[quinnchr]

The average homeless person in the US cost tax payers around $40,000 [1]. In 2015 SF had a homeless population of 7539 [2]. Meaning they're spending on average of about $32000 per homeless person, $8000 less than the national average.

From 2013 to 2015 San Francisco experienced a 2% increase in the total number of homeless, while the nation as a whole saw a 5.2% decrease.

Sounds like it's a problem you can't underspend your way out of.

[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/... [2] https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran...

[Camillo]

Read your own sources more carefully. The $40k figure was for homeless people with mental illnesses in NYC (a more expensive subset of homeless, and a more expensive city than most). The figures given by Mangano later in the article have no citation.

More importantly, you are comparing all the services consumed by mentally ill homeless people in NYC with the homeless budget of the city of SF alone. Look at table 17 in the study [1]. Here is where those $40k came from:

   $12,520  NY State Office of Mental Health
   $11,596  Medicaid (inpatient)
    $2,613  Medicaid (outpatient)
    $6,229  NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation
    $4,658  NYC Department of Homeless Services
    $1,822  US Department of Veteran Affairs
      $645  Department of corrections (city)  
      $368  Department of corrections (state)

Of these, only $11,532 came from the city.

[1] http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067...

[quinnchr]

Funding source isn't really relevant. NYC has a guaranteed right to shelter [1], they'd be providing the same services regardless of state funding.

[1] https://www.marketplace.org/2015/09/30/wealth-poverty/behind...

[traek]

Yes, but it's misleading to compare city+state spending in NYC to solely city spending in SF, and conclude that SF is underspending on the homeless.

To be a fair comparison, we'd also have to include what the state of California spends on the homeless.

[quinnchr]

True, but as far as I know California has never funded homeless programs at the state level. The only thing listed in the 2015 budget is:

"Housing Support Program — The Budget contains $35 million General Fund for CalWORKs Housing Support Program services, an increase of $15 million, which provides additional support to CalWORKs families for whom homelessness is a barrier to self‐sufficiency."

Which leaves medicaid spending, which according to my previous source only 20% of the homeless population in SF receive. Assuming medicaid pays the same amount poer person as in NYC that would bring the per capita homeless expenditure to about $35000.

[mdorazio]

This is no longer the case. The state recently approved $2B in funding to build and maintain housing for the mentally ill homeless [1]. That's close to $70k per homeless person with mental illness, or an additional $17,500 per homeless person if we don't group by mental illness.

[1] http://fox40.com/2016/06/27/california-lawmakers-approve-2-b...

[aminok]

Why does Thailand have so fewer mentally ill and drug addicted homeless, despite its government spending so much less on social programs for the homeless?

[afarrell]

Perhaps for the same reason that head injury rates were lower in WWI before steel helmets were introduced: the mortality rate was higher.

[technomancy]

I live in Thailand (but not in a big city). Out here it's because if you find yourself without a home, you can go build one out of bamboo. If you have some friends to help you, it can be done in a week.

[johncolanduoni]

Perhaps, but the focus on a specific, more expensive set of homeless people sure is.

[ok_craig]

Maybe SF spends its money more smartly. People complain about the homeless problem in SF but never seem to stop to think that perhaps we have more homeless because there is less incentive to not be homeless in SF. NYC has lower homelessness because the winters are shit and the police are hostile. In SF, the weather is great and police let you shit in the street without much of a confrontation. Is there seriously any question why the rate is higher here? The homeless are treated pretty decently. SF has more homeless because it generally treats them better than the rest of the US, not worse.

[rsync]

"Is there seriously any question why the rate is higher here? The homeless are treated pretty decently. SF has more homeless because it generally treats them better than the rest of the US, not worse."

No, there is not a seriously any question.

It's (relatively) warm in San Francisco, year round, and social mores are (relatively) welcoming to aberrant behavior. These people exist and they're not going to disappear, therefore they have to go somewhere.

There is actually a quite nice A/B test already in place in the United States. Minneapolis/St. Paul is culturally almost as liberal and progressive as northern california and have an extensive social services and support network for all manner of social circumstances. Also it's literally deadly to be homeless for 2-4 months of the year. In all of my years living in downtown Minneapolis (and other years living in suburban twin cities) I witnessed a very, very low level of homelessness.

[jdietrich]

It's worth noting that homelessness =/= rough sleeping. For every person you see sleeping on the streets, there are several who are squatting, living in vans, crashing on couches etc. Hidden homelessness is much more difficult to identify, so the headline statistics on homelessness rates can be misleading.

[Spooky23]

NYC has lower homelessness because it spends a ridiculous amount of money on the problem and has more public housing units than anywhere. People who claim to be homeless get priority for placement.

Right now, so much focus is on this problem that backlogs for section 8 and other housing are dropping in the broader region because clients are moving to NYC.

[cloudjacker]

Nyc doesnt have less homelessness than sf. Numerically, statistically, per capita, any way you want to slice it. Hit me up about a recent source.

Sf has visible encampments in prime living areas which greatly skews perceptions.

I fell for it to.

[BinaryIdiot]

> Numerically, statistically, per capita, any way you want to slice it.

Per capita SF might beat NYC (couldn't find good sources and honestly I'm a little tired at the moment) but "Numerically" and "any way you want to slice it" NYC wins hands down. In 2015 it was estimated that San Francisco had 7,539 [1]. NYC, on the other hand, had 60,456 in 2016 [2].

I couldn't find many sources that differed much than these figures I found even though they're about a year separated.

[1] https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran...

[2] http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-hom...

[fredsted]

Why not just post a source here?

[cloudjacker]

On mobile, on vacation, don't have link

[Spooky23]

These statistics are a snake pit.

New York City is unique in that they have a court mandated obligation to provide accommodation. The advocacy people use a factor of the shelter population to calculate the total population, which may or may not be accurate.

I'm not trying to minimize the problem. The fact is those encampments are all over and people is indicative that functioning people can't get placement in SFO. You can't just say "NYPD are jerks" and call it a day like the previous commenter.

[esaym]

I guess I'll chime in here. I normally don't talk about homelessness as I had a distant cousin (grandpa's sister's son) that loved to be homeless. So my opinion will be quite negative/biased.

But yes you are right about SF. This cousin of mine would regularly leave his family and travel around the US hitchhiking for one or two years at a time. He spent most of his time in Cali, not sure which city. He said it was great to go there for the winter as at that time senior citizens (he was not a senior but he would pass based on looks) could get free public transit tickets. So after a long day of panhandling or drinking, he'd get on a nice warm bus for a night and sleep.

He seemed to be part of some kind of "homeless elite". There was nothing wrong with him physically or mentally (other than severe stubbornness) and it was the same with this group of friends he would regularly meet up with. They would all be in Cali for the winter. They'd bum money on the street pulling in $100+ a day and spend it on alcohol where him and his buddies would sit around in an alley socializing over how everyone is stupid. After winter they'd all disperse to Chicago or the east cost (not sure about NY). He'd randomly run into his buddies throughout out the Spring and Summer months in other cities as well.

He talked favorably of Cali and the east cost. There were some overpasses in Texas on I10 and I35 that he mentioned were also where the cool guys hung out at, can't remember were exactly. But he didn't really like Texas much. In Austin he would be quickly arrested for "vagrancy". This would happen in San Antonio too, but before the cops would haul him off he would call my grandparents about 20 miles away to come pick him up.

I stayed off and on at my grandparent's house while going to college for 4 years. I had the pleasure of rooming with him many times. When he would show up, my grandma would wash his bag of cloths, but it would stain the inside of the washer black, so she'd have to wash 'em a few more times and then eventually wash the washer by hand. His first shower hot off the streets was also a doozy too. The walls would be caked with globs of this white jelly type stuff. I can only assume it was from massive amounts of built up dead skin that washed off. But it would glob up in the drain, and along with his long uncut hair, clog everything up. It was totally gag-tastic cleaning it out. The last few times he came around, I was too annoyed to deal with him again so I convinced the pastor at a local small church to let me sleep in their gym at night for a week(even though there was a mouse and scorpion problem there, I didn't care).

He was a cool guy, had some hilarious stories and you could hold a conversation with him for hours. He once told me he didn't learn how to read until he was 28. Said he taught himself. I asked what motivated him to do that and he said he wanted to be able to read the captions next to women in porno mags. Both my grandparents and his mother dumped a lot of cash into him but nothing helped. He would always get mad at something a leave again. One of the more memorable times, he was living with his mother for a bit (I think the cops grabbed him in Dallas and his mother was close to there) but he got mad at her for some reason and started to leave again. She gave him her car, some cash, stuffed the car with clothes, food and a TV. He drove off in it but it broke down about 10 miles down the road. He just left it there and hitchhiked to Dallas where he stayed for a month or so before getting picked up again.

He died about a year ago actually. Probably 55. He spend his last few years living in some low incoming housing (for free) near Dallas. His last year was spent with him having various hoses hanging out from his abdomen. He would have to go to the hospital for the doctors to drain fluids out of him from failing organs. He didn't seem to mind though, he thought the hoses were stupid and kept drinking until the end.

Hard to say how much he cost society (from a government perspective). He seemed to pay his way most of his life. Only the last few years did he get any kind of government assistance.

Heck of a guy, but dang.

[oska]

> I had a distant cousin (grandpa's sister's son)

By my understanding that would make him your first cousin once removed [1]. He's either your dad or your mum's cousin, you're one generation away from them so he's a first cousin once removed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin#First_cousins_once_remo...

[jomamaxx]

"Both my grandparents and his mother dumped a lot of cash into him but nothing helped."

I believe about 2% of people are like this.

They want to 'live free' kind of thing. Some of them are lucky and inherit money. Some live smartly-cheaply. Others are like bums.

I have a cousin who is 35 and still lives at home, way out in the country, he doesn't have his drivers license. He does nothing. Always has. His father is 'cheap wealthy' (he has money but you'd never know it). He does nothing, and won't do anything.

He cannot be motivated to do anything, ever.

Some people are just like this.

[rayiner]

> Hard to say how much he cost society. He seemed to pay his way most of his life.

Are you excluding the charity?

[ptaipale]

Likely, and why not? The man sells a story, someone buys it voluntarily. It's a profession.

[esaym]

Yea, I didn't think of that. The topic seemed to be pointing at how much the government gives.

[6t6t6t6]

But that's the big problem about the American approach to this problem (IMHO).

The problem is not homlessness, some people can choose to live out of our society rules and I don't see any problem about it. We also built a society that has failed to many people, I can see how someone could prefer to roam freely rather than having to work 80 a week to be able to afford a shitty life anyway (ask people who serve food).

So what need to be addressed is not homelessness itself, but the causes that bring people to homelessness against their will:

- Mental illness (including depression)? Subsidised healthcare for those who cannot afford it. - Addictions? Subsidised treatment and a reinsertion program. - Done something wrong in the past? Forgiveness. - Young person without studies? Subsidised education.

Being European, I see in the American mentality this kind of way of thinking like "if he is poor is because he is lazy and didn't work hard enough, so he deserves to be poor and suffer".

I think that in the first world countries we are rich enough to ensure that the human rights of all our fellow citizens are protected.

[bogomipz]

>"Being European, I see in the American mentality this kind of way of thinking like "if he is poor is because he is lazy and didn't work hard enough, so he deserves to be poor and suffer"

Where do you "see" that?

I am curious have you visited America? Have you spoken to Americans that live in cities that have acute problems with homelessness? Have you visited those cities yourself?

I can assure you that what you "see" in the American mentality is not the predominant or prevailing view. Its actually quite a complicated problem that involves mental health, bad circumstances, social programs, drug addiction, child abuse and a host of other nuances. Its very easy to over simplify from an ocean away though.

[6t6t6t6]

I have visited California several times for work (and tourism) and I tend to hang out on forums where most of the users are from the US. And now I live in Japan, which helps me to have an "external view" on my own European culture.

One of the things that surprised me the most the first time I visited the US was one particular conversation with a sensible, well educated person. She literally told me:

"I don't care if someone is not able to pay to a medical treatment. If that person didn't plan well their life, is their mistake. I am not going to pay the medical costs for them."

Of course, this is just one person, but my feeling is that this a predominant way of thinking in the US.

[hiphipjorge]

> Being European, I see in the American mentality this kind of way of thinking like "if he is poor is because he is lazy and didn't work hard enough, so he deserves to be poor and suffer".

This is absolutely not how most people think.

[bigger_cheese]

I'm Australian and I've picked up on a similar American Stereotype.

I think the "people are poor because they are lazy" stereotype comes from American television. Any show from the US featuring ostensibly 'working class' Americans will at some point in its life bring up the 'American dream'. This idea that if an American works hard enough they can become rich. From there the negative corollary is obvious - "if you are poor you just aren't working hard enough".

The American approach to things like education and health care seems to exemplify this stereotype. American society in general does not seem very egalitarian. It's easy to form the opinion that American's don't care about poor people.

[specialist]

Thanks for sharing.

Panhandling is a tough way to make a buck.

But please don't equate panhandling with homelessness. Just four examples: vets who haven't reintegrated into society (PTSD, disability, etc), teens kicked out or escaping bad situations, women with children escaping bad situation, people with mental illnesses.

[noobermin]

Quite an interesting story. I've favorited it.

[lexap]

Hell of a story.

[marcusgarvey]

>SF has more homeless because it generally treats them better than the rest of the US, not worse.

Thinking of the way Giuliani criminalized homelessness in NYC, you may be right. http://mobile.nytimes.com/1999/11/20/nyregion/in-wake-of-att...

[nadezhda18]

Winters do not keep homeless people away from big cities. They just hide in warmer places like metro or underpasses.

I live in Montreal, Canada, which is even more up north than NYC. That's what our homeless guys are doing when it's freezing outside.

[cbr]

I see 1.8/100k in Montreal [1] vs 8.0/100k in SF [2].

[1] http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/results-of-montre...

[2] http://sfmayor.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/...

[nadezhda18]

I am not sure I understand where you took your numbers from.

Regardless, you compare apples to oranges. I believe it is HIGHLY incorrect to compare the number of homeless people from cities located in DIFFERENT countries.

Comparing to the US, Canada has much stronger social policies including financial aid and free health care that lead to a smaller number of people sleeping on the streets who ended up there because of financial troubles and losing their home/livelihood.

Quebec province is even better in this sense. In Montreal specifically, our hobos are mostly drunks and young people who had troubles at home.

Here are the numbers of people experiencing homeless state on a given night:

Canada: 35,000 / 35,749,600 = 9.8/10k [0]

USA: 56,4708 / 320,090,857 = 17.64/10k [1]

[0] - http://www.homelesshub.ca/blog/infographic-homelessness-cana...

[1] - http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/SOH2016

(edited new line breaks)

[cbr]

    I am not sure I understand where you took
    your numbers from.

The links I listed give 3,016 homeless people for Montreal and 6,686 for SF. Dividing by their populations, you get the per-capita rates I gave.

    I believe it is HIGHLY incorrect to compare the
    number of homeless people from cities located in
    DIFFERENT countries.

Yes, I'm sure country has an effect, and we can't count the entire SF vs Montreal difference as being due to weather. Similarly, different cities have different institutions and are otherwise, so figuring out the effect of weather is pretty hard.

[GunboatDiplomat]

>police let you shit in the street without much of a confrontation.

Is that really a positive?

[sidlls]

Depends on the perspective. I've had family who rolled their eyes when I'd tell them about seeing homeless people just walk up to trees and start pissing or drop their trousers and shit in trash cans, by bushes, on the sidewalk, etc. Invariably the ones who visit marvel at my relatively tame descriptions afterward. I'm sure the homeless find it quite a positive that they can relieve themselves without much interference, while I find it a net negative.

[cloudjacker]

That awkward moment when you find out NYC has greater homelessness

[joesmo]

$40k a year is a living wage. Even $32k is a decent living wage (yes, even in the bay area). To me, these figures sound like we're too unimaginative as a society in figuring out better systems of distributing this money. I know people in the bay area living on a lot less and getting by ok. If we actually gave the homeless money instead of making them jump through hoops like zoo animals for the smallest of concessions, a bed here, some food stamps there, we could potentially start making a dent in this problem and giving people real chances. It's been demonstrated over and over again that this is something that can work. Why not give it a shot and start helping people find affordable government housing instead of perpetually squandering the money in the inefficient ways we have been doing?

[rayiner]

There are two kinds of homeless people. Most people who are ever homeless get back on their feet relatively quickly, and are not homeless again. They are cheap for the system to handle, and cash payments would do the trick. But most homeless people are the chronic homeless. They're likely outside the range on the bell curve of people who can take care of themselves. Cash payments won't help them--the government has to take over in a more interventionist role.

[lukeschlather]

> But most homeless people are the chronic homeless.

That's wildly inaccurate. Chronic homeless account for less than a fifth of the homeless population.

* https://www.usich.gov/goals/chronic

* Look at "Key findings": https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2015-AHAR-P...

[Asooka]

Interesting, but are the rest 80% homeless for long, or is it just that they are homeless for a bit, but as soon as they get back on their feet, someone else is already homeless?

[lukeschlather]

From the Definition of Terms section in the second link:

> Chronically Homeless Individuals are homeless individuals with disabilities who have either been continuously homeless for a year or more or have experienced at least four episodes of homelessness in the last three years.

[joesmo]

So you're saying that there are no homeless people that can take care of themselves but can't get back on their feet quickly. Seems unlikely.

[ocschwar]

> From 2013 to 2015 San Francisco experienced a 2% increase in the total number of homeless, while the nation as a whole saw a 5.2% decrease.

Greyhound.

No, really.

San Francisco's homeless problem is the nation's problem.

[hiphipjorge]

I've always heard about this, but have never actually seen any prove. Any sources for this? Genuinely curious.

[pmoriarty]

"From 2013 to 2015 San Francisco experienced a 2% increase in the total number of homeless, while the nation as a whole saw a 5.2% decrease."

When I see a change in some hot button statistic, I always ask why.

Why are these homeless numbers decreasing? Are the homeless people finding homes or are they dying? Or maybe they're moving or being moved somewhere else.

I heard there was once a plan to round up all the homeless people in San Francisco and ship them off to Treasure Island. Would that have solved the "problem" or would it just be a case of "out of sight, out of mind"?

I've also been told that a lot of homeless people in NYC, for instance, just die in the brutal winters -- especially if they're forced outdoors by police, everpresent locked and unwelcoming doors, and horrific shelters.

Similar questions should be asked about why homeless numbers are rising in SF.

[ktRolster]

Those changes look small enough that they could be natural variance.

[e7c6ht6iad]

In the US - unemployment is down, incomes are up, it's easier at the margin to afford a place to live.

In SF - great economy doesn't help people on the margin when there is not enough housing.

[rayiner]

$32k per homeless person is underspending?!

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

Consider this. We spend roughly 2x that figure on incarcerating individuals.

I'm not going to even touch why a great number of those people are in jail for nothing more than selling dime bags of pot or being unable to pay for tickets. However, don't you find it somewhat interesting that we're spending more per capita and in total on criminals than we are on more or less law abiding citizens?

[lostlogin]

I agree with you but would add one thing. The money isn't spent on prisoners, it's spent on private corporations. The actual cost of having a prisoner is likely much less, or the corporations wouldn't exist.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

First, I agree with part of your sentiment. Not only is it financially and socially against the interest of citizens to allow private corporations to be jailors, it is also morally and ethically repugnant t choose organizations which maximize profits instead of those that maximize rehabilitation and minimizes recidivism.

I've had personal experience in this area. Although I've never been to prison, I spent a week in a county jail for a charge that I was innocent of and ultimately acquitted. In that short span, I witnessed just how broken the system is. Using the word justice to describe this system a tragic joke. The "justice" you receive is in direct relation to how much you spend on your legal defense. To me, it's a joke and a modern form of double speak. It's more accurate to call this system the societal stablizization system It blows my mind that people have faith in this system when people who have to rely on woefully under-resourced public defenders go to jail. The prosecution coerces you to take a "deal", which is usually sanctioned by the defender. If you elect to seek a fair trial in court, they take this deal off the table and retaliate by seeking the maximum possible sentence. It should not surprise you that when many prosecutors run for office, one of the things they tout is the number of years they have gotten people sentenced to. How can people accept widespread disparity in sentences for the same crime when the system has the word justice in it?

As a prisoner, many know that you are a source of virtually free labor. This is troublesome on its own, but when you are a source of free labor for private capital...we have a very precise term for that arrangement. This is also counterproductive because it takes away from prisoners a nest egg that they can use while to house, feed, eat, and clothe themselves while they go and look for one of those mythical jobs out there for ex-cons. If one doesn't have a place to sleep, food to eat, etc.. you literally have to make a decision to either go hungry and sleep on the street or you focus on base survival and take what you need.

It doesn't stop there because not only are you a prisoner, you are also a captive consumer to outside contractors/monopolists. The most notorious parasitic vulture out there is none other than Bob Barker. If you guessed that he sells travel sizes of the most basic toothpaste for $6, then the price is right! I'm not even going to go into the antiquated, exploitative system for making phone calls.

However, private prisons only house like 8% of the incarcerated. I'm not sure if you're trying to distinguish between private prisons or not, but any organization usually needs a vendor. And, boy, prison vendors sure have the taxpayer's best interest at heart. The fingerprint scanning machines are about 2x the size of those massive 4 foot tall copier/fax/scanners you would see from the 90's. I understand that it has to have a high degree of precision, but it baffles all reason when they spend at the minimum $6000 for a behemoth machine (that needs regular maintenence over time, which costs) while I own a phone that I paid $300 for that can scan all 10 fingers and it fits in my pocket.

I've already written too much, but the most despicable part was the prison's enforced racial segregation. I had heard a little bit about it before, but I wasn't prepared to travel back in time to the Jim Crow era where you are really only allowed to interact with people of your own race. That means, you have to take a shower with your race, watch tv with your race, eat with them, etc. So, instead of teaching or encouraging prisoners to get along with people different from them (the type of thing you need to do in the real world in the US), you are inculcated and degraded into an ignorant and antiquated relic from a mostly bygone era. I just wasn't ready to hear someeone say literally "Alright, you blacks over her. Mexicans, Hispanics, latinos or whatever over here. White people, you stay here

As a victim of crime, I understand the desire to see the assailant punished severely. But at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself would you rather that person experience at least just as much pain and loss as you did or would you rather have a system that focuses on prevention and rehabilitation so that society overall is safer and no one else has to go through your experience as a victim.

EDIT: This is anecdotal, so it may not apply to your area, but prison guards are some of the dimmest employees I've ever come across. 16 yr old drug dealing high school dropouts were categorically more articulate and could calculate basic math like 10x better. They make $43,000 on average and face the same amount of danger as a teenager working the overnight shift at a gas station.

It's sad that most of the public's interaction with officers, etc happens with patrol level police officers instead of people like detectives, administrators, and the like.

[e7c6ht6iad]

Most prisoners in the US are not in private prisons.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

I think what he means is even public prisons are serviced and overcharged by private companies. Inmates still get charged ridiculous rates to make phone calls, packs of Maruchan Ramen cost upwards of $3, finger print scanning machines are like $8000, the size of the most extravagant copying machine and require a maintenance contract in the age of mobile size biometric scanners, etc.

[sidlls]

I spend 33% more than that on just my rent (small, attached townhouse) and my commute to the city is an hour all together. So, yeah, $32k per homeless person seems stingy.

[muzz]

By dividing that way, the more people are helped the worse the number looks. I.e., if the $241M helped 99.99% of people become un-homeless, then it the math would work out to $241M per homeless person since there is only 1 homeless person left.

[abysmallyideal]

So they made a "profitable business" out of homeless people.

Get real, people want convenience and that convenience means paying someone else to address the issue.