
What San Francisco Says About America - imartin2k
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/what-san-francisco-says-about-america.html
======
habosa
If you live in SF (like me) and want to do something to help, consider
donating time or money to a local charity focused on homelessness. My personal
recommendation is Larkin Street Youth Services [0].

There are ~2000 homeless youth (age < 25) in San Francisco on any given night.
These young people were often the victims of terrible family situations and
have no support network. Larkin Street helps to provide shelter, counseling,
education, and anything else they may need to get off the streets for good.
More than 70% of the people who "graduate" from Larkin Street leave street
life forever.

I know on Hacker News we like to talk about the political causes and solutions
to a problem like this. But tomorrow's laws won't change the fact that there
are homeless people sleeping on the street every night who need help.
Charitable organizations are there to help meet these immediate needs.

[0] - [http://larkinstreetyouth.org/](http://larkinstreetyouth.org/)

~~~
JustUhThought
In my experience donating time or money does not change the systemic causes of
the issues. You will forever be donating. For real,sustainable change a
different society must be built, whatever that might look like.

~~~
maneesh
"if I can't fix everything, let's just do nothing at all!"

~~~
JustUhThought
Not exactly. How about, there are a million other options than straight up
donation. Not at all a false choice.

~~~
rhizome
Such as? I bet LSYS is much more knowledgeable and skilled than I am at
providing services to the homeless.

------
Camillo
San Francisco spends $241 million a year[1] on the homeless. Perhaps what it
says about America is that you can't solve these kinds of problems by throwing
more and more money at them, but that won't keep politicians from trying.

[1: [http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-
record...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-
record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php)]

~~~
quinnchr
The average homeless person in the US cost tax payers around $40,000 [1]. In
2015 SF had a homeless population of 7539 [2]. Meaning they're spending on
average of about $32000 per homeless person, $8000 less than the national
average.

From 2013 to 2015 San Francisco experienced a 2% increase in the total number
of homeless, while the nation as a whole saw a 5.2% decrease.

Sounds like it's a problem you can't underspend your way out of.

[1] [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2012/mar/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2012/mar/12/shaun-donovan/hud-secretary-says-homeless-person-
costs-taxpayers/) [2]
[https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran...](https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf)

~~~
ok_craig
Maybe SF spends its money more smartly. People complain about the homeless
problem in SF but never seem to stop to think that perhaps we have more
homeless because there is less incentive to not be homeless in SF. NYC has
lower homelessness because the winters are shit and the police are hostile. In
SF, the weather is great and police let you shit in the street without much of
a confrontation. Is there seriously any question why the rate is higher here?
The homeless are treated pretty decently. SF has more homeless because it
generally treats them better than the rest of the US, not worse.

~~~
esaym
I guess I'll chime in here. I normally don't talk about homelessness as I had
a distant cousin (grandpa's sister's son) that loved to be homeless. So my
opinion will be quite negative/biased.

But yes you are right about SF. This cousin of mine would regularly leave his
family and travel around the US hitchhiking for one or two years at a time. He
spent most of his time in Cali, not sure which city. He said it was great to
go there for the winter as at that time senior citizens (he was not a senior
but he would pass based on looks) could get free public transit tickets. So
after a long day of panhandling or drinking, he'd get on a nice warm bus for a
night and sleep.

He seemed to be part of some kind of "homeless elite". There was nothing wrong
with him physically or mentally (other than severe stubbornness) and it was
the same with this group of friends he would regularly meet up with. They
would all be in Cali for the winter. They'd bum money on the street pulling in
$100+ a day and spend it on alcohol where him and his buddies would sit around
in an alley socializing over how everyone is stupid. After winter they'd all
disperse to Chicago or the east cost (not sure about NY). He'd randomly run
into his buddies throughout out the Spring and Summer months in other cities
as well.

He talked favorably of Cali and the east cost. There were some overpasses in
Texas on I10 and I35 that he mentioned were also where the cool guys hung out
at, can't remember were exactly. But he didn't really like Texas much. In
Austin he would be quickly arrested for "vagrancy". This would happen in San
Antonio too, but before the cops would haul him off he would call my
grandparents about 20 miles away to come pick him up.

I stayed off and on at my grandparent's house while going to college for 4
years. I had the pleasure of rooming with him many times. When he would show
up, my grandma would wash his bag of cloths, but it would stain the inside of
the washer black, so she'd have to wash 'em a few more times and then
eventually wash the washer by hand. His first shower hot off the streets was
also a doozy too. The walls would be caked with globs of this white jelly type
stuff. I can only assume it was from massive amounts of built up dead skin
that washed off. But it would glob up in the drain, and along with his long
uncut hair, clog everything up. It was totally gag-tastic cleaning it out. The
last few times he came around, I was too annoyed to deal with him again so I
convinced the pastor at a local small church to let me sleep in their gym at
night for a week(even though there was a mouse and scorpion problem there, I
didn't care).

He was a cool guy, had some hilarious stories and you could hold a
conversation with him for hours. He once told me he didn't learn how to read
until he was 28. Said he taught himself. I asked what motivated him to do that
and he said he wanted to be able to read the captions next to women in porno
mags. Both my grandparents and his mother dumped a lot of cash into him but
nothing helped. He would always get mad at something a leave again. One of the
more memorable times, he was living with his mother for a bit (I think the
cops grabbed him in Dallas and his mother was close to there) but he got mad
at her for some reason and started to leave again. She gave him her car, some
cash, stuffed the car with clothes, food and a TV. He drove off in it but it
broke down about 10 miles down the road. He just left it there and hitchhiked
to Dallas where he stayed for a month or so before getting picked up again.

He died about a year ago actually. Probably 55. He spend his last few years
living in some low incoming housing (for free) near Dallas. His last year was
spent with him having various hoses hanging out from his abdomen. He would
have to go to the hospital for the doctors to drain fluids out of him from
failing organs. He didn't seem to mind though, he thought the hoses were
stupid and kept drinking until the end.

Hard to say how much he cost society (from a government perspective). He
seemed to pay his way most of his life. Only the last few years did he get any
kind of government assistance.

Heck of a guy, but dang.

~~~
rayiner
> Hard to say how much he cost society. He seemed to pay his way most of his
> life.

Are you excluding the charity?

~~~
ptaipale
Likely, and why not? The man sells a story, someone buys it voluntarily. It's
a profession.

------
brianmcconnell
I moved to SF in the early 90s. I think you can pin the large homeless
population on several things. One is the climate. If you had to pick a place
to be homeless, this would be one of the best places. Another is it is
relatively safe compared to other cities. But most importantly you can blame
Ronald Reagan for dismantling the states mental health infrastructure.
Institutionalizing people has its downsides, but its more humane than letting
people overdose on a sidewalk. It also doesn't help that other municipalities
have a habit of dumping their social services burdens on San Francisco (one
way buses from Nevada, etc). I don't see anything changing until we have a
national or at least regional mental health system that can actually deal with
the scale of the problem.

~~~
sevenless
I've never seen any city with a homeless population like San Francisco's and
I've been to much poorer places. Side by side with the artists and web
developers is a parallel tent city, and it seems to have a lot of mentally
ill, people with drug problems, and traumatized military veterans. People who
in any other nation would be taken care of.

Simply put Americans don't seem to care very much about other Americans.

~~~
rconti
Portland's homeless problem is supposedly vastly, vastly worse than San
Francisco.

What does it mean to "take care of" our homeless? House them? Who is willing
to pay $3k/mo rent per homeless person?

In a third world nation, the "homeless" in San Francisco would be allowed to
build a shantytown and would not be considered homeless. I'm not trying to
minimize the real issues of poverty, but you can't avoid the fact that part of
the problem is that regulation/civilization/whatever you want to call it has
disallowed poor housing.

~~~
ktRolster

       >Who is willing to pay $3k/mo rent per homeless person?
    

If someone is willing, I just because homeless.

~~~
Applejinx
I know, right? I've been running a entrepreneurial business for nearly ten
years, and lost my payment processor (still owes me for two months of sales)
because they went out of business. I'm trying to get a Patreon to bring me in
$800 a month and failing, even though I'm now giving away the products for
free to try and scare up quantities of people who can spare a dollar a month.

I consider myself pre-homeless at this point.

------
raldi
There at a lot of places in the world that have a smaller inequality gap than
San Francisco not for any noble reason, but simply because they drove out all
their poor people.

Show me a city with massive inequality, and I'll show you a city that has
found a way to allow its least-fortunate citizens to make a way of life there.

~~~
wtvanhest
Yes, this is the true answer. Like many KPIs, Inequality is not a good measure
of anything on its on.

~~~
adevine
I disagree. I was just reading an article by Jeremy Grantham that cited data
showing how inequality is correlated with basically every measure of health
and social problems. See [https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-
spirit-level](https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level),
especially the PowerPoint slides linked from that page. To quote:

It shows that for each of eleven different health and social problems:
physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity,
social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and
child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich
countries.

~~~
vlehto
So we have bunch of things that correlate together.

Now tell me which one is causing it and which ones are effects. It's also
possible that all of these are caused by some hidden thing.

~~~
jomamaxx
I don't think it's 'one hidden thing'.

It's a 'million little things' in the system, and most of it is cultural
values, some of it is social policy, some of it is not evident, for example,
'inequality' in SF is driven simply by the fact that some people are creating
so much value, making so much money it skews the numbers.

When some people in a community make a lot of money - it makes it's way into
the housing system and really screws things up.

Also - a lot of the most 'equal' societies are very poor, so having 'equality'
should not be a social objective in and of itself.

~~~
adevine
> Also - a lot of the most 'equal' societies are very poor, so having
> 'equality' should not be a social objective in and of itself

This is false. Most countries with low Gini coefficients are places like Japan
and Scandinavia, while high Gini countries are places like Sub-Saharan Africa
and South America. There are outliers, but the trend is clear.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality)

~~~
vlehto
It's not false and that trend is nothing but clear.

There is no clear trend in countries below 20 000$/person/year GDP (ppp).

There is clear trend of lower Gini = higher GDP in countries that fall in
range of 20 000$ - 45 000$. Above that, the trend reverses.

I had to exclude Afganistan, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia,
Somalia, Syria and Ivory coast becase the data didn't have gini for them.

------
bsder
There is also a tension between "helping" someone and "infringing their rights
as a human."

Somehow I think that Thailand/Bangkok doesn't worry all that much about the
"rights" side of that balance.

At what point do you declare someone with mental illness "sick and unfit"?
This is not an easy question. Family members, who would know a person best,
can't always answer that question well.

~~~
grugq
Culturally, there is a huge difference between American nuclear families and
Thai extended families. As was mentioned in TFA, when someone in Bangkok is
unable to support themselves they fall back on their extended family as a
support network. This can mean moving from Bangkok to a rural village where
they are given work doing farm labor... it can mean they are given a "job" for
room and board by a family member with a business in Bangkok, etc. etc.

There is no social safety net to speak of, but the extended family model
provides a functionally equivalent version. Again, this was explicitly stated
in the article itself.

Your insinuation that there is forced institutionalisation because the Thais
don't respect "human rights" is, quite frankly, racist.

~~~
bsder
> As was mentioned in TFA, when someone in Bangkok is unable to support
> themselves they fall back on their extended family as a support network.

Why do you magically assume that the same is not true in the US? Why do you
magically assume that the homeless actually _have_ living relatives or
families? And what happens if the person refuses to move or is too far gone?
What then? Who makes that call?

The fact that you are quite so glib about making such an assessment,
quantifying it as a "solution" (Have you ever taken care of somebody with
severe Alzheimers? That's a 24/7 job.), and imposing it upon both the
individual and their family shows a distinct lack of understanding.

> Your insinuation that there is forced institutionalisation because the Thais
> don't respect "human rights" is, quite frankly, racist.

You will have to do better than an ad hominem attack to excuse the human
rights situation in Thailand, thanks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Thailand)

And, an insinuation about institutionalization is probably the most charitable
characterization given that many of the homeless also have substance abuse
problems.

Allow me to be particularly uncharitable: I suspect that many of the urban
homeless simply "disappear" if the Thai police don't find them useful for
shaking somebody down.

~~~
aminok
Human rights is subjectively defined. You and your fellow social democrats
define it as forcing a drug addict into treatment. You use terms like "human
rights" to stigmatize those who don't share your beliefs.

A sensible person would define throwing a productive person into prison for
refusing to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade
(i.e. refusing to comply with income tax law) as a human rights violation
before they would define compulsory treatment as one. You and your fellow
social democrats have absolutely no problem imposing authoritarian measures to
force people to forfeit their private property to pay for the programs you
want.

------
aminok
>It seems a terrible statement about my home country that my children will
encounter homelessness and mental illness much more vividly in the wealthiest
nation in the world than they did in Thailand, where we previously lived.

>During a trip back to Bangkok I spoke about this paradox with Nopphan
Phromsri, the secretary general of the Human Settlement Foundation, an
organization that assists the homeless there.

>Greater Bangkok, a sprawling metropolis with more than 10 million people, has
1,300 homeless people, a survey this year found.

* Thailand spends far less on subsidies for the poor.

* The government intervention that does take place in Thailand to address homelessness is much more balanced in the authoritarianism it imposes on taxpayer vs tax recipient. Drug addicts can't receive welfare their entire life with zero accountability. Instead they are enrolled into compulsory treatment programs.

Western culture considers compulsory treatment a human rights violation, but
does not consider throwing someone in prison for refusing to hand over a share
of the currency they receive in private trade, to pay for welfare, similarly a
human rights violation. This irrational, ideology based approach to human
rights is behind this imbalanced approach to drug abuse and welfare.

* Thailand has far less effective enforcement of authoritarian economic prohibitions, like prohibitions on running an unlicensed business. This provides more space for the poor, who have more difficulty meeting licensing requirements, to participate in economically productive activity. That's why Thailand has bustling street markets and an informal economy (derogatorily referred to as a "shadow economy" in some circles) that provides stable sources of income for millions of people.

~~~
WalterBright
The US also has zoning laws which prevent construction of low cost housing
(such as dormitories), and minimum wage laws which prevent employment of
marginally employable people.

~~~
Applejinx
…which really puts the damper on an otherwise thriving slave labor
demographic.

~~~
aminok
People earning below US minimum wage (in purchasing power terms) are not
slaves. Those at the margins would benefit from being employed. It teaches
them valuable skills that improve their position for the future.

------
cylinder
Well, what _does_ it say? The article seems to abruptly end without laying out
a thesis or conclusion.

~~~
omegaham
I agree - in fact, I thought that the page had cut off half of the article. It
just ends with something about Walmart. I thought he was going somewhere with
that.

~~~
mistersquid
The Walmart bit draws a parallel between factory labor and US consumerism
along the lines of: global capitalism inserts laborers into Southeast Asian
manufacturing assemblages and similarly corrals consumers into Northern
Californian box stores.

While I think the comparison is at least interesting if not actually useful
(to help think about the effects and consequences of transnational capital),
that bit of reportage misrepresents the municipal reality that SF _does not_
have a Walmart.

In fact, SF has been a bit of an outlier regarding the corporate giant
Walmart, and some of SF's elected officials have vigorously opposed Walmart's
setting up shop in SF. [0] Four years later, the Walmart closest to SF
(Oakland) closed. [1] Presently, the closest Walmart to SF is 18 miles away
(42 mins by car, which is an eternity in the Bay Area) in San Leandro.

The homelessness in SF is dispiriting and, yes, a sign of US sociopolitical
attitudes about wealth and social welfare. Another sign of US sociopolitical
attitudes (SF's in particular) is its continued rejection of Walmart which is
notorious among Bay Area liberals (and conservatives, for that matter) for its
anti-union and anti-employee policies.

[0] [https://www.baycitizen.org/news/development/san-francisco-
po...](https://www.baycitizen.org/news/development/san-francisco-politicians-
labor-walmart/) (bad cert, sorry)

[1] [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Walmart-to-close-
nearl...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Walmart-to-close-
nearly-269-stores-worldwide-6762457.php)

EDIT: readability; rhetorical emphasis on political opinion about Walmart

------
morgante
It's pretty ludicrous to write an article about "What San Francisco Says About
America" and then fixate on the things which most distinguish San Francisco
from the rest of the US.

San Francisco is a huge outlier in many respects. Some of the most notable
things which the article talks about are unheard of elsewhere: almost anywhere
else in the country you will not see visible homeless and you definitely won't
see marijuana advertisements.

~~~
bsimpson
The Wal-Mart bit seemed especially out-of-place. I don't think San Francisco
even has a Wal-Mart (and that fact alone distinguishes its culture from most
of America).

~~~
drawkbox
Interesting map on Walmarts and Whole Foods in SF [1]

[1]
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/11/map_whole_foo...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/11/map_whole_foods_vs_walmart_in_the_bay_area.html)

------
weerd
This is a complicated problem and I admit that I don't have a good
understanding of law or social studies... so take this with a grain of salt.

I sometimes wonder if we have a little too much freedom in this country.
Heroine/meth/alcohol mixed with mental issues have demolished the lives of
many people. They turn bitter and blue. Life becomes a loop of temporary
satisfaction through chemical escape.

The ones that end on the streets are often not violent, and I don't believe
they belong in prison. But defiling public spaces with needles and shit is not
acceptable. Fines and nights in jail don't matter to them, but freedom on the
other hand...

I imagine a state institution somewhere between jail and trade school. Drug
use would be tolerated to some extent. Food, shelter, and hopefully some sense
of community are provided, along with opportunities to learn useful skills.

I realize this is idealistic and that the monetary cost would probably be
immense. I'm just sick of all the biohazards strewn across the city and felt
like wondering out loud.

~~~
sandworm101
> I sometimes wonder if we have a little too much freedom in this country.

No, you don't. Many of the problems faced by the poor arise specifically from
restrictions and limitations on freedom. The number of US persons perpetually
disenfranchised by poverty is hard to comprehend. They have fewer rights, not
too many.

The disparate treatment of poor people by the justice system tops my list.
Poor drug users face convictions, and thereafter perpetual unemployment, while
the rich are diverted to programs without convictions (see Rush Limbaugh). The
rich are also allowed to self-medicate with prescriptions whereas the poor
turn to illegal drugs (again, see Rush). To exacerbate this by rounding up the
poor into camps only sweeps the problem under the rug.

------
gavanwoolery
"I’m confounded how to explain to my two children why a wealthy society allows
its most vulnerable citizens to languish on the streets."

Well, here is part of the problem. You are asking what your society can do,
not what YOU can do. Meanwhile you are busy racking up your credit card on
consumer goods you don't really need (yes, he does admit this - read the
article).

Nothing would prevent people from pooling their money for a cause. And this
does indeed exist - it is called a charity. Many charities exist to aid the
homeless, and if none of them suit your needs you can start a new one with a
new goal.

The good thing about charities is that they compete with each other. If a
charity is corrupt (like the Red Cross? [1]) you do not have to donate to it.
Tax dollars, on the other hand - you realistically have little choice where
they are going in spite of whatever guise of democracy you think you are
operating under.

[1] [https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-
raised-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-
a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes)

~~~
M_Grey
Charity is a nice idea, but when people are paying their taxes, and seeing
trillions wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq, boondoggles like the F-35 and the
LCS, and even to an extent the Zumwalt, they might have a right to speculate
that their charity or lack thereof is not the primary issue.

Then they might look at the state of healthcare in this country, and how a
combination of bought politicians, insurance, and some particularly greedy
pharmaceutical companies _cough_ albuterol _cough_ Mylan _cough_ and realize
that the problem is bigger than a spirit of pooling resources.

We already pool our resources, then those resources are wasted. That's the
problem.

~~~
BadassFractal
Thanks for pointing that out, I've come to similar conclusions myself as well.
As someone who lives in the city and has paid six figures in taxes last year,
I also wonder if people not contributing enough to the pool is really the
problem. To me it seems that the culprit is mismanagement of the funds that
are generated by taxpayers every year. How much more should I be spending as a
taxpayer to improve the situation?

~~~
M_Grey
It's a crazy and infuriating situation, when we're essentially forced to pay
into a common fund which we then watch be grossly misused. I'm honestly not
sure how much more an individual can do; this strikes me as an issue that
educated voters have to come together on.

Of course then it becomes ever so clear as to why the drive to make sure that
voters are often _not_ educated has been so intense during the same period of
this mismanagement.

~~~
gavanwoolery
Education is only part of it. I think that we are all generally aware there is
some abuse of the budget, but the greater enemy IMO is apathy and/or feeling
powerless to change our current situation.

------
smallnamespace
About a decade ago, I spent a few summers volunteering at a soup kitchen (St.
Anthony's Foundation) in the Tenderloin, and they had an orientation for new
volunteers that explained exactly why lowering the permanent homeless
population in SF is so difficult:

\- Homeless population is bimodal in distribution of time they've been
homeless

\- Most homeless people actually cycle out of homelessness quite quickly; they
lost a job or got sick, went bankrupt, family's on the streets, but they're
basically motivated and get back on their feet quickly (within months)

\- _The longer you 've been homeless, the more likely you are to stay
homeless_

\- Among the long-term population, a significant fraction (like half) of the
population have mental illnesses (clinically diagnosable e.g. schizophrenia,
PTSD); a large fraction were also vets; drug addiction is rampant

\- The veteran stat was very surprising for me and IMO a particularly shameful
part of our country's history:
[http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/veterans.html](http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/veterans.html)
'33% of male homeless population are veterans' '47% Vietnam Era' '67% served
three or more years'

\- The closure of mental institutions and sharp reduction in bed counts in the
80s put a lot of mentally ill people directly on the street; since they had
been institutionalized, many of their own family support networks were also
gone

\- It's very hard to transition back to normal society once you've been out of
work for a decade; to even apply and interview for a job, you need to give a
return address and phone number, and applications have moved online; a lot of
homeless have no computer skills

\- Even the very basic logistics of getting a shower, decent clothes, a clean
shave, and showing up to an interview is difficult for someone who has lived
on the streets for a long time

\- For those reasons above, to a first approximation, most long term homeless
are unemployable

\- SF is an expensive city; a decade ago, a room in the Tenderloin would run
>$1k a month; this makes it even more difficult to transition back to regular
society without outside support

Basically, to get someone employed and back on their feet is a very large
investment (and for many homeless it's more or less impossible), and probably
a significant fraction of the homeless should be in a state mental institution
of some kind (with all its attendant downsides and potential for abuse) rather
than out on the streets.

~~~
jacobolus
> to get someone employed and back on their feet is a very large investment
> (and for many homeless it's more or less impossible)

The investment here is _time_ , as much as money per se.

Someone who is long term homeless and has no support network, no savings, no
recent job, no home, no clean clothes to change into, no place to shower, and
most importantly no stable schedule and set of habits needs not only a sturdy
financial food/shelter/clothing foundation, but also needs someone who cares
about them to put in a ton of work every day making sure they stay focused and
motivated and on schedule.

Devoting that much care and attention to a stranger isn’t something that most
people have the bandwidth or motivation to do, and it’s the kind of work
that’s not easy to scale.

~~~
sndean
> ... but also needs someone who cares about them to put in a ton of work
> every day making sure they stay focused and motivated and on schedule.

The only people who freely (paid through taxes) provide a similar sounding
service, at least that I can think of, are public school teachers

------
nitwit005
SF actually attracts homeless people. The last homeless count done showed 29%
of homeless people in SF lost their housing outside the city, with 10% of that
from out of state:

[https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran...](https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf)
(search for "place of residence")

I rather suspect SF is a nice place to be homeless, as people seem to be
"voting with their feet" and going there.

------
vonnik
Tom Fuller is one of the best reporters at The New York Times. He covered the
Arab Spring in North Africa. He covered the military junta in Myanmar,
sneaking over the Thai border. His life work deserves a Pulitzer, and now
we're lucky to have him in SF. I've worked with him directly, and he's the
real deal and also a nice guy.

The big questions about San Francisco are: How does it manage to be so rich
and so poor at the same time? What does it mean for a city to have one of the
highest number of millionaires per capita among its inhabitants, and also a
large and growing homeless population?

When you think about San Francisco, you think about tech and homelessness.
It's a city that's the seat of a global industry trying to grapple with a
regional problem. That is, both the tech and the homelessness are part of
larger systems over which San Francisco has little control.

The city has more to offer the homeless than many other US cities: weather
that won't kill you, laws that support free healthcare, a citizenry that,
until recently at least, believed the problem should not be swept under the
rug or erased like LA took care of Skid Row.

But the weird thing about SF is how the city is becoming more and more
disjointed. It has become a city that attracts people from around the world
with economic opportunity. The tech workers that form the middle and upper
middle class here don't have much else in common besides the economic
opportunity they sought. They didn't come to solve homelessness in SF, and we
can't blame them for that. And the homeless themselves come from many other
places in the US.

So tech workers and homeless come to a city, but many of them are not _from_
here, and therefore don't identify as belonging to the same community, a
community which under other historical conditions might have tried to care for
itself and solve its own problems.

I'm aware of a few attempts in SF to address homelessness: Handup, LavaMae,
etc. And they're great, but they aren't the norm for tech.

There's also something strange about tech as an industry, which shapes its
impact on SF. Older industries like carmakers employed hundreds of thousands
of people, and employed them locally (at least until NAFTA). That is,
organizations devoted to the accumulation of capital were also the source of a
lot of employment in the cities where they were based.

Tech is different. Google employs an order of magnitude less than that. And it
is addressing a global market rather than a national or local one. The bits at
the base of its business have no ties to SF. It's solving problems and
offering services worldwide, and doesn't really have to think much about the
state and fate of the local economy. Maybe that's just the weirdness of
globalization.

~~~
massysett
Is SF simply the capital of homelessness, the same way New York is the theater
capital and Washington is the government capital and LA is the movie capital?

He says SF has six times as many homeless as Bangkok, but maybe SF is just
attracting homeless people from a wide radius because it's a nicer place to be
homeless.

~~~
SwellJoe
Year-round mild weather is a big factor in "homeless capital" status. There
are plenty of other factors, though. Cool cities, cities where people in
general want to live, have a lot more homeless folks; of the places I've been,
homelessness was most common in the "great" cities: Austin, SF, Portland, San
Diego, Dallas, NYC.

But they have other commonalities: They're expensive to live in, and owning or
renting a home in those places is more expensive than a lot of surrounding
cities. They have an existing community of homeless folks, and it's easier to
live homeless if you're not alone.

I know a bunch of street kids and traveling kids, who choose homelessness (or,
at least don't try very hard to not be homeless from day to day). There's a
list of places they travel among, particularly down the west coast. Seattle,
Portland, Eugene, trimming weed in northern California, SF, Venice Beach, Slab
City. Sometimes, they go for specific opportunities. Sometimes, they go for
easy access to drugs (Eugene is infamous for easy access to psychadelics, and
the old home of Ken Kesey and the Pranksters). Sometimes they go because
that's where they can jump on and off of trains or where they can hitch a ride
to/from.

Very small towns are viewed as a really bad idea for homeless folks for the
same reasons. It's hard to hitch a ride out when there's only a half dozen
people leaving town each day. It's hard to find food, drugs, money, a safe
place to sleep, when there aren't a lot of people walking around shopping and
such, or other homeless folks to interact with. Police in small towns often
feel empowered to be more aggressive with homeless populations, because
they're often alone or in small groups, and the local populace is already
suspicious of outsiders, so very little pressure to not treat homeless folks
terribly. It's dangerous to be homeless in many small towns.

So, yeah. There's a lot of reasons for SF to have a big homeless population.
Partly it's just that SF has a large population in general (for its size);
dense cities have dense and visible homeless populations. It isn't "The
Capital" for homeless folks, but it definitely has a larger than average
homeless population for a city of its size.

~~~
bdcravens
> Austin, SF, Portland, San Diego, Dallas, NYC. > But they have other
> commonalities: They're expensive to live in, and owning or renting a home in
> those places is more expensive than a lot of surrounding cities

While Dallas is more expensive than the rural cities and towns not far away,
the real estate market in it (median home price around $150k) is a night and
day comparison with cities like SF and NYC.

~~~
SwellJoe
That's true. There's a big difference between "expensive for Texas" and
expensive on the west coast or in NYC. Still, a house or apartment in downtown
Dallas (where the homeless folks are living) is nowhere near $150k.

I'm not sure what's causation, and what's merely coincidence, when it comes to
"expensive places have more homeless people". It may just be that density
correlates with both for a variety of reasons. If you don't have
transportation and need to eat every day, being in a metropolitan area is
pretty much mandatory. Those also happen to be the most expensive to live in.

~~~
bdcravens
I'm sure that's true of Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, Tulsa, etc. However, I
think there's some unique elements in SF beyond just being an expensive city.

------
Implicated
Why is it that one city can 'say' anything about America as a whole?

People (this author included) seem to forget the vastness of America's size
and the depth of it's diversity. People and society in San Francisco are
nothing like that of Birmingham Alabama or Fargo North Dakota.

Seems to me like stereotypes and generalizations being leveraged for
views/clicks.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
The USA is a lot more homogeneous than it is diverse.

The comparisons the author makes are on a scale much larger than the diversity
of the USA.

If you cannot see this I cannot work out how to tell you, except perhaps to
suggest that you and live and work on the other side of the world.

~~~
Implicated
> The USA is a lot more homogeneous than it is diverse.

Have you travelled outside of the major cities, or even > 50 mi away from an
international airport? I've been traveling the country for a living for the
last 15 years and the diversity is staggering.

If the USA is so homogeneous, what nation on this planet would you consider
more diverse?

~~~
ajmurmann
Given the enormous size of the U.S. I think a comparison to western Europe is
not inadequate. I know it's comparing a single country to multiple, but given
the size different that seems fair. The only other countries that seem like
fair comparisons in terms of size would be Russia, China and India. I don't
know either of them very well, but understand at least India to be very
diverse.

------
whybroke
I too lived overseas for several years and returned to the Bay Area recently
to be astonished in the same ways.

Another surprise that the article does not reveal was that in speaking to long
standing friends who remained in the Bay Area, I have commonly heard them say
homeless people choose to be homeless. These are normal bay area professional
class people who read the Atlantic and the NYT. But to hear repeatedly such
notions form well education otherwise forward thing people is something I
still can not remotely comprehend. And how they would develop such views is
even more incomprehensible.

~~~
copperx
> I have commonly heard them say homeless people choose to be homeless.

I believe that's an old meme. I first experienced it among middle class
Mexicans. I heard them say "the poor stay poor because they choose to" more
times than I remember.

It boggles the mind.

~~~
weerd
There are definitely people who choose to be homeless! This is not the same as
saying that people in poverty want to remain that way, or the nasty ideologies
that say the poor deserve to be poor.

For various reasons a small amount of the population does seek out the vagrant
lifestyle. Check out [https://squattheplanet.com](https://squattheplanet.com)

------
11thEarlOfMar
>>It was as if there was a symmetry across the Pacific between the producers
and the consumers, between the factory and the cash register.

Conceptually, transportation and warehousing are artifices of the distance
between producers and consumers. So why not think of the end of the
manufacturing line being the cash register?

------
pcmaffey
Migrants are a global issue. Their numbers have increased drastically
everywhere this decade, and will continue to do so at alarming rates. Even
potentially epochal rates once the rising seas displace a billion or 2 people.

------
jokoon
The most powerful societies are the ones who put high value on citizens
conforming to certain values.

Homeless people are just individuals who can't conform to social norms, and
thus they end up being excluded.

Let's be frank: most voters don't want their tax dollars being given to the
poorest. Redistribution sounds like some kind of soviet communism, and people
considers than everyone has the free will to become successful.

The most vivid image I have is a motivational speaker in front of an audience
of homeless people.

------
bogomipz
I took issue with many of the points:

Firstly San Francisco isn't America though the same way that London isn't the
England. They are aberrations and not representative of the majority of the
country.

I took issue with some of his other points:

"Blindingly white teeth. The burrito that was so huge it felt as if it would
break my wrist. Police officers covered in tattoos."

I don't even understand these. White teeth are not a salient characteristic of
San Franciscans, neither is a police force covered in tattoos. I think the
burrito he's referring to is Pancho Villas in the Mission and that is no way a
normal portion even by America's generally larger portion sizes.

"I’m confounded how to explain to my two children why a wealthy society allows
its most vulnerable citizens to languish on the streets."

He could be equally confounded on how to explain how a Buddhists society could
refuse to help the Rohingyas drifting off the shore in the southern part of
Thailand. Or why Thailand doesn't do more to keep its young girls from being
stunted and exploited by the sex industry there. Paradox is not the exclusive
domain of either S.F or the US.

Then this overwrought closing:

"I stood in the checkout line and watched milk-fed Americans unloading their
carts onto the conveyor belt. My mind flashed back to the diminutive workers
in a factory I visited in Tianjin, China, who for a few hundred dollars a
month stitched leather boots and who giggled when they thought about the giant
feet that would one day fill them."

Milk-fed? Why is that relevant? Dairy isn't as common in Asia because the
majority of Asia is lactose-intolerant. Diminutive? What is that a reference
to? People in Northern China have the same average height as do people in the
US.

------
mmanfrin
I think it is unfair to look at the homelessness of SF as an attribute or
failing of the city or to extrapolate out as if it were synecdocheic of the
country.

Homelessness in the whole state gravitates to SF because of the climate: sure,
it's cold in SF, but it's _never_ freezing. Sf has (one of if not) the mildest
winters of any city in North America; the _record cold_ is 28F. And the record
high is 103F. Some of the homelessness moves around the state, but a lot
settles in SF because of the climate.

Additionally, there are instances of homeless people being _bussed_ to SF
(like Nevada did).

SF tries very hard to deal with homelessness, but it's dealing with the
homelessness of a much larger area and population than the population of SF
can afford to help. The US itself needs to step up (like refunding a national
mental health institution, to remedy one of the most braindead things Reagan
ever did).

------
gbog
Uh, the title is ambiguous, is it about America the two continents? North
America the continent? Or about the U.S.A., the nameless, official-language-
less country?

I know of many South Americans who would prefer the ambiguity to be solved so
they can have their American identity not hijacked by the biggest and most
powerful country on the same longitude.

~~~
a13n
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States)

"The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States
(U.S.) or America..."

~~~
gbog
Yes, I know, but still it is a problem, is it not? I feel that in the USA many
people are very careful to not hurt the feelings of some minorities inside the
country, which is done with good faith even if sometime it becomes very
difficult to navigate through a normal conversation with soeone you do not
know too much. But then, why not put the same effort in avoiding to hurt the
feelings of all non US Americans? It would actually be easier.

------
ftrflyr
Not sure if you have seen Milton Freidman's talks on Poverty and Equality, but
I would highly recommend them.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKc6esIi0_U)

To summarize:

How free are the poor and what is the government's role?

[1] Governments don't have responsibility, people have responsibility.

[2] The free-market is the most effective system towards ending poverty.

[3] Bad government failures result in welfare schemes has been machine to
produce poor people.

------
davidf18
Much of the homelessness problem in SF (and also NYC, LA, Boston, DC, ....)
can be solved by not spending more money, but by simply reversing "economic
rents" sought be landlords to create zoning density restrictions. These zoning
density restrictions create a politically induced scarcity of housing and
other real estate which results in a regressive tax transferring wealth and
income from renters to landlords.

"Economic rents" are a type of "market failure" of an efficient market. Much
of fixing the economy can be stimulated by identifying market failures that
are often created by special interest groups (in this case landlords like
Donald Trump). Instead of focusing on wealth creation, they use political
connections to create artificial scarcity with the resulting higher housing
and office costs to benefit them but hurt the overall economy.

Interestingly, there was a prominent NYTimes article which demonstrated how
Trump received $885 million in tax abatements, etc. but there have never been
articles by the NYTimes about the fact that Trump and other wealthy landlords
are realizing far more than they would if the "economic rents" were fixed.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-
tax-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-breaks-
real-estate.html)

Renters spend more money on rent and less money on goods and services.

Reversing the politically induced housing scarcity by eliminating the "rent
seeking" laws would in addition to freeing up money that renters spend making
landlords wealthier on goods and services stimulating the economy while at the
same time would stimulate a housing boom.

See Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser's article about building affordable
housing in NYC (which of course applies to SF and other cities as well).

Glaeser: Build Big, Bill [http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-
article-1....](http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-
article-1.1913739)

In general "market failures" such as this one are a "brake" on economic growth
and costs no money to fix, simply take away bad laws that serve the few, well
connected, over the many. Before trying stimulus, raising minimum wage, etc.
simply reverse laws that create "market failure" benefiting special interests
such as landlords and let the economy to its thing when the markets are made
more efficient again.

~~~
ftrflyr
You should watch this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZPg6kOBkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZPg6kOBkc)

------
djhworld
> _It almost seems that we have created needs so that we can cater to them._

I think this statement sums up the type of consumerism we have today, across
the developed world.

~~~
xyzzy4
All people really need is food and some basic shelter.

The way economics began is the farmers create the food, and non-agricultural
workers trade non-essential goods and services with the farmers. Over time,
the percentage of people working in agriculture declined. In less developed
places like India, 50% of workers are still in agriculture.

------
norea-armozel
All I can say is that San Francisco might as well be another planet. And I'm
glad I'm not ever going to live there.

------
LargeCompanies
In terms of homeless San Fran is the Mecca. It's shocking and sad to
experience!

------
debt
heroin is a huge problem in san francisco among the homeless. apparently it's
cheaper than it's ever been and it seems to be attracting a lot of very bad
people.

i love it here but i've never seen it this bad.

------
tn13
What San Francisco Says about America is logical equivalent of "What Osama
says about muslim people" or what "Donald Trump says about White people." It
is stereotyping and we should avoid it.

------
miraj
isn't there a duplicate posting filter in HN? I posted the same article
(atleast an hour or two before the current one) earlier (1). this happened few
times now!

or am I missing something obvious? thought the filter is supposed to prevent
dupe posts?! @dang ? @sctb ?

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12521824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12521824)

------
noahmbarr
What does America say about San Francisco?

