

The Outsiders – Homelessness in San Francisco - brandonb
http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-outsiders

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sankyo
"While the homeless may always be with us, we need to ensure that we are
helping them in the most effective ways possible. For the city named after
Francis of Assisi, a nobleman who gave away everything he had when he saw a
poor man on the street, nothing less is acceptable."

The article seems to imply that creating more housing will solve this problem.
Such is not the case. "Homeless" is a euphemism. There are two types of street
people: 1. Those who cannot take care of themselves. 2. Those who will not
take care of themselves.

As a society, we should take care of the people who are unable to take care of
themselves. I do not know how to define "take care", but it definitely should
not include having schizophrenic episodes on the corner, intimidating
panhandling, drug fueled benders, and shitting like animals on the city
sidewalks.

One idea is to lock them up in an institution. This is expensive, arguably
unfair, and creates an opportunity for abuse and corruption (one flew over the
cuckoo's nest), and sets up a big liability - How long before violence or
abuse causes a huge payout from the government?

For the others who _can_ take care of themselves but will not, they seem to me
to be some combination of really bad choices and really bad luck, it is less
clear to me what our responsibility to them is, and I wonder how much they can
be helped. Consider Tap from the article. If he just wants to tap dance and
get drunk all day, sleeping and shitting on the streets in my neighborhood, I
am completely unsupportive. I will call the cops every time I find him passed
out. Hopefully they will run him out of town. As much as he wants this
lifestyle, it cannot make ends meet. He seems like a likable fellow during his
stable periods, but I do not want to subsidize him.

If you don't want to make an honest living, you are going to have to break
laws: dealing drugs, breaking car windows and stealing from them, stealing and
selling bicycles. I have no tolerance for these layabouts and I cannot see why
anyone else should either.

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room271
Your binary divide between worthy homeless and unworthy is simplistic. Why,
for example, do some cities have far more homeless people than others.

The high number of homeless people really struck me when I visited San
Francisco a couple of years ago, and it's worth as a city asking why. For a
wealthy place, it was incredibly sad and surprising too.

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pkaye
Mild weather and tolerance/support of homelessness tends to draw more in.

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Terr_
Minimally, though. Most of the people you'll encounter are locals.

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pkaye
How do you know they are local? Based on statistics? What do you define as
local? If they have been here for 5 years is it local?

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yohann305
Apple rejected my app where you could give your lunch leftover to the nearby
homeless person. Apple told me the homeless person did not agree to be
tracked. Well shall we give them all an iPhone so that they could agree? (you
smell sarcasm?) I mean it's not like they are safe and this app would
jeopardize their safety more...

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Centreal
Could you tag, track, or predict a (safe and secure?) time and space to leave
food instead of their identity?

Microempathic targeting of food pain points could be a healthily
decentralizable dApp for Bitnation?

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acomjean
Thorough. As a city dweller for many years, you do get jaded. Although I give
financially to charities and try to be compassionate I do get annoyed at the
constant pan handling.

Interesting that the article is coming from a fairly upscale magazine chain

[http://www.modernluxury.com/](http://www.modernluxury.com/)

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sxcurry
Good article about a difficult problem. Here's an excellent series on
homelessness in Portland OR: [http://www.oregonlive.com/portland-
homeless/#incart_maj-stor...](http://www.oregonlive.com/portland-
homeless/#incart_maj-story-1)

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vinceguidry
Fantastic article. Well worth reading in its entirety.

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e40
_How, after all of the city’s investments, can it be faced with a virtually
identical situation a quarter century_

It's clear that the problem would be much, much worse had it not been for all
that investment.

~~~
masterleep
Alternately, it's clear that the so-called investment badly missed the mark.

~~~
presidentender
Given the disagreement and the impossibility of hard scientific investigation
into the problem, it's clear that nothing is clear.

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tpainton
San Francisco has a homeless problem because it invited such. I guess it's
total coincidence that the most liberal cities in the US also have the highest
incidence of homeless population. As long as it remains a profitable and easy
lifestyle, homelessness persists. Change those variables however you want and
the problem goes away. This is not to say there are not those who are homeless
due to bum luck. In many cities, this is the majority. Not so much in San
Francisco where homelessness is a true profession.

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skj
> I guess it's total coincidence that the most liberal cities in the US also
> have the highest incidence of homeless population.

[citation needed]

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gadders
Here you go:

[http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_san-francisco-
homeless...](http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_san-francisco-
homeless.html)

~~~
genericuser
That article does not seem to claim that point in it. Maybe I just missed it.
But I checked all usages of high, population, city, and cities, so if the
point is made in that article is is done so with different enough language to
be difficult to find considering the article's length.

Edit: That all means I am calling bullshit on that being a citation for that
fact (or 'fact' depending on your view of it).

~~~
cozzyd
The Manhattan Institute's mission is (I paraphrase) to make selfish rich
people feel less guilty, so I would be wary of any claims made by the article.

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kefka
Great article.

After reading reddit.com/r/news , I found the following:
[http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/03/01/amateur-
videograph...](http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/03/01/amateur-videographer-
captures-deadly-officer-involved-shooting-on-camera/)

So, one homeless disposal technique is to house them. Another is to consider
them violent criminals and execute them.

~~~
cozzyd
Then there's the also the ship them off to California strategy,
[http://www.businessinsider.com/nevada-california-mental-
pati...](http://www.businessinsider.com/nevada-california-mental-patient-
dumping-2013-8)

