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Comment by taurath | Hacker News Reader

I’ll be honest though. I’m not sure new housing can actually work to lower prices, with all the incentives for real estate locked towards ever increasing prices. Maybe over decades, while losing the entire feel of the city?

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The feel of San Francisco is already lost, when a small single apartment runs $3000 a month.

And homeless are everywhere.

> > The feel of San Francisco is already lost, when a small single apartment runs $3000 a month.

> And homeless are everywhere.

Maybe a $3k per month "small single apartment" contributes to "homeless are everywhere."

When people say “homeless are everywhere” regarding SF, they’re probably referring to the extremely troubled people who are conspicuously doing drugs or screaming incoherently on the streets. I don’t think those people would suddenly be fine if only the SF apartments were $500 a month instead of $3000.

Of course, there are a lot more homeless people in SF than the very conspicuously unwell people I mentioned. There are also probably larger scale effects that together contribute to high rents, high income inequality, drug abuse, lack of medical care, etc. But there’s a lot more to say than that SF’s homeless problem is because rent is too high.

Homelessness is a very complicated issue, but it would absolutely be better for all people currently without homes if rent was that cheap. Many people who currently are living on the street or in shelters would be able to find stable housing. This would free up resources and care which could focus on those people who need it most.

I'm curious about the ratio of those unwell folks who are native to the area compared to those who are transplants.

I can certainly imagine a 'homeless pipeline' where the children of the parents who get priced out of housing end up doing drugs on the street, but I also know about bussing the homeless and homeless moving to SF because they don't want to deal with a serious winter.

According to Wikipedia: As of 2014, the city is believed to have approximately 7,000 homeless residents. As of 2015, approximately 71% of the city's homeless had housing in the city before becoming homeless, while the remaining 29% came from outside of San Francisco

I'm not from US and I'm not very informed about the homeless problem.

But I wonder why homeless people don't move to another city. If I'd be in their situation (living in a city where I can not afford to rent a house and live a normal life) I'd go to another city where with a regular job I can afford a normal life and just build my life there.

Sorry if it's a stupid question.

They get free services in San Francisco that they wouldn't in other cities. Also, many of the folks on the street during the day are actually housed, in public housing, and leave to do drugs since they will loose their housing if they do drugs at home.

> But I wonder why homeless people don't move to another city.

Because there are few cities in the country that are as accommodating to the homeless as SF. And I'm not talking about weather, I'm talking about services, aid, lack of police harassment, etc.

If you're homeless it's certainly the best place in the country to live.

Oh, they do move to another city. They move from homelessness in their original town, to homelessness in San Francisco, often with transportation paid for by their origin city/state's government, because SF has extremely lax drug and vagrancy enforcement, a mild climate, and easy access.

As mentioned elsewhere, this is simply not true, and you can do some very quick research to learn that it's not true. The vast majority of homeless people in SF are from SF. Stop being part of the misinformation problem.

People who tend to think like you, who can plan in advance, are willing to get a regular job, don't do drugs etc, rarely end up homeless, even in the US. Most of the visible homeless on the streets of large US cities are deeply dysfunctional people, and lower rents or public housing won't make them more functional. Getting them out of public sight would be improvement for the public, to be sure, but the policies of the US cities ran by liberals tend to be extremely ineffective with respect to getting them out of public sight.

They'll be plenty house as talented people continue to flee. Meanwhile juniors flock. If a CEO of a sizable Corp can't get by without a roommate something is wrong. I certainly wouldn't work there for less than a half plus million a year. Shit weather and fog I'd rather work in North Dakota.

This is surely exaggerated right ? I know CEOs of large startups who live in mansions in Woodside, Berkeley, Mill Valley etc

My sample size is small but a company that raised 40 million and the CEO is considering leaving sv because his wife need to make rent with a roommate is not a great sign of the real estate. Sv isn't special. People are going to other tech hubs which are sprouting like crazy. Sv was when it made products. But sass can be done anywhere.

People are leaving sv and housing prices are the reason. It's going to lead to brain drain. Why bother with that congested hell hole when you can live anywhere else and cut your cost of living by 50 percent. Your average founder is 30 and they are not into partying. Sv is for 20 year olds

I doubt that prices lead to brain drain. Sure there is a guy or two who will walk away. But I know more then a few people who are like: more then 2/3 of my pay to live in the city? No. Problem! Living in the city is super important!

I've seen it first hand with incredibly talented people that hated living in the city. There are plenty of tech hubs elsewhere. Sv isn't special. 2/3 of your pay is a bad decision unless you are being paid 600k+

Sounds like that CEO might be paying himself too little.

Fwiw, housing prices (rents) have barely budged in much of the Bay Area for the past 4 years. If the exodus hasn't already happened, I doubt it will.

I have a hard time believing this story. You can get 1-bedroom apartment around 3k in SF or neighboring areas. You can afford that with entry level wages

Well it's true and why he wants to move out of sv. There are plenty of better and cheaper places to live. Sv is no longer special.

I would believe that a random startup employee might be considering leaving SV due to rent.

I wouldn't believe that a CEO of a company that has raised $40 million is leaving because his wife needs a roommate to make rent. His wife should probably live with him if she needs to save money.

I'm sure there are "startup CEOs" in that situation. I doubt there are many whose firms have office space and employees.

In my experience, the serial startup execs mostly don't live in the city. In the 90s, I knew several who also had an apartment near the office, but that's much less common now that the sort of place they'd want is going for $8K/mo.

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