[woodruffw]

It's not the weather: NYC goes to great efforts to house its homeless, including renting hotels indefinitely[1] to house homeless individuals and families. It's one of the few pieces of city policy that I'm proud to publicize.

And, for what it's worth, many pricier essentials are either locked or behind sliding panes in NYC stores. The Duane Reade near me has panes that chime when you push them aside, alerting anyone nearby and also preventing you from swiping an entire row of items into a bag or cart.

[1]: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/homelessness/2020/06/25...

[jonas21]

I think a lot of it is the weather -- acting as a forcing function to deliver the observed results.

If NYC, if you don't have enough shelter space, there will be large numbers of people dying in the streets in the winter, so the city's hand is forced, and they have to build enough shelters or rent hotels, etc. That's not the case in California.

And likewise, if you prefer to sleep outside instead of in a shelter, that's an option year-round in California. But not in NYC, at least for a few months a year. So your hand is forced and you have to get used to sleeping in a shelter.

[woodruffw]

> If NYC, if you don't have enough shelter space, there will be large numbers of people dying in the streets in the winter, so the city's hand is forced, and they have to build enough shelters or rent hotels, etc. That's not the case in California.

I don't know whether you intend it as such, but I hear Californians regularly bring up their mild weather as a defense of their state's failure to develop an adequate support system for the homeless.

Focusing on (most of) California's lack of four seasons ignores the brute facts of street living, namely: you're still exposed to the elements and weather (you don't need to be in a cold climate to get hypothermia), to street pollution, and to irregular sleep and disturbance by members of the public and police.

In a humane system any of the above is a sufficient "forcing function," which is why NYC doesn't close homeless shelters once it's "nice enough" to survive outside. California shouldn't need a bodycount to justify housing its homeless.

[randompwd]

> California shouldn't need a bodycount to justify housing its homeless

What percentage of housing should California allocate to homeless people? What conditions should have to be met before the state houses someone?

If I want to temporarily move to LA tomorrow, why don't I just say I'm homeless(which would be true) and force the state to house me somewhere for the duration of my visit?

[woodruffw]

> What percentage of housing should California allocate to homeless people? What conditions should have to be met before the state houses someone?

What percentage of the population should California force onto the streets? Framing the question around a "percentage of housing" minimizes the humanitarian aspect of the problem, at the absolute minimum.

Questions about sufficient conditions are policy ones, and they seem irrelevant (again, at best) to the material fact that SF already has thousands of people sleeping in the open. Focusing on them seems prudent.

> If I want to temporarily move to LA tomorrow, why don't I just say I'm homeless(which would be true) and force the state to house me somewhere for the duration of my visit?

I don't know if you've ever been to a homeless shelter. I have, and you really don't want to live in one unless you absolutely have to. The idea that individuals with means would willingly prefer and tax the resources of the shelter system is farcical.

[zests]

What happens to all of the people who are too mentally unstable to live in a hotel/SRO/shelter?

[woodruffw]

The same thing that happens to them elsewhere in the US: the overwhelming majority of them are taken in by the carceral system in lieu of actual care.

I'd like to think that NYC is at least slightly better, numbers wise, but it probably isn't.

[diogenescynic]

In California that doesn’t seem to be the case. I can take you to streets where there a half naked people out of their mind and no cops are coming for them.