
Salesforce’s Benioff Spars with Twitter’s Dorsey Over Support for Homeless - petethomas
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-12/salesforce-s-benioff-spars-with-twitter-s-dorsey-over-support-for-homeless
======
Animats
There's now homeless removal as a service.[1] "Call Bio SoCal for fast and
professional service to clean up and remove the homeless encampment. We
operate 24/7 and can provide service during or after business hours to meet
your needs and get you back in business."

In Seattle, there's an app for reporting homeless encampments.[2]

Dallas considered a concentration camp, to be called "Dignity Field", at an
old military base.[3]

[1] [https://biosocal.com/services/homeless-encampment-clean-
out/](https://biosocal.com/services/homeless-encampment-clean-out/)

[2] [https://www.seattle.gov/homelessness/unauthorized-
encampment...](https://www.seattle.gov/homelessness/unauthorized-encampments)

[3] [https://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/2016/05/02/old-naval-
ba...](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/news/2016/05/02/old-naval-base-near-
grand-prairie-may-be-repurposed-for-homeless-tent-city-exiles)

~~~
Jach
"Dignity Field" is pretty good, I still prefer "Sanctuary District"[0] though.

[0] [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District](http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District)

~~~
InclinedPlane
Watching that episode of DS9 when it came out (in 1995) made it seem as though
they had to exaggerate a lot to get a point across and things could never be
that bad. Now though? Now it seems like we'll be lucky if things don't end up
worse sooner. It's shocking to me the degree to which the homeless are hated
and dehumanized by such a huge number of people.

------
sremani
From Wikipedia:

In 2014, the City of San Francisco spent $167 million annually on housing
homeless residents.[64] By 2016, total spending (including housing and
treatment) was believed to be $241 million annually.[65] However, much of this
spending is focused on housing the formerly homeless, or those at risk, and
not the currently homeless. The city's shelter program has approximately 1,200
beds, and several hundred people are on a waitlist to be housed.[65] Even with
1,200 shelter beds and several hundred on waiting list, most homeless avoid
the shelter for various reasons such as: overcrowding, safety, and rules that,
among other things, separate people experiencing homelessness from their
possessions, pets, and loved ones. In 2015, the Navigation Center shelter was
created to address these issues.[65]
\--------------------------------------------

How much money is going to solve this problem ? This reminds me of extending
roads to tackle congestion, 5 years after the extension, the roads have same
congestion conditions because of the sprawl. At some point, spending more
money and making it better for being homeless in SFO will attract even more
homeless and creating the conditions similar to today.

I do not have enough information about Prop C and what each of them are coming
from, but I am leaning towards Jack simply because the holier than thou
smugness from Benioff.

~~~
wbronitsky
Just to make sure I understand your argument:

You are going to vote a certain way on a proposition because tech a CEO was
smug about why you should vote one way or another?

Regardless of which way you are voting, there has to be a better, more
informed and analytical way to decide how to vote.

~~~
sremani
It never occurred to me but I think as a non-resident of SFO I should have
refrained from commenting on this issue. Consider my post as an observation of
a curious mind.

~~~
wbronitsky
I don't think your feelings on this are invalid at all! In fact, I think
anyone should contribute here. I was just pointing out that a more rigorous
system to figure out who/what to vote for would probably benefit you and
everyone who lives in the community that is governed by the voting outcomes.

------
cheeze
Good. It sickens me that there is so much wealth in both the Bay Area and
Seattle, yet both cities are going through a homelessness crisis.

I recognize I'm part of the problem and I'm working to help the problem, but
I'm only a little guy, not a billionaire.

Tech companies keep building skyscrapers, feeding their engineers food every
day and paying their employees ludicrous salaries, yet those employees walk
past tons of homeless folks on their way to the offices...

Are there any examples that folks are aware of where a big tech company (or
really any company) stepped in to help with a crisis like this? What companies
should we be celebrating for being 'good citizens'?

~~~
nostrademons
There's a causal connection in both cases:

When a lot of wealth is generated by a city, a lot of people attempt to move
there to cash in on it. The number of people who _physically can live in a
city_ is limited by the number of housing units available. If they don't build
new housing, then for every person who moves in, another person is going to be
displaced, whether that be moving elsewhere or ending up on the streets or
moving in with other people. Market mechanisms ensure that the housing that
_is_ available goes to the people who are willing to pay the most, which is
generally the highly-paid tech workers in SF & Seattle and the financial types
in NYC.

The solution is pretty obvious: build more housing.

It's also independent of the amount of wealth that's generated, or whether the
new housing is high-end gentrified condos or low-end affordable housing. If
the new housing is high-end condos, then all the tech workers move into new
construction and people who otherwise would've ended up homeless stay in their
existing apartments, or move into the run-down apartments vacated by the tech
workers. If the new housing is small affordable units, the high-end tech
workers stay put and the homeless move into the new construction.

~~~
ap3
A requirement to “build more housing” is to make “building more housing” less
expensive by removing as much limitations as possible

A startup environment thrives because it easy to start Apple in a garage.

Housing comes with a lot of restrictions for code, land, labor, environment

Make it profitable to build housing for low wage workers

------
pg_bot
San Francisco's politicians are treating the symptoms of the problem and not
the root cause. Homelessness has increased because markets are not functioning
due to poor governance. You could cure the majority of the problem by allowing
developers to build more housing and removing caps on rent increases to
tenants.

~~~
s73v3r_
Build more housing yes, but removing caps on rent increases, especially if
there is not more housing, is just going to exacerbate the problem.

~~~
pg_bot
I know it's counterintuitive to most people, but price controls only cause
shortages. Rent control is fundamentally an unfair policy as it selectively
benefits one class of people (long term renters) over everyone else.

In conditions where demand for housing increases dramatically, landlords tend
to let apartments go vacant because they do not want to lock in a low price
immediately if they know they could be stuck with a tenant for a long period
of time. You can see this effect when you compare the cost increases of
apartments over time with the allowable increase set by the rent control
board.

You can model renting your building quickly in excel. When you do so you can
find the cases when it is smarter to hold the apartment and let market prices
increase instead of leasing today. Your job as a landowner is to maximize the
total amount of money you can make from ownership of the property. Landlords
act rationally, so if you make rules that incentivize them to not rent it
shouldn't be surprising to see empty units. If you run the numbers yourself
for what happened in San Francisco you will easily be able to duplicate this
effect.

It's ok if you need to leave your apartment so long as you can find another
apartment nearby. No one has a right to live in a particular city, and scarce
resources will go to those most willing to pay for them.

[https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-
ren...](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends/)

[https://sfrb.org/sites/default/files/Document/Form/571%20All...](https://sfrb.org/sites/default/files/Document/Form/571%20Allowable%20Annual%20Increases%2018-19.pdf)

~~~
s73v3r_
"It's ok if you need to leave your apartment so long as you can find another
apartment nearby. No one has a right to live in a particular city, and scarce
resources will go to those most willing to pay for them."

I've always found this to be a shitty argument, because in the vast majority
of cases, the person making it isn't someone who's being told they don't
deserve to live where they grew up, and isn't someone who would end up being
someone who gets priced out of their home.

I'll say it again: If you remove rent control without having more housing
being built already, the people who have been living there since before the
tech boom will have their rents raised astronomically, to the point where they
will become homeless. That is absolutely wrong, and telling them to just leave
town is even more wrong.

~~~
pg_bot
The counterfactual to your argument is just as appalling, "You don't deserve
to live here because you aren't from here". You had to be born somewhere, and
some of us had the misfortune of being born in a place where they no longer
want to stay.

"If you remove rent control without having more housing being built already,
the people who have been living there since before the tech boom will have
their rents raised astronomically, to the point where they will become
homeless"

There is no empirical evidence to support this position. This is one of the
few points that the economic profession has come to a consensus on. Rent
control creates far more problems than it solves. Both people can live in the
city if the market functions properly. The supply of housing exists, you are
just choosing to not utilize it effectively by enacting rent control.

I know I am unlikely to change your mind based on the facts that I have
presented. I don't want to belittle or ridicule you. I sincerely believe that
you want to do what is right for the public at large. If this is indeed the
case, I hope you can do some more reading on the subject and will believe that
you come to the same conclusion that many others have. I am not denying that
some people will be negatively impacted, but if you look at the net impact you
will see that more people will benefit regardless of their income level by the
repeal of rent control.

~~~
s73v3r_
"The counterfactual to your argument is just as appalling, "You don't deserve
to live here because you aren't from here". You had to be born somewhere, and
some of us had the misfortune of being born in a place where they no longer
want to stay."

That is not the counterfactual to my argument. And while I do have sympathy
for those who do need to leave, SF's history as a destination for marginalized
members of society due to their sexuality, I also have sympathy for those who
are already there, and do wish to continue living where they have roots.
Repealing rent control when there is not surplus housing does nothing but
raise rents, because the housing that people claim will be built if there is
no rent control will not appear overnight.

"There is no empirical evidence to support this position."

You have the fact that rents in SV are already insane. Landlords are wanting
to raise rents even further, otherwise they would not be wanting the repeal of
rent control.

"ut if you look at the net impact you will see that more people will benefit
regardless of their income level by the repeal of rent control"

Only if the additional housing is there. Otherwise they will be forced to
leave. Rents will rise, which you cannot deny, and it is quite likely that
many of those already there will not be able to afford it. Building housing is
slow, and you are asking those most vulnerable to bear the brunt of the
damage.

~~~
pg_bot
The housing _does_ exist it just lays vacant due to rent control. Look at the
data after any repeal of rent control in cities like Cambridge, Oslo and New
York, prices do not go up dramatically. By removing rent control, you get rid
of the incentive to let your property remain vacant. You are seeing high
prices due to the shortage of available houses caused by rent control.

------
mindgam3
Leaving aside the spectacle of two rich and powerful white male CEOs publicly
throwing down about homelessness, which, admittedly, is riveting stuff - can
we please talk about the real issue?

“Critics of Prop C say that it sets aside too much of San Francisco’s budget
to one issue, giving it less control over long-term spending. The new mayor
has said that the city needs to better spend the money it already dedicates to
combating homelessness.”

Speaking as a full stack dev turned founder who experienced homelessless in
San Francisco for several weeks in 2015, I am entirely unimpressed with the
stated arguments against this corporate tax hike.

Too much for one issue? Can someone tell me what might be a more pressing
issue that incredibly wealthy corporations could be supporting?

And regarding spending the current homeless better, well, yeah. Nobody’s going
to argue against that. But is anybody seriously claiming that more money
wouldn’t at least put a dent in the problem?

Without sounding overly dramatic, people’s lives are at stake. And not just
people of poor character who made bad life choices. Real people, people that
you might even interact with in a social or professional context. God forbid
any pampered Twitter employee actually had to experience surviving on the
streets of SF for a few days. It’s so easy to judge. But it is so much harder
to pick yourself back up when you are that far down. Basic, stupid things get
in the way. Getting to interviews, having clean clothes, being able to shower
and use the rest room. Not to mention the nearly constant power tripping you
are subject to from everyone you interact with based on your position on the
lowest rung of society.

Yeah, I think companies making $50M a year should be glad to pay an extra half
percent tax. If the moral argument isn’t persuasive, do it for business
reasons. SF is attractive to the kinds of people who build world-changing
startups because for all of its faults, it has a soul when it comes to
progressive issues. Simply as a PR issue it would be wise for the tech
community to take a simple action to make the world a better place, right here
in our own backyard.

------
dpflan
“This is the Bay Area: We have 70 billionaires. We're the headquarters of the
4th industrial revolution,” Benioff said. “We're in a homeless crisis."

------
saagarjha
> Benioff says his investors aren’t complaining that he’s campaigning for a
> tax increase.

Honestly, this is quite surprising. I know Tim Cook has been grilled in the
past at shareholder meetings for "wasting" money on green initiatives.

~~~
dahdum
I'd think that positioning himself this way would be seen as a positive. The
more he virtue signals and raises his own profile the easier it is to move in
the Fortune 500/1000 circles, landing new or expanded contracts.

------
samstave
This is a complex issue and is close to home for me.

I have thought a lot about what I would want to do regarding hte homeless
problem, and have looked into the spend that SF has to this problem, as well
as the self-limiting regulations on the housing market which prevent small-
size, high density developments from even doing proof-of-concepts.

After thinking on the problem a bit, I am personally drawn to the following
ideas:

1\. Mobile health and hygeine centers: \-- These would be truck-trailers
converted to contain a micro-clinic and showering facilities. And would
provide standard low-cost 'scrubs'-like clothing to provide cleaner, more
dignified clothing.

2\. Paying homeless in resources (food/beds) in exchange for cleaning up the
city.

3\. Autonomous pressure-washing-street-robots. In silicon Valley, and SF
specifically - it would be thoughtful and clean to have industrial sized
Roomba Street Cleaning bots that will crawl along the sidewalks and pressure
wash them. They should be able to dock and refill/dump/charge at various
locations. These should have sensors which count exactly how much foot traffic
they see constantly - have cameras and be beacons for services.

3\. Correct the zoning laws in bay-area counties for supporting small micro-
dwelling communities. Currently, for example, alameda county zones a much
larger parcel requirement for a single family dwelling than is needed.

Also - the zoning laws do not allow for tiny/micro housing units to share
common infrastructure. For example, even though you could fit multiple tiny
homes on the 3800 SF lot requirement for a single family home, you cannot have
more than one person/family living there, and these units could not share
utility connections to power/sewer/water - and you cannot have them all have
separate entrances, there can be only one primary entrance.

But in the end, I think that providing showers/hygiene and basic clothing
should be the starting point.

Not having clothing or showers is a primary driving factor in the decline of
mental health of homeless. You cannot focus on anything if these needs are not
met.

Based on the numbers I looked at in the past, SF was "paying" the equivalent
of ~$25,000/homeless/year in their services.... but clearly this number is not
evident in the lives of the homeless.

Personally, I think there is a TON more that the tech community can do with
respect to building and testing out various service offerings (like shower
trucks/scrubs clothing/cleaning/etc)...

I would love to work on these if anyone else would.

------
shafyy
What do you guys think is the biggest lever for this crisis?

~~~
olivermarks
I've lived in the area for twenty five plus years and have known local social
workers and city employees. I also have friends who are effectively homeless
(living in RV's) having grown up in silicon valley and been evicted from
family rental homes and can't afford massively increased rents.

There's a huge number of people who wind up in San Francisco for all sorts of
reasons and the civic reputation for being less harsh on homeless plus
relatively mild weather makes it a place people wind up staying in. There's
always been flop houses in the tenderloin and people on the streets but the
disparity between the wealthy and the poor is very striking now.

The opioid crisis is a big thing in SF but the levers are unaffordable rents,
no care for the insane (who often self medicate with street drugs), an
attractive place with lots of dumpster diving lifestyles behind classy
restaurants and a general romanticism that dates back to the beats and
hippies.

There are huge numbers of people living in their cars and couch surfing who
are less visible than the unwashed zombie insane that you see at most downtown
intersections and passed out on sidewalks but this is in essence a have and
have not crisis

------
andyburke
I was never a Salesforce fan, but Benioff is making me take a second look.

~~~
anothergoogler
Don't read too much into it: SFDC feels the pinch in recruiting, and they are
heavily invested in a San Francisco presence with their tower.

------
gruglife
There is only one way to end this ..... fight to the death :)

------
romed
Kinda seeing Jack's side of the argument. Why do we need the voters to
partition up the city budget in perpetuity? It's a bad way to run the
government.

The city has a far better, far cheaper lever by which it can fix the
homelessness crisis: nuke the housing market by permitting 45-foot-tall
multifamily buildings on every parcel in the city. The fact that they will
never do this tells you everything about that city.

~~~
Animats
It's been tried. Huge failures. See Robert Taylor Homes (Chicago)[1], Pruett-
Igoe (St. Louis) [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe)

~~~
Inconel
Both you and the user _notfromhere_ seem to be interpreting the GP post as
suggesting the solution is large public housing projects, it's possible my
reading comprehension is really off today but I see no such suggestion. To me
the GP seems to be saying that so much as high housing costs are responsible
for at least part of the homeless crisis, perhaps less restrictive zoning
might help considering that large portions of SF and very large portions of
the Bay Area as a whole are pretty low density, at least compared to other
global urban centers.

