[Aunche]

> What struck me most was the balance of compassion and pragmatism that Amanda brings to her work.

Nothing about this article strikes me as pragmatic. She's spending all her energy attempting to help people with the least likelihood of success and then gets angry at the system when they inevitably fail. The city didn't kick Morrisette out of the hotel because they like zero-tolerance policies, but because other people deserve a chance a chance to live in a free hotel room as well.

[robswc]

This is one of the core problems and I don't think people want to admit it "can't be solved."

When I was naive, out on my own after 18 I found a low-income/income-restricted apartment complex and thought I got a steal. It was $1k a month for a 2 bed when everywhere else was closer to $1.5k.

I soon realized I would _never_ live in a low income place if I could help it. Someone was killed in our building. Fights in the parking lot every other day. People leaving trash in the hall ways. People smoking 24/7. Of course, maybe only 25% of the people were "problematic" but that was more than enough to make you feel totally uncomfortable in your own home. The last straw was potheads causing a fire alarm at 3 AM and having to evacuate into the cold night in a panic.

Some people are simply selfish and will not be able to live close to/with others without causing problems. _Most_ people do not want to live next to them.

[novok]

There are two kinds of 'low income.' There is a working-class neighborhood where people are not rich; life is hard, and stuff is a bit run down, but people are normal. Employed-ish, don't start fights and are respectful. The sense of community and friendliness might even be better than a 'normal' place because you need community to survive. Living in these places is fine. Then there is the kind of 'low income' you describe, which is a very different kind of place and people.

When people talk about this topic, people get into big debates about it because they are thinking of 2 very different kinds of low-income places.

[tripletao]

The comment you replied to said "income-restricted", so they probably mean a building covered by government programs that give preferential tax, planning, or other treatment to developers who commit to below-market rent, with tenancy restricted to households meeting income limits.

These are common in large American cities. The problem tenants are a minority, but the landlord lacks the usual incentive to address them since the building will always be full, since it's below-market. The landlord may also be a social benefit organization that's politically disinclined to evict.

Non-market housing tends to go badly in the USA, including programs closely resembling those that have succeeded in other countries. The reasons for that are complex, though I strongly suspect that the weak mental health system (many of the worst problem tenants would be institutionalized elsewhere) contributes.

[autobodie]

>I don't think people want to admit it "can't be solved".

The fact that many countries have solved it seems to indicate that you are wrong.

[hector126]

My understanding is that countries who have "solved" homelessness either -

• Societally and culturally produce so few individuals who would behave the way America's most problematic homeless do that direct 1on1 intervention is feasible. There are school districts in the US where the truancy rate exceeds 70%. There are other countries where this is not the case. Switzerland and Norway come to mind.

• Involuntarily commit or arrest individuals who are mentally unfit to function in normal society. Institutionalization, basically. China and Russia come to mind.

If there was a silver bullet which was politically acceptable to "solve" America's homeless problem I ensure you, folks in California would have tried it.

[johnnyanmac]

1. Yes, it's cultural and we keep encouraging people to be selfish. Our influencers, the media, this push of "make it in your own" despite no one in history truly being self made. And if we're being frank, prejudice is still alive and well which underfunded certain kinds of areas. We don't want to help those people. And we have 50 mini countries to balance this between.

2. Almost. They don't use for profit prisons who are incentivized to punish. Other countries actually focus on minimizing recidivism. But America keeps falling for "Hard on Crime". Again, that selfishness: "I would never do that, that person deserves to suffer".

>If there was a silver bullet which was politically acceptable to "solve" America's homeless problem I ensure you, folks in California would have tried it.

I agree. But politically people treat reformation as "free handouts". With that attitude nothing will change.

[Clubber]

>But America keeps falling for "Hard on Crime". Again, that selfishness: "I would never do that, that person deserves to suffer".

We really need to repeal the 93 crime bill. We have the most incarcerated population in the world by both ratio and total numbers. Way too many offenses are felonies and once people get marked by the system, they will most likely never excel in society, much less get by.

[Aunche]

> Involuntarily commit or arrest individuals who are mentally unfit to function in normal society.

Finland, the poster child for housing first, does this as well.

[monero-xmr]

Students graduate high school in Finland and are ecstatic if they can get a job at a restaurant. I have a lot of family there…

[PieTime]

And what happens if they don’t find a job? Do they become homeless? I know a few Americans who moved to Finland. They accepted lower wages for a better quality of life.

[Yeul]

There is homelessness and then there is America with people using drugs in broad daylight and setting up tents on the side walk...

[PaulDavisThe1st]

California, like most of the USA, contains a very broad spectrum of political opinion. There are plenty of conservative right wing folk there, it just so happens that the current state of things there leads to them not holding huge amounts of power at the level of the state legislature or governor's office.

This is marked contrast to, for example, most European countries (particularly the two you've mentioned) where the number of people who simply do not see a role for non-carceral government action (i.e. the first solution you've described) is quite small.

Combine that with a referendum process, and you've got a situation in which there are lots of things that could theoretically be tried but will not be, even in California.

[robswc]

The problem isn't "solved." The problem is you have to deal with it in a way that most/everyone would be OK with and vote for. I don't think we can do that in the US.

We could "solve" the problem like Singapore or China (some of these 'many countries'), and simply throw everyone in jail for petty crimes. In fact, IIRC Singapore is one of the safest places on earth. I'm sure SF (and California, and the country at large) would probably take issue with a sudden step up in policing.

[JimDabell]

> We could "solve" the problem like Singapore or China (some of these 'many countries'), and simply throw everyone in jail for petty crimes

The incarceration rate of the USA is 541/100k:

https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america

The incarceration rate of Singapore is 164/100k:

https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/singapore

The homelessness rate in the USA is 19.5/10k. The homelessness rate in Singapore is 1.9/10k.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_ho...

Singapore doesn’t have a homelessness problem because they build as much public housing as possible, sell it to citizens at a massively subsidised rate, and follow up with schemes to rent to people who fall through the system for practically nothing.

If you want to reduce homelessness, you need to build a large volume of housing. San Francisco is doing the exact opposite and getting the exact opposite results.

[robswc]

Do the math on the execution rate. You do _not_ want to be a criminal in Singapore. You especially do not want to be a criminal involved with drugs (which is the highest % offense of prisoners in the US).

> Singapore doesn’t have a homelessness problem because they build as much public housing as possible, sell it to citizens at a massively subsidised rate, and follow up with schemes to rent to people who fall through the system for practically nothing.

How policed are these public housing projects? I wouldn't have a problem living near or even in a place like that if there weren't criminals running around.

The problem I was referencing was the problem of trying to get the general populace to live with antisocial types. I don't think that can be "solved" in the US anytime soon.

> If you want to reduce homelessness, you need to build a large volume of housing. San Francisco is doing the exact opposite and getting the exact opposite results.

Sure. I just don't see that happening in the US without it turning into a dump. I didn't even live in a homeless shelter. I lived in an income restricted place. It was a magnet for criminals and non-criminals are punished for it.

[JimDabell]

> Do the math on the execution rate. You do _not_ want to be a criminal in Singapore.

In 2023, Singapore executed 5 people, which is less than one in a million:

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/policy/internatio...

You basically have to bring drugs into the country to be executed. So as long as you don’t do that, this statistic doesn’t affect you at all.

> How policed are these public housing projects? I wouldn't have a problem living near or even in a place like that if there weren't criminals running around.

Three quarters of Singaporeans live in these places, and there is no significant police presence. There doesn’t have to be because the crime rate is so low. Criminals aren’t running around.

> Sure. I just don't see that happening in the US without it turning into a dump. I didn't even live in a homeless shelter. I lived in an income restricted place. It was a magnet for criminals and non-criminals are punished for it.

I think you read “public housing” and interpreted it as something like you have in America, with high crime and poverty. That’s a misinterpretation. This is the type of place most people live in Singapore. They are nice places to live, they are just massively subsidised by the government.

[novok]

You don't have to compare Singapore or other places. Just comparing the USA to other English countries shows stark differences. The UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and NZ have way less of the bad kind of "low income", better incarceration rates, homeless and more than the USA. And in many ways, people are poorer in those countries than the USA too. It's not money, it's political will and organization.

[atoav]

You are mentally on a wrong track there. If imprisonment solved your problem, it would already be solved. The US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world (see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...). Fifth place versus Singapore on 105th. The US incarcerates 3.5 times more of it's population than Singapore.

If you have the money to imprison the homeless you could use that very same money to just build more affordable housing and that would give you more in terms of results per dollar spent.

But that doesn't jive well with the American idea of having to morally punish unwanted behavior, instead of just helping people.

Jailing homeless people is like jailing people who break a leg: Nobody plans to break a leg, so jailing people who do won't reduce the number of people who do. The only thing criminalization of such involuntary traits achieves is to reduce visibility and pushing people to hide it.

[robswc]

> The US incarcerates 3.5 times more of it's population than Singapore.

And Singapore executes ~3.5 times more of it's population than the US. Singapore is a heavily policed state. They still cane people there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore

There is a _huge_ difference between how crime is handled in the US and how it is handled in Singapore.

> If you have the money to imprison the homeless you could use that very same money to just build more affordable housing and that would give you more in terms of results per dollar spent.

I'm not talking about the homeless. The people I lived next to had homes (that were unfortunately adjacent to mine). They would constantly commit crime and face 0 repercussions for it. I knew of someone in the building that was on their 5th DUI somehow. They were still driving, still causing problems nearly every week.

[atoav]

In 2024 Singapore executed 9 people, that is a rate of 0.149 per 100k of their population.

The rate of people shot by police in the US is 0.34 per 100k of its population. Who needs capital punishment when you shoot people your police doesn't like even before they have been found guilty?

And your anecdotal evidence is not really valuable in the discussion at hand. Somebody else can say the opposite, I for example live in a country where crime is treated differently and we have less violent crime. You can leave your doors unlocked in a major city, despite living in a red light district with its own share of homeless, drug addicts and mentally ill.

[panick21_]

Singapore might execute more people, but now go and compare how many people get killed by the state. I always think its hilarious how people argue about execution when the police kills astronomically more people to the point where actual executions are a statistically insignificant.

> They were still driving, still causing problems nearly every week.

That's what you get when you build a car dependent society. You can't actually prevent people from driving because people can't practically live without driving.

[BurningFrog]

Caning is very cost effective!

Costs almost nothing compared to prisons, and has a comparable deterrence effect.

[johnnyanmac]

We don't actually execute that many people in the US, so this was an instant fail on the sniff test:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singap...

540 ish executions in 35 years. 50 executions last decade. I don't think these are the statistics that make me thing Singapore is a kill happy country.

>m not talking about the homeless. The people I lived next to had homes (that were unfortunately adjacent to mine). They would constantly commit crime and face 0

Anecdotes are just that. I've been in a nice neighborhood. I don't think people are naturally evil.

[Agentus]

—— If you have the money to imprison the homeless you could use that very same money to just build more affordable housing and that would give you more in terms of results per dollar spent. But that doesn't jive well with the American idea of having to morally punish unwanted behavior, instead of just helping people. Jailing homeless people is like jailing people who break a leg: —- Forgive me if i misinterpret you. But i think theirs three relevant perspectives here whereof two and a half disagree with your points that americans dont punish people down on their luck.

first perspective is the common american sympathetic or not to homeless and their perspective on penal code. then 2nd, theres reactive use and enforcement of code, which is the main punishment for homelessness. and third is the figurative cognitive behavior modifiers but instead of being therapists they are american rulers who want subjects to behave in a certain manner ( more on that at the end).

first perspective is divided into two camps i think. empathetic yes lets not punish homelessness, lets help them out. they seem to have more influence in liberal states. then theres the “lazy bum” castigators, like trump said or would say. no sympathy, get a job types.

2nd perspective matters more because homelessness in-effect criminalized if police enforce laws and the laws are sufficient to cause more than a minor inconvenience to the homeless. Most states technically have all types of laws to put homeless people in jail, but in certain states and certain contexts do homelessness get more aggressively targeted and thus punished. its in the form of no body wants to deal with homeless people where they hang out at (nimbyism) so they have police remove them however the police are instructed and allowed to do, which might be making and enforcing laws incidentally target behavior homeless are more likely to do but everyone does like loitering.

3rd perspective is more conjecture but is based on academic documented equivalent cases in french and british colonies (found in david graebers writings) and extrapolated to say that people who make the laws in america must think like cognitive behaviorists specifically to wielding the threat of homelessness as a tool to modify the populations behavior to their agendas. this is conjecture but not unreasonable, and its substantiated.

But places in America do penalize homelessness if not intentionally implicitly. examples include hostile archtecture, no sitting rules in transportation hubs, sleep police in new york, and consequences for being, acting, or appearing homeless in various municipalities which sometimes results in jail.

[zozbot234]

People get jailed/locked up when they are a physical danger to those around them. The reason jails are the way they are is not so much to punish the inmates but far more relevantly, to protect them from one another. As it turns out, unfortunately, much of the supposed problem with the really long term homeless is that, rightly or wrongly, they are perceived as a physical threat to others. So, even assuming the best possible intentions on your part, whatever place you put the homeless is going to look a lot like jail.

[Qwertious]

>no sympathy, get a job types.

This was a valid perspective in the 1960s - jobs grew on trees, most people who didn't have a job just didn't want a job. Some people built that perspective in the 1960s, and then never updated it despite jobs no longer growing on trees.

[seanmcdirmid]

> But that doesn't jive well with the American idea of having to morally punish unwanted behavior, instead of just helping people.

I advocate a Singapore-style justice system then thanks to atoav's revelation that they do much better on crime than we do with punishments like caning and execution for most hard drug offenses.

[reportingsjr]

> We could "solve" the problem like Singapore or China (some of these 'many countries'), and simply throw everyone in jail for petty crimes.

This clearly isn’t true, as the US has a per capita prison population four to five times that of China & Singapore! We jail far, far more people than they do.

[carlosjobim]

Why do you count "per capita" when it should be counted "per crime"? Per capita means nothing for this argument.

[Aunche]

You're right, but progressives treat crime statistics as dog whistles for racism, which to be fair isn't uncommon. However, you can make a very similar "woke" argument. Much of crime is caused by centuries of systemic racism that Singapore and China never experienced, so you can't do an apple to apple comparison between incarcerations per capita.

Overall, Singapore and China are significantly more willing to sacrifice freedom in exchange for security. There is more surveillance and no trial by jury, for example.

[robswc]

It could simply be that more people in China and Singapore are afraid to commit crimes. Their prison sentences and punishments are much worse. In 2022, they executed 11 people, the US executed 18. The US has a ~50x larger population.

I'm not even saying the solution is more/harsher policing. I'm saying it is a solution that seemingly works.

[johnnyanmac]

It could also be that they didn't governmental distribute drugs to their population with the purpose of mass arresting for petty crimes. So half their criminal population aren't just in for smoking pit.

[11101010001100]

This is speculation, the parent replied with statistics.

[sightbroke]

As far as I can tell, the bottom line is king in the US.

So the way I figure, you spend money on imprisoning (though private prisons make more money and can sell non-violent labor).

Or spend money on housing and social workers and maybe a good chunk of this individuals rejoin the workforce and pay taxes.

Or you spend money on cleaning up after, paying for medical emergencies, and increased private security costs.

The option selected is either the one that the invisible hand found to be the most efficient or a better option was not sold well enough.

[Aunche]

If the bottom line were actually king, we'd have a VAT, LVT, functional public transit, and sensible zoning laws among other things. Hell, even a fully socialized healthcare system would be more economically efficient than the public-private Frankenstein we have today.

A common meme on both sides of the political aisle is that public spending that they don't like is motivated by someone else's profit, but that's never the why the spending happens. I'd like the government to give me a million bucks to dig a hole in my backyard, but that's not going to happen unless if the voters agree to it.

[throwawaymaths]

if you think prison privatization is the problem... you should see state run prisons. while studies show that private prisons are "statistically" worse (lots of problems with the statistics, e.g. commingling criminal incarceration contracts with migrant incarceration contracts), the difference is marginal, at best.

[johnnyanmac]

The incentive structure is the bigger issue here, not necessarily prisoner treatment (though yes, we can address that too). A state wants to minimize prisons. A profit run prison wants to keep getting prisoners.

[Agentus]

You don’t have to even go to more authoritarian places to see the “solved” phenomenon. Many conservative states have harsher sentences or are more proactive in enforcement of petty crimes to “solve” undesirable/nonconformist behavior. Also solve is a funny word to describe dealing with people who ultimately dont want to conform to arbitrary restrictions on behavior.

Humans naturally evolved in a hunter gathering setting, yet certain governing “civilizing” forces had the audacity to eliminate that as possible lifestyle, and then label people who defy that restriction on lifestyle choice as problemmatic.

[cheriot]

I don't see a pattern of conservative states solving drugs or violent crime.

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/place-based-...

https://americaninequality.substack.com/p/violent-crime-and-...

[Agentus]

yeah the pattern is indiscernible because i was talking about petty crimes and related behavior (specifically homelessness) that have a lower per capita rate. violence isnt petty and i assume many drugs offenses arent considered petty. a quick google has validating statistics, although i cant find sources better than business insider at the moment. homeless population per capita by state and homelessness criminalization by state.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> Humans naturally evolved in a hunter gathering setting

Frequently asserted, but not really well substantiated. Plenty of new (or previously) ignored archeological and anthropological evidence that humans moved back and forth fairly seamlessly between hunting, gathering and cultivating in many differents part of the world.

You sound like the kind of person who would have somehow managed to read "The Dawn of Everything" by Graeber & Wengrow, but apparently either did not or for some reason disagree with one of their fundamental conclusions.

[Agentus]

yup, in the process of reading Wengrow

[yibg]

The US seems to be a text book case of treating the symptom rather than the cause (and not just in terms of homelessness either). Culturally we:

- Seem to tolerate high income inequality or even see it as a good thing.

- Value "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" and devalue social safety nets and other avenues of providing opportunity to the masses

- Have given up on higher crime rates, lower education, poorer health care and health outcomes compared to other wealthy nations

Instead of trying to prevent homelessness in the first place, we try to tackle it once it's already there, then throw up our hands and say it's not possible to deal with.

[willywanker]

>Seem to tolerate high income inequality or even see it as a good thing.

A free society will by definition be unequal; people have different priorities and abilities, and wealth acquisition isn't a zero sum game. If anything, instead of vilifying billionaires, take a look at the unelected but taxpayer funded and vastly bloated bureaucracies in every country around the world. The shocking revelations of USAID spending billions upon billions to interfere in other countries is example enough.

Prisons are the most equal places in the world in terms of living standards and options available to prisoners; nobody sees them as ideal.

Now lack of upward class mobility - that's a separate problem area to focus on.

[kjkjadksj]

It is hard to imagine a nation without this sort of thing to some degree without a total police state. These are issues with poor living in apartments in Europe too you know; a tragedy of the commons situation as the community shoulders the burden of those of it that have vice or mental illness that the government authority doesn’t effectively treat because this class is invisible in local mass media.

[Agentus]

yeah, ive heard not having a home was illegal of sorts in the Soviet Union, meaning eviction was illegal or something equivolent.

I know what you mean by police state, but i wonder why america doesn’t consider themselves a police state, with such a large prison population and all the innocuous behaviors that can land you in legal trouble. i guess americans get indoctrinated in a certain way of thinking, where their subset of freedoms which they can mostly practice, makes them think they are free but ignore all the numerous other penalized behaviors. for example: i cant possess cocaine regardless if it wont be consumed as a drug, cant drink in public, cant lay down in public, cant sleep in public(ny), etc etc. a lot of intermediary stuff gets penalized because its the only way to control some tangentially related detrimental behavior, or its penalized for making people feel odd (nudity).

but more on point: america polices property taxes. Any property owned gets taxed automatically. this creates a forced work state to accumulate money to pay Uncle Sam. Failure to comply with this system and you get policed or pushed around as a homeless. David Graeber talks about Madagascar colonies set up with a similar system (underline) intentionally(/u) to produce a productive populace. similarly he mentions ways monarchies created rules and systems to force markets and force productivity elsewhere. I think homelessness circumstances is by design, and this free nonpolice state we call america is actually an artificial created police state. we can choose different governing setups that have different features emergent and by design. Its what Mao attempted to do, its what the French and British monarch did. But i see the coercive force in all the government setups even the ones that claim to be free.

[_DeadFred_]

America is a Police state. Qualifiers: 1. Surveillance state. The amount of surveillance information our police now purchase from private companies would make the old Soviets drule. 2. Separate rules for the Police with qualified immunity protections. Singapore doesn't give it's Police qualified immunity protections unless serving warrants. There are two different rules of law in the US, those that apply to the normies, and those that apply to law enforcement. 3. Mass incarceration. 4. Making so much illegal that 'selective enforcement' can be used as a tool of coercion. Just coming up on the Police radar (even if you are someone that reported something) leads to a significantly higher chance of incarceration in the US.

[wavemode]

Which countries have solved it, and how? I'm genuinely curious.

[BurningFrog]

If we believe the stories of old, even this country used to have this solved.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

It all started to change with O'Connor v. Donaldson. Prior to that, a person could be committed for basically life for just about anything...

Reference: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

[vondur]

I think outrage from that movie and the conditions of the Asylums around that time period was why many of the public asylums were shuttered.

[WarOnPrivacy]

During the late 19th to early 20th century, asylums were launched all over the US. They were commonly public-private partnerships but tended to be spearheaded by altruistic individuals. They were genuinely positive places and were constantly lauded by the public/press/pols.

The focus on humane care was universal. The methods sometimes suffered from incomplete understanding but that improved over time.

From 1930s to 1960s, the responsible individuals died off and no one replaced them. The p/p/p quit caring. Locations transitioned to gov-only. The public/press weren't interested so neither were pols. The quality of care steeply fell off as budgets (read 'efficiency') were prioritized over everything.

By the 1970s, asylums were associated with hellholes for mostly good reasons. By the 1980s most were shuttered. The public justification was the inhumane conditions (typically true). The motivating reason was to recapture the remaining funds that were spent on them. There was little/no interest in funding replacements.

FF to today. Florida has 5 state criminal mental health institutions. Their long history is that patients and staff die there with some regularity. After that came out in a news series, reporters lost access and that's where that's at.

    source: 10y genealogy research & 25y caring for mi spouse. 
    Also: 10y supporting developmentally disabled care facilities (public/private) that are still spearheaded by caring, invested individuals. They are models of what is possible.

[johnnyanmac]

>This is one of the core problems and I don't think people want to admit it "can't be solved."

It certainly can be solved. The real think is people in power don't want to solve it, and the voters don't want to invest in solving it. Admitting your own folly and vainness is much more difficult than dismissing it as an "impossible problem".

>Some people are simply selfish and will not be able to live close to/with others without causing problems. _Most_ people do not want to live next to them.

And those people do not get the help they need. Again, and investment no one cares to put in. Better to sweep it under the rug and try to rely on the security of higher income areas to deal with it than taking preventative measures.

[xivzgrev]

I’m not sure what the right answer is, but asking people who are used to rough and tumble life outside to then behave civilly indoors with zero tolerance seems…set for failure?

There are those that do succeed but those are certainly the most motivated to do so. Others are in transition: know they should get indoors but know their difficulties.

Rather than kicking them out, maybe they are required to attend some mandatory psych sessions. Maybe they go maybe they don’t but at least there support to help them work thru their issues of why they blew up at the staff (as in this instance).

[bnralt]

> I’m not sure what the right answer is, but asking people who are used to rough and tumble life outside to then behave civilly indoors with zero tolerance seems…set for failure?

This is true, and that's why housing first is a terrible policy (I've seen it fail spectacularly first hand). Many of these people simply can't take care of themselves, and putting them in free apartments doesn't fix their situation, but it does make life miserable for long-term residents. All while being extremely expensive.

> Maybe they go maybe they don’t

Here they have frequent wellness checks. It doesn't solve anything. This shouldn't be a surprise - someone who's incapable of living civilly when given a free apartment likely isn't going to be a person who's going to put the time and effort into mental health classes.

[vidarh]

You seem to be assuming a specific version of housing first that is by no means the only option, and then dismissing the concept as a whole on that basis.

[bnralt]

My "specific version" is the version used by government agencies, which specifically states that the government is giving people free permanent housing without requiring prerequisites.

HUD[1]:

"Housing First is an approach to quickly and successfully connect individuals and families experiencing homelessness to permanent housing without preconditions and barriers to entry, such as sobriety, treatment or service participation requirements."

California Department of Housing and Community Development[2]:

"Housing First is an approach to serving people experiencing homelessness that recognizes a homeless person must first be able to access a decent, safe place to live, that does not limit length of stay (permanent housing)...Under the Housing First approach, anyone experiencing homelessness should be connected to a permanent home as quickly as possible, and programs should remove barriers to accessing the housing, like requirements for sobriety or absence of criminal history."

[1] https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/Housing-F... [2] https://www.hcd.ca.gov/grants-funding/active-funding/docs/ho...

[vidarh]

The versions used by US government agencies.

Presumably you're aware that's not the only option, as your last comment before the one above was on a thread about the Finnish approach, which has found it to be cheaper and to act as a gateway to get people other help.

[kjkjadksj]

The finnish approach isn’t on the same scale as the number of homeless people in the US and is hard to apply.

[throaway89]

Its been a success in Canada when tried https://www.cba.org/Publications-Resources/Practice-Tools/Ta...

[Aunche]

> asking people who are used to rough and tumble life outside to then behave civilly indoors with zero tolerance seems…set for failure?

This is what I'm saying the ranger is doing. Someone who gets extremely distressed by indoor living is not a good candidate taxpayer funded indoor living. On the other hand, that housing given to someone who is capable of navigating welfare bureaucracy on their own may actually enable someone who is at risk spiraling down a path of no return to turn their life around.

[b112]

I've always wondered why such people don't live in a rural area. You could literally set aside parks for people wanting to live in this fashion, used to living in this fashion, but also provide facilities (bedding, small cabins, water supplies, washing machines, etc, etc).

You'd need, I think, to have security guards on hand. Not to stop drug use, but instead to stop violence against other homeless, to intervene if medical attention is required, and so on.

While the costs would be higher than some other solutions, it would be lower (I think) than paying for private housing.

Of course, you'd have to force move people, and that's not going to happen. That is, unless you make squatting in a park a crime, and the result is "you're going to be incarcerated in this very nice outdoor place" the "jail".

Maybe a medical order.

My point is, I don't see an issue with some of your logic. Some people won't transition to inside living, or being close to others.

But if you take people used to living in parks, move them to a park with cabins(tiny homes), and state run water/facilities, the cost might be the same, but they'd have a warm bed, etc.

[bombcar]

The people who are capable of this do this on their own.

The California high desert is full of variations of this in shacks and trailers across the nearly uninhabited expanse.

The biggest problem is support, but if they can navigate enough to get government assistance they can survive for quite a long time.

[ninalanyon]

What everyone wants, and these people want more than most perhaps, is autonomy. Your idea might work so long as there are few rules that would cause people to be kicked out and so long as money is also provided. It probably won't work if people are forced into it because being forced into things is one of the reason they are in their situation already.

More carrot and less stick, more compassion and less puritanism might have a chance of working.

[lupusreal]

A few people might be cut out to be rural hermits, but most need other people to fuel their lifestyle with food, booze and drugs, etc. Hard to buy fent by stealing bicycles if you're in a remote park.

[pkaeding]

Your last idea reminds me of https://mlf.org/community-first/

From what I hear, it is quite successful, giving their residents the dignity and autonomy they need to stand on their own.

[b112]

Neat. I was thinking more rural, but if this works, it works!

[hnbad]

> taxpayer funded

I don't understand the reflexive nature many people present in jumping this kind of framing. Of course it's taxpayer funded. Everything is taxpayer funded. Even when it's not literally paid from taxes collected by the government, it's probably funded by people who pay taxes.

The price you pay for your groceries funds not just the wholesale purchase of the goods you pay for but also the labor, facilities, equipment and resources used to purchase, deliver, store and sell those goods. Considering the total amount of taxes collected versus the revenue of the place you get your groceries, you probably contribute more of your income to operating that place than to any single service funded directly from taxes. The amount of those grocery expenses that goes directly into profits alone is probably still greater than that. Housing first specifically also literally is cheaper than the previous approach by reducing expenses for medical services, policing and incarceration.

So "taxpayer funded" is neither a meaningful qualifier if taken literally nor do its implications stand up to scrutiny.

The most common reason for using this phrase is an emotional appeal to selfishness. Your money is being spent without your say on services you don't benefit from. I find that framing morally appalling but even so, what is the alternative? What the US did before was more expensive. Not housing people means more health issues and ER visits. Throwing them in prison means housing and feeding them at a massive multiple of the cost of a housing first initiative. If you want to save costs without spending money on housing, I guess you could cut their access to medical services but then you might as well allow law enforcement to shoot them on sight as the outcome will be the same.

> On the other hand, that housing given to someone who is capable of navigating welfare bureaucracy on their own

What you're describing is triage, not housing the homeless. If your housing program is small enough that you have to engage in triage and turn people away, it's not addressing homelessness, it's addressing a fraction of the homeless population. It's better than nothing, sure, but it's not enough.

Also triage means weighing the necessary resources for treatment against the likelihood of recovery and the likely extent of the recovery. You don't treat someone who can walk it off but you also don't treat someone who's in very poor health or too far gone to be saved without using a disproportionate amount of resources.

Triage is not how you organize a hospital. Triage is how you respond to an overwhelming emergency situation without access to necessary resources. Triage is a last resort measure to reduce the number of people who will die, not a strategy for helping people survive and thrive.

Homelessness is not a natural disaster, not a spontaneous pandemic. Homelessness is a longstanding social issue most often directly arising from poverty and lack of mental health support. If your concern is with the support being wasted on people with worse chances and not support being insufficiently funded for that kind of decision not having to be made, I think you might be overestimating your humanitarianism.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Also, to repeat a point I often make about this ...

Until sometime around the 1980s, even in the USA poverty and homelessness were scene as systemic failures - "our system should not lead to those results". Post-Reagan, the attitude has shifted dramatically and now poverty and homelessness are broadly seen as personal failures, a mixture of poor morals, bad character and weak decision making. We even used to be a little inclined towards a potential role for the state in helping individuals deal with bad luck, but now bad luck is seen as "gravitating" towards individuals whose fault is all theirs.

This has necessarily drastically altered government policies at the local, state and federal level. We are much, much worse for it, no matter which interpretation of poverty and homelessness is more factually correct.

[pc86]

"Taxpayer funded" pretty obviously means "paid for or subsidized by the government directly" and it seems bad faith to pretend you don't know that.

Of course you can probably find some government subsidy somewhere and trace it to grocery stores but nobody realistically claims grocery stores are taxpayer funded.

The government directly putting homeless in hotels over and over again is very clearly taxpayer funded and everybody knows what is meant when someone says that.

[johnnyanmac]

Grocery stores are subsidized by the government. I would call pretty much any grocery chain store that gets government handouts to be taxpayer funded, yes.

>The government directly putting homeless in hotels over and over again is very clearly taxpayer funded and everybody knows what is meant when someone says that.

And why are we framing is as bad? You're either funding their low income housing, or you are funding their jail cell (and they are not generating any real sense of income to stimulate the economy).

[DangitBobby]

If you think this is a reply to their comment, you must not have read it.

[hnbad]

Thanks. To clarify for those who can't muster the attention span to make it to the second paragraph: my point is that the phrase is a red herring designed to trigger an emotional response because we're bad at comprehending how miniscule our relative contribution to each "taxpayer funded" expense actually is.

The parent of your post is a good example of how effective it is at doing that, especially when combined with the claim of an apparent wasteful use of that money. If you pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes and hear about a million dollars of "taxpayer money" being supposedly wasted, your emotional response reflects an imagined scenario where all of your taxes went into that alleged waste even if individual income taxes alone represent over $2 trillion (i.e. million million, or thousand billion) of the US federal budget and your actual relative lifetime contribution to that individual project can't even be measured in cents.

Not to mention that the news sources referring to that spending as waste may be reporting on inaccurate or incomplete information (even when deferring to an official source) and may be misrepresenting or omitting the actual economic efficiency of that spending (e.g. the entire "condoms to Hamas" incident where the official announcement turned out to not only apparently have mistaken about US medical aid in Gaza specifically but also misrepresent the total spending on contraceptives for AIDS relief by the US across the globe as going to a single place - the benefit to Americans of providing contraceptives to HIV hotspots should be obvious enough).

[Yeul]

Social housing programs in Europe were first invented in the 19th century. Part of it was altruism to be sure. But the richer part of society also understood that the slums were hotbeds for disease, crime and revolution.

[Aunche]

> Your money is being spent without your say on services you don't benefit from.

I don't mind strangers benefitting from my tax dollars. No where do I even imply this, so this idea is completely coming from your own preconceived ideas about those who disagree with you. The problem with this case is that I'm not sure anyone is benefiting from these tax dollars. These men aren't asking for help. They're being pressured into accepting help. Someone resourceful enough to trap racoons isn't fundamentally so helpless that they require 7 months of handholding to apply for temporary housing. He required 7 months because that wasn't something he was interested in the first place but is willing to occasionally humor a pretty ranger. She would have much more success meeting them where they're at. For example, she can set up an arrangement where the rangers will stop harassing the campers and tearing down their encampments if they keep the surroundings clean.

> What you're describing is triage, not housing the homeless

Yes, I'm talking about triage because that's exactly what the ranger is doing.

[hnbad]

> She would have much more success meeting them where they're at. For example, she can set up an arrangement where the rangers will stop harassing the campers and tearing down their encampments if they keep the surroundings clean.

We must have read different articles because the one I read stated that her job description is literally to remove people from these parks, just in a more humane way than just harassing the campers and tearing down the campsites. You can make an argument that they should be allowed to let them live there but her job isn't simply to keep the park clean but to stop people from living there.

> Yes, I'm talking about triage because that's exactly what the ranger is doing.

Again, we seem to have read different articles because to me it didn't read like she was prioritizing specific individuals for movement into housing using any of the considerations I described.

[Aunche]

> We must have read different articles

Doubling down on the preconceived judgments I see. Yes I read the article, and from it, I can tell she is given a lot of autonomy. I don't thinking allowing a "client" to camp for seven months while you file for paperwork is part of her job description either.

> it didn't read like she was prioritizing specific individuals for movement into housing

She is convincing people who otherwise would have refused offers for housing to take housing. If that's not triage, then you shouldn't have brought that up to begin with.

[lazide]

The ranger is a hero. And hero’s are often toxic in long running scenarios for exactly the reason outlined - they are trying to make up for a systemic failure through self sacrifice, therefore enabling the underlying system failure.

[hnbad]

This is needlessly cynical. The hero isn't toxic. The narrative of an individual effort in lieu of calling out the systemic issue is what's toxic. I don't see any way she could have better spent her energy contributing to systemic change whereas by doing what she does she literally improves the lives of others.

Favoring narratives of individual heroes over narratives of systemic changes is a cultural problem. Whether it's Atlas Shrugged, the Odyssey or Harry Potter. It instills a learned helplessness and an artificial desire for a "strong man fix things" that can be very difficult to overcome. But it also atomizes and fractures society and benefits those with the most individual wealth and power.

The ranger is a hero. What she is doing is good. But she shouldn't have to do it. And nobody should have to do so much. The article intentionally buries its lede: if this is what it takes to save one person, how can we save thousands? The implied answer is again helplessness: of course this isn't scalable so we can't. What she is doing is too much for one person, so we can't expect it of others. But the real answer is that literally none of this would be necessary if the system were actually built to help these people.

Her work does not require a herculean effort because it is difficult. It requires so much effort because it is being made difficult. The right question isn't how can we scale this, the right question is how can we make it easy enough that we don't need her to be a hero. The question of scalability answers itself once you've removed the obstacles.

[lazide]

that’s what i said?

[hnbad]

You said heroes are enabling the system.

Hero narratives are enabling the system.

Those are two different things. She likely doesn't consinder herself heroic. The story about her however is written in such a way to portray her as heroic. It doesn't leave room for any other option than helplessness and hoping for more heroes to emerge.

Framing it as heroes being toxic and enabling the system suggests accelerationism: if things only get bad enough (i.e. if we stop "enabling" the system by trying to work around it), the people will see how bad things are and demand change. But accelerationism doesn't work. When things are bad enough, the people will want a simple answer and a promise of a fast change. Stable systemic changes don't work fast and they are rarely simple.

To put it another way, heroes aren't toxic, heroes are harm reduction. Harm reduction is good because it helps people in the here and now. But harm reduction is not a solution to problems. Solving problems requires putting in the ground work of building bottom-up social structures. There's no reason to believe she would be just as good and enduring in doing that as she is in what she does now. And most importantly, she wouldn't be helping those she helps now because she might not even see it resulting in change within her lifetime.

So given that heroism doesn't work and letting things get worse doesn't work, what now? It sounds like we need a hero to take on the herculean task of dismantling the individualist atomizing culture norms - oh.

[AStonesThrow]

perhaps the pervasive narratives of systemic toxicity and chronic social issues that get us down? are those good for society? should we listen to those news stories all day? and believe that things are so awful that There Oughtta Be A Law And Reform?

those who cried out to quote Tax The Rich unquote, were likewise upset by the tariffs being imposed which are taxes on the rich... a really uniform and effective one! taxing corporations by tariffs is much father reaching than taxing individuals. individual heroes.

those who cannot interpret epic fantasy sagas as allegory or larger than Life metaphors are already helpless and they just need entertainment and some opiates.

[zdragnar]

> maybe they are required to attend some mandatory psych session

According to the social workers I know who work with this population, there is a persistent fear that any form of offered mental health help is a trap for institutionalizing people.

By and large, people who are chronically homeless due to mental health issues will prefer to remain homeless over being required to see a psychiatrist and having to take medicine, or so I'm told.

[lazide]

The issue is also that it’s selection bias - folks who permanently benefit from the treatment leave the system, so you end up with a more and more concentrated population of people who don’t (or refuse to) permanently benefit from it.

Barring other factors, of course.

[AStonesThrow]

The point of drugs is not to benefit the patient!! The drugs and treatments protect the community and serve the collective good.

The drugs are administered first to foster obedience, credulity, and fidelity. The patient learns to keep their appointments, lest the drugs be withdrawn. The patient becomes a regular customer at the pharmacy, which must also be done on precise schedules. The drugs must be taken as directed, and the patient learns how to read and understand and follow intricate rubrics for rituals at home, and what foods to avoid, how to coordinate meals with the drugs, etc.

The patient, having demonstrated obedience and fidelity is well-supervised now by the clinic and provider. The drugs are "virtual shackles" that stand in for actual restraints and confinement methods. Just as "chemical castration" substitutes for surgical mutilation, any patient who's on drugs and making regular appointments can be let loose, a feral in the human population, often undetected and blending in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_psychiatry#/media/F...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pinel

It's important to consider that Mental/BH has never been a medical discipline, and while today's scrubs and white coats are the priestly raiment of BHT, NP-LPN-RPh-BH, and M.D.s alike, they take blood pressure and do labs, and they prescribe drugs and work in clinical systems, even Western-style BH is, fundamentally, a religious temple cult of profound spirituality. In order to fit the mold of modernist secularism, the BH temple must array itself in trappings of science and respectable, professional jargon. The BH orthodox profession is that mental illness begins and ends in the body, somewhere, hopefully the brain, or at least where the neurotransmitters flow, to be manipulated by sacramental means. Because if mental illness is not bound or subject to the body, or the secret HIPAA-protected rites and liturgies are not concrete and high-tech, then treatments become subjective, outcomes are unpredictable, and evidence cedes ground to superstition or faith in deities and the intangible world of spirit, which must be ignored in order to promote and foster D.E.I.

Ramp up drug regimes trying to blunt aggression, anxiety, restlessness, independent thought and reason, resistance to authority, and other compulsions to harm others, or sometimes the drugs magnify those compulsions and homicidal ideations, and the patient just goes totally apeshit, until the hospital can get to billing their insurance in earnest. But since President Reagan "closed the asylums" the paradigm shifted to keeping people out and free and at-liberty. Because institutionalization is an excessive burden on taxpayers, families, and insurance carriers, and it's labor-intensive: this is recapitulated in the past 5 years because the "Flatten the Curve" mantra was promulgated because there are widespread staff shortages and a lack of skilled, certified HCPs, especially for Defence Against the Dark Arts. I recommend viewing the critically acclaimed, award-winning film "Ladybird" starring Saorsie Ronan; her mother is a psychiatric nurse played by Laurie Metcalf, and see how Ladybird herself turned out

Even for the HCPs on staff, BH facilities are closer to meat-grinders than revolving-doors, as they burn out, train up, move up, drink their own Flavor-Aid, circulate within the system. So those homeless psychos meet a new team of strangers every month or so. Over 25 years, I personally witnessed one clinic that changed its name/brand/ownership 5-6 times, expanded/moved at least 3 times, and there are literally dozens of BH systems that didn't exist 10 years ago, including 8-story hospitals with no 6th floor.

https://www.azahcccs.gov/Fraud/Downloads/ProviderSuspensions...

Would you believe dozens of New Religious Movements operating under auspices of BH services? You may find yourself in a shotgun shack, worshipping Shiva or Kali, or I don't know, in a UFO cult, or practicing tantric yoga with authentic Punjabi Guru, because Medicaid funding. BH Funding for Treatment is Public Safety and a National Security concern: every time a mass shooting is reported on the news, Congress acts to bolster BH funding and services, and so "every time a shell casing pings, someone's clinic builds a wing!"

Ask anyone working in hospice/palliative care and they may confide that drugs are administered when family or staff are irritated or vexed by the patient, rather than basing it on the needs of patient herself. An incoherent or insane patient may be unable to articulate their needs, but when they act out, or become criminally dangerous, they must needs smacked down. "The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease" indeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy#Lobotomy

The patient works with the provider to identify and treat more and more conditions. The drugs layer-up, and sometimes extra drugs are shoveled on top, to complement really debilitating effects. But in general, the drugs are exacerbating and magnifying the patient's sins and proclivities. The drugs are interacting and the patient is increasingly entangled in the intricate ritual of provider->pharmacy->daily pill rituals->pharmacy->provider->pills.

It's impossible to know whether recovery is attributable to a true underlying change or whether the drugs have papered over the worst symptoms. Therefore, it's never advisable to stop those drugs or titrate off them, because they don't get labeled with maximums or limits like the OTC stuff can be (this guy once OD'd on fiber supplements).

In the case of "lunatics" and other folks who just had a temporary nervous breakdown or trauma-based freakout, they certainly can recover and exit the system--anyone can exit the system until they're court-ordered or incarcerated, anyway.

There's plenty of other non-drug treatment for outpatients on the streets; counseling/therapy can be done 1:1 or in groups and other supports in the clinic for building life skills, etc. The homeless nutjob population can typically get benefits from us taxpayers to keep them in the clinic 3-5 days a week, just doin' stuff, because the clinic is pretty much a church, and the mentally ill need a religion with structure, rituals, priests, and sacraments like Prozac.

[lazide]

It does benefit the patient to not have to be smacked down by society, kill themselves, die of exposure, etc. right?

There is a reason why the old saw of ‘if you’re poor, you’re crazy. If you’re rich, you’re just eccentric.’ is largely true.

If you’re a threat to society, society will become a problem to you. If you don’t have the resources to deal with that, then you have a real problem.

[AStonesThrow]

It's typically illegal and possibly immoral to die by suicide, but again, as a matter of national security, it contributes to the collective good when insane persons fall by the wayside and lessen the harms and burdens for the proletariat, taxpayers and institutions. There are dozens of medications to help foment ideations and actual attempts of self-harm, so the patient benefits by staying out of courts and prisons and teenagers

The more cooperation that can be elicited from the mentally ill, in terms of becoming sicker, and medicated, and incapacitated or dead, the easier it becomes for citizens who support spouses and sane children, for citizens who work and pay taxes, for sane citizens who own property and generate revenue by leveraging assets, for free humans pumping iron, or those exercising the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happyness.

All of the above are increasingly threatened unless mentally ill humans stop procreating, and be removed from law-abiding democratic communities, and until then, controlled and supervised. An incapacitated patient won't leave home, won't start any fights, and won't disrupt a workplace or elementary schools, if the patient struggles for existence, barely able to prepare meals or get sufficient sleep.

The USA is deeply in debt, overpopulated, gripped and choked by a dark, imperceptible 6-year pandemic that marches through every corridor and vehicle, and still the immigrants flow inwards through the Golden Door, ready to work and assimilate, but is our national Zeitgeist on life support? The feeble-minded and mentally ill, malcontents: especially those without caregivers or supportive families, human weeds! They hinder progress, hinder democracy, and they threaten national security.

[hnbad]

The obvious problem is that that fear is entirely justified and rational.

Even if you disregard history, the current POTUS literally talked about concentrating homeless populations into centralized camps away from the general population.

How realistic this fear is and how probable it is, is of course debatable. But given that these people probably didn't have any positive experiences with mental healthcare and institutions and that the public discourse often describes them as analogous to vermin or disease and focuses on "removing them" rather than helping them, trusting a psychiatrist - especially if it means having to go to them, especially into a clinical environment - let alone taking psychopharmaceuticals seems like it would require quite the leap of faith.

[zdragnar]

It is and it isn't. The conversations I'm referencing happened back when Obama was in office.

Every state does have some form of civil / involuntary commitment, though nothing like before the 80's.

Many drugs also come with unpleasant side effects, especially if someone steals them from you and you're stuck with withdrawals. I'm reminded of one person my friend was helping who hated taking his medicine, but if he didn't, he would inevitably become increasingly paranoid that vampires were out to get him. Helping the poor guy live anything close to a "normal" life was a constant challenge.

[tiahura]

We used to have work farms, SF had a few. They were shut down by the same counterculture types that said turning a blind eye to drugs and vagrancy wouldn't be a problem.

[mordae]

I am sorry to hear that the richest country on earth cannot afford tiny private flats for anyone and everyone unhoused.

[skirge]

there are 7 billion people who want to live in free tiny private flat in San Francisco and US in general. More lanes - more traffic - more traffic jams.

[freejazz]

I wouldn't live in SF is someone paid me... and not because of the homeless

[johnnyanmac]

Nah, count me out of that 7 billion.

Heck, Id2be surprised if we got even a plurality of Americans who said they'd want to live in San Francisco.

[UltraSane]

The issue is that a lot of homeless actively destroy any housing they are put into.

[Aunche]

I mean yes. When engineers making six figures can't afford a flat in the bay area thanks to nimbyism, then you can't expect the government to either.

[truckerbill]

That's kinda the whole point, but noone is framing that situation as the problem. They would rather think that homeless people are innately inferior and thus deserve to suffer, rather than victims of circumstance in one way or another.

[kjkjadksj]

No one is framing it that way because it misses the nuance of these homeless peoples individual issues and how we might actually treat them. When people complain about homeless people in their neighborhood, they aren’t talking about the invisible homeless who are only homeless due to economic circumstance and might be couch surfing or living in their car. They are talking almost exclusively about the most visible population of homeless people, those who have severe mental health or drug addictions and need in patient services for potentially all their life.

[doomroot]

> but noone is framing that situation as the problem.

I think yimbys are framing that situation as THE problem.

[truckerbill]

I meant here, though I think there is also tendency in general

As a side note I think the state of current discourse has shown that anything other than concrete language presents too much opportunity to talk past each other. So I don't think talking about yimbys is specific enough (and its too tempting to strawman). Same for magas and libs, they are broad labels for a broad spectrum of people

[johnnyanmac]

So, what do we talk about then? Humans are pretty bad at multitasking so when speaking generally to a public you want to focus on one issue at a time.

[presentation]

The solution increasingly looks like completely replacing SF governance - not just be the people and laws but the structure too.

[b112]

That seems a weird assertion.

I just went to apartments.com. Palo Alto (not the cheapest place), shows loads of 1 and 2 bedroom apartments under and at 3k/month. That's under $40k/year.

This tax calculator shows the generic case of $120k (low 'six figures'), as being more than $80k takehome:

https://www.talent.com/tax-calculator/California-120000

That means less than 1/2 of a 'low end' engineering salary is taken for housing, and that's without a room-mate. Something most people have at the start of their career, and before being married (which is another way to have a room mate).

Do you actually live in the region? Why do you think almost $4k/month of cash in hand, left over after rent paid and taxes paid, isn't much?

Why do you think no one can find a place to live, when apartments.com show places aplenty?

Are you referring to a specific area, instead of a more central place such as Palo Alto?

[michaelt]

Well, in the US the median pre-tax household income is $80k and the median renter spends <35% of their income on rent.

Imagine singlehandedly earning 150% of what the average family earns, in one of the richest countries in the world and living in a one-bedroom apartment - and such a low standard of living isn't even cheap.

The landlords must be laughing all the way to the bank!

[flerchin]

Where do you think the grocery store workers are going to live when highly skilled professionals have to roommate to make rent?

[b112]

I was responding to an assertion that engineers making 6 figures could not afford apartments.

I validated that they certainly can, on their own, and in an expensive area (Palo Alto) too.

I then said that the dynamic is even better with a room mate.

From this you infer I spoke of all affordability?

Why?

Understand, making wild unsubstantiatable and exaggerative assertions about affordability can invalidate a discussion. Stating fact instead of hyperbole is more appropriate.

Hence my response.

[Aunche]

I wasn't clear. By "afford a flat" I meant outright purchase property, which the government would need to do to actually solve homelessness.

[Yeul]

Sure you can many countries have a social housing program... Cities across the world run into the same problems SF does you know it is not particularly unique or unusual.

Although I am a bit perturbed that there is still such a huge problem with drugs when the economy is booming and unemployment so low. It points to deeper problems within the fabric of American society.

[lotsoweiners]

> Although I am a bit perturbed that there is still such a huge problem with drugs when the economy is booming and unemployment so low. It points to deeper problems within the fabric of American society.

I think you’re coming at this from the wrong angle. A lot of people just really like drugs (and alcohol) and it has nothing to do with society getting them down. Surely there are plenty of people abusing substances as a coping mechanism but I think there are likely a lot more who just want to have a good time.

[Yeul]

No I don't believe anyone voluntarily chooses to become a drug zombie. I think that if you were able to communicate with these people you would hear a lot of sob stories.

[olyjohn]

This just sounds like some random-ass assumption if you ask me.

[Aunche]

A prerequisite to building social housing is to allow building housing at all. Social housing projects also have to pay for artificially inflated land prices and wait years to obtain permits. SF has spent billions of dollars on building new social housing in the past decade, but that doesn't make a difference when they cost millions of dollars a unit to construct.

[johnnyanmac]

>the economy is booming and unemployment so low.

Well that's your first problem. We're hiding the underemplyment crisis with "but unemployment is so low!". Quality of life for underemplyment is a lot closer to homelessness than middle class.

The deeper problem that America is more and more trying to focus on the elite over the working class.

[Qwertious]

What causes NIMBYism, though? ("lot of things, but...")

My pet theory is that cars are a substantial cause - people don't want more housing because it will result in more traffic and more people using the nearby 'free' parking. Cities that are less car-centric will therefore have less NIMBYism.

[dventimi]

"engineers making six figures" is the cause of San Francisco's problems, not "nimbyism."

[throwaway173738]

Lawmakers not having the moral courage to stand up to NIMBYs are part of the problem, along with people not voting for them. Cutting people off at the knees to make the grass taller is not a solution.

[dventimi]

I can't agree with this. At various times over the last 30 years, there has been roughly two classes of people in SF: "tech workers", and "everyone else." The "everyone else" comprises teachers, restaurant workers, retail workers, delivery drivers, and others, who cater to the whims of "tech workers." "Everyone else" works in industries subject to competition, market forces, and the ruthless demand for profitability (try keeping a restaurant open for 3 losing quarters). "Tech workers" work in an industry often shielded from these exigencies, cossetted in a pillowy cocoon of VC money. "Everyone else" serves the local community. "Tech workers", if they serve anybody, tend to be disconnected from the local economy and serve national or global markets. Relatedly, "tech workers" are paid high salaries that rise quickly. "Everyone else" is paid much more modest salaries that tend to stagnate. To add insult to injury, not only did this set of circumstances arrive in SF, it also arrived quickly, in waves, representing a series of shocks. Then came the last and possibly the most serious shock: remote work. Altogether, this is a recipe for: spiraling costs, social fragmentation, homelessness, and political turbulence.

Put another way, an ocean of money was poured into a thimble and no amount of "increasing supply" is going to make a difference. Make it two thimbles, ten thimbles, a hundred thimbles, it's still going to leave a mess.

[selectodude]

Every time I read this sort of stuff, I ask - do you think that the demand to live in San Francisco is infinite? For a city that’s less than one-half as densely populated as Brooklyn, NY, no less? This problem was solved 150 years ago.

[zozbot234]

> Put another way, an ocean of money was poured into a thimble and no amount of "increasing supply" is going to make a difference.

So? The problem is not "too much money", it's too little housing. Having lots of highly-paid folks around is good for local workers' incomes; housing scarcity is really bad for them. Homelessness happens when people can't afford to pay for a home.

[dragonwriter]

> At various times over the last 30 years, there has been roughly two classes of people in SF: "tech workers", and "everyone else."

You can always arbitrarily divide people into two groups by making one "everybody else", but the two groups you name are not coherent classes. (Not even the first, which overlaps both [a relatively well paid segment of] the working class and the petite bourgeoisie, but especially not the second, which spans from the lowest of the working class to the highest end of the rentier/capitalist class.)

[marnett]

Which of the two classes does San Francisco’s billionaire capitalist class fit into in your analysis - “tech workers?”

Equally curious which the non-working property owners fall into as well?

[adrr]

Gentrification where crimes goes down, schools get better and home prices go up because people want to live there is the real problem.

[dventimi]

Indeed

[lotsoweiners]

I’m sure there’s room for both.

[dventimi]

I'm sure there isn't.

[immibis]

The problem with rich people is not that they are rich, it's the side effects of them being rich which cause other people to be poorer. I have no problem with Elon owning 10 megayachts if he wants to. Unless he's buying so much steel to build his megayachts that no one else can get steel things. Then it's a problem. And only then.

Even then, the problem could be Elon buying so much steel, or it could be steel manufacturers deliberately limiting steel production and only selling it to Elon to keep prices high. The latter is what is happening with landlords and building restrictions.

[dventimi]

Except that the "side effects" of being rich aren't "side effects", they're the essential effects. Being richer than other people by definition means you can outcompete those other people for goods and services. That's the whole purpose. Elon owning 10 megayachts means 10 megayachts (as much as $5 billion) worth of productive capacity being redirected away from other uses that benefit many people, to a use that is frivolous insofar as it largely benefits just one person.

[zozbot234]

Elon got rich by creating goods and services for other people - such as EV cars, or low-cost space launches. It's a wash. Oh wait, actually it isn't because every trade of goods and services is advantageous to both parties by definition.

(There are of course some who only got rich by transferring wealth away from others - but they're not the ones people mostly complain about wrt. 'the rich'.)

[tclancy]

There is honor is such a quest. https://blog.granneman.com/2005/09/30/cuchullin-fights-the-o...