Comment by exolymph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by exolymph | Hacker News Reader

The non-visible homeless (people down on their luck, to an approximation) get mentally sorted into the vast category of "that's unfortunate but it doesn't affect me directly," which might influence people's votes or charitable donations, but doesn't arouse much passion for most of us.

By contrast, the visible homeless are a visceral inconvenience, even a danger, so people feel strongly about how that problem is addressed. As a smallish woman, I am on high alert in certain areas of San Francisco, Oakland, etc. I'm not all that likely to be accosted, but if I ever am, it will be a big deal, so navigating those places is nerve-wracking because my threat-detection is constantly dialed up.

I would compare it to, like, road planning versus traffic enforcement. The former has far-reaching, long-term impact (like housing policy) but the latter is what gets people heated, due to the immediate impact in their day-to-day lives.

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Full disclosure, reposting a comment from a similar thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33961731

I'm guessing that you misunderstand the threats, and are much more likely to be hit by someone in an SUV. I've spent lots and lots of time in cities; I've never had a problem with a homeless person.

Would you count having to step over an active urine stream on your way to the grocery store as "a problem"?

How about walking with your pregnant wife past someone who is splitting his time yelling at the sky and scratching his crotch from the inside of his pants?

Sure, in both scenarios we weren't physically harmed, but it certainly made us feel unsafe and uncomfortable. It's not something that I think we should all just get used to.

Those are great opportunities to teach your children about the consequences of an apathetic voting base. It’s also a great time to nurture children’s empathetic abilities by teaching them to juxtapose indecent behavior, mental illness, poverty, and general despair.

Want more action? Try protesting and demanding solutions that include no questions asked housing, healthcare, food, water, and basic essential communication technology and interconnection.

Unless people want to misery murder homeless people en masse, the above is the solution. Hard stop. Don’t like it? That’s not my problem, I’m not complaining about desperate people from a place of immense privilege.

There are so many countries on earth with a far, far more apathetic voting base than San Francisco which face a fraction of the homeless issues. It’s not fair to tell regular citizens that the homeless people harassing them on their walk to work are only there because they haven’t protested hard enough, that’s just baloney.

Something’s very, very wrong in SF and it’s absolutely okay for tax paying law abiding citizens to be making noise about it.

People in the neighborhoods with fewer problems (let’s face it, there are many very quiet expensive neighborhoods in the Bay Area) have very “progressive” views on the homelessnesses. They don’t experience its effects frequently, so don’t think it’s a big problem. They vote for policies that grow social services for the homeless, even though those policies don’t work. But the idea they have is that these services just need more money. And then more money again, and again.

Progressives live in cities more than anywhere else, San Francisco being a center of progressivism. The critics live elsewhere, and love to tell people in cities what they really should want and do (more guns, no progressive reforms, etc. etc.). In NY, the anti-progressive vote was in the suburbs; in the city they do well. In Philadelphia, the progressive DA did best in African-American neighborhoods.

I am including SF proper neighborhoods in that. If you live in Twin Peaks it’s much easier to be “progressive” and ignore homelessness.

You may misunderstand me. I’m not saying tax payers are at fault for not protesting hard enough. What I am saying is that Direct Action is required to force the hands of people who have the authority make the direly needed changes.

I’m not interested in quibbling about how the homeless population grew so large unless it is explicitly for the purposes of calculating reparations and identifying perpetrators.

Make all the noise you want, complaining about people peeing is ineffective. I see trust fund brats pissing in public regularly and have never seen this volume of outrage directed at this population of people. More public bathrooms is the solution to that particular problem.

>>Those are great opportunities to teach your children about the consequences of an apathetic voting base

I think you would be much better off using those opportunities to teach your kids to stay away from drugs and alcohol, and to study hard and work hard - so they don't end up like that.

Plenty of people have worked excruciatingly hard and never done drugs but wound up homeless anyways. Reducing homelessness to laziness and drug addiction is a good indicator that you aren’t familiar with the the literature around homelessness and might have some prejudices against homeless presenting people.

Tangentially, I think it’s much better to use people like Elon musk, or Donald trump, or Sam bank man fried, jk Rowling, etc as examples of who not to become. Bad luck can befall anyone whereas these people woke up and chose violence, repeatedly.

Take a deep breath, or just don't live in cities if you can't handle it. These are momentary distractions; just go on with your day.

The second person is very easy to avoid; I've done it many times (maybe the same person!). The first you just keep going.

I do have empathy for these people, who have noplace else to go. Maybe build some public bathrooms - I know when I'm out in the city, it can be hard to find a bathroom, and I don't get stereotyped and rejected by most places (just stereotyped and accepted!).

However, I spend lots and lots of time in cities and hardly ever see these situations, though critics love to describe them. What smells isn't urine (people love to give examples including human waste - the well-used 'human feces' now gets a laugh from a few of us - how could you tell what kind of feces? Did you examine it closely? Take a sample? Tell us your technique!).

How many SUVs have you been hit by?

(Don’t even answer, it’s irrelevant anecdata.)

A variant of this comment comes up every time someone expresses tense situations.

I used to live around the corner from homeless services in the greater Seattle area and commute by foot after dark regularly. I never got physically assaulted but certainly would have if I didn't have my wits about me.

Are most homeless folks problematic? Absolutely not. Is there higher prevalence of mental illness, drug abuse, and other things that lend themselves to irratic behavior among that demographic? Absolutely.

It's ok to be both compassionate and recognize that there is a real safety/health issue. We don't have to minimize someone's experience based on "the numbers"

> I used to live around the corner from homeless services in the greater Seattle area and commute by foot after dark regularly. I never got physically assaulted but certainly would have if I didn't have my wits about me.

What would have "certainly" happened?

How do you define a “problem”? Is poop on the streets a problem? Used syringes? Mountains of trash? High people blocking public areas? Mentally ill people shouting at night and waking up whole neighborhoods? Physical assaults on weaker looking people (women, elderly, etc)? This is the everyday reality in SF.

I've never been hit by another car, but I have been yelled at and followed by street people. So...

Lots of people have been hit by cars - far more die and are injured by them than by homeless people. Do you disagree?

"visceral inconvenience"

The problem with the homeless isn't how it offends your senses.

"I'm not all that likely to be accosted, but if I ever am, it will be a big deal, so navigating those places is nerve-wracking because my threat-detection is constantly dialed up."

Have you ever thought that being this worried about threats is something you're partially responsible for?

Are you a large tall white man by any chance?

I'm a white man but I don't see how that matters. If I was Black would be more likely to be assaulted for some reason? Do homeless people avoid assaulting white people?

I get that you implying that I would feel safer because I'm less likely to be sexually assaulted and that I have a greater chance to defend myself. However, that doesn't prevent me from criticizing other's feelings. It's like a someone who is racist saying "well you don't live with them so you don't understand"

Why do you capitalize black and not white?

A mistake, I should have capitalized both. I was reading what the parent wrote when I typed it and they didn't capitalize it.

Every self preservation instinct is something each person is ultimately responsible for, but that doesn't mean that is the only dial that can be adjusted to solve the issue.

Some people really do worry too much.

Some areas really could be cleaned up so that random people feel comfortable moving through them without threat of assault.

> Some areas really could be cleaned up

Cleaned? People who are homeless are dirt?

Way to strawman a comment

When you clean up your house, you might put everything back in a good place designed for it. For example, people in homes. If I were being as ridiculous as you, I would say you must not believe in people having homes.

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