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Comment by vmarshall23 | Hacker News Reader

Part of the problem, if not a large-ish part of the problem, is that apparently drugs and alcohol are usually restricted from homeless shelters.

And addiction is a large component of homelessness, but if you're still addicted you're obviously not going to spend much time in a place where you have to go cold turkey to enter.

So, my ( probably naive ) suggestion would be to allow drugs and alcohol in the shelters, hopefully giving the residents long enough of a chance to receive some help. No it's just a revolving door that doesn't appear to be helping anyone.

Universal basic income too. :-)

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They give out rationed free wine to alcoholics at a shelter in Ottawa, Canada. The program has been wildly successful: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/26/homeless-she...

I think for people working at a shelter, that might be pretty annoying. To be honest, the fundamental problem is obvious: SF has too high rent. Until serious money and resources are devoted to solving that, you will have homelessness.

You think that people who are now homeless should be looking for legitimate residential opportunities in the most expensive city to live in in the world...by mechanism of lowering rent in said city?

What? It's like a conscious strategy on the part of homeless people? That would be cool.

No, I really just think that people should stop overthinking problems like this. You don't need to go around asking everybody's life story to work out that homelessness is tightly coupled with rent prices. Fix one, you fix the other. Or, if you think that's too expensive or onerous, own it. Accept that you're basically OK with other people being homeless. Everything else is just crocodile tears.

My first question is, which I think you missed, is why do they need to be given housing in the most expensive city in the world? There is a lot of space in this country.

My second question is, how exactly do you propose rent be lowered? Do you just think that rent is made up on the spot by evil rich white people, and we should have the government force them to charge less? The reason rent is so high in the first place is largely to do with government restrictions on new developments...Rent is also high here because there is a large concentration of high paying work in the area. Are these high earning people going to be allowed to benefit from your proposed arbitrary lowering of rent, so that we only disproportionately punish the wealthy landlords but not the wealthy tech workers? If not, how many tech workers would you like to displace to make room for homeless residents, and how do you determine which?

I feel foolish for not realizing how simple of a solution it was that you were proposing, but not all of us operate in the intellectual 4th dimension.

Look, don't believe me. Just look at the history of public housing. It's expensive. It works. People like to pretend there's a lot of complexity to issues like these because they couldn't really care less about homeless people, and they'd rather not spend the money to give them homes. Talking about complex social issues is a great way to come across as both clever and caring. Paying more taxes, however, is a pain in the ass.

Naive, but honest quesrion: why don’t homeless move to where housing costs less? That’s what I do if I can’t afford something: I find an alternative.

It seems to me something else is going on that pulls homeless people into San Francisco. But I readily admit I don’t understand it all very well.

I think generally speaking, lowering housing costs isn't to allow a homeless person to save up for a deposit and rent an apartment. It's to increase the likelyhood that the sibling they always got along with will have a spare room, or to increase the buffer between losing a job and being on the streets, or to make it so the old friend doesn't mind it that much that somebody is sleeping in their spare room, since they have a spare room.

On the individual level, I expect the reason why people stay is that being homeless makes you very dependent on local knowledge and social network. Knowing what bins contain food, where is good shelter, which police officers are dangerous, and so on - is very important. If you move city, you're not suddenly going to have the kind of money to pay a deposit. You'll just be homeless in a place you don't know. That, and a lot of homeless people have jobs.

Somewhat cynical but true answer: Because practicality is not a priority with SF politics.

You can understand quite a lot about this place if you really internalize that realization.

I actually don't think it is. A lot of SF's homeless population comes here from other places on trains or buses because the city has a reputation for tolerance and supportive social services. Some cities/states even bus people here.

I think the root problem is that SF is carrying too much of the load for other places who won't take up the problem themselves. Every place is going to have some level of drug use or social problems. But it's not productive or responsible for everyone else to just dump it all on the SF taxpayers.

A lesser problem is the populace's unwillingness to hold the homeless to any reasonable standard of behavior. I'm sorry, I know the homeless have it hard, but there are certain global norms of civilized behavior I consider inviolate, like, don't defecate in public, or don't drop used syringes on the ground, where people will step on them. These things happen here every day and the political climate is such that it's taboo to ask for law enforcement to get involved.

i don't think its taboo, its just that the bar keeps getting higher and higher for law enforcement to even notice.

it used to be that if a pile of drunks had a loud party outside my house at 3am, I could call the cops and they would send someone to break it up. or if someone started living outside by business, screaming at passersby and making a huge biohazard mess I could call them and they would move them along.

now they want to know how big the encampment is, if it gets big enough they will break it up after a few weeks. otherwise I get the feeling they just put you on a list of whiners to ignore. anyways - you stop calling.

even if the rent weren't so insane I would want to leave just because of the sheer misery involved for everyone.

I live in Oakland Chinatown. Too many car break-ins on the back side of Potrero Hill eventually got me down.

I'm really thinking about leaving. Not, as perhaps the other 95% of people do, for economic reasons, but just because I'm tired of how dysfunctional SF is. We pay through the nose in taxes and get what, a disgusting, dirty city, with barely-functional transit, do-nothing law enforcement, totally unaffordable housing, and insane traffic. It really does get under your skin after a while.

I'm optimistic with London Breed that we'll finally get some tech/lawyer/finance/other working professional-driven emphasis on accountability and RESULTS from the city government. Less grandstanding and speeches, more numbers, data, better schools, functioning transit, and cleanliness.

Nah it's a myth that SF attracts homeless people. 71% of the homeless here lost housing here. (https://48hills.org/2016/02/five-myths-about-the-homeless-pr...)

Per the same link, SF spends very little money on homelessness. A lot of the so called homelessness money is actually subsidized housing money.

Most issues with the homeless represent a public health issue much more than a law enforcement issue.

Given they lack access to toilet facilities, are you imagining the homeless not pooping through sheer willpower?

Addiction is a form of mental illness, and that's not the only mental illness common among the homeless. Many suffer from other illnesses. Nobody wakes up wanting to be addicted, or schizophrenic, or whatever, whether they are homeless or otherwise.

All good points.

What this city really needs is restrooms. Agree with you on that. Yes, people would do drugs in them, but it would certainly help with some of the smells.

Another related problem is that barely-better-than-being-homeless housing has been zoned out of existence. Single room occupancy units (small bedroom with lockable door and shared kitchens/bathrooms) have been torn down and not built over time in the Bay Area, and I directly blame that for a decent chunk of the homelessness problem.

When you make bad options illegal, you aren't magically giving anyone any better options.

Yes, agree. I've worked in shelters. Burn-out time. The city government is cynical and heartless. The attitude of residents is "whatever." The moral compass of the city is non-existent. The underground BART stations at Civic and now Powell are full of demented elderly who live there, drink, drug and beg and sometimes jump in front of oncoming trains. And all that the city council seems capable of handling is to hold council meetings to vote to banish plastic straws. Really? With 10,000 people living on the streets, some with children, openly using drugs, leaving needles, openly defecating near many Burger King or fast food places or 711's. So mayoral candidate's campaign promise is more street sweepers to sweep away the poop. Next week it could be 220 lbs of poop and city council might decide to use taxpayer funds to find another excuse to ignore human suffering lining the streets and gutters. Churches used to let homeless men sleep in pews and sit on the property and beg and gave them lunch, socks, toiletries. They picked up some slack in helping those the city ignored. Until those who attended church and paid the bills stopped coming. After too many thefts, stench, disrespect, even the most caring had enough.

"So, my ( probably naive ) suggestion would be to allow drugs and alcohol in the shelters"

There'd probably have to be shelters specific to users of a given substance who want to continue using.

At least then non-using homeless would be less likely to suffer from proximity to agitated drunk/high individuals.

And homeless recovering addicts wouldn't be living with actively using addicts.

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