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Comment by northerdome | Hacker News Reader

There is so much corruption in this city the trash cans are an entertaining artifact of a much, much deeper problem. The quest for trash cans isn't bizarre when you consider where the incentives for those in government lie...

This is a city spending $55,000 per tent to "support" a parking lot camp ground with porta potties.

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Can you provide more details about this and some citations please?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-officials-w...

Spoiler: much of the cost is for 24/7 onsite security

Let’s say 2 people per tent. That’s a population of 500. Let’s say there’s 1 security person per 10 homeless person @50k/year. That’s 2.5 million/year. Let’s say you need triple that for round the clock coverage. That’s still only 7.5 million. Let’s say food and restrooms eat up the rest of the budget. Are the homeless a prison-like demographic where you need a security guard every 10 people for order? Heck, even prisons don’t have this level of security. This feels like a grift for funneling money to security firms that hire off duty cops/ex cops for their services. The city should just hire the homeless directly for providing their own security services. At least that way the money would also be going into the community that needs it.

Is there a breakdown of these costs? I couldn't see it in the article.

Even with 24/7 security (and SF wages) the costs seems high.

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