[imagist]

Call me crazy, but I think it's pretty obvious that the only solution to homelessness is homes.

Of course that's the compassionate solution, but compassion holds little weight in the libertarian idealist sociopathy of Silicon Valley. But even from a cost perspective housing is the only solution.

You can make homelessness illegal, but then you're just housing the homeless in prisons. If you're going to house people anyway, there are cheaper ways to do it than with a prison.

You can bus the homeless somewhere else, but there's a long history of other places bussing people back to SF. Given the homeless want to be in SF because of climate, opportunities, etc., the average is that they're more likely to end up there.

Unless there's something else I haven't thought of, that really only leaves housing.

Existing programs are intended to get people into a position where they can obtain housing, but these de facto don't work very well, because they attempt to get them other things before housing. Housing before a job works better than a job before housing. Housing before addiction treatment works better than addiction treatment before housing. None of the existing solutions are sustainable as long as the person isn't housed. It's unrealistic to expect someone to hold down a job or kick their addiction while living on the streets. Without housing, no auxiliary solution is sustainable.

So not only is the only solution to homelessness housing, but it's housing first.

[Kalium]

Oddly enough, it tends to not be the idealist libertarians in Silicon Valley and San Francisco who oppose housing.

[fatdog]

Begs the question of, homes where. Public housing, hotel rooms, condominiums, remote cabins, camps, shelters, the devil is in those details.

"Homeless" is a euphemism, more of a metonym for a cluster of issues that form an identifiable other. It's a general problem of how should a society deal with extreme exceptional minorities. From a majority rule perspective, there are probably still more homeless people than millionaires (let alone billionaires) in the bay area, so maybe they will organize and win the right to camp anywhere.

Rich people need permits, licenses, planning permission, and community consent to build homes. Tent dwellers, not so much. In fact, if the resolution doesn't pass to prevent people from camping in the street, what's to stop anyone from setting up pre-fab luxury sidewalk camps like those at burning man.

[imagist]

> Begs the question of, homes where. Public housing, hotel rooms, condominiums, remote cabins, camps, shelters, the devil is in those details.

There are a wide variety of options. One which has historically worked well in Europe is to provide an area of shipping containers converted into simple homes with a shower, toilet, cot, and padlock on the door.

> "Homeless" is a euphemism, more of a metonym for a cluster of issues that form an identifiable other.

No, "homeless" is not a fucking euphemism. It means "without a home", just like "jobless" means "without a job" and "hopeless" means "without hope" and "grasp-on-reality-less" means "without a grasp on reality".

> Rich people need permits, licenses, planning permission, and community consent to build homes. Tent dwellers, not so much.

These permits, licenses, planning permission, and are community consent are necessary to prevent people with a wide variety of options from making decisions that harm other people.

Tent dwellers arguably cause harm to others by being there, but they don't have other options. The voluntarily homeless are few and far between.

The two kinds of laws are incomparable: one seeks to limit the harm done by people with too much power, while the other tries to write out of existence the only option a group of people have.

> In fact, if the resolution doesn't pass to prevent people from camping in the street, what's to stop anyone from setting up pre-fab luxury sidewalk camps like those at burning man.

When this becomes a problem let me know. Meanwhile, maybe we can talk about current real problems that exist, like the people who we are literally forcing to rot to death in our streets.

[j45]

I'm no expert in the area, but Housing First programs seem to be getting popular and having some results.

To me it seems if we say food and shelter are our first needs, it's hard to work on other health and life issues without those first.

Very few people choose to end up in the circumstances that lead them to be homeless and once there, I can't say many people with homes and resources would fare much better if both were taken away.

[murbard2]

> You can make homelessness illegal, but then you're just housing the homeless in prisons.

Not if you resort to corporal punishment which doesn't impose a cost on the taxpayer and can still act as a deterrent on the most destitute. (N.B. not an endorsement)