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"homeless people deserve our sympathy and help" San Francisco is the most sympathetic and helpful city on the planet for homeless people. Yet also seems to hav

by paul_f 13y ago

"homeless people deserve our sympathy and help" San Francisco is the most sympathetic and helpful city on the planet for homeless people. Yet also seems to have more of them than any city I have ever been too. I wonder why? Actually I don't. "Sympathy" and "help" exacerbate the problem instead of resolving it.

mixmastamyk 13y ago
This may have some truth to it, but there are other factors. They are also bussed in, weather as well.
ido 13y ago
Is the problem that people are homeless? Or that they are in your back yard?
kllrnohj 13y ago
> San Francisco is the most sympathetic and helpful city on the planet for homeless people. Bwahahaha, no, no it isn't. Not even close. There's a huge lack of shelters, housing, food, etc... The problem with SF is that the entire city is stupid expensive, and nobody wants to spend huge amounts of money to build and run the shelters necessary.
Mithaldu 13y ago
> San Francisco is the most sympathetic and helpful city on the planet for homeless people. Unless San Francisco actually picks them up, gives them a clean, maintained, regularly inspected apartment with heat, hot water, electricity; pays for that; gives them every month enough cash to pay for necessities of life with enough being given that a reasonable interaction in society and culture is possible; puts them in a program designed to find them useful and respectful work, or with none available, provides them with training courses; and lastly, provides free full health and dental coverage ... unless all that is what SF does, there's 2000+ german cities and who knows how many more cities in other countries who'd like to have a word with you about that claim.
- rdl 13y ago
  SF actually sort of attempts to do that, and spends more than enough money to do that, but is ineffective to the point where the homeless are either disincented to participate, or are stuck in a weird limbo where the city/state/fed/charity give them enough to survive indefinitely, but not to actually improve. In fairness, well over half of the SF homeless population are mentally ill or drug addicted, which would probably be covered by other programs elsewhere; some of which (on the mental health front) is missing because the US had a lot of issues with horribly run institutions until the 1970s, so they shut most of them down, but didn't provide an alternative.

by paul_f 13y ago

mixmastamyk 13y ago

This may have some truth to it, but there are other factors. They are also bussed in, weather as well.

ido 13y ago

Is the problem that people are homeless? Or that they are in your back yard?

kllrnohj 13y ago

> San Francisco is the most sympathetic and helpful city on the planet for homeless people. Bwahahaha, no, no it isn't. Not even close. There's a huge lack of shelters, housing, food, etc... The problem with SF is that the entire city is stupid expensive, and nobody wants to spend huge amounts of money to build and run the shelters necessary.

Mithaldu 13y ago

> San Francisco is the most sympathetic and helpful city on the planet for homeless people. Unless San Francisco actually picks them up, gives them a clean, maintained, regularly inspected apartment with heat, hot water, electricity; pays for that; gives them every month enough cash to pay for necessities of life with enough being given that a reasonable interaction in society and culture is possible; puts them in a program designed to find them useful and respectful work, or with none available, provides them with training courses; and lastly, provides free full health and dental coverage ... unless all that is what SF does, there's 2000+ german cities and who knows how many more cities in other countries who'd like to have a word with you about that claim.

rdl 13y ago
SF actually sort of attempts to do that, and spends more than enough money to do that, but is ineffective to the point where the homeless are either disincented to participate, or are stuck in a weird limbo where the city/state/fed/charity give them enough to survive indefinitely, but not to actually improve. In fairness, well over half of the SF homeless population are mentally ill or drug addicted, which would probably be covered by other programs elsewhere; some of which (on the mental health front) is missing because the US had a lot of issues with horribly run institutions until the 1970s, so they shut most of them down, but didn't provide an alternative.