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Comment by TimorousBestie | Hacker News Reader

Comparing homeless people and drug addicts to zombies is not helpful.

Instead we could talk about returning to the horrors of the involuntary hospitalization era pre-Reagan, or we could talk about the current push to incarcerate the entire class in order to use them for forced labor (Grants Pass v. Johnson, 2024).

The most humane solution would be to house them and give them a robust social assistance network, of course, but that’s obviously so far off the table that it fell out the Overton Window.

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The main reason they can't get housing though is that the government of California, which is dominated by Democrats, refuses to allow sufficient housing construction to make housing affordable.

I’d be interested to see how the Republican approach to the problem of homelessness works at scale, but they control few local governments the size of SF or Seattle.

Two exceptions (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_the_50_lar... ): Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.

Full disclosure: I don’t know much about them, and I doubt anyone in this thread cares enough to merit a deep dive. A little light googling suggests both struggle with homelessness (not surprising: both tend to have mild winters). DFW seems to take in essence the liberal approach: social services support with some encampment clearing and forced transport away from the city; OKC seems to be working on a rehousing program (how progressive of them) combined with faith-based charities and private/public partnerships.

I think that a significant cause of homelessness is unaffordable housing. In 2025 housing affordability is better in Republican-run states like Texas because the state governments allow more housing to be constructed. Because housing is more abundant and cheaper, the population is growing faster. (This is why the Electoral College is on track to become more biased in favor of Republicans after the 2030 Census: the US population is disproportionately growing in Republican states.)

For context I'm a center-left person, but at this point I'm pretty fed up with the standard California Democrat stance of simultaneously saying that housing affordability is really important but also using many tools of government to actually block housing construction.

What does partisanship have to do with it, voters in CA are SFH owners and thus push for things that preserve the status quo. The state gov even passed a bunch of stuff in 2024 to defang a lot of NIMBYism but it takes time to see the effects.

I disagree. Zombie-town is a valid insult for the state of certain SF neighborhoods.

Yes, opponents love exaggerating the geographical extent of this crisis. But, it is that dire in the worst hotspots. Unfortunately, these hotspots also happen to be high-foot-traffic commuter hubs and downtown locations. Compassionate methods should be the carrot to a much needed stick. The stick being - Punishment for crimes and involuntary hospitalization of those too far gone.

I would like to talk about the horrors of involuntary hospitalization. Which issues do you think will return ? What's worse than a life that's indistinguishable from zombie-hood on the streets of SF ?

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