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Comment by stanfordkid | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley and San Francisco need to learn from NYC about how to address homelessness and and poverty. The state of the Tenderloin is comparable to Times Square in the 1970s.

It boggles my mind why we cannot divert that valuable land towards productive use and use the tax revenue generated towards providing homeless services closer to the outer edges of the city and away from civil society.

I urge people to read this article: http://www.city-journal.org/html/how-new-york-became-safe-fu...

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SF already spends ~$250M a year on homelessness. I don't think more money is what is needed to solve the problem. I think a change in tactics is needed. I am not sure what the right answer is, but they already have ~$25k to spend per homeless person.

That ~$250M/year is spending on both homeless and homelessness prevention, only about $100 million of that is actual services for the homeless, of whom there are ~7000, so about $14,000/homeless person.

http://sfist.com/2016/04/12/no_san_francisco_does_not_spend_...

I think there's a strong argument for changing tactics, but if one of my friends anywhere in the bay area told me they were living on $14,000/yr I would ask if they have enough food, so it doesn't surprise me that this isn't really working.

I understand SF more expensive than NYC these days, but $14,000/year sounds like a reasonable amount of money to me. It's obviously not enough for each person to get their own apartment, but if spent wisely, it seems like it should afford them some safe modest shelter and a reliable 3 meals per day.

I assume some of the money goes towards rehabilitation, which cuts into these funds a bit. Maybe it does need to be bumped up. At first glance, $14k just seems like it should do a better job than it's doing.

Worse, I think some nonprofits are inadvertently contributing to make the problem worse, e.g. Faith in Action putting rent control on the ballot in San Mateo, and Asian Pacific Environmental Network expanding rent control in Oakland. That's why this year I donate and got company matching donations to California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund.

http://carlaef.org

"away from civil society"? Really? Jesus christ, i'd say homeless people are significantly more civil than a lot of Hacker News commenters.

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