[youreincorrect]

> I was amazed when living in SF how many of the homeless are not locals. Not even Californians!

My least favorite part of this was the local media pretended this wasn't true. They pretended it vociferously despite this being such an obvious lie.

[lr4444lr]

The Dept. of Homeless Services doesn't track this? It is done in NYC, and it was a major bone of contention that the high level of service was effectively magnetizing the city for homeless in other parts of the country to come here, or for cities even to bus them here. The law is a little vague on the matter, but the prevailing belief by the NYC administration is that anyone who can make it to the agency's doorstop and claim homelessness is entitled to emergency shelter up to 6 months, with no residency check (let alone U.S. citizenship), and there is no clear regulation preventing renewal. Even before the current foreign migrant crisis, about 10-15% of the shelter population came from outside NYC as their most recent stated prior address.

[labcomputer]

They do, and if you dig into them, the numbers show that most people are not from SF.

https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022-PIT-Co...

By the agency's own numbers, only 72% of SF's homeless population "became homeless while living in SF."

Additionally, among those 72% who "became homeless while living in SF", only 35% have lived in SF for more than 10 years at the time of the census (the agency only has buckets for 0-1, 1-10 and 10+ years, and does not collect the amount of time the person lived in SF before becoming homeless).

So, although they may have technically "become homeless while living in SF", 65% are not really "from SF" in any meaningful way (they lived in SF for less than 10 years since they first got here, including time while homeless). Those 65% aren't kids: Only 2% of SF's homeless are under 18, and more than half of homeless were over the age of 25 when they first became homeless.

When you multiply it out (0.35*0.72), you end up with an upper bound of just 25% of the homeless population is really "from SF" (as in, became homeless while here and have been here >10 years).

It's probably even lower when you consider that the current episode of homelessness is their first for only 23% (so while they may have "become homeless" while in SF, many have been homeless elsewhere before and thus only marginally housed when arriving).

[krainboltgreene]

> 65% are not really "from SF" in any meaningful way

Only 17% reported being in SF for less than a year, what are you talking about?

> as in, became homeless while here and have been here >10 years

ahahaha oh okay you are insane.

[labcomputer]

> Only 17% reported being in SF for less than a year, what are you talking about?

Oh, looks like you forgot to add the 28% who were already experiencing homelessness when they arrived in SF. I’m sure that’s just an honest mistake.

> ahahaha oh okay you are insane.

So you believe that a homeless person who has lived in SF for 13 months, total, at the time they were surveyed is “from SF”? I’m not the one who created the reporting buckets.

I’m happy to change my mind given new data, but a person who has lived in a city for 1-10 years is not “from” that city. Maybe you should ask SF’s homeless census to report in more gradual buckets.

[DoreenMichele]

The Dept. of Homeless Services doesn't track this?

Previous discussions on HN suggest that the official stats are misleading and, for example, will count one as "local" if their last official street address was time in a local prison.

[acchow]

The statistic thrown around is something like “About 70 percent of people who are homeless became homeless while living in the Bay Area.” I’m not sure how to interpret this. I cant find the question they actually asked or how they collected people to survey.