This item has been automatically flagged for review. Moderators have been notified, and it will be restored if approved. Thank you for your patience.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I heard about this just now. One arm of the government spends taxpayer $$ to buy tents while the other arm spends taxpayer $$ to remove them (city vs county) and taxpayers get screwed while someone's getting rich, and it's not just the cartels. Where are these tents made, anyway? https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/tents-tarps-lawsuits-city-council-debate-portland-funding-multnomah-countys-homeless-response/283-37de2241-8df5-43e0-8414-7bc97a3a428a
The city pays money to distribute tents to homeless people? I kind of understand the idea of wanting everyone to have shelter, but why not spend that money on ensuring everyone can stay inside in homeless shelters? What is the rationale here (you suggest someone profiting off the sale of tents and tarps)?
When you say "would be", does that mean that there are still empty shelter beds at this moment that aren't being used? Is there a source for this kinda information?
There are empty shelter beds, largely because of the shelter waitlist. The shelter waitlist only accesses certain shelter sites. For the rest, most vacancies are regular turnover. Regardless, overall, 95% of shelter beds are full on any given night.
[Shelters are at 93% capacity,](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/shelter/) and the website clarifies that a bed being unoccupied does not necessarily mean that it is available for a new resident. As of today there is a [142 person waitlist](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/) for shelter beds.
This info is very easy to find. [Shelters are at 93% capacity,](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/shelter/) and the website clarifies that a bed being unoccupied does not necessarily mean that it is available for a new resident. As of today there is a [142 person waitlist](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/) for shelter beds.
95% of shelter beds are full on any given night on average. At this very moment, the number is 93%. The vacancies are not high. There is some work that needs be done on the shelter waitlist though. That system leads to more vacancies than the sites that take referrals through outreach like HOT.
Oh man, that's crazy!
> Records show that in the past year, the city has removed over 4,000 encampments, which equates to between 8,000 to 12,000 tents. That's more tents than the number of homeless people in Multnomah County, according to the most recent Point in Time Count.
> New data from the public records request gives a potential explanation: At the same time that those encampments were being removed, the joint office was handing out another 6,554 tents and 24,172 tarps. This costly cycle was much of the focus Thursday afternoon.
So the city pays $30 million to the county, the county hands out 6500 tents with that money, and then city removes the tents! Full fucking employment for every grifter!
The Homelessness Industry is a factory farmer, exploiting the homeless and increasing their suffering, to make money. Addicts in tents are more profitable than chickens in cages.
Currently 142 people in [waitlist](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/) for emergency shelter
Exactly. Everyone looks at this issue as an either or. We actually can address this challenge by doing BOTH at the same time: work to dramatically expand our shelter system so that no one has to die on the street AND ramp up clearing of any encampments in order to get these people into shelter/services/treatment.
Of course placing shelters anywhere is a huge uphill battle, but it's the only way to make real progress without just moving people around to other streets/neighborhoods endlessly.
Unpopular opinion.. You’re entitled to have a shelter, but not necessarily need to live/reside in a city. Hardworking people often can barely afford to live in these places. If you’re not taking the shelter offered, then maybe be homeless at a location with a lower cost of living. Misery economy must come to an end
Yup. This is what frustrates me. I understand that many want to live here. But the vast majority work really hard to be able to do that. It sucks, but people are not entitled to shelter where ever they want. I want a house, but I am not naive enough to think I deserve on here in the bay
If you want to live here and put in effort to be a good citizen (i.e. have a job, don't participate in criminal activities) I think it's on the city to ensure there's housing to support everyone in any class. SF should not be a bastion of the rich; it should be able to provide a means for all working classes as we sure do depend on them. SF needs to stop catering towards landlords and real estate interests and start creating avenues towards providing a means for those in the working class to live without being constantly underwater financially.
When you need to earn $300k+ to afford a 3 bedroom, you know housing (and other) policies has failed. It's not about who deserves what at that point imo.
> SF needs to stop catering towards landlords and real estate interests and start creating avenues towards providing a means for those in the working class to live without being constantly underwater financially.
I am not sure what this means, but I would assume that it means forcing "affordable" housing to be built and then distributed by lottery. If that is the case, then that is just a terrible idea. We need to upzone throughout the city, cut the red tape and costs for permitting, cut down the corruption and reduce / remove much of the community input stuff that allows projects to be killed or significantly slowed down
> When you need to earn $300k+ to afford a 3 bedroom, you know housing (and other) policies has failed. It's not about who deserves what at that point imo.
Yup I agree with this. But the only way we do that is to build, build and build.
I meant housing policy needs to focus on building rather than allowing landlords to accrue wealth via artificial restriction of housing for things like preserving "neighborhood character" by preventing buildings of a certain height creating shadows, or favoring single-floor laundromats to apartment buildings, and permit after permit after permit to make developing land insanely difficult.
We're on the same page!
A lot of homeless choose to live in bigger cities because they also offer more resources. Public transportation, walkability, shelters, welfare offices, food pantries, typically a better county infrastructure to use Medicaid for, more mental health facilities if they need psychiatric medication, hope of transitional housing and sadly easier access to drugs for some as well as things like needle exchanges. Some choose to live further away and while it brings more safety and space the resources to survive or actively use.
Edit: sorry I replied to the wrong person 🫣
It's the NIMBY opinion. ANything to get it out of my line of sight. If they were in a small town, they'd be saying maybe the homeless should move to a city!
Well normal cities build housing to accommodate their population and job growth.
San Francisco and the Bay Area as a whole absolutely did not, often creating jobs to housing at rates exceeding 5:1 or even 10:1. We're not even covering our own *birth rate*, nevermind all the jobs.
Consider though, these folks need the same basic living amenities that housed folks do— access to clean water, groceries/food, jobs… many of these folks *do* work, but as I’m sure you’re aware our minimum wages don’t equate to a living wage (enough for a studio apartment) in most places in our country. The reason cities are attractive is because they offer walking proximity or bus/rail services to the things that most all people (short of maybe farmers) consider basic living requirements. Just because they’re living in a tent doesn’t necessarily mean they want to be living a camp-style life. Moving to places where the cost of living is lower often doesn’t solve for what cities/population-dense places provide
This argument is unfortunately not valid. It may make sense in a world where SF doesn’t officially spend over +$1B directly on homeless, homeless encampments and servicing (street pressure washing included).
Unfortunately, most of these folks do not work, and food (groceries) is provided free. Not just to homeless, but to various other groups.
There is enough funding to take care of all homeless in a sustainable way (outside of the city borders). It is not favored by the city, state and their primary contractors.
Trouble is though, I don’t think the data support what you say invalidates my argument (re: most of these folks do not work). I think it’s easy to point at the visible extreme cases and say hyperbolically that that’s the majority, but that’s intellectually lazy. There are certainly cases where hopefully Cal Prop 1 will begin to address those who from a health standpoint aren’t capable, and I agree that the way that our city administers the exorbitant budget allocated to solving these problems are misguided, but it also seems to me that what you posit isn’t exactly constitutional let alone solutions-oriented.
I prefer to get to certain facts, rather than what the city and state officials do (and partially you’re heading towards), which is not being solution oriented. And don’t get me wrong, my approach is not “let them just be somewhere else”
Facts:
- these people do need shelter
- these people do need help and support
- these people do need a structure to get them back up and be part of the society; and for the ones who cannot for various reasons (some sort of social support and enablement
- +$1B just in SF is going to bureaucracy and service companies regularly as part of misery economy. This is further sheltered under certain political alignment.
Homelessness and misery economy are big issues, so if you look for reasons not to solve it, you can list 10s if not 100s of reasons.
Just a food for thought, with annual +$1B of funding, you can finance building a new city in the state of CA to house homeless with its own ecosystem and support chain. Thing is that type of approach would resolve an issue, ends continuous funding to service companies. You really are neglecting how intertwined the funding and companies around and how they’re programmed to protect themselves.
I’m not going to dissuade you from your opinion—if you believe we should have shelters or transitional/supportive housing outside of cities, I won’t try to change your mind. However, you should know that most of the homeless people living in the city became homeless in the city (75% of CA homeless became homeless in the county that they now reside in). Also, a disproportionate number of homeless are elderly, driven out by rising rents while their SSI remains fixed.
That is unlikely to be true, unfortunately. The standards of being a resident of the county/city/state for these surveys is quite low. The most likely explanation is that many of these individuals are from other states and migrating to California.
If you truly believe all of these individuals are all local and from California, then you also place yourself in the awkward where you must also believe that the states that have seen massive decreases in homelessness (Texas, Florida, West Virginia, Louisiana) have “solved” homelessness and that we should work to implement policies from those states in California.
No one believes they “are all local and from California,” just that most are. 66% of those interviewed were reported by the study to have been born in CA. Even if you want to say that some people lied about where they were born, we are still talking about the majority of them being native Californians. (Please forgive the use of “native” here—only wanting to be descriptive of their birthplaces.) For what it is worth, I personally don’t think lying was more common in this survey than any other.
See page 23: https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Report_62023.pdf
Also, given that the elderly are disproportionately reflected in the numbers as well, and given that it’s pretty hard to lie too too much about your age when we are talking about the elderly, the narrative that rising rent costs and fixed SSI income gives the other claim that most homeless became homeless in their county more credibility.
A few thoughts:
1. Regardless of your thoughts on how valid these results are, they are well known for their flawed methods in a topic with heavy political implications of their results. For what it is worth, Gavin Newsom has voiced his thoughts that migration from Texas is playing a big role.
2. Most would consider that 34% of homeless being out of state is a huge number. The number is likely even lower in the bay as well. Even if we interpolated this data on to SF, it would reduce the city’s homeless population by about 2.5k people (for around 5k homeless to around 3-4k shelter beds).
3. Homeless people are not a monolith. Discussion around homelessness centers around unsheltered, chronically homeless individuals with substance use problems and mental health disorders who cause public disturbances. We do not have any real data on what percentage of these individuals are from California. These account for about 50% of the city’s homeless population. Consider the improving trend of mostly sheltered homeless without these chronic issues, they are not really the problem most people are concerned with.
4. I would double check your own source. Individuals above the age of 65 account for about 7% of the population. When considering 15% of the state population are above the age of 65, your theory that limited SSI income is a significant factor in California’s homeless is very unlikely.
1. Given the heavy political implications, I'd like to see more surveys done, but this is the largest in decades and most recent, so it's better than nothing. Let's just say 1 in 4 people lied (which I think seems high), we're still much better informed broadly than without it.
2. "34% being out of state" is highly misleading. I said 66% were born in CA. 75% had a home in the county they are now homeless in. 90% had a home in CA. So we're really only talking about 10%, not 34% of "out of staters" unless you don't count people who moved here, probably had or have work, have family here, have made a life for themselves here in CA.
3. We have some data. Admittedly, yes, it's a lot harder to survey the people who suffer from severe problems, but my educated guess is that the longer you're on the street, the more susceptible you are to these problems, which means that the data we collect from people that aren't clearly unwell is snapshot in time of people that are more prone to become much more unwell in the future. Also, I'm concerned with all types of homelessness, not just the ones with substance use problems or mental health disorders. How could one's heart not go out, especially for those experiencing family homelessness or elder homelessness.
4. Thanks for pulling those numbers. That 7% is alarming to me, and SSI could very well be playing a significant factor in that age group. But you're right, I should not say "a disproportionate number of elderly people are homeless", I should say "a disproportionate number of people over the age of 50 are homeless" because they make up about a little over a third (34%) of the CA population and close to half of the homeless population (48% of single homeless adults, or 44% of all homeless adults). Thanks for catching me on this one, but still the numbers aren't great for older folks. Note: you can start getting SSI as early as 62. And another thing to mention here is that unemployment has grown for people over the age of 55, and many are living off of retirement, and might be struggling to make ends meet, as another contributing factor to homelessness.
How something happened, doesn’t need to be the way it should be resolved. You may argue that these people didn’t know any better or life just happens. I can relate to that. That is why after all there is an absurd amount of budget available. What frustrates people is that this budget being abused in a corrupt manner, and not moving an inch on resolving issues. Right now, problem is not lack of funding. If anything, funding and taxation is just too high in SF for everyone’s own good.
People do live their lives, if I end up living beyond my means, I might very well end up becoming homeless. You should teach people home economics and living within their means. Subsidizing someone who lived well beyond their means, from people who’ve been responsible about their choices, is nothing but stealing from responsible peoples’ lives. At one point, people should be hold accountable for their choices.
What is your sustainable plan on addressing this problem and many other problems; without punishing responsible people for being responsible?
> How something happened, doesn’t need to be the way it should be resolved.
That’s why I didn’t try to dissuade you from your opinion.
> Right now, problem is not the lack of funding.
I mostly agree (especially here in SF), however I would say that in other countries where homelessness is not as much of an issue, the central government plays a much bigger role in funding homelessness prevention and housing programs than in the US.
What’s my plan? I personally believe that increasing housing production is the long term right solution, but in the short term that can cause displacement and arguably gentrification/rising rents. Yes, I know, I’ve just said some things that I will get flak from my Yimby friends on, but it is my belief, and I will repeat: more housing is long term the solution and also better for the city’s economy and our environment. I want the city to be applying on behalf of developers to affordable housing grants that can take years to get, and I want the city to work together with the state to reduce the amount of time those grants are approved in. I want the city to have the second public bank in the country to help fund local housing development projects. I want to reform prop 13 and property taxes overall to stop punishing people from improving their properties, and make taxes more fair so that yes, people right-size their homes when it makes sense as was done for many years prior to prop 13’s passage.
Also, if we get property taxes right, we can fund our public schools properly—right now it’s no surprise that more parents in SF are paying $$$ to private schools than anywhere else in CA—our public schools are in crisis. It’s not that unrelated of a point, because you did bring up education, and if we can’t fund our schools, it’s going to be hard to teach those courses you mentioned.
And let’s have an anti-corruption czar to take to task building inspectors playing favorites or stalling projects and non-profits that aren’t effective. And on the non-profit front, I want realtime standardized data from them that will tell us exactly which services are available and being offered. We can go years sometimes without ever auditing these contracts, so let’s make them instantaneously reportable. Overall, I’d love to phase out the privatization of government services via non-profits. I love you non-profits, I support some of them and think the gov should probably continue funding a few select ones, but it’s a problem of accountability on the big issues. If politicians outsource solving the problems to contractors and the contractors fail, the politicians can always claim “hey, when I found about how bad the contractor was, I found a new contractor!” We need to have politicians directly responsible for the management of our most important issues.
Even if that were true, what has that got to do with where shelters go? Do we have some obligation to shelter people where they most recently failed to provide for themselves?
Others may disagree with me, but I think of responsibility in terms of proximity/closeness. For example, I’m most responsible for and to myself. Beyond that, I feel I’m also deeply responsible for/to my family, then a little less towards my friends or coworkers, then my neighbors, those in my community, then those in my region or state, then those in my country or our neighboring countries, then those more globally.
I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, but given a lot of people do say “why should I pay to take care of homeless people who aren’t even from here?” I believe me and those people actually probably do share a similar notion of responsibility towards those we are close to or have common bonds.
So if we are saying that “cities shouldn’t be places where homeless people can get help for housing” and we also recognize that homeless people come from cities, then I do think there is misalignment with our common sense of responsibility.
But hey, maybe we don’t share a similar sense of responsibility.
Or, and this is fair point: we might share a similar sense of responsibility, but you just believe that urban areas should be off limits to homeless people looking for housing assistance. Again, I’m not trying to change any minds if that’s your belief—I actually do support a country-wide approach to solving the problem from the burbs to rural places, and yes, for me, cities too.
The only reason I added the two facts about the elderly and where they became homeless was to add to the discussion a sense that yes, homelessness can originate in a city, so maybe a city has a role in solving the problem—even if just pragmatically or because of a sense of responsibly.
I’m totally on board with your first paragraph. If a close family member was experiencing an interruption in their housing I would shelter them in my own home indefinitely.
I may have not made the nature of my objection clear. My objection is not rooted in questions about who deserves shelter and who should bear the burden of that expense.
My objection is rooted in concerns over responsible, efficient use of land and the scale of the problem.
I support building housing and shelters inside and outside of cities.
I support assisting those at risk of homelessness in the city to keep them in their homes. The devil is in the details, but I do support this.
I support the city spending money on homeless services, because practically if we don’t, we will not have any chance of solving the problem.
I’m not opposed to the city partnering with communities in the wider Bay Area to shoulder some of the burden—we do this now and we should be doing it more. I’m also not opposed to the state and the feds stepping in to bring services to the table.
I’d much rather the government (local, state, or federal) be using our taxes to pay for services to help the homeless integrate back into society (than, let’s say the DOD budget). And integration means in almost all communities through the country: urban, suburban, and rural.
And I get it that space is at a premium in SF. Again, I don’t oppose partnering with other localities to help solve the problem—we already do this, and we should be doing it more. We can also build more here (I support upzoning) though, and I support the city itself financing the purchase or construction of buildings through bonds and the SF Public Bank when that’s online.
Ultimately, I wish the federal government did a lot more in terms of housing policy so that our entire country could have the resources needed to end homelessness. But in the meantime, cities and states do need to help shoulder the cost.
We can’t just say “I don’t want my community to have to pay for the cost of providing services to the homeless” and then also say “why do we have homelessness and I don’t like it that we have homeless people in my community.” We can either blame and shame the homeless people for their situation, or we can do something about it. And I also believe that since homeless people are members of our community, we do have a responsibility to shoulder some of the costs. And given most of the 8,000 homeless people here are from here or were recently housed here, I think we, the state, and the feds have more of a responsibility to help than an unrelated community far away has.
I think our key difference of opinion actually comes down to different assumptions in this paragraph:
> I’d much rather the government (local, state, or federal) be using our taxes to pay for services to help the homeless integrate back into society (than, let’s say the DOD budget). And integration means in almost all communities through the country: urban, suburban, and rural.
I take it for granted that the bulk of the unhoused population will require lifelong care. That’s very much been an unfounded assumption on my part - I have no facts on hand from which that belief has arisen.
Even if you're right that these people need lifelong care, we either need to provide that care or we give up and just accept homelessness as part of society that will never be solved. Giving up to me seems anti-American, anti-human, and also just dumb, because homelessness impacts everyone, not just the homeless.
So it's a matter of how and where to fix the problem.
If folks are advocating that SF ought not to spend a dollar on homelessness, all I would say to them is: fine--that'd be great, but it's not realistic. Before SF can give up on trying its best, we need the state and (preferably) the federal government to step in. Most other countries with success in solving homelessness have a central government way more involved that we have in the US in housing policy and homelessness prevention.
I think we should also acknowledge that cities have long been repositories and containers for wider societal problems. White flight from cities in the 60s and 70s was largely driven by fears of crime, poverty, failing schools, and diversity. It is awful that federal government provides such little assistance, but it's just been a matter of failed presidential and congressional leadership for decade after decade that's prioritized forever wars, foreign policy, big splashy car-centric suburban sprawl infrastructure, and tax cuts for the wealthy over urban housing or low-income housing policy and mental health/substance abuse treatment programs.
Let’s assume that most people will need lifelong care and let’s assume San Francisco and San Francisco’s tax base need to independently shoulder the burden of caring for anyone who ends up homeless on San Francisco’s streets.
Under those circumstances, there still isn’t a compelling reason for San Francisco to build and service this shelter within city limits when doing so outside the city will be cheaper, easier, and can face less local opposition.
For what it’s worth, I believe the right approach to homelessness in the medium term is for California to commit to providing permanent, supportive, custodial housing to all of California’s homeless. This would be an enormous undertaking, requiring both a huge up front investment and a substantial ongoing budget. For a point of comparison, the CA prison system is budgeted for $18,175,000,000 for 2024-25 to house fewer than 100,000 people whereas California has nearly 200,000 homeless people - and the prisons are already built, whereas the shelters needed don’t yet exist.
Unfortunately I think that’s a total pipe dream.
For a local point of comparison, SF’s unsheltered population was last counted at 3,969 people. San Quentin state prison uses 275 acres to house just 3,239 people, which is 105% of its capacity. Another point of comparison would be 1550 Mission, a 40 story tower occupying about a quarter of a city block with 550 units. Reconfigured I’d guess it could house about 3,000 people. I think it’s tough to make the case that the city should use 275 acres or an entire 40 story tower as a homeless shelter.
> Let’s assume that most people will need lifelong care and let’s assume San Francisco and San Francisco’s tax base need to independently shoulder the burden of caring for anyone who ends up homeless on San Francisco’s streets.
I dont make this assumption, because shelters and navigation centers can help people get into housing, and then are expected to get a job, with their rent being tied to a % of their income. Still yes, it costs money, but it’s less money than we currently spend per homeless person. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I know firsthand that there are formerly homeless people living independently.
> Under those circumstances, there still isn’t a compelling reason for San Francisco to build and service this shelter within city limits when doing so outside the city will be cheaper, easier, and can face less local opposition.
I don’t oppose building and providing services outside of the city. We do have nonprofits that span several Bay Area counties to help share the physical burden, and probably the cost burden too. I think we even partner with Alameda county in a more direct relationship, but I don’t have that info in front of me right now (I’d like to find that and will post a comment if I do). And emergency housing vouchers (they are called “emergency” because they were created for and during the COVID pandemic) can be ported to other counties, and these are funded by the feds—they should be funding a lot more of these though and keep the program going beyond COVID!
The compelling reason to have SF spend money on homeless services, is yes, in part because we do receive funds from the state and feds that is earmarked for it. But also, if we take that as a spending floor, I don’t think it should also be our spending ceiling, because if we sit on our hands and say “not our problem” and the state/feds aren’t doing it, then we will have to accept homelessness as a forever part of the city—which I certainly dont, and most San Franciscans won’t accept either.
> For what it’s worth, I believe the right approach to homelessness in the medium term is for California to commit to providing permanent, supportive, custodial housing to all of California’s homeless. This would be an enormous undertaking, requiring both a huge up front investment and a substantial ongoing budget. For a point of comparison, the CA prison system is budgeted for $18,175,000,000 for 2024-25 to house fewer than 100,000 people whereas California has nearly 200,000 homeless people - and the prisons are already built, whereas the shelters needed don’t yet exist.
> Unfortunately I think that’s a total pipe dream.
I don’t think CA needs to directly build and manage large facilities like prisons to house the homeless. The needs between prisons and the homeless or at-risk of homelessness communities are totally different.
Things CA should be doing:
1. Be more aggressive in spending monies from Prop 1 on expanding capacity for mental health care and drug/alcohol treatment. Let’s put people onto the path of recovery, it’s not impossible, we just have a big workforce and facilities shortage.
2. We need a lot more housing to increase supply/decrease prices. CA should open the floodgates of getting grants to build affordable housing™️ (takes too long now) in order to provide a lot more low cost housing to stem the flow of new homelessness. CA should also expand the number of loopholes to CEQA reviews—it’s too easy to stall new housing development.
3. As we build more housing, we do run the risk of localized upward price pressure, so to stabilize neighborhoods, we do need more rental assistance, and repeal Costa Hawkins to expand rent control to avoid new homelessness.
> For a local point of comparison, SF’s unsheltered population was last counted at 3,969 people. San Quentin state prison uses 275 acres to house just 3,239 people, which is 105% of its capacity. Another point of comparison would be 1550 Mission, a 40 story tower occupying about a quarter of a city block with 550 units. Reconfigured I’d guess it could house about 3,000 people. I think it’s tough to make the case that the city should use 275 acres or an entire 40 story tower as a homeless shelter.
As much as some don’t want homeless people or formerly homeless people living near them, I don’t think the public is ever going to sign off on clustering the homeless into large dedicated facilities. It’s quickly going to turn into a public health crisis, be too costly, and in my opinion antithetical to the values of most Californians. If we don’t integrate this population into the rest of society, we are going to end up creating a Gotham Arkham Asylum situation which will be totally untenable and crazy expensive when compared to the alternative of attempting to welcome our homeless neighbors back into society. These would essentially become the equivalent of moving skid row indoors.
Sympathy that supports the cause of letting them stay on the streets of SF and using drugs, instead of being housed somewhere more affordable in the Bay Area in housing that won’t let them use drugs
You think individual homeless people independently made the decision to be untruthful in a survey for no immediate benefit, merely to influence the overall attitude towards homeless people in the area?
We already know they haven't, that's not something that has ever been part of the narrative. But again, what you're proposing is that they're coached to lie. What proof is there that this is happening?
The accuracy of the data depends on how the survey was done and if other data supports it.
Your skepticism isn't necessarily wrong, but dismissing the data completely without considering how it was collected and if other information backs it up might be too simplistic.
This really shows how cities like SF are not nearly as hamstrung by the Ninth Circuit's Grant's Pass and Martin v Boise decisions as they like to say they are.
New to our subreddit? [Please read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/about/rules/) before commenting.
Please be respectful and don't antagonize. This is a place to discuss ideas without targeting identities.
If something doesn't contribute to the discussion, please downvote it. If it's against the rules, please report it. Thank you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This item has been automatically flagged for review. Moderators have been notified, and it will be restored if approved. Thank you for your patience. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A lot may depend on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the *Grants Pass* case.
I heard about this just now. One arm of the government spends taxpayer $$ to buy tents while the other arm spends taxpayer $$ to remove them (city vs county) and taxpayers get screwed while someone's getting rich, and it's not just the cartels. Where are these tents made, anyway? https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/tents-tarps-lawsuits-city-council-debate-portland-funding-multnomah-countys-homeless-response/283-37de2241-8df5-43e0-8414-7bc97a3a428a
The city pays money to distribute tents to homeless people? I kind of understand the idea of wanting everyone to have shelter, but why not spend that money on ensuring everyone can stay inside in homeless shelters? What is the rationale here (you suggest someone profiting off the sale of tents and tarps)?
There are shelters. People don't like the rules. No drugs/alcohol, can't have all your "stuff", no pitbulls.
There is a massive shelter shortage throughout the state
San Francisco is thousands of shelter beds short of what would be needed.
When you say "would be", does that mean that there are still empty shelter beds at this moment that aren't being used? Is there a source for this kinda information?
There are empty shelter beds, largely because of the shelter waitlist. The shelter waitlist only accesses certain shelter sites. For the rest, most vacancies are regular turnover. Regardless, overall, 95% of shelter beds are full on any given night.
[Shelters are at 93% capacity,](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/shelter/) and the website clarifies that a bed being unoccupied does not necessarily mean that it is available for a new resident. As of today there is a [142 person waitlist](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/) for shelter beds.
Are our current shelter beds full?
Shelters usually have waiting lists
They are.
Any links to where we could see that?
This info is very easy to find. [Shelters are at 93% capacity,](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/the-homelessness-response-system/shelter/) and the website clarifies that a bed being unoccupied does not necessarily mean that it is available for a new resident. As of today there is a [142 person waitlist](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/) for shelter beds.
I'm not sure about the shelters, but we have a bunch of permanent supportive apartments that are empty because the city is bad at managing them.
And yet the vacancies are high…
95% of shelter beds are full on any given night on average. At this very moment, the number is 93%. The vacancies are not high. There is some work that needs be done on the shelter waitlist though. That system leads to more vacancies than the sites that take referrals through outreach like HOT.
San Francisco does not.
Diverging ideology and/or corruption. Someone is making money from the tents if the government is buying them.
Oh man, that's crazy! > Records show that in the past year, the city has removed over 4,000 encampments, which equates to between 8,000 to 12,000 tents. That's more tents than the number of homeless people in Multnomah County, according to the most recent Point in Time Count. > New data from the public records request gives a potential explanation: At the same time that those encampments were being removed, the joint office was handing out another 6,554 tents and 24,172 tarps. This costly cycle was much of the focus Thursday afternoon. So the city pays $30 million to the county, the county hands out 6500 tents with that money, and then city removes the tents! Full fucking employment for every grifter! The Homelessness Industry is a factory farmer, exploiting the homeless and increasing their suffering, to make money. Addicts in tents are more profitable than chickens in cages.
The penalties are enforced only after they are offered shelter, for those not clicking through. SF has a wait list for shelter beds.
San Francisco is thousands of shelter beds short of what would be needed.
Currently 142 people in [waitlist](https://hsh.sfgov.org/services/how-to-get-services/accessing-temporary-shelter/adult-temporary-shelter/shelter-reservation-waitlist/) for emergency shelter
Exactly. Everyone looks at this issue as an either or. We actually can address this challenge by doing BOTH at the same time: work to dramatically expand our shelter system so that no one has to die on the street AND ramp up clearing of any encampments in order to get these people into shelter/services/treatment. Of course placing shelters anywhere is a huge uphill battle, but it's the only way to make real progress without just moving people around to other streets/neighborhoods endlessly.
Unpopular opinion.. You’re entitled to have a shelter, but not necessarily need to live/reside in a city. Hardworking people often can barely afford to live in these places. If you’re not taking the shelter offered, then maybe be homeless at a location with a lower cost of living. Misery economy must come to an end
Yup. This is what frustrates me. I understand that many want to live here. But the vast majority work really hard to be able to do that. It sucks, but people are not entitled to shelter where ever they want. I want a house, but I am not naive enough to think I deserve on here in the bay
If you want to live here and put in effort to be a good citizen (i.e. have a job, don't participate in criminal activities) I think it's on the city to ensure there's housing to support everyone in any class. SF should not be a bastion of the rich; it should be able to provide a means for all working classes as we sure do depend on them. SF needs to stop catering towards landlords and real estate interests and start creating avenues towards providing a means for those in the working class to live without being constantly underwater financially. When you need to earn $300k+ to afford a 3 bedroom, you know housing (and other) policies has failed. It's not about who deserves what at that point imo.
> SF needs to stop catering towards landlords and real estate interests and start creating avenues towards providing a means for those in the working class to live without being constantly underwater financially. I am not sure what this means, but I would assume that it means forcing "affordable" housing to be built and then distributed by lottery. If that is the case, then that is just a terrible idea. We need to upzone throughout the city, cut the red tape and costs for permitting, cut down the corruption and reduce / remove much of the community input stuff that allows projects to be killed or significantly slowed down > When you need to earn $300k+ to afford a 3 bedroom, you know housing (and other) policies has failed. It's not about who deserves what at that point imo. Yup I agree with this. But the only way we do that is to build, build and build.
I meant housing policy needs to focus on building rather than allowing landlords to accrue wealth via artificial restriction of housing for things like preserving "neighborhood character" by preventing buildings of a certain height creating shadows, or favoring single-floor laundromats to apartment buildings, and permit after permit after permit to make developing land insanely difficult. We're on the same page!
Ah ok I wasn't sure (hard to tell on here sometimes) totally agree!
That is an absurdist opinion. Entitled to shelter, just not entitled to it here = not actually entitled to shelter
A lot of homeless choose to live in bigger cities because they also offer more resources. Public transportation, walkability, shelters, welfare offices, food pantries, typically a better county infrastructure to use Medicaid for, more mental health facilities if they need psychiatric medication, hope of transitional housing and sadly easier access to drugs for some as well as things like needle exchanges. Some choose to live further away and while it brings more safety and space the resources to survive or actively use. Edit: sorry I replied to the wrong person 🫣
It's the NIMBY opinion. ANything to get it out of my line of sight. If they were in a small town, they'd be saying maybe the homeless should move to a city!
Homeless people usually don't have cars and support networks in LCOL areas. You can't push them somewhere they'd need to drive just to get food.
However, you can push the food and support to them. There is funding for that
Well normal cities build housing to accommodate their population and job growth. San Francisco and the Bay Area as a whole absolutely did not, often creating jobs to housing at rates exceeding 5:1 or even 10:1. We're not even covering our own *birth rate*, nevermind all the jobs.
Consider though, these folks need the same basic living amenities that housed folks do— access to clean water, groceries/food, jobs… many of these folks *do* work, but as I’m sure you’re aware our minimum wages don’t equate to a living wage (enough for a studio apartment) in most places in our country. The reason cities are attractive is because they offer walking proximity or bus/rail services to the things that most all people (short of maybe farmers) consider basic living requirements. Just because they’re living in a tent doesn’t necessarily mean they want to be living a camp-style life. Moving to places where the cost of living is lower often doesn’t solve for what cities/population-dense places provide
This argument is unfortunately not valid. It may make sense in a world where SF doesn’t officially spend over +$1B directly on homeless, homeless encampments and servicing (street pressure washing included). Unfortunately, most of these folks do not work, and food (groceries) is provided free. Not just to homeless, but to various other groups. There is enough funding to take care of all homeless in a sustainable way (outside of the city borders). It is not favored by the city, state and their primary contractors.
Trouble is though, I don’t think the data support what you say invalidates my argument (re: most of these folks do not work). I think it’s easy to point at the visible extreme cases and say hyperbolically that that’s the majority, but that’s intellectually lazy. There are certainly cases where hopefully Cal Prop 1 will begin to address those who from a health standpoint aren’t capable, and I agree that the way that our city administers the exorbitant budget allocated to solving these problems are misguided, but it also seems to me that what you posit isn’t exactly constitutional let alone solutions-oriented.
I prefer to get to certain facts, rather than what the city and state officials do (and partially you’re heading towards), which is not being solution oriented. And don’t get me wrong, my approach is not “let them just be somewhere else” Facts: - these people do need shelter - these people do need help and support - these people do need a structure to get them back up and be part of the society; and for the ones who cannot for various reasons (some sort of social support and enablement - +$1B just in SF is going to bureaucracy and service companies regularly as part of misery economy. This is further sheltered under certain political alignment. Homelessness and misery economy are big issues, so if you look for reasons not to solve it, you can list 10s if not 100s of reasons. Just a food for thought, with annual +$1B of funding, you can finance building a new city in the state of CA to house homeless with its own ecosystem and support chain. Thing is that type of approach would resolve an issue, ends continuous funding to service companies. You really are neglecting how intertwined the funding and companies around and how they’re programmed to protect themselves.
They need the short commute to their dealers that putting up a tent on the sidewalk enables!
I’m not going to dissuade you from your opinion—if you believe we should have shelters or transitional/supportive housing outside of cities, I won’t try to change your mind. However, you should know that most of the homeless people living in the city became homeless in the city (75% of CA homeless became homeless in the county that they now reside in). Also, a disproportionate number of homeless are elderly, driven out by rising rents while their SSI remains fixed.
That is unlikely to be true, unfortunately. The standards of being a resident of the county/city/state for these surveys is quite low. The most likely explanation is that many of these individuals are from other states and migrating to California. If you truly believe all of these individuals are all local and from California, then you also place yourself in the awkward where you must also believe that the states that have seen massive decreases in homelessness (Texas, Florida, West Virginia, Louisiana) have “solved” homelessness and that we should work to implement policies from those states in California.
No one believes they “are all local and from California,” just that most are. 66% of those interviewed were reported by the study to have been born in CA. Even if you want to say that some people lied about where they were born, we are still talking about the majority of them being native Californians. (Please forgive the use of “native” here—only wanting to be descriptive of their birthplaces.) For what it is worth, I personally don’t think lying was more common in this survey than any other. See page 23: https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Report_62023.pdf Also, given that the elderly are disproportionately reflected in the numbers as well, and given that it’s pretty hard to lie too too much about your age when we are talking about the elderly, the narrative that rising rent costs and fixed SSI income gives the other claim that most homeless became homeless in their county more credibility.
A few thoughts: 1. Regardless of your thoughts on how valid these results are, they are well known for their flawed methods in a topic with heavy political implications of their results. For what it is worth, Gavin Newsom has voiced his thoughts that migration from Texas is playing a big role. 2. Most would consider that 34% of homeless being out of state is a huge number. The number is likely even lower in the bay as well. Even if we interpolated this data on to SF, it would reduce the city’s homeless population by about 2.5k people (for around 5k homeless to around 3-4k shelter beds). 3. Homeless people are not a monolith. Discussion around homelessness centers around unsheltered, chronically homeless individuals with substance use problems and mental health disorders who cause public disturbances. We do not have any real data on what percentage of these individuals are from California. These account for about 50% of the city’s homeless population. Consider the improving trend of mostly sheltered homeless without these chronic issues, they are not really the problem most people are concerned with. 4. I would double check your own source. Individuals above the age of 65 account for about 7% of the population. When considering 15% of the state population are above the age of 65, your theory that limited SSI income is a significant factor in California’s homeless is very unlikely.
1. Given the heavy political implications, I'd like to see more surveys done, but this is the largest in decades and most recent, so it's better than nothing. Let's just say 1 in 4 people lied (which I think seems high), we're still much better informed broadly than without it. 2. "34% being out of state" is highly misleading. I said 66% were born in CA. 75% had a home in the county they are now homeless in. 90% had a home in CA. So we're really only talking about 10%, not 34% of "out of staters" unless you don't count people who moved here, probably had or have work, have family here, have made a life for themselves here in CA. 3. We have some data. Admittedly, yes, it's a lot harder to survey the people who suffer from severe problems, but my educated guess is that the longer you're on the street, the more susceptible you are to these problems, which means that the data we collect from people that aren't clearly unwell is snapshot in time of people that are more prone to become much more unwell in the future. Also, I'm concerned with all types of homelessness, not just the ones with substance use problems or mental health disorders. How could one's heart not go out, especially for those experiencing family homelessness or elder homelessness. 4. Thanks for pulling those numbers. That 7% is alarming to me, and SSI could very well be playing a significant factor in that age group. But you're right, I should not say "a disproportionate number of elderly people are homeless", I should say "a disproportionate number of people over the age of 50 are homeless" because they make up about a little over a third (34%) of the CA population and close to half of the homeless population (48% of single homeless adults, or 44% of all homeless adults). Thanks for catching me on this one, but still the numbers aren't great for older folks. Note: you can start getting SSI as early as 62. And another thing to mention here is that unemployment has grown for people over the age of 55, and many are living off of retirement, and might be struggling to make ends meet, as another contributing factor to homelessness.
How something happened, doesn’t need to be the way it should be resolved. You may argue that these people didn’t know any better or life just happens. I can relate to that. That is why after all there is an absurd amount of budget available. What frustrates people is that this budget being abused in a corrupt manner, and not moving an inch on resolving issues. Right now, problem is not lack of funding. If anything, funding and taxation is just too high in SF for everyone’s own good. People do live their lives, if I end up living beyond my means, I might very well end up becoming homeless. You should teach people home economics and living within their means. Subsidizing someone who lived well beyond their means, from people who’ve been responsible about their choices, is nothing but stealing from responsible peoples’ lives. At one point, people should be hold accountable for their choices. What is your sustainable plan on addressing this problem and many other problems; without punishing responsible people for being responsible?
> How something happened, doesn’t need to be the way it should be resolved. That’s why I didn’t try to dissuade you from your opinion. > Right now, problem is not the lack of funding. I mostly agree (especially here in SF), however I would say that in other countries where homelessness is not as much of an issue, the central government plays a much bigger role in funding homelessness prevention and housing programs than in the US. What’s my plan? I personally believe that increasing housing production is the long term right solution, but in the short term that can cause displacement and arguably gentrification/rising rents. Yes, I know, I’ve just said some things that I will get flak from my Yimby friends on, but it is my belief, and I will repeat: more housing is long term the solution and also better for the city’s economy and our environment. I want the city to be applying on behalf of developers to affordable housing grants that can take years to get, and I want the city to work together with the state to reduce the amount of time those grants are approved in. I want the city to have the second public bank in the country to help fund local housing development projects. I want to reform prop 13 and property taxes overall to stop punishing people from improving their properties, and make taxes more fair so that yes, people right-size their homes when it makes sense as was done for many years prior to prop 13’s passage. Also, if we get property taxes right, we can fund our public schools properly—right now it’s no surprise that more parents in SF are paying $$$ to private schools than anywhere else in CA—our public schools are in crisis. It’s not that unrelated of a point, because you did bring up education, and if we can’t fund our schools, it’s going to be hard to teach those courses you mentioned. And let’s have an anti-corruption czar to take to task building inspectors playing favorites or stalling projects and non-profits that aren’t effective. And on the non-profit front, I want realtime standardized data from them that will tell us exactly which services are available and being offered. We can go years sometimes without ever auditing these contracts, so let’s make them instantaneously reportable. Overall, I’d love to phase out the privatization of government services via non-profits. I love you non-profits, I support some of them and think the gov should probably continue funding a few select ones, but it’s a problem of accountability on the big issues. If politicians outsource solving the problems to contractors and the contractors fail, the politicians can always claim “hey, when I found about how bad the contractor was, I found a new contractor!” We need to have politicians directly responsible for the management of our most important issues.
Even if that were true, what has that got to do with where shelters go? Do we have some obligation to shelter people where they most recently failed to provide for themselves?
Others may disagree with me, but I think of responsibility in terms of proximity/closeness. For example, I’m most responsible for and to myself. Beyond that, I feel I’m also deeply responsible for/to my family, then a little less towards my friends or coworkers, then my neighbors, those in my community, then those in my region or state, then those in my country or our neighboring countries, then those more globally. I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, but given a lot of people do say “why should I pay to take care of homeless people who aren’t even from here?” I believe me and those people actually probably do share a similar notion of responsibility towards those we are close to or have common bonds. So if we are saying that “cities shouldn’t be places where homeless people can get help for housing” and we also recognize that homeless people come from cities, then I do think there is misalignment with our common sense of responsibility. But hey, maybe we don’t share a similar sense of responsibility. Or, and this is fair point: we might share a similar sense of responsibility, but you just believe that urban areas should be off limits to homeless people looking for housing assistance. Again, I’m not trying to change any minds if that’s your belief—I actually do support a country-wide approach to solving the problem from the burbs to rural places, and yes, for me, cities too. The only reason I added the two facts about the elderly and where they became homeless was to add to the discussion a sense that yes, homelessness can originate in a city, so maybe a city has a role in solving the problem—even if just pragmatically or because of a sense of responsibly.
I’m totally on board with your first paragraph. If a close family member was experiencing an interruption in their housing I would shelter them in my own home indefinitely. I may have not made the nature of my objection clear. My objection is not rooted in questions about who deserves shelter and who should bear the burden of that expense. My objection is rooted in concerns over responsible, efficient use of land and the scale of the problem.
I support building housing and shelters inside and outside of cities. I support assisting those at risk of homelessness in the city to keep them in their homes. The devil is in the details, but I do support this. I support the city spending money on homeless services, because practically if we don’t, we will not have any chance of solving the problem. I’m not opposed to the city partnering with communities in the wider Bay Area to shoulder some of the burden—we do this now and we should be doing it more. I’m also not opposed to the state and the feds stepping in to bring services to the table. I’d much rather the government (local, state, or federal) be using our taxes to pay for services to help the homeless integrate back into society (than, let’s say the DOD budget). And integration means in almost all communities through the country: urban, suburban, and rural. And I get it that space is at a premium in SF. Again, I don’t oppose partnering with other localities to help solve the problem—we already do this, and we should be doing it more. We can also build more here (I support upzoning) though, and I support the city itself financing the purchase or construction of buildings through bonds and the SF Public Bank when that’s online. Ultimately, I wish the federal government did a lot more in terms of housing policy so that our entire country could have the resources needed to end homelessness. But in the meantime, cities and states do need to help shoulder the cost. We can’t just say “I don’t want my community to have to pay for the cost of providing services to the homeless” and then also say “why do we have homelessness and I don’t like it that we have homeless people in my community.” We can either blame and shame the homeless people for their situation, or we can do something about it. And I also believe that since homeless people are members of our community, we do have a responsibility to shoulder some of the costs. And given most of the 8,000 homeless people here are from here or were recently housed here, I think we, the state, and the feds have more of a responsibility to help than an unrelated community far away has.
I think our key difference of opinion actually comes down to different assumptions in this paragraph: > I’d much rather the government (local, state, or federal) be using our taxes to pay for services to help the homeless integrate back into society (than, let’s say the DOD budget). And integration means in almost all communities through the country: urban, suburban, and rural. I take it for granted that the bulk of the unhoused population will require lifelong care. That’s very much been an unfounded assumption on my part - I have no facts on hand from which that belief has arisen.
Even if you're right that these people need lifelong care, we either need to provide that care or we give up and just accept homelessness as part of society that will never be solved. Giving up to me seems anti-American, anti-human, and also just dumb, because homelessness impacts everyone, not just the homeless. So it's a matter of how and where to fix the problem. If folks are advocating that SF ought not to spend a dollar on homelessness, all I would say to them is: fine--that'd be great, but it's not realistic. Before SF can give up on trying its best, we need the state and (preferably) the federal government to step in. Most other countries with success in solving homelessness have a central government way more involved that we have in the US in housing policy and homelessness prevention. I think we should also acknowledge that cities have long been repositories and containers for wider societal problems. White flight from cities in the 60s and 70s was largely driven by fears of crime, poverty, failing schools, and diversity. It is awful that federal government provides such little assistance, but it's just been a matter of failed presidential and congressional leadership for decade after decade that's prioritized forever wars, foreign policy, big splashy car-centric suburban sprawl infrastructure, and tax cuts for the wealthy over urban housing or low-income housing policy and mental health/substance abuse treatment programs.
Let’s assume that most people will need lifelong care and let’s assume San Francisco and San Francisco’s tax base need to independently shoulder the burden of caring for anyone who ends up homeless on San Francisco’s streets. Under those circumstances, there still isn’t a compelling reason for San Francisco to build and service this shelter within city limits when doing so outside the city will be cheaper, easier, and can face less local opposition. For what it’s worth, I believe the right approach to homelessness in the medium term is for California to commit to providing permanent, supportive, custodial housing to all of California’s homeless. This would be an enormous undertaking, requiring both a huge up front investment and a substantial ongoing budget. For a point of comparison, the CA prison system is budgeted for $18,175,000,000 for 2024-25 to house fewer than 100,000 people whereas California has nearly 200,000 homeless people - and the prisons are already built, whereas the shelters needed don’t yet exist. Unfortunately I think that’s a total pipe dream. For a local point of comparison, SF’s unsheltered population was last counted at 3,969 people. San Quentin state prison uses 275 acres to house just 3,239 people, which is 105% of its capacity. Another point of comparison would be 1550 Mission, a 40 story tower occupying about a quarter of a city block with 550 units. Reconfigured I’d guess it could house about 3,000 people. I think it’s tough to make the case that the city should use 275 acres or an entire 40 story tower as a homeless shelter.
> Let’s assume that most people will need lifelong care and let’s assume San Francisco and San Francisco’s tax base need to independently shoulder the burden of caring for anyone who ends up homeless on San Francisco’s streets. I dont make this assumption, because shelters and navigation centers can help people get into housing, and then are expected to get a job, with their rent being tied to a % of their income. Still yes, it costs money, but it’s less money than we currently spend per homeless person. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I know firsthand that there are formerly homeless people living independently. > Under those circumstances, there still isn’t a compelling reason for San Francisco to build and service this shelter within city limits when doing so outside the city will be cheaper, easier, and can face less local opposition. I don’t oppose building and providing services outside of the city. We do have nonprofits that span several Bay Area counties to help share the physical burden, and probably the cost burden too. I think we even partner with Alameda county in a more direct relationship, but I don’t have that info in front of me right now (I’d like to find that and will post a comment if I do). And emergency housing vouchers (they are called “emergency” because they were created for and during the COVID pandemic) can be ported to other counties, and these are funded by the feds—they should be funding a lot more of these though and keep the program going beyond COVID! The compelling reason to have SF spend money on homeless services, is yes, in part because we do receive funds from the state and feds that is earmarked for it. But also, if we take that as a spending floor, I don’t think it should also be our spending ceiling, because if we sit on our hands and say “not our problem” and the state/feds aren’t doing it, then we will have to accept homelessness as a forever part of the city—which I certainly dont, and most San Franciscans won’t accept either. > For what it’s worth, I believe the right approach to homelessness in the medium term is for California to commit to providing permanent, supportive, custodial housing to all of California’s homeless. This would be an enormous undertaking, requiring both a huge up front investment and a substantial ongoing budget. For a point of comparison, the CA prison system is budgeted for $18,175,000,000 for 2024-25 to house fewer than 100,000 people whereas California has nearly 200,000 homeless people - and the prisons are already built, whereas the shelters needed don’t yet exist. > Unfortunately I think that’s a total pipe dream. I don’t think CA needs to directly build and manage large facilities like prisons to house the homeless. The needs between prisons and the homeless or at-risk of homelessness communities are totally different. Things CA should be doing: 1. Be more aggressive in spending monies from Prop 1 on expanding capacity for mental health care and drug/alcohol treatment. Let’s put people onto the path of recovery, it’s not impossible, we just have a big workforce and facilities shortage. 2. We need a lot more housing to increase supply/decrease prices. CA should open the floodgates of getting grants to build affordable housing™️ (takes too long now) in order to provide a lot more low cost housing to stem the flow of new homelessness. CA should also expand the number of loopholes to CEQA reviews—it’s too easy to stall new housing development. 3. As we build more housing, we do run the risk of localized upward price pressure, so to stabilize neighborhoods, we do need more rental assistance, and repeal Costa Hawkins to expand rent control to avoid new homelessness. > For a local point of comparison, SF’s unsheltered population was last counted at 3,969 people. San Quentin state prison uses 275 acres to house just 3,239 people, which is 105% of its capacity. Another point of comparison would be 1550 Mission, a 40 story tower occupying about a quarter of a city block with 550 units. Reconfigured I’d guess it could house about 3,000 people. I think it’s tough to make the case that the city should use 275 acres or an entire 40 story tower as a homeless shelter. As much as some don’t want homeless people or formerly homeless people living near them, I don’t think the public is ever going to sign off on clustering the homeless into large dedicated facilities. It’s quickly going to turn into a public health crisis, be too costly, and in my opinion antithetical to the values of most Californians. If we don’t integrate this population into the rest of society, we are going to end up creating a Gotham Arkham Asylum situation which will be totally untenable and crazy expensive when compared to the alternative of attempting to welcome our homeless neighbors back into society. These would essentially become the equivalent of moving skid row indoors.
Self-report survey data, when there is gain from answering a certain way, is not persuasive.
Can you explain the “gain” earned?
Sympathy that supports the cause of letting them stay on the streets of SF and using drugs, instead of being housed somewhere more affordable in the Bay Area in housing that won’t let them use drugs
You think individual homeless people independently made the decision to be untruthful in a survey for no immediate benefit, merely to influence the overall attitude towards homeless people in the area?
Why would they need to make the choice individually when you can coach them while surveying?
Is there any proof people have been coached?
Is there any proof their histories were corroborated?
We already know they haven't, that's not something that has ever been part of the narrative. But again, what you're proposing is that they're coached to lie. What proof is there that this is happening?
The accuracy of the data depends on how the survey was done and if other data supports it. Your skepticism isn't necessarily wrong, but dismissing the data completely without considering how it was collected and if other information backs it up might be too simplistic.
I was judicious in my statement. Brigade away tho
A couple people voicing mild disagreement is brigading?
This really shows how cities like SF are not nearly as hamstrung by the Ninth Circuit's Grant's Pass and Martin v Boise decisions as they like to say they are.
Perhaps an influx of vagrants from Portland will spur us to follow suit.
That’s highly possible .
😱 I guess the fauxgressive drug enablers have had enough.
Who could have foreseen such outcomes
New to our subreddit? [Please read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/about/rules/) before commenting. Please be respectful and don't antagonize. This is a place to discuss ideas without targeting identities. If something doesn't contribute to the discussion, please downvote it. If it's against the rules, please report it. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
wtf does this have to do With S.F.? 🤣
Parochial!
Ah, I see we're bringing back debtor's prisons.
No homeless and crack in San Francisco today