worthy of respect or obedience.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago> Since 2016 San Francisco’s homeless budget has ballooned to $672 million from $224 million, yet the number of homeless in shelters has increased by a mere 736. That equates to $609,000 in higher annual spending for each additional person in shelter. That's a case of BAD math if I've ever seen one. It's presented as if the goal of the homeless program is to corral homeless people into shelter and increase shelter occupancy (it's not.) What are the number of people who has been rehomed? As a figure of speech, if a program rehomes a million people, and shelter occupancy goes up by a 736, is that still $609k a person? I know WSJ writes from a biased place, but man, I couldn't read on after this sentence.
- tech_ken 3y agoThis article makes a number of statements which run counter to empirical research I've seen on this topic, and doesn't cite anything to support these claims. My understanding is that the majority of CA homeless are in fact from CA, and few people are "professional vagrants". Some Ezra Klein episode I listened to last week brought up a number of highly detailed surveys from which I'm drawing these conclusions. I see lots of statements like "many homeless prefer to live on the streets where they can freely use drugs", particularly in right-leaning media, but IMO these are kind of strawmen that elide a lot of the significant elements of the situation. Drug addicts don't just "prefer" to stay where they can use drugs, it is for all intents and purposes a biological necessity. Shelters which will stop people from using ex. opiates are going to be non-starters unless they an offer viable paths out of addiction, or embrace a harm reduction approach which gets pilloried left and right in the US. The overall framing that "social services incentivize homelessness" also seems to run up against the fact that the largest driver of homelessness is obviously the rising price of housing. Presumably if social services (which in this article seems synonymous with money spent on shelters) were the cause of SF's homelessness problem you would see people using the shelters they moved there for. But as the article points out this isn't the case; engagement with the expensive services is far below the desired levels. If people simply wanted to live somewhere they don't have to pay rent and can use drugs freely there are a number of extremely accommodating rural areas for this lifestyle. It seems more likely to me that SFs housing market pushed a large number of people into penury, and some of them are coping with their extreme deprivation by using drugs. Not that SF has somehow become a national destination for homeless (who exist everywhere in the country, and every city seems to think that they are somehow a magnet for them). I am sympathetic to people who prefer not to have encampments in the public space, but I think we need to be clear-eyed about the causes and potential solutions. Simply "cracking down" with aggressively enforced urban camping bans hasn't worked in pretty much any city its been tried in (see Denver, where the cops have spent the better part of two years pushing the city's 4K homeless from block to block, with overall levels only increasing). Presumably it would be better to (a) stop the flow of people into homelessness with a stronger social safety net and a better housing supply and (b) increase the flow out of homelessness with better rehabilitation programs.
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- tomjen3 3y agoIt doesn't make sense to have shelters in SF. It is the most expensive (or close to it) real estate in the US. You can get the homeless a private room in some places for the cost of a single shelter. Now if someone has a job, you can't move them, that much is clear, but if you move out the rest, you will have more shelter space for the rest. And while you are at it, nobody wants to be in an unsafe or unclean shelter - a shelter is not an appropriate place for a mentally ill person, who is not properly medicated. Of course none of this matters, because nobody is listening to a bunch of people on a messaging board, even though we are smarter than they are.
- _blz2 3y agoanother thread where 'more housing', 'we must do more', 'politicians aren't doing enough' is the proposed solution. Lol. The simplest explanation is the love for drugs, and the lax laws against crime, and the removal of ability of people to defend themselves (ban on open carry). Whether HN likes it or not, it is progressive politics (voted in by the residents) which led to this. Which makes it really an SF problem and no one elses.
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- tech_ken 3y agoBut Texas also has a large homeless population, despite being tough on crime and drug use, so your proposed solutions are clearly deficient. Conservatives love to pretend that every social problem can be resolved by throwing everyone in jail, but this has been shown over and over again to not only make the problem worse, but also cost more money in the long term. IDK what open carry would do, unless you're proposing armed vigilantes gunning down vagrants in the streets which IMO doesn't sound very "law and order" to me.
- cbeach 3y agoCalifornia has more than FIVE TIMES the rate of homelessness of Texas. https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-rate-in-the-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-rate...
- tech_ken 3y agoIt’s cost of living is also much higher than Texas no? To me this seems like a far more probable explanatory factor than laxity towards crime or lack of open carry laws
- otikik 3y agoThis is an opinion piece, not an article. Still, citing some sources would have helped. > Many homeless prefer to live on the streets where they can freely use drugs Says who? When I was there what I saw was (majorly) people with untreated mental health issues. > San Francisco’s homeless epidemic is a result in large part of the familiar problems of drug addiction and mental illness. Again, according to whom? If half of the issue is mental illness, why is this the only mention, while drugs are mentioned several times? > Localities can’t use the threat of jail to induce addicts to receive treatment. That's because putting someone in jail for stealing less than $950 worth of goods is bonkers. The problem is when the only response localities have for addicts is the threat of jail.
- buzzert 3y ago> That's because putting someone in jail for stealing less than $950 worth of goods is bonkers. I really can't believe you still think that way. Have you been to a Walgreens/CVS in the city lately? Where everything's locked up, and security guards are shooting people on their own now? And you think it was "bonkers" before all of that started happening, wow.
- otikik 3y agoIf punishment is the only way to solve this, why be so timid? Cut their hands off.
- agorabinary 3y agoMedical intervention. You cannot expect the severely mentally ill to "voluntarily" seek medical help - this is the current prerequisite for medical intervention in SF. If a child runs into the street, you don't ask for consent before moving them out of the way of oncoming traffic. The severely ill in this city have less mental capacity than a child and yet we expect them to consent like any other adult. If you truly understand these illnesses you will recognize the futility of throwing money, housing, etc. at this problem.
- Feuilles_Mortes 3y agoyou assume the causal arrow necessarily goes from mental illness -> homelessness and not the other way around