[323454]

This is a false dichotomy, but what's worse is that social programs are already heavily funded in all the major West coast cities. For example, LA spends over half a billion dollars (yes, billion with a B) on services for the homeless every year, to very little effect. It's not irrational for someone (even someone who advocates for those very programs and services) to look at the full situation and conclude that the best available option is to just throw in the towel and hire private security.

[kibwen]

> look at the full situation and conclude that the best available option is to just throw in the towel and hire private security

Someone who is looking at the full situation would realize that hiring private security does not cause the homeless population to suddenly evaporate. An outsider might start to get the impression that the fundamental right of the upper-middle class is the right not to be reminded that people in poverty exist.

[323454]

No one cares what outsiders think when they are being assaulted on their walk home from work. If you want justice you must first create order.

In addition, it's not like these people don't have sympathy for the plight of the poor: they voted to spend vast sums on tax money trying to fix the root cause of the problem. It's not their fault that these efforts are failing.

[anthony_romeo]

Why is ~$500,000,000 a lot of money for the homeless? The CA budget is hundreds of billions of dollars, and there’s a lot of people who live in that state.

[323454]

LA city budget, not California state. The amount spent is so high that you could just give every homeless person in LA $2000 every month and it would be less expensive.

[lukeschlather]

A large portion of that spending is spent on prevention - getting rental assistance and other things to people who are in danger of losing their housing. There are over 400,000 "severely cost burdened" households that are "extremely low income" which is to say making less than 30% of median income which in LA means less than $20k/year, and spending more than half their income on rent.

You're looking at the most obvious symptom - people with no home - and saying "well if we just treated that symptom with all this money there would be no problem." But the root cause is an order of magnitude larger than that.

[ErikVandeWater]

The government creates the problem with absurd zoning laws and then throws money at the homelessness problem endlessly. It's farcical.