Reading from HN, half of Americans are either in jail or homeless dealing with mental issues. Are there proper statistics to get a better assessment of the situation?
"If all prisoners are counted (including those juvenile, territorial, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (immigration detention), Indian country, and military), then in 2008 the United States had around 24.7% of the world's 9.8 million prisoners."
"About one-quarter of U.S. adults report having a mental health diagnosis such as anxiety or depression or experiencing emotional distress. This is one of the highest rates among 11 high-income countries.
...
The United States has some of the worst mental health–related outcomes, including the highest suicide rate and second-highest drug-related death rate."
The Federal Government estimates that about 0.4% of Californians were homeless in 2020. From what I've seen on the streets the numbers are probably a little worse now.
By comparison, France has 300 000 homeless persons [1], which is about 0.44%. It doesn't seem to be as big an issue here compared to California. Maybe homeless people are more concentrated in SF which makes the problem appear worse than in other countries?
No, it’s actually crazier in a sense. The contrast between the populations, the “virtual fences” created across main streets where you have chaos in one side and first rate everything on the other, seeing all the crazy on the backdrop of Twitter and Uber buildings and ultimately recognizing the futility of a place so rich destroying itself like a misdirected, spoiled trust fund brat. It’s the city that had everything going for it other than a common sense. I love SF but get it the fuck together.
The article touches on why that won’t happen though. Voter demographics won’t allow that. It’s either radical and young liberals which would go for every insane policy or the old and entrenched.
> The contrast between the populations, the “virtual fences” created across main streets where you have chaos in one side and first rate everything on the other
San Francisco was this way since forever. The poor have been systematically corralled into the Tenderloin for over 100 years. The divisions between neighborhoods elsewhere were why San Francisco was always considered so "charming"--you could cross the street and enter an entirely different world.
Setting aside the tremendous increase in drug abuse and homelessness, it's the tearing down of those virtual fences, especially around the Tenderloin, that is really causing people to freak out. It's just that their freak outs are coded in the language of social activism. Excepting the Tenderloin, every other part of San Francisco has become systematically homogenized, not to mention seen increased wealth.
I moved to the SF Bay area from NYC 4 years ago and I routinely tell my friends that you need to watch out for human, not animal, feces on the street.
It's really sad to see people who are employed that are still homeless and have to deal with mental issues :(