
Homeless Population Jumps by Thousands Across the San Francisco Bay Area - ilamont
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-northern-california-homeless-count-20190517-story.html
======
geebee
There is an ambiguity in the term "homeless" that can obscure discussion.

I believe the term "homeless" was adopted in part to avoid more pejorative
terms like "bum" or "vagrant". However, there may be some differences. You may
not notice the majority of the homeless. They may very well hang out in
libraries, coffee shops, and park benches, but these folks may be people with
no mental illness or addiction, victims of the economy, or a restrictive
housing supply. Alternatively, they may be people with personal health
(including mental health) challenges that do severely impede their ability to
work (or just cope with the world), but they have no immediate outward
appearance of distress or addiction, and they don't pass out on city streets
or, worse, intimidate, berate, threaten, stalk, harass, or assault fellow
citizens.

The term homeless has come in the vernacular to refer to the people I
referenced in that last sentence as the "homeless", almost to the point where
the word is detached from _home_ and _less_. It means a severely addicted and
mentally ill person who lives on the street.

I don't know which one is increasing. I've lived in SF my whole life (SF, not
the Bay Area, I took urban muni routes home from middle school), I'm in my
late 40s, and I've never seen it so bad. I've always been a big public
transportation taker, but I'm less enthusiastic about it now. What were
occasional bad moments in the 80s and 90s have become an every other ride
experience in some locations, and the lows are starting to get really, really
low.

~~~
harlanji
I'm one of the homeless you speak of, since last year. I came to the BA in
2011 after graduating Uni and worked as a programmer, to SF in 2014, and then
had my reputation destroyed in 2016 by a false assault allegation by my old
boss to HR--limiting job prospects via black list. I've an uncommon name and
rare specialization.

I think of "destitute" as the keyword, at various layers of Maslow's
hierarchy. The ones you talk about are destitute socially but probably have
food and temporary sleeping provisions, seldom rising above the 3rd layer into
esteem tho. I have a bit of my old network supporting me, and I sometimes
think I'll get off the street.

I work as a waiter 30hr/wk in Mountain View at minimum wage, and don't make
enough money yet to have housing prospects. Answering interview questions
without needs being met sends overwhelmingly negative signals. I have all my
professional stuff like books and computers in a storage unit, but rarely have
a place to use it.

I don't apply for high paying jobs in my field because I know that I lack the
basic necessities to make a good impression. I've tried and do entertain
opportunities that fall on my lap, but I always make a blunder due to not
having the resources I need and they fade away. It feels safter to not try,
given domino effects of interviewing poorly (permanent record, data). "Learned
helplessness" for sure. I was hired to my current job on the spot, thankfully,
and almost didn't get it due to logistic issues that I'm intentionally vague
about.

Personally I was not a supporter of Prop C and take no government assistance,
instead fasting and meditating when I can't earn money and nobody in my
network can help me out.

We'll get through this. I'm staying strong.

~~~
denimnerd42
your online presence paints you as crazy, especially your twitter. your
personal website would make me avoid hiring you for sure too. take all that
crap down and send some resumes out in a different part of the country.
there's no sense killing yourself to make it in the bay area.

~~~
Kye
I don't think someone deserves to be destitute just because they have a
fragile worldview and are sour at their poor prospects. Material security is a
great way to deradicalize people and keep them from getting there in the first
place.

~~~
roguecoder
No one deserves to be destitute, which is why we have a social safety net (and
should have a stronger one). But as an employer, the danger of hiring someone
who appears unstable is high: how will they treat their coworkers? What
happens if they have a bad day right before a deadline? What if a customer
criticizes them and their coping mechanisms break down?

Some jobs specifically have structures in place to help people make those
transitions: lots of structure, clear direction, very specific expectations,
independent work, separating customer-facing and non-customer-facing roles,
close oversight of interpersonal interactions. Fewer tech companies expect to
provide that kind of transitional support and most aren't willing to put
themselves in a position where they would have to.

Painting a public persona that makes people want to work with you is the most
basic of sales techniques. No one deserves to be destitute, but no one is
guaranteed a high-paying tech job either.

------
the_economist
San Francisco gives homeless people $520/month in cash. Unclear whether other
Bay Area cities do the same. This is quite the incentive for homeless from
around the state to move here, though. Whether or not it causes people to move
here, it certainly funds much of the drug-fueled insanity we see on the
streets.

This program gives out around $25 mil/year:
[https://www.sfhsa.org/services/jobs-money/county-adult-
assis...](https://www.sfhsa.org/services/jobs-money/county-adult-assistance-
programs-caap)

Most of the money is given out in the Tenderloin:
[https://www.sfhsa.org/file/7161/download?token=ywGXXXRl](https://www.sfhsa.org/file/7161/download?token=ywGXXXRl)

More info: [https://www.sfhsa.org/about/reports-publications/human-
servi...](https://www.sfhsa.org/about/reports-publications/human-services-
reports)

~~~
shawndrost
The phenomenon you're talking about wouldn't explain much of the problem,
given that most homeless people lived here before they were homeless. In the
2017 census, 69% of SF homeless were from SF, and 21% were from elsewhere in
CA. 10% out of state.

~~~
floren
By your own numbers, 31% of homeless in SF, nearly a third, came from either
elsewhere in the state (as OP posits) or another state entirely. That's a
pretty big chunk of the problem.

~~~
kelnos
I'm not sure how you solve that particular part of the problem, though. If
your city attracts non-local homeless people because your services for
homeless people are good, cutting or eliminating those services doesn't solve
the problem. It just makes living conditions worse for the people who are
already there, and makes it even harder for them to get by. Leaving often
isn't an option; if you can barely afford food, how can you afford a bus
ticket elsewhere? And even if you could, that's still a risky proposition,
striking out for a new city where you have no idea what the homeless scene is
like.

------
dforrestwilson
Hopefully, this does not get down-voted.

I have lived all over the US, and noticed that only in California do I find
young homeless people. They generally seem happy and even have dogs.

I never saw this in NYC or anywhere else on the East Coast or in the Midwest.

Is there a reason why the demographics would be different?

~~~
charlesju
This is a national problem (ie. anyone in the US can be homeless anywhere),
and yet it's trying to be solved at a city level.

Logistically that is impossible and makes no sense.

As for why there are so many young people homeless in SF, it's probably
because SF is one of the most willing cities trying to solve a national
problem by itself. We also have great weather (not too hot in the summer, not
too cold in the winter). And probably a lot of generous people walking the
streets.

It's really horrible what our national government has allowed to happen in our
country and it's impractical for our city to hold the burden to solve this
nation's problems.

~~~
clairity
only defense, interstate commerce, international relations, and the like are
national problems.

the _state_ is the canonical unit for a problem like homelessness, and each
state is free to delegate to local jurisdictions or to coordinate with other
states on solutions.

by the way, san francisco has about 8000 homeless folks, and LA has ~55,000
(~40% of the 130,000 homeless in the state). if we wanted to build new housing
for all of these folks, we'd need about $50B (state budget is about
$200B/year). LA, for instance, spent $0.6B on homelessness last year, or about
3% of what is needed just in LA.

we either continuously pay for homelessness indirectly (and ineffectively),
through police, crime, social services, drugs, non-profits, governmental
programs, emergency services, etc. or actually tackle the problem directly by
raising and allocating that $50B.

(obviously talking about first-order effects here. this is not an in-depth
policy paper.)

~~~
kelnos
Given that the federal government weasels its way into things by claiming
"interstate commerce" in questionable circumstances, or threatening
withholding things like federal highway funds if states don't comply, your
argument doesn't hold much water with me.

Hell, the REAL ID act is technically illegal, but the feds can use the "we
won't let you board a flight without one" stick to force compliance.

The federal government gets its paws into whatever it wants to. It simply
doesn't care about homeless issues.

I do agree that, on its face, homelessness seems like a textbook local/state
problem. However, any city/state that tries to solve the problem with money
and services will be a magnet for homeless people from outside the area, which
can easily overwhelm the services provided. How do you fix that?

~~~
UnFleshedOne
States and cities can build a wall and introduce a visa system? I don't
understand how any problem that would require effective border control to
solve at a local level (because otherwise it turns into a global problem) can
be considered a textbook state problem?

I'd say this is a textbook border-controlling-entity-level problem...

~~~
roguecoder
Yeah, you know, Brexit is going really great for Britain: we should definitely
try dissolving the union and see if that helps.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
My preference (and argument) falls closer to global planetary government than
to village-state actually...

------
nradov
People tend to focus on San Francisco because the homeless sleeping on
sidewalks are so visible, but it seems like the situation in San Jose is
getting worse at an accelerating rate. The problem just isn't as visible there
because the city is less dense and more spread out. Take a ride along the
Guadalupe River Trail, Los Gatos Creek Trail, and the Coyote Creek Trail, and
look carefully under the bushes: you'll be shocked at the number of homeless
encampments. I don't have population numbers but subjectively it's noticeably
worse than it was 5 years ago.

It's a terrible situation for people, but at the same time after helping out
with a few river cleanup efforts my sympathy is wearing thin (I do continue
donating to several local charities serving the homeless population). Even
when there are public garbage cans within walking distance many of the
homeless population have been throwing their garbage on the ecologically
sensitive river banks — including drug paraphernalia and other hazardous
waste. Our rivers are turning into landfills and the city crews can't keep up.

I was in Reno a few weeks ago and the banks of the Truckee River are one solid
homeless encampment for several miles. They've completely taken over several
public parks. Locals complained that they no longer felt safe going there.

~~~
downrightmike
The situation has been around for a long time, what we're seeing is a bum-
rush. Groups of people just come in and take over areas: [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/bum-rush](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/bum-rush)

------
homeless_sad
We can't really reckon with our homeless problem without reckoning with the
way we treat the severely mentally ill. At this point, we don't treat them.
Many of the homeless, and a majority of the chronically homeless, are people
who are severely mentally ill.

We used to have a state psychiatric hospital system. That system has been
destroyed. Now, the severely mentally ill, when they get any treatment at all,
are primarily treated in American prisons.

[https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-
services/gov-m...](https://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/gov-
mental-health-boarding.html)

[https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-
u-s...](https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-
psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis)

[https://journalofethics.ama-
assn.org/article/deinstitutional...](https://journalofethics.ama-
assn.org/article/deinstitutionalization-people-mental-illness-causes-and-
consequences/2013-10)

[https://www.amazon.com/American-Psychosis-Government-
Destroy...](https://www.amazon.com/American-Psychosis-Government-Destroyed-
Treatment/dp/0199988714)

 _" Many times individuals who really do require intensive psychiatric care
find themselves homeless or more and more in prison," Sisti says. "Much of our
mental health care now for individuals with serious mental illness has been
shifted to correctional facilities."

The percentage of people with serious mental illness in prisons rose from .7
percent in 1880 to 21 percent in 2005, according to the Center for Prisoner
Health and Human Rights._

 _A consensus of other experts estimates that the total number of state beds
required for acute and long-term care would be more like 50 beds per 100,000
in the population [5]. At the peak of availability in 1955, there were 340
beds per 100,000 [5]. In 2010, the number of state beds was 43,318 or 14.1
beds per 100,000 [7]._

------
bradlys
[https://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-breed-announces-new-
homele...](https://sfmayor.org/article/mayor-breed-announces-new-homelessness-
prevention-funding-city-releases-initial-homelessness)

> The increase in unsheltered people was driven largely by people living in
> vehicles, accounting for 68% of the increase in unsheltered people.

Seems people are using vehicles more and that looks to be the largest
contributor. Me and my SO have considered such an idea because we've been open
to the idea of living in tiny houses, etc. (We live in a 400sqft in-law unit
now) We also know people who have lived out of them. Quite happily btw.

Things like this don't really give you an idea if it's forced or willing
homelessness. Sure, maybe everyone would love a $3m home in Palo Alto (also
known as "a home" in the rest of the country) but they're willing to suffer a
bit to save some serious $$$ like we all do in various ways.

Anyway - would like more insight and look forward to the full report coming
out whenever it does.

~~~
roguecoder
There's a continuum of "forced" versus "willing": raising the cost of rent
beyond what someone can comfortably afford, but maybe they could manage if
they didn't buy anything else and ate only beans and rice is only slightly
less coercive than raising the rent beyond what they can afford at all.

------
quxbar
My brother lives in Humboldt county, I thought he was exaggerating the
situation there but now I can't help but believe him. The stats are staggering
- Humboldt's homeless population is up 157% in two years!

------
chiefalchemist
It seems to be funding, services and counting are all related. That is, open a
new shelter and you're going to serve (read: count) more homeless.

I'm not disputing there have been increases in homelessness. And we are our
brothers' / sisters' keeper, so I'm not taking a stand against funding such
efforts. What I'm wondering (out loud) about is the accuracy of previous
counting. That is, how much is an actual increase, and how much is due to the
thoroughness of the counting?

~~~
cheriot
From what I've seen of the canvasing, it's pretty thorough. They walk around
all the neighborhoods with clipboards.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes. But that still doesn't support there are more. The depth and breadth of
this canvasing could have improved (note: as it should). It's also possible
the homeless are more willing to be seen and counted. That is, the stigma has
softened.

~~~
cheriot
One can always identify something unknown and question the result. Is there an
actual reason to think this count was different? Especially with governments,
betting they did the same thing they've always done has the highest
probability.

------
roseway4
It would be great to understand why the Bay Area is seeing this increase. I
haven't seen any studies that attempt to quantify this viz. the effects of
local cost of housing increases vs arrivals from elsewhere vs mental health
system failures vs ? It strikes me that understanding the root cause-through
interviews etc-would be an important input to a policy response.

~~~
shawndrost
SF does a homeless census every 2 years. It answers many of the questions you
might have. Eg in the 2017 census:

* 69% were from SF and 21% from elsewhere in CA (10% out of state) * 39% reported psychiatric or emotional conditions

[http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-
Poin...](http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in-
Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf)

------
diogenescynic
It's honestly an epidemic and people have to admit it's mostly due to meth and
heroin--it's not all due to housing prices. Yes, housing affordability is
absolutely a real issue and there are people being displaced and actually are
homeless from it--but that's not the real source if this crisis. We literally
have THOUSANDS of mentally ill and criminally insane drug addicts all over the
city in a constant state of anarchy.

For example, I live in a decent area (near Noe Valley) and constantly have
homeless people in our carport area of our building. The landlord refuses to
install a security camera, and actually removed the dummy security cameras
which is now making the problem worse. I have had my car broken into like 8
times in 5 years. Every single night there are 2-3 of the same tweakers and
addicts down there doing drugs, screaming all night, leaving needles and feces
all over. I call the cops 2-3x a day and the cops show up probably 1/50 times
but they never actually do anything but shoo them along and then they come
back in 2 hours.

I've left messages for the local SFPD Sergeant, I've gone to community
meetings and asking for more patrols, I've written my supervisor. NOTHING has
changed. This is a miserable way to live when you already have a stressful job
and have hard work. I truly do not want to live my life in a city like this.
The cops do nothing, DAs don't prosecute, juries don't convict, and judges
don't sentence--yet housing prices are $2.5M for the privilege of having a
tweaker camp outside your house. I just don't get it. This video is of
Seattle, but it's basically the same situation in SF but 25% worse:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw)

------
jondubois
I don't understand how a country can maintain a coherent system of law when
there are so many homeless people and almost 1% of the entire population is in
prison.

~~~
downrightmike
The percent is only so high because JFK closed the mental wards and expected
communities to pick up the difference.

~~~
downrightmike
[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/opinion/out-of-the-
asylum...](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/opinion/out-of-the-asylum-into-
the-cell.html)

------
heimatau
From my personal experience from helping actual homeless people and being one
(with my family). I find the homeless population is struggling. The numbers
are GROWING...all around the greater bay area (up to Sacramento, where I
currently reside). The majority _aren 't_ suffering from mental health
problems, which to me, is terrifying for our society.

If the US has a 'growing economy' what will happen when we start to see this
recession/depression that many are saying is eminent? I can't help but agree
with the world leaders that the entire global economy is very fragile.

We _can_ build our way out of this but I'm skeptical that California could
build it's way out due to the private interests of powerful people (even
single/one home-owners).

~~~
shereadsthenews
It’s not unthinkable that a recession could indirectly help by lowering
construction costs.

~~~
heimatau
> It's not unthinkable

It's highly unlikely. SV is an economic engine for Cali and the USA. Unions
and bureaucracies (local govt red tape) are the driving forces to high
construction costs.

------
weeksie
Build. More. Shelters.

I live in New York and we have _more_ homeless people per capita than San
Francisco but we don't have the same kinds of problems. The very simple
solution is to build shelters. The rate of homeless that are sheltered in NY
is WAY higher and as a result we don't have the same kind of problems.

In SF 492/100k residents sleep on the street. In NYC the rate is 45/100k.

Source: [https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-
street-h...](https://medium.com/@josefow/new-york-decided-to-end-street-
homelessness-and-it-basically-succeeded-ab27f3ec5a65)

(among others, these aren't controversial numbers)

~~~
demosthenes14
Seems like this could be heavily correlated with weather.

~~~
weeksie
Weather has something to do with the amount of shelters? I'm not sure I
follow.

~~~
demosthenes14
There are (legitimate) drawbacks to living/sleeping in a shelter and with
moderate weather on the west coast many homeless choose to sleep outside.
Shelters here already have empty beds so building more isn’t going to solve
anything - there just isn’t a tangible benefit over sleeping in a private tent
outside.

~~~
weeksie
That's one hypothesis I suppose.

------
throw2016
There is a homeless epidemic. Anyone who lives in the US can see it. But these
issues are being closely tracked and discussed widely in political problem
solving contexts, and HN is more of an observer reacting to the most extreme
examples that make news usually with very little empathy focused mainly on the
consequences to others, so the discussions are weirdly 'disconnected' and
stuck in 'first principles'.

Look at every single homeless discussion on HN over the last 5 years, its
homeless people are bums, weirdoes who enjoy living in poverty without homes
or people who are 'choosing this lifestyle' based on anecdotal evidence mostly
focused on how they negatively impact the commentators life, untill the next
article. Is having this same discussion over and over again helpful to anyone?

The software community used to be associated with freedom, liberty and not
being jerks, more connected to the human experience and with empathy. Now they
build surveillance systems, are increasingly authoritarian in their outlook
and are snarky about others suffering. There may be a serious problem of
homelessness but it seems this absence of empathy is a much more serious
problem for any society leaving it unequal to any social challenge.

~~~
closeparen
It’s easy to preach empathy from a leafy suburb. I certainly used to. When you
are actually inhaling piss, stepping over feces, and weaving through tents
every time you go outside, the situation is a bit different. Much of HN lives
in urban SF and moves around the city without a glass and steel cage. In that
light, homelessness moves down Maslow’s hierarchy from a moral reasoning
problem to a visceral disgust/fear, a threat to the safety and dignity of
home.

It’s one thing to be “against” mass incarceration and the criminalization of
the poor, another to be okay with zero police response to your own
assault/burglary. It’s one thing to be pro legalization, another to be okay
with street dealers on your block. One thing to believe homeless people have a
right to go where they please, another to stay committed when they decide to
camp at your doorstep.

Maybe I am the only fake/uncommitted liberal but I get the sense that this
kind of right-shifting after a few years in SF is not uncommon.

~~~
funkjunky
You're not the only one. The daily grind of dealing with this shit on the
streets and homeless/muggers on muni is giving me a noticeable rightward shift
from my typically progressive politics. And I used to BE homeless!

My homeless friends in Berkeley pine about the good old days before the nuts,
tweakers, dope fiends, and dirtbags started to multiply and swarm the
community. If HOMELESS people are complaining about the homeless people in
your city, you have a big problem.

Anecdotally, a crazy homeless lady was stabbing random people with scissors in
my neighborhood last year, and I just checked up on what happened with her.
Charges reduced to misdemeanors and set loose back on the streets. Meanwhile
uppity rich liberals complain about police treatment of the homeless, and
launch anonymous opposition to shelters and new housing development when they
come to their neighborhoods. That basically sums up everything going wrong
here from my perspective.

~~~
conanbatt
There's a homeless NIMBYISM joke around here somewhere.

------
hhanesand
Wouldn’t more spending homelessness at the state level incentivize homeless
migration into the state, therefore possibly counteracting the effects of the
spending? To me it seems like this is something which needs to be addressed at
the federal level.

Anyone have any research they can point to about this possible issue?

------
dsfyu404ed
I can't help but notice that all the people saying they have similiar symptoms
in non-CA cities are mentioning cities that are popular places for people
moving out of CA to go to and cities where there is a lot of complaining about
the newcomers enacting the kind of public policy that gave CA it's problem. I
know this is just correlation and doesn't mean anything by itself but I can't
help but notice it.

------
misiti3780
Does anyone know where the data came from that made this plot ?

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xdae/more-people-
poopin...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xdae/more-people-pooping-in-
san-francisco-than-ever-all-time-high-vgtrn)

I could not it in the pages or article ?

------
sneakernets
>San Francisco has seen rental prices skyrocket

Add deinstitutionalization on top of that, The Opioid epidemic, And that the
majority of the population still think in bootstraps,

You're going to see it only get worse. Remember, you are your brother's
keeper, whether you want to be or not.

~~~
lostgame
>> Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not.

I've never heard is phrase and I really like how you phrased it. There's no
way to determine the apathy of humanity more than being homeless and seeing
just how little people give a damn. We're trained to ignore these people, and
then when we become one, we see just how awful we have been.

There was actually a 1985 Twilight Zone episode about this...

~~~
b_tterc_p
It is a biblical quote. Cain kills his brother. Then God asks where his
brother is, and Cain says idk, he’s not my problem.

------
purplezooey
Wow double digit growth. Meanwhile AB50 is stalled. This is probably the worst
part of the BA which is otherwise wonderful. Its utter helplessness in
confronting it's housing problem.

------
mesozoic
We've solve the mystery of where the poop is coming from!

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

------
sgt
I initially read this as "Homeless population jumps by thousands across the
San Francisco Bay".

------
itsaidpens
Someone please smash together a chart of Tesla vehicle sales and homelessness
rates in California. I think it would be very interesting.

