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Keep on doing the temporary solution and you have a permanent one. Perhaps it costs more, but I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure public order and cleanl

Keep on doing the temporary solution and you have a permanent one. Perhaps it costs more, but I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure public order and cleanliness are maintained. The problem being public safety, not the national homelessness crisis. Although I'd love to solve the latter, it's a separate problem that San Francisco clearly is not capable of solving on its own. The former problem, on the other hand, it can.

ethanbond 3y ago
Curious what you think the temporary solution to public safety that’s repeatable with more money actually is? Usually it’s not lack of funding that prevents good solutions to public safety issues, but rather people’s individual rights (very strong in the US) rubbing up against the commons’ rights (very weak in the US).
- scarmig 3y ago
  The solution San Francisco implemented during APEC is an existence proof that such a solution actually exists.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Primarily by moving them to other, less visible parts of the city? I don’t see how that’s a lasting solution. The same forces that cause congregation of homeless folks and drug users in every city in every era will do it again. As is evidenced by the article.
    - scarmig 3y ago
      Start by making sure the densest and most economically productive parts of the city are clean and safe. Recover its tax base. Then start extending the same solution to improve the situation in more marginal neighborhoods.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        Are you cool with these folks getting relocated to your doorstep every other week or so?
- throwaway4aday 3y ago
  The US and its various states have plenty of laws that prevent anti-social behavior in public. Many of them are simply not enforced, loitering, public intoxication, vagrancy, indecent exposure, public nuisance, and many more. The activities of homeless people, drug addicts, and criminals that everyone is sick of aren't protected by the constitution.
ben_w 3y ago
> Perhaps it costs more, but I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure public order and cleanliness are maintained. This event apparently cost "$11.3 million in overtime", for an event one week long, so I'm going to just approximate that as $587m for a whole year, or $720/person/year (more per tax payer, but I don't know how many tax payers there are in SF). This may be OK for you, especially as that's out of a total budget of $14.6bn[0], so your total taxes would only go up in this case by x1.04. But that was funded by the expectation that the event itself would bring in about x5 as much extra economic activity as the increased costs. If you do this all year, perhaps it would also boost the economy, which would be good; or perhaps it will only displace the people with the issues, which would be bad, because where exactly the people are is a zero-sum game for your nation, while actually moving those people costs money… and your city government has to deal with the surrounding cities all deciding to respond in kind, which could make the cost of such displacement arbitrarily high, not bounded to just $720/person/year. [0] https://missionlocal.org/2023/08/explore-san-francisco-budget-2023-2024-2025/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/08/explore-san-francisco-budge... [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-apec-budget-overtime-police-security-breed-18552301.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-apec-budget-overti...
- mc32 3y ago
  I don't think that's a good extrapolation. It cost a lot because of the momentum of the current status quo. If they changed the status quo and set different expectations of what will be permissible and not, it would not cost so much to maintain. It's like comparing refactoring vs rewriting. One is a semi continuous process the other is a periodic thing that takes a lot of work.
- scarmig 3y ago
  Much of that displacement was internal to San Francisco, and the movement of a constant number of homeless people from one area to another can still be net positive, if the area displaced from is denser and more economically productive. External areas would respond in kind. However, they will balance two possible responses: "anti-displacement" and provision of homeless services, depending on what's most effective. The latter does more than shuffle people around. In fact, that dynamic in reverse is how we got to the status quo: other areas have essentially no homeless services but plenty of appetite for displacing to places that do have homeless services, like SF.

ethanbond 3y ago

Curious what you think the temporary solution to public safety that’s repeatable with more money actually is? Usually it’s not lack of funding that prevents good solutions to public safety issues, but rather people’s individual rights (very strong in the US) rubbing up against the commons’ rights (very weak in the US).

scarmig 3y ago
The solution San Francisco implemented during APEC is an existence proof that such a solution actually exists.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Primarily by moving them to other, less visible parts of the city? I don’t see how that’s a lasting solution. The same forces that cause congregation of homeless folks and drug users in every city in every era will do it again. As is evidenced by the article.
  - scarmig 3y ago
    Start by making sure the densest and most economically productive parts of the city are clean and safe. Recover its tax base. Then start extending the same solution to improve the situation in more marginal neighborhoods.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Are you cool with these folks getting relocated to your doorstep every other week or so?
throwaway4aday 3y ago
The US and its various states have plenty of laws that prevent anti-social behavior in public. Many of them are simply not enforced, loitering, public intoxication, vagrancy, indecent exposure, public nuisance, and many more. The activities of homeless people, drug addicts, and criminals that everyone is sick of aren't protected by the constitution.

ben_w 3y ago

> Perhaps it costs more, but I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure public order and cleanliness are maintained. This event apparently cost "$11.3 million in overtime", for an event one week long, so I'm going to just approximate that as $587m for a whole year, or $720/person/year (more per tax payer, but I don't know how many tax payers there are in SF). This may be OK for you, especially as that's out of a total budget of $14.6bn[0], so your total taxes would only go up in this case by x1.04. But that was funded by the expectation that the event itself would bring in about x5 as much extra economic activity as the increased costs. If you do this all year, perhaps it would also boost the economy, which would be good; or perhaps it will only displace the people with the issues, which would be bad, because where exactly the people are is a zero-sum game for your nation, while actually moving those people costs money… and your city government has to deal with the surrounding cities all deciding to respond in kind, which could make the cost of such displacement arbitrarily high, not bounded to just $720/person/year. [0] https://missionlocal.org/2023/08/explore-san-francisco-budget-2023-2024-2025/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/08/explore-san-francisco-budge... [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-apec-budget-overtime-police-security-breed-18552301.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-apec-budget-overti...

mc32 3y ago
I don't think that's a good extrapolation. It cost a lot because of the momentum of the current status quo. If they changed the status quo and set different expectations of what will be permissible and not, it would not cost so much to maintain. It's like comparing refactoring vs rewriting. One is a semi continuous process the other is a periodic thing that takes a lot of work.
scarmig 3y ago
Much of that displacement was internal to San Francisco, and the movement of a constant number of homeless people from one area to another can still be net positive, if the area displaced from is denser and more economically productive. External areas would respond in kind. However, they will balance two possible responses: "anti-displacement" and provision of homeless services, depending on what's most effective. The latter does more than shuffle people around. In fact, that dynamic in reverse is how we got to the status quo: other areas have essentially no homeless services but plenty of appetite for displacing to places that do have homeless services, like SF.