Personally, my goal is that homeless people can get access to great health care, which usually means housing, mental health care, and job placement, among other things, so that they can quickly get back to work.
All the things you described (besides crack and meth) are a good start. We're missing key pieces, but your apparent solution (make their lives harder until they are driven to a slightly less bad place) is just pushing the problem onto someone else.
That's fine if you only care about your neighborhood, but it's obviously not a solution if your goal is to stabilize society.
I think the issue is that SF is the only one doing these things, thus attracts homeless from all over North America. When I did some volunteer work in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside, several times I heard homeless folk speak of their dreams of sneaking across the order to be homeless in SF.
Its cheaper to house and feed them in the minimum than have to pay to jail them or repair the damage they do on the street.
If society weren't so hostile to some people, maybe they wouldn't shut off to participating in it. And even for those that don't - it makes financial sense to macroeconomically attempt to minimize the frequency of economic drop-outs but microeconomically it is much better to not just ignore the ones you have and force them on the street, because they cause a lot of property damage, which lands them in jail, where they got over a hundred thousand a year to keep imprisoned.
I'd agree on the benefits of providing housing, but you're probably not going to want to make it mandatory (what's the alternative? jail? that's wasteful) and you can damage a lot of property in a housing situation too (if not more).
So economically, there has to be a recognition that some people are going to give up on the system and decide to stop trying to please a brutal economic machine, and that some of them may even become bad actors, in order to develop a realistic plan.
$250,000,000 a year for an industry that is at least partially responsible for importing 1 in 5 of San Francisco's homeless from the rest of the state and country and dumping them on the streets isn't compassion - it's trafficking in human misery.
I'll post my source (a SF gov census) later today, when I'm not on my phone.
That may be closer to the current number of 'non-resident' homeless. The figure I had for that is 23% - 1 in 4 - from 2015.
1 in 5 is the number of homeless (from the same survey) whose first place of residence in San Francisco was a homeless shelter. It's buried under figure 16 in this survey:
So 1 in 4 ( or 1 in 3) people are coming here directly to use the services. The 1 in 5 figure is significant because it strongly suggests that homeless nonprofits are actively seeking referrals from other parts of the state and country. We know that in some cases people are literally being sent here:
Yes, that was found to be illegal and some wrists were slapped. I find it hard to conceive that this is the only homeless bussing program - there's no other conceivable way that so many of them are arriving, and immediately finding places in homeless shelters that typically have waiting lists, and definitely have plenty of underserved former tenants.
Ultimately, the organizations involved have no incentive to stop referrals from other parts of the country. The more people they serve, the more money they can ask for from the city, and the more 'successful' they are as a non-profit business.
And just as serving more people is in their interests, so is dumping the most troubled, and consequently, most costly onto the streets in order to serving another round of newcomers. Once they've outstayed their welcome, or become too costly, they are shunted onto the streets. And the worse the crisis gets, the more money they can ask for from the city.
I'm not suggesting that this is some kind of intentional human trafficking. I am sure that (almost) everyone involved is doing so because, in a small minded way, they think that they are improving the world. However, the end result is a travesty.
My thesis is that our current environment is is the result non-profits being run in a capitalist business environment, with a capitalist, MBA-style mindset. Eventually, the business model achieves stasis with it's environment, which, in this case, involves letting the city be a dumping ground for human tragedy, and letting the city's tax payers pay $250 million dollars a year for the privilege. The crisis is the side effect of this expanding bureaucracy achieving homeostasis and justifying its existence.
You think taking care of your fellow citizen is hilariously wrong ? At least one city is doesn't treat homeless people like trash and recognizes that they are humans.
Yes, it's something of a Fox Butterfield headline. If you're going to be homeless, SF isn't a bad place for it and as a result we get people from all over the country.
I have no idea if weather is a thing with this but I always thought you'd see a much larger population in LA, San Diego, and other places which pretty much have perfect weather all year. And although you see homelessness in those So-Cal cities it isn't rampant like it is in SF, Seattle and Vancouver.
SF stays manageably temperate, while LA & SD get really hot for several months. If SF is too cold for a day, you can go hop a ride on bart and hang around the warmer east bay for however longer you want to.
Getting only down to 50F max and having a 60F avg temp is easily solved by a sweater. 80F+ is solved by an AC, which is a lot more work.
The weather is nicer in Southern California, but you pretty much need a car to get around. SF is only seven miles wide, so you can pretty much get anywhere in the city within a couple hours on foot. I assume that makes things like collecting benefits and checking mail much more convenient.
You make homelessness like a super awesome thing, do you think people will be tempted to quit their jobs and give up their homes for a taste of this?
But wait, since being homeless is one the worst experiences a human being can have this can only be the flippant perspective of someone who has no clue about homelessness and no interest to learn.
>SF hilariously always takes the wrong approach to things.
I agree. IMO, we should have doubled down on the war on drugs approach. The free access to drugs and lax enforcement is the undeniable sole reason for SF's homelessness problem. I don't why SF has taken an opposite approach, as the war on drugs has been an unquestionable thriving success in the rest of the country.
0) Free muni passes,
1) great social & free housing programs - some even have stipends & phone service
2) a few decent shelters,
3) close by methadone clinics,
4) friendly 420 doctors (police don't arrest for 420),
5) tons of crack/meth on eddy street,
6) great places to pan (market),
7) weather is amazing (no hot days, no snow),
8) huge! public parks.
9) super friendly locals
10) a pretty liberal police department
SF hilariously always takes the wrong approach to things. If you want a city full of homeless, make it awesome. This would definitely be my plan G.