| San Francisco has some of the most expensive real estate in the country. [1] When I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area like two decades back and looked at housing prices there, SROs[2] were like $1000/month or so. That's a single room, not an apartment. San Francisco has really lovely weather most of the year. It has highly desirable weather if you are homeless: Not much rain and mild temperatures year round.[3] I think California is currently the dumping ground for a lot of America's homeless. I have heard that homelessness is down in other states and up in California. I think part of what happens is people go there because the weather is very homeless-friendly and then get stuck in part because housing costs are so high in California. I think California will not really solve its homeless problem until the entire US decides to resolve our lack of affordable housing.[4] I spent nearly six years homeless, most of it in California. I left the state to get back into housing. I have six years of college and yadda, so what I was able to pull off may not be what most homeless people can do for themselves in the face of a broken system. (Edit: years before I was ever homeless, I took a college class from SFSU called Homelessness and Public Policy. The above paragraph was intended to suggest I'm somewhat knowledgeable about the topic.) I am still dirt poor and trying to establish an adequate income while being told it's somehow my fault that my poverty is intractable and no amount of rebutting the myriad explanations for how it is somehow my fault ever seems to really change the situation. I've been repeating a lot of this for years on HN, seemingly to no avail. I'm frankly amazingly exhausted at this point. [1] Contrary to what internet strangers like to tell me, cost of housing and homelessness are related. https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-clear-c... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy [3] https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/climate-and... [4] https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove... |
People in SF have to either kick the tech companies out, or allow a massive amount of high density housing in.