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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

Since the article starts with someone in SF (although he's leaving), I want to proactively dispel the myth that it's common for homeless people to be dropped into SF by other cities because we have good weather and liberal govt.

It may happen sometimes, but a recent survey showed that over 70pct of the homeless people in SF previously had homes in SF [0]. So it's mostly a home grown problem.

[0]: http://sfist.com/2016/02/11/71_of_sf_homeless_once_had_homes...

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Just a little nit: while article says they lived in SF and !had homes! survey linked says they were just SF residents prior to becoming homeless (though it mentions that 49% of them were living in SF at least 10 years, but don't forget that ~65% of SF residents are renters).

Residency usually just based on any bill with city address within last 30 days.

I can easy imagine case when someone moved to SF with hope that things will work out in big city, spent savings on few months of rent and with nowhere else to go and no established income ended up on the streets. While it's a sad situation it fits that previous SF residency narrative and in the same time not exactly part of some native san franciscans ending up on streets due to yet another gentrification cycle everybody so keen to bring up whenever homeless origin is being mentioned.

There's an even bigger problem. There was no validation at all. It was based on self reporting which, in turn, was based on asking [ideally] random homeless individuals, and then extrapolating that outward. There is an incentive for individuals to lie here if they believe that 'native' homeless might be subject to preferential treatment, or if reporting 'native' homeless increases could result in more favorable incentives for the homeless. And given how big of news homelessness and home price issues are in San Francisco, I think this motivation is a major concern.

I am curious about the baselines here for other areas though. Even given the incentive to lie, the reported numbers given still seem quite high to me. The most liberal metric is living in the city for at least 10 years, which applied to just below 50% of the homeless. Even if we take the most conservative metric of 'migratory' patterns, with 30% of individuals having moved to San Francisco after becoming homeless, that still seems very high. But I don't really have a baseline for comparison in other major cities and search is not turning up any particularly great sources.

Absolutely. Self reported data like this is nearly worthless in a serious discussion about policies and their consequences.

Considering there is existential incentive to lie about being from San Francisco, this survey qualifies as a biased source of information. It should not be held up as proof that whatever is working would work better if only we would please double the budget.

The article even turns it around: if no bussing were included, the homeless population might be double what it is. SF is a net homeless exporter (with the huge caveat of impartial data).

Forget San Francisco. Everyone talks about SF. Few talk about LA. Nobody talks about Santa Barbara or San Diego.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc7-w4szWoQ

The encampments shown there (which are talking about LA) are exactly like the encampments dotting the coastline in SB and along the onramps in Barrio Logan in SD. I imagine the problem is emdemic to most of the populated California coast.

If you check the links regarding that "poll", they don't even exist (the sfgov ones).

The only such study wasn't even a "study", just a survey with no verification of the responses. And the responses defy reality (e.g. 48% claim to have had permanent SF residence for over 10 years, which is a higher rate than the general self-supporting population).

I couldn't find the part about where they had phones. Can you quote it for me so I can search for it?

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/lifeline/

Plans can include mobile data, too. Even those is the USA illegally can qualify.

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