[#MakesYouThink] 'Liberal' Bastion San Francisco Cannot Solve Its Homelessness Problem

Homelessness in California is worse because of the weather. If you were homeless you'd want to live in California where it's mild outside and doesn't have extreme heat, cold, or rain.

That automatically makes being homeless "not that bad". Factor in the high cost of living and limited housing options, then you get in to a situation where even if you got a minimum wage job, you still wouldn't be able to afford housing. If that's the case, why bother getting a job at all? Lots of effort for not a lot of benefit.

 

I go to San Francisco often, and the homelessness problem there is getting out of hand.

 

Saw this on reddit the other day. The homeless are terrifying there.



Reading the article, it basically ponders why the city has very little success to solve its homeless problem despite the significant city revenue in addition to private investors from the wealthy tech companies. For its progressive-leaning policies, you'd think San Francisco would be able to help their homeless with well-funded social programs but their problem is one of the worst.

 

I'd definitely be homeless in San Fran too

 

The dirty little secret is that the homeless problem in San Francisco is largely due to the fact that they won't do anything to encourage or force them somewhere else. Other areas will harass or even pay for homeless to move out of town. When the homeless try to sleep, the police force them to move on and eventually they gather in those areas that have good weather or give them the least grief.

I have seen homeless people do things in San Francisco that would have resulted in an arrest in places like Chicago, Dallas, Houston or London.

There is no question that the cost of housing in insane in San Francisco and those that own real estate want to limit expansion for a number of reasons, but that doesn't account for the sheer number transient homeless in San Francisco.

 

The New York Times had a really interesting story last week about resistance to housing changes in the Bay Area: The Great American Single-Family Home Problem. NIMBYism in the Bay Area has played in a part in limiting what can even be built to address the housing shortage there.

 

Agree. The tolerance for open mental health problems, bad behavior, drug use, and street living is why there is a huge homeless population. This dates to the foundation of the city and certainly the explosion of "alternative" lifestyles in the 1960's. Anyone really interested in the SF homeless situation, and not just in bashing liberals, should read the fascinating book The Season of the Witch. Weird, weird, weird town.

@Duncan McDonuts, SF spends more, per capita, on the homeless than any other American city, I believe. We spend more on the homeless dilemma than several other departments (including women and children services and park and rec, I believe) combined. It's very frustrating.

But tolerant city + guilty liberals yielding relatively decent panhandling results + city services falling all over themselves to help the homeless + homeless people honestly wanting to live with a greater community of homeless people + other cities sending their homeless to SF on one-way bus tickets (proven, horrible) all contribute.

It is disgusting and really starting to negatively impact the economy of the city. So many of these people are frighteningly crazy and need help and institutional type help in the worst way. (I know, as I actually talk to them off and on, as opposed to just holding my nose and stepping over them like so many understandably do.)

 

SF certainly has the money to spend on the programs. Throwing money at a problem isn't always the solution, but it certainly helps. The city has a big problem to address, and it's not easy. I don't have any good ideas nor am I a social worker that understands the situation to effectively help, but I hope they get it together and can be a model for other cities. Austin's homeless are becoming a problem and they're getting aggressive. The cities share plenty of similarities with Austin being smaller and following in SF's footsteps.

 

Dude, don't rain on the cohete rojo gotcha parade. He's making a point here...and there...sure is hot today on the first day of winter, hmmm?

 

SF has more than its share of the homeless. One country y'all. You don't freeze to death there In the winter. SF actually treats their homeless better than Red State America. More homeless want to live their than in your basic neo Confederacy stronghold. Basically America as a whole is still in thrall with the free lunch bs of trickle down, tax down for the rich, economics sold to the gullible as leading to jobs for the 99%. Some of the 99% can't afford homes. "Libertarianism" in action with the winners and losers and not as portrayed in novels or pamphlets.

lol as if the "libertarian" Silicon Valley folks cd give a crap.

 

Rally together.
(San Francisco, California: The home of the Golden Gate Bridge, flower power and the Grateful Dead is also the most liberal city in the U.S. It's also consistently one of the most expensive places to live. Guess that's the price of leftist liberty. More than 852,000 residents (4.5 million in the metro area) call this city home, helping it earn a rank of -1 on the conservatism scale (the most liberal the scale goes). ) Obviously Trump is responsible.

 

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Yes, lots of people of all types/education levels have been drawn to SF. The homeless problem in SF has been terrible for at least 25 years (1st time I went there). Yes, we need more facilities for mental health, basic food and shelter (it's a good start), medical health, rehabilitation, dependency treatment, job training, transfer when appropriate to halfway houses so they can be productive members of society eventually. Yes. We all know this. It is not a SF problem, it's a nationwide problem.

 

#DoesNotMakeMeThink

 

What's your solution here? Homelessness is inextricably tied to a number of factors: 1) availability of housing, 2) mental health, 3) drug use and criminal history, 4) affordability

I acknowledge that 1 and 4 are driven by NIMBYs preventing new housing from sprouting up. As a current SF resident, it is frustrating that much of the middle class is priced out of the city due to basic supply and demand issues. The city attempts to curb the middle class issue through policies like rent control and low-income housing (mandating that a portion of housing developments go to low-income residents, subsidized by the state). But the real solution here is less restrictive development policies.

SF leads the charge in providing resources to help with #2 and #3. It's part of the reason that the homeless flock here and the city has to take on such a huge burden in dealing with this issue. I contend that if the burden of providing these resources were shared across the country, the issue would be much more manageable in major cities like SF.

Case studies like Portugal show that treating drug use as a public health issue instead of a criminal issue meaningfully improve the quality of life for all residents by lessening the spread of infection, lowering recidivism, and reducing crime. I see no real proposal for dealing with these issues on the conservative side. Middle America is wasting away as the opioid epidemic takes hold of its residents, and there are very little public resources to help these people out. And Republicans are trying to strip away the few that do exist (welfare, Medicaid). I prefer my tax dollars be spent (even inefficiently) helping people get the help that they need to deal with mental health and drug use, versus criminalizing them and giving them no resources to address their situation.

Income inequality, drug addiction, and mental health issues are commonplace in America and contribute to the issue of homeless ness. What do you propose we do to deal with all of this?

 

meaningless rhetoric,

It is not that different from other urban centers in the US; NYC, LA, Chi, Phil, etc

 

Conservative bastions will. If they go to church service, will be given a meal and told that their homelessness is a sign that they are sinners who have not prayed enouh for "abundance" and they are getting their just jreward for not being personally responsible.

 

Just to be certain, is this thread also showing the Berkeleyites NIMBY hypocrisy? I get so confused by your threads...