Who’s homeless enough for housing? In San Francisco, an algorithm decides
codastory.com
codastory.com
There are ~8,035 homeless people in San Francisco and 225 vacant housing units. You can either allot them on a first come first served basis, or run a lottery, or use some kind of objective criteria (aka "algorithm") to decide who needs it the most.
No matter which one you pick, the vast majority of people will be denied housing. Writing feature length articles with nothing more than "this process is bad because it rejects some people" is idiotic. The entire point is prioritization.
The article is criticizing social workers for asking personal questions like past incidents of trauma. If they didn't do that, you'd instead read all about how the city doesn't care about abuse victims and is doing nothing to help them.
It mentions someone who came here from LA and ended up on the streets, and is criticizing this system because he was put in the back of the queue. This shows another problem – the more/better services you provide, the more vulnerable people you will attract from all over the country. Somehow pull a miracle and actually "solve" the city's homeless crisis? Nevada, Texas, Arizona will very happily send more buses your way.
Now you can make the argument that Singapore has a number of policies that stop people from becoming homeless in the first place, but I think the most fundamental reason why San Francisco and the US in general has a homelessness problem is because Americans don't feel sufficient shame for living in a city with a large number of homeless people.
If Singapore suddenly found itself with the same number of people sleeping on the street as in San Francisco, you can bet that the problem would be solved extremely quickly because people would feel deeply ashamed at living in an environment with such a large number of homeless people.
There were various solutions depending on the cause. If you were homeless because you didn't want to work, there was the workhouse. If you were homeless because you were insane, there was the asylum. If you were homeless because you were a drunk or a drug addict, there was jail.
People complained that those were authoritarian policies. Judges ruled against vagrancy laws. Petty theft was de facto legalized. Judges made rulings that make it very hard to commit insane people to an asylum. People wanted drugs legalized.
Now there are bums defecating on the street, people passed out drunk or on drugs, needles on the sidewalk, insane people ranting and committing assault, so much shoplifting that stores are closing. Things are that way in San Francisco because people there want them that way.
It's not a bad place to live if you are rich, you can insulate yourself from all that. And if you just want to shoot up heroin and meth every day until you die, well you know where to go.
I don't think this is true. No one likes living around massive homeless encampments, garbage, filth, and unpredictable people with severe mental issues. This is why the homeless services budget goes up significantly every single year in most coastal American cities. People want this problem to be solved, they just have a different idea on how to solve it.
The difference between the US and Singapore is that "authoritarian" policies, like forcing people to live somewhere they might not want to, would never fly. One side of the spectrum would resent the handouts to others while they themselves continue to struggle with no help, and the other would complain the housing comes with too many rules and is too restrictive.
Japan, yes. Singapore is actually very diverse.
The numbers I'm aware of show that Singapore is not diverse at all.
> Han Chinese: 74.3% > Malay: 13.4% > Indian: 9.0% > Other: 3.2%
~3/4 Singaporeans are Han Chinese, ~88% are East Asian, and ~96% are Asian. That's extremely homogenous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore#Post...
Also Malays are not East Asian but Southeast Asian, if anything Malay culture is historically closer to South than East Asian (e.g. Islam came to the Malay peninsular from South Asia), while still being very distinct from either.
If you go to Singapore it does feel extremely diverse, it's the only place I know of where every sign is in four different languages.
Where are the Africans? Where are the Europeans, the Latin Americans? Out of 7 continents, essentially everyone in Singapore is from the same continent. It could be more diverse.
To take your race point, I acknowledge that continent doesn't equal race. But even by that point, what do you have to say about 75% of Singaporeans being Han Chinese, and ~95% of people being Han or Malay? That alone is quite the opposite of diverse. Sure, there may be a lot of languages, but the entire population is still close to just two ethnic groups.
This whole comment is basically just an emotional appeal trying to shame the other commenter. It would be more constructive to the discussion to provide actual arguments and evidence than to just say the equivalent of "how could you say such a thing". People don't have a right to live in SF specifically; there are plenty of other places they can be handled, and that is a fully reasonable suggestion.
That is not a problem, that is a consequence. And its something you'd have hard time fixing. And if so why not start with homeless that want the housing first?
People who what and are helped back into society are going to be net benefit financially, even people who hate others and love money cant argue. Helping those people back up is investment that always pays off.
So why is this an issue?
Also:
> high percentage of the homeless don’t want the housing
> Many prefer to live in the homeless encampments
A snarky Citation Needed. Where did you get that?
It not like those people were born homeless and this is their 'lifestyle' majority tripped and felt. Nobody helped them and they are stuck there.
Given enough time and they will become disillusioned and resentful of outsiders. Worse get used to living rough.
That said, there will be always a % of people who cannot be helped. And that's ok, we can't save everyone.
Living in a tent sounds preferable from constantly being on the move. A shelter does not mean you have dedicated space to be in whenever you want.
In my experience discussions usually criticize homeless people for not accepting "housing", when what is offered is shelters. So housing usually refers erroneously to shelter housing.
One of the most striking cases was a 70 year old man who was working as a handyman and had his tools confiscated. The building he was in also didn't allow incoming calls or visitors. Other homeless people reported warrantless searches, or anti-drug and alcohol policies which addicts don't want to abide by.
Completely unreasonable requirements /s
The problem is the homelessness is an overloaded problem. There are at least 3 different types of homeless people. See here : https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/ikc4zt/homeless_...
The transient homeless are usually down on their luck need these shelters. They make up the majority and need these resources.
The substance abusers and mentally ill both need to be institutions. Both need medical & mental care, and are not fit for interaction with society. This especially applies to those that are severely mentally ill or violent meth addicts. The rest are the 'treatable' type of addict, whose separation from society is not due to unfitness to coexist with people, but so they are prioritized in care, because they are the most treatable.
There may be an algorithm embedded in this but the whole process is not an algorithm. It does not have algorithmic inputs.