[taurath]

The lack of empathy for those being displaced by huge tech companies moving in and eclipsing everyone else's salary in this thread is incredibly stunning. Not to say that homelessness is entirely caused by this, but its definitely a factor.

91% of the homeless in Seattle are from the greater Seattle region. Home prices have doubled in 10 years, and tripled if you count the bottom of the great recession. Renters have had to move further and further away. Saying there's no effect on people falling into homelessness is both silly and dangerous.

That's not to say Seattle doesn't have some of the blame - they are not great at solving actual problems with their tax money, they're slow, and they don't tend to enforce a lot of quality of life things like panhandlers or break-ins.

But for heavens sake, if you suddenly drop a huge amount of upper class people that buy up all the housing in an area you should have to be at least partially responsible for cleaning up the consequences.

[mrep]

> 91% of the homeless in Seattle are from the greater Seattle region

Don't know where you are getting those numbers but only 20% were born or grew up in king county according to the most recent report: http://allhomekc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2017-Count-U...

And I would be fine spending 10 times this money if there were any indication that it would fix the problem so my girlfriend could actually feel safe walking around downtown without getting assaulted again but it does not seem that way.

[pteredactyl]

I hear you. But as as society we need to make hard choices.

As a society do we value homeless or contributors ( taxpayers ) more?

When you enact policies and taxes like this you reward being homeless and push out people who contribute. You say, 'yes, it's ok to shit on my sidewalk and leave needles everywhere and accost my children as they're walking to school.' And yes, that's an extreme, but it happens everyday in SF. And, to me, it's unacceptable. It's unacceptable that we allow that.

In short:

You: "But, What about the homeless people?" Me: "What about my children who have to step over their shit on the way to school?"

[taurath]

You’re saying it’s all or nothing. Contributors will always be valued more in society, but the cycle of poverty at the bottom has very few exit points. Clearly we can do both - I was offering a counterpoint to the person saying they don’t want to live in an area with homeless people. I don’t either, and wealth inequality being closer to the Middle Ages than the 1970s is the largest factor in that

[NotSammyHagar]

I agree that it does feel like a terrible self-centered choice to be so against this. I'm actually working in Seattle at a smaller software company where I will have to pay that tax. I used to work at Google in Seattle, so I would have had to pay it there too. There's a tremendous problem here with homeless people. I can believe that rich techies coming in and raising prices by increasing demand must have helped push people out of seattle. I want to help, and I support taxing rich people like me to help pay for it. I also want the city to build way more housing so that the prices go down (via usual market forces) and we should also build housing for lower income people with lower prices.

[pteredactyl]

"Feeling bad" as you call it is exactly what exacerbates the problem. And I would argue is why we have so many homeless in the first place.

Yes, feel bad. But we need to be tough too. If you accost my kid on the way to work, you should not be allowed to be on the street. Even if you're homeless. When did homeless become a protected class?

There's 'I want to better myself and get back on the right track' homeless and 'Fuck you, eat my shit kid' homeless. I support the former. And believe the latter should not be allowed on our streets.

[NotSammyHagar]

Of course we need to figure out how to get homeless people in safe housing, and find jobs and get them treatment. But I don't think helping them encourages people to be homeless or move here. In Utah, they have housing for basically all homeless people now, they are dealing with it better. But our homeless people aren't all wanting to move there.

The belief that if we are "too nice" to homeless people it will encourage them is counter to the facts, with Utah only the latest example. There are plenty of people who live in their cars in south Seattle who have jobs, who want a place to live.

[taurath]

I agree with all of this as well. I am saddened that most of the time it is the rich techies (along with existing landed wealthy people) that come in and prevent any additional housing from being built - I live in an area well known for its NIMBYism.

If they raised everyone's taxes on my pay scale and above by 2%, and un-restricted building in much of the city, it would go a million times further to make it a more livable city for everyone than this tax.

[pteredactyl]

"Rich techies" built this internet you are typing on. I loathe your condescension and resentment toward people seemingly more successful than you.

You think the "rich techies" are out to get you? That they want to displace you? No. 98% of them are just trying to live, just like you and everyone else.

But if we just "raise taxes" everything will be better. Look at our current political, at all scales, system. When recently has giving money to career politicians actually made our infrastructure, education, and healthcare better?

People look to the government as this panacea. I truly don't get it.

[taurath]

I’m a rich techie. I’m loathing the society we have that makes it seem that we can’t actually do anything about it. We created the interstate highway system and roads and bridges and all of our institutions. We could organize and fund an army of people and resources to solve poverty, but we choose not to.

[pteredactyl]

I'm frustrated too.