by hobolobo on 10/12/16, 1:33 PM with 147 comments
by kldaace on 10/12/16, 2:50 PM
1. Homeless shelters are horribly funded and have long waiting lists for beds. This proposal provides no additional funding. My guess is most people will be forced to take the bus ticket option.
2. Shelter beds themselves are poorly maintained, unsanitary, and often have bed bugs. It sounds counter-intuitive but a lot of homeless people are _choosing_ the streets over homeless shelters.
To be honest, I think the people bankrolling this bid know that moving people into shelters is unfeasible, and they're cynically hoping to just bus the homeless out of San Francisco.
by fatdog on 10/12/16, 3:35 PM
What does the street provide an alley or park doesn't? I've said before, the perceived security from non-underclass people walking by. Police protect non-underclass people from violence, and the homeless get this additional benefit by extension by being nearby. In shelters and tent cities, you are more likely to be targeted for crime.
Sure people without addresses have a right to safety and security of person like everyone else, but their behavior (often due to mental illness or drug use or factors outside of their direct control) makes it extra difficult/costly to provide it.
Other people pay a lot of money in tax to the state to reduce their daily exposure to violence, regardless of the factors that might contribute to it. Tent cities are a source of risk, and they are provocative symbols of the limits of the ability of the local government to operate credibly. Governments, mainly for their own sake, must remove tent cities when they pop up, arguably because that's what they were originally chartered to do.
Some may say that the homeless are "just trying to live," but it could be said they are hovering around public services without any sense of responsibility to the local society that provides them.
They are human beings, but ones who take advantage of the lack of a continuous tribal identity in cities, where they can live with people believing they are someone else's problem. People who don't learn to get along get run out of small towns (or worse). Add a drug addiction to severe mental illness, and you basically get a municipal zombie problem.
To me, homelessness is only a complicated problem from the perspective of an ideology that cannot tolerate examples of the limits to its power. Everyone else has solutions, just not ones that reinforce the narcissism of maternalistic policymakers.
by rm_-rf_slash on 10/12/16, 3:06 PM
Homelessness and the situations that create it are great tragedies. But to me it seems completely absurd that this problem is dealt with a municipal level. Homeless shelters are good to have but there is so little space in the city of San Francisco for the working people, let alone the tech workers forking over several thousands of dollars each month in rent.
San Francisco is a tiny city. California is a very big state. I don't understand this problem at all.
by scelerat on 10/12/16, 4:06 PM
http://48hills.org/2016/02/16/five-myths-about-the-homeless-...
Key point in my mind when it comes to talking about these tent cities, is that most of SF's homeless -- over 70% -- were living in San Francisco at the time they became homeless. And as much as 50% of the homeless had lived in SF for ten years or more.
The people sleeping on the sidewalk are San Franciscans who have been priced out of housing. San Francisco is their home. These people aren't going anywhere just because you take away their tents.
by CPLX on 10/12/16, 2:26 PM
Despite the negative frame of the headline, is this obviously a bad idea? It does mention requiring that people be offered a shelter bed.Or if this is a horrible/insensitive/bad idea as stated, what's the smart, thoughtful, and progressive way to change the status quo?
by convolvatron on 10/12/16, 3:24 PM
Removal seems to be roughly based on the proximity of the camp to retail/residential, and the size of the camp. This has been going on since at least the 90s, although the camps are larger and more visible in the last few years.
As a result the homeless kind of blow around, try to find an inconspicuous spot, and hang on until they are ousted again. I've known several people with palette and tarp covered homes tucked away in corners in light industrial areas hang onto a spot for 3 or more years. But usually, a tent on the sidewalk (or a barely running tan RV) establishes a safe place for more tents/RVs/vans/etc and the cycle continues.
Once there are a few people living in a spot, the police become regular visitors because of all the fighting, human waste, theft, etc. Residents constantly call in complaints hoping to raise the bar enough to get them removed.
Since the police are already spending a huge amount of time trying to manage and break down camps, how is this law going to help?
by DominikR on 10/12/16, 3:08 PM
Laws were implemented that would force them to live in (free) government assigned apartments and accept government assigned jobs.
This policy failed because you can't force someone to like or accept a lifestyle they don't want. They just run away at the first opportunity. You can offer them different opportunities and some might accept it, but as far as I know this is already being done.
What is funny though about this article is that many of the SF tech billionaires are themselves immigrants from former Communist countries or children of these immigrants. Many of their statements seem to indicate that they believe in technocrat rule and some kind of artificial betterment of people that can be achieved through education and policy. (which often translates into propaganda and use of force if you ask me)
It's interesting how values can persist throughout generations, even if you move to a different continent.
by M_Grey on 10/12/16, 4:07 PM
by autognosis on 10/12/16, 4:49 PM
That tells me that SF is going to have a homelessness problem for loooong time.
CA has told everyone that they CANNOT work if their time is not worth at least $21/hour. $15 for minimum wage, and ~$7 for taxes on the business to provide that employment. Of course you are going to have these problems.
Downvote me if you like. But you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. if you really cared about these people, you'd abolish the minimum wage yesterday.
by kafkaesq on 10/12/16, 4:19 PM
By passing a measure that bans the tents -- but doesn't actually do anything to help get these people into housing. Or for that matter, any meaningful promise of a safe place to sleep at night (because without funding -- and that's precisely where the crux of the issue lies, behind this problem -- the phrase "offer shelter for all tent residents" has precisely zero chance of seeing a viable implementation).
Now that's compassionate.
by allsystemsgo on 10/12/16, 3:09 PM
by xenihn on 10/12/16, 4:15 PM
The river and the county seat (which also has encampments surrounding it) have become the only place where homeless encampments are allowed any sort of permanence, since police departments in cities throughout Southern California have adopted increasingly aggressive policies towards them. From what I understand, the river and county seat fall under the County Sheriff's jurisdiction, so city police can't evict them or seize possessions, and the Sheriff has realized that there is literally no where else for these people to go, and is currently allowing them to stay.
This year's ACLU report on homeless in Orange County is interesting:
https://www.aclusocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Nowhere...
I honestly had no idea how bad things are. I feel horrible about it.
by Spooky23 on 10/12/16, 2:34 PM
by LesZedCB on 10/12/16, 2:57 PM
[1] http://www.mintpressnews.com/empty-homes-outnumber-the-homel...
[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-mayor-of-detroits-radical...
by cloudjacker on 10/12/16, 8:00 PM
Propose a measure like this and the most empathic of the privileged people point out how insensitive it is.
Embrace reality and call San Francisco the peninsula's biggest camp ground, and the same people call it insensitive.
Both statements ignore the security issues and circumstances that many campers endure so not mutually exclusive of insensitivity, but at a certain point you are just turning a blind eye in your own special way.
If living in a tent actually is a viable option, then we should stop treating it like it is the most sensitive topic to even talk about casually.
People should be taking as much censorship pity for all the people that live in old walkups or luxury apt in liquification zones of SF. A tent would most likely fair better during an earthquake.
by Temposs on 10/12/16, 3:20 PM
That said, my political club voted against this measure because the 24 hour time frame is way too short and does not meet federal standards for managing homeless population. It takes more time to engage with a homeless person and negotiate what sort of help would be best for them.
by mattnewton on 10/12/16, 2:16 PM
by abrkn on 10/12/16, 5:42 PM
by AndyMcConachie on 10/12/16, 2:58 PM
by Grishnakh on 10/12/16, 3:25 PM
I predict this would solve the homelessness problem in SF pretty quickly.
by bertiewhykovich on 10/12/16, 9:10 PM
Regulations are pointless bullshit -- unless, of course, there are homeless people dirtying up your view.
by banusaur on 10/12/16, 4:50 PM