San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp | Hacker News Reader

San Francisco Orders Homeless to Leave Tent Camp

nytimes.com

Every time the topic comes up, people from across the country start commenting on SF's homelessness woes. I live in SF, and consider our homeless situation unique. There are lots of mentally ill people, who have been hanging around for many years, thanks to good weather and generous people (and the easy availability of some drugs). Most of these people are NOT your typical "lost my job, lost my apartment, and hence am homeless" types. Many of them are so mentally ill that putting them in a mental institution is the only option. They simply cannot take care of themselves.

I suggest looking at the official data on this subject[1]. The vast majority of San Francisco's homeless people are, in fact, people who were living in SF and paying rent, lost one or more jobs, and subsequently became homeless.

I would also suggest you read the literature[2] concerning "putting people in a mental institution" against their will, because that practice has a long and sordid history and there are many, many good reasons we don't do it anymore.

[1]https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San...

[2]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3392176/

Thanks for sharing those links. I'll definitely look into them in more detail. At a cursory glance I'm not sure that the data necessarily contradicts 1024core's statement. A disturbingly high number of respondents cites having one or more health conditions, such as Drug or Alcohol Abuse (37%), Pyschiatric or Emotional Conditions (35%) and PTSD (27%).

At the same time, to your point, the number of people on the streets due to evictions has also markedly increased over the last years, so there are probably multiple things going on.

I'd imagine that (as usual) the problems are complex. For instance, respondents say they're on the street because they lost their job (25%) or because family or friends asked them to leave (12%), but it doesn't mention if there's an underlying reason for that. For example, some of these people might have lost their job due to substance abuse. I'm not saying that's the case for everyone, just trying to say that the situation is complex.

Similarly I'd imagine there's a vicious cycle where once you're living on the street it's difficult to break out of it. Living on the street makes it difficult to get a job, which in turn makes it hard to get a home. Substance abuse is probably more likely if you're living on the street, again making it more difficult to get a job and a home. If you have a mental illness and you voluntarily sought mental care, it's difficult to stick with it if you also have a drug addiction.

Again, thanks for posting those links. I also live in SF and I find the homeless situation tragic. It saddens me that very few people seem interested in discussing the problem beyond black and white opinions and simple soundbites.

> The vast majority of San Francisco's homeless people are, in fact, people who were living in SF and paying rent, lost one or more jobs, and subsequently became homeless.

Look closely. 70% claim to be so ... but only ~30% were actually paying rent. That's 21%, certainly not the vast majority. Also: if you got kicked out of a shelter, it counts as having been "living" in SF. :-)

Plus, this was a self-reported survey. Homeless people will often lie to get your sympathy. Case in point: the whole "I need to buy food" spiel. Most of the time that I have offered to do so, they hum and haw and ignore my offer. Some in fact take the food and throw it away. Very rarely do they actually eat the food. The point is: if the homeless think they can get more sympathy by claiming to be lifelong residents of SF, many will claim to be so.

Leaving people with severe mental illnesses who cannot take care of themselves in any sense to rot on the streets and fend for themselves is far more sordid (and has a far longer history.)

I agree, but that still doesn't make involuntary commitment a good idea

What's your third way solution, then?

How many homeless people have you talked to? In my (anecdotal) experience just chatting with people, there are plenty of “lost my job and now I’m homeless” folks in SF. These tend to be a bit less visible than the mentally ill though.

More generally, many homeless people become mentally unstable or take up mind-altering substances after a while living on the street. It’s a really stressful, socially alientating situation, and in general the folks who end up homeless are those with less family/friend support. When you’re stuck feeling like a social outcast with no particular purpose, under the daily stress of figuring out how to eat, find a bathroom, sleep, shower, etc., it’s hard for even the toughest person to stay mentally sharp and optimistic.

> How many homeless people have you talked to?

Quite a few. Maybe close to 50 over the years, a decent sized sample. Some of them I got to know very closely. One of them did get an SRO room (I was really close to him), I helped him get settled in. Of course, about 2 years later he was back on the streets, because he wrecked his room.

> Of course, about 2 years later he was back on the streets, because he wrecked his room.

Do you have any insight as to why he would do that? This is a complaint I've heard many times and never understood why someone would wreck their own place they live.

Since I was close to him, here is how it went down. Initially, he was good: we provided him with curtains, sheets, clothes, etc. Then slowly, it started to go downhill: first he started eating in his room. This left crumbs, etc., which attracted cockroaches, etc. Then, despite a ban, he started occasionally smoking in his room. Then he started storing food, which attracted more insects. And since he didn't have a fridge, the food would rot. Finally (the last straw, from what I heard from the SRO manager), he set up a hot plate (an electric cooking stove) in his room; which, given that it was carpeted, was a _very_ bad idea. After repeated admonishments, he was eventually kicked out.

So most of those sound like symptoms of not having pretty basic needs met. A place to eat cleanly, food storage and preparation facilities. I suppose maybe all those could have been dealt with with more work (cleaning, groceries elsewhere) but that is pretty over the top to ask people to live like that.

sad to hear about his challenges. All of us could do well to imagine how much it would suck to be in his shoes.

I've talked to a lot of homeless people in SF, often involuntarily.

Anecdotally, roughly half seem to have severe mental problems and/or severe drug and alcohol problems (these often overlap.)

> They simply cannot take care of themselves.

And no one else wants to, which is part of the problem.

Well, there's enormous amounts of charity that ensures noone starves to death, and there's enormous amounts of money spent by Fire departments/Police/EMT teams to handle emergencies, because those are deemed politically acceptable expenses.

But those are band-aid responses that can never ever eliminate the root cause. I'm convinced that the public would spend way less money over the long term, and the affected people would be vastly better off, if they were given proper long-term care and treatment.

SF spends $241M/year on the homeless. That is way more money per homeless than NYC does (which spends about $1B/year, for 10x more homeless).

According to the article, the City of San Francisco spends $242 million annually to do just that, and the City of New York spends over $1 billion to do just that.

It's not that nobody wants to. Apparently the ways they are trying to take care of them now are not particularly effective.

The most visible homeless and those we consider "the problem" certainly may be those who "cannot take care of themselves". However, the majority do not fit this category.

I may be naive but I think we should be tackling the homeless with mental problems first. While I certainly have more empathy to those who have "lost my job, lost my apartment, and hence am homeless", I am unconfident that traditional support services can put them back on their feet without drastic improvements to the housing crisis in San Francisco. Furthermore, the mentally ill make everyone (especially those homeless who have fallen on hard times) less safe.

> the mentally ill make everyone (especially those homeless who have fallen on hard times) less safe.

Statistics please.

Careful. Last time I did this, I got downvoted and detached to hell.

I actually really want to know what the statistics are. If it's "mostly" mentally ill people maybe deal with that problem first, if mentally ill is the corner case (a loud one), then maybe not.

You'd be hard pressed to find any, other than anecdata.

Yesterday, a small woman was assaulted (just pushed hard, luckily she did not fall) in front of me by a woman who was clearly off kilter (rambling to herself, shouting periodically to noone, etc.).

One day, a similarly off-balance gentleman started hurling obscenities at me and threatened to punch me. He was a foot away from me, and I was on the MUNI train, so nowhere to go. I stared him down as his spittle flew in my direction, and he walked away. Coincidentally(?) I came down with the worst throat infection a few days later.

And then another time a guy who had severely bad hygiene problems got on the N train, which was already crowded.... and then the train goes into the tunnel before Inner Sunset. I have never felt so nauseated in my life. As soon as the train got out of the tunnel, half the carriage emptied, with people gasping for air.

And then one time a mentally ill person (from appearance) got on the bus, stood behind a young woman and started slowly humping her. I would have done something, but he was huge.

And then there was this time a mentally ill guy was walking down the sidewalk, totally in his own world... but the asshole grabbed my crotch as I walked by.

In contrast, I have never seen such a thing being done by a non-mentally-ill person.

Make up your own mind.

Most severely mentally ill are not violent nor a danger to anyone, except perhaps themselves through neglect.

> A widespread belief that the afflicted are violent contributes to the stigma of mental illness and as such may interfere with their seeking and obtaining appropriate assistance. Debunking this misconception will likely lead to progress in helping troubled individuals [...] [1]

1. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deranged-and-dange...

Being yelled at, scared, (wrongfully) guilted, manipulated and lied to are violent and dangerous (in the negative effects on my life sense).

IMO it's violence and IMO the danger isnt in getting bruised/battered, but in losing the ability to carry out normal life for fear of what is "out there" on the streets. Safety isnt the only point, sure there maybe a low chance of issues, but safety is also about how people feel, do they feel secure? In this case I think its a resounding no, the behavior of many of these street people is outright disturbing and makes people, likely those least able of defending themselves, live with a burned of fear/insecurity.

There is no need for scare quotes around "the problem." When people regularly walk up to you on the street and start ranting obscenities at you for no particular reason, that is a problem, full stop, no scare quotes.

Source: it happened to me yesterday in downtown San Francisco. It's happened numerous times before. It's a problem.

I agree. I am a decent sized person, so feel comfortable in my ability to defend myself in need, at least enough to get away more or less unscathed, but I do feel for smaller people, women, children. They shouldnt have to be toeing a line of "Do I walk awkwardly to add a safe distance between people who look odd" and "Do I walk normal and maybe get attacked/accosted".

> Every time the topic comes up, people from across the country start commenting on SF's homelessness woes. I live in SF, and consider our homeless situation unique. There are lots of mentally ill people, who have been hanging around for many years, thanks to good weather and generous people (and the easy availability of some drugs). Most of these people are NOT your typical "lost my job, lost my apartment, and hence am homeless" types. Many of them are so mentally ill that putting them in a mental institution is the only option. They simply cannot take care of themselves.

Pretty much every coastal county along the West Coast and Florida has this "problem". It is not some unique snowflake SF problem. Yes, it may be 2-3x more common among the homeless but that isn't enough to consider them as anything other than people in need of help.

You are simply factually wrong about the "uniqueness" of your problem by any reasonable measure.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-homeless-natio...

> Los Angeles city and county have the most chronically homeless people in the country, and nearly all of them sleep on the streets, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department.

http://www.samhsa.gov/disorders

> According to SAMHSA’s 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) (PDF | 3.4 MB) an estimated 43.6 million (18.1%) Americans ages 18 and up experienced some form of mental illness. In the past year, 20.2 million adults (8.4%) had a substance use disorder. Of these, 7.9 million people had both a mental disorder and substance use disorder, also known as co-occurring mental and substance use disorders.

https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San...

> The most frequently reported health condition was drug or alcohol abuse (37%), followed by psychiatric or emotional conditions (35%).

Homeless people are more like to be disadvantaged groups. [e.g. Poor people with one or more disadvantages, such as mental illness]

http://healthsciences.utah.edu/utahaddictioncenter/healthcar...

> 8.1% of the general population are illicit drug users of 1 or more times a month

http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-con...

> Adults (ages 18+): 16.6 million adults ages 18 and older3 (7.0 percent of this age group4) had an AUD in 2013. This includes 10.8 million men3 (9.4 percent of men in this age group4) and 5.8 million women3 (4.7 percent of women in this age group4).

Similarly, it isn't surprising that a good chunk of them have used drugs/alcohol as any addiction is a disadvantage economically. However, the general population has those problems too to a substantial degree.

i'm sorry but 'institutions' hardly seem like the solution when those places are where a number of people are coming directly from(o)

i think we need to acknowledge shelter as a basic right and determine a minimum for meeting that right's demands, then offer it to everyone with autonomy, only regulated by the respect for the rights of others

(o) http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...

Just looked up some numbers to shed some light on the proportions of these problems:

- SF has had a homeless population of 6200~6500 over the last 15 years

- SF spends $~240M per year on homeless services, about $35k per person (excluding police, medical and other indirect services)

* $112M of that on supportive housing, $40M on shelters/transitional housing, $27M rental subsidies/eviction prevention

- spending has increased by $84M since 2011 when Ed Lee took office

- NYC spends about $1B but seems to have a homeless populat of about 60,000 (~10x that of SF)

Pretty disheartening to see the amount of resources that have already poured into solving the problem without seeming very successful.

IMO this all boils down to realestate/rental costs. 1/2 the budget for services is realted to housing cost. Build the towers sky high until the market is saturated, stop the ridiculous NIMBYism, stop pandering to the crowd that profits from the problem--the housing owners.

Yea. What's going wrong? Would just GIVING them a place to live work? It would be cheaper.

http://umanitoba.ca/outreach/evidencenetwork/archives/16127

Housing and the homeless topics keep coming up on HN and in my social circles. It's frustrating.

My real frustration is in fact with our cities are incentivizing businesses to create jobs while not creating more housing supply nor using that capital to improve our city like solve homelessness. This is unethical and despicable.

The city is not run by the techies who work here. The city is run by rich companies AND entrenched groups.

Entrenched groups are the older long-time homeowners looking to push the value of their own homes, the non-profit communities that want to protect their neighborhood's culture and the longtime renters who want to keep their rent control. There are countless entrenched players who push the status quo and the majority of them don't have that much money. Whether you agree that "keeping neighborhood culture" is important or not, we must first acknowledge that doing so is contributing in some way to housing prices.

I believe rich companies are not inherently evil. Many wish to help their employees by encouraging cities to build new housing alongside their new offices. However, when push comes to shove, companies will prioritize their office over new housing projects. New offices are also a lot easier to sell to many of the entrenched players.

How do we combat this all? We vote! Oh wait...

Unfortunately, those who have recently moved here (who tend to be techies) tend not to vote and many cannot simply because they haven't yet lived here long enough. Additionally, those who commute (most people) cannot vote in the locations where may be truly relevant. For example, if I work at Twitter but live in Oakland, I cannot vote to encourage more housing to be built in San Francisco.

The other big problem that many ignore is that many of us cannot vote in cities because frankly, we're not American. At last I counted there are over 250,000 Canadians alone that live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Don't forget all the other TN, H-1Bs, L-2, non-visa aliens and families that live (and more than likely, rent) here. The Bay Area likely has the most non-voting capable residents in the US. I would guess that up to 10% of Bay area residents cannot vote.

I live in SF and the problem with housing here is that although the residential neighborhoods are very extended (think of the Richmond), most of the residential buildings are 2/3 story houses that cannot accomodate many people.

We need to start replacing these little residential houses with 10 story buildings. There is nowhere else to build, we need to start upgrading the existing buildings.

Will that change the city? Well yes, but cities evolve and some of the houses built after the earthquake are anachronistic and of out place in this time.

This is one of many problems that disincentivizes construction projects.

To build a new condo in San Francisco is rarely profitable: 1) Unlike other cities, when your building plan fits all criteria, it is not effectively automatically approved. To get your permit, you must comply AND be very lucky. In other cities, you generally must ONLY comply. 2) Once your building has been approved, small community groups may oppose it and the government will reject you if you do not. 3) A substantial percentage of your building must be sold at a loss for affordable housing.

Development projects here are effectively the highest risk and highest cost. On top of this, most buildings can only be 4 or 5 stories tall. Of course, the only way to stay afloat is to build luxury overpriced condos.

The question is how do you overcome the rich and entrenched voters who effectively control these policy.

> The question is how do you overcome the rich and entrenched voters who effectively control these policy.

I can't talk for every category, but the tech industry as a whole would be more than happy to promote these initiatives, because cheaper rents mean cheaper salaries for their employees.

While I do support infill development, San Francisco is already a dense city (the second-densest city in the US after New York City, unless you count much smaller municipalities), and the idea that everyone must, must, must be given the opportunity to live in San Francisco proper is naïve, as is the idea that any but a tiny minority of the homeless in the city would ever be able to afford any kind of market-rate housing even with a wholesale program of infill development.

You say "there is nowhere else to build." Sure there is. There is Daly City and Colma and Millbrae and so forth down to San Jose and out into the east bay and even the north bay. Not everyone is going to live in the 49 square miles of SF, even if it becomes considerably more dense.

Now, we should also build higher-density housing in SF. But that's not going to change the homelessness situation in any meaningful way.

> There is Daly City and Colma and Millbrae and so forth down to San Jose

Sure, but then the city better start spending some billions to improve the infrastructure and public transportation: BART is a joke by modern standards, slow and dirty; the Caltrain is even worse with its diesel-powered locomotives like it's 1899.

> Sure, but then the city better start spending some billions to improve the infrastructure and public transportation

Now you're onto the crux of the issue.

People, generally, don't want to commute more than 30m each way. The further away you get from that time frame, the more people "drop out" or start sacrificing in other areas (e.g. housing). Having reliable passive transit such as trains or subways extends this time window some.

Build a bullet train that gets you from Modesto (random town 90 miles away) to S.F. in 30m and watch how many families are perfectly willing to buy a 4 bedroom house for 350k and commute every day. Not to mention all the towns in between.

edit

The LA -> SF bullet train's a good start if it lives up to the hype.

While san francisco maybe dense, one thing I've noticed is that people live very small here. It may just be my social circle, granted anecdotal, but I seem to see tight living situations here. A quick search didnt turn up data about over crowding conditions, consider things like People per room, People per sq ft. Nearl everyone I know has housemates, may have roommates (literally same room).

Compared to what I've seen elsewhere San francisco is a very compact city and people are making great sacrifices in order to make rent affordable on a per person basis.

I'm not sure whether shameless self-promotion is frowned upon here, but I wrote a manifesto on this topic: http://www.tradeoffs.press/product/user-friendly-urbanism-ag...

Where I'm from, you're eligible to vote in municipal elections if you're a lawful permanent resident and have resided in the municipality for X years. Citizenship is required for all the election levels above, but local politics is shaped by the people who actually live there. Which I think is pretty nice.

I was surprised that in the US, citizenship is required for voting at any level! I can see how that was an attractive policy when the US was originally settled and there were no H1-b visas or 10-year green card wait lists, and being a US citizen didn't make you tax liable globally. But now? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

I live close to the area (I'm on 8th and Howard) and the situation for the homeless there is horrible. We walked past the tent camp while going to the local spca to see if they had a cat we could adopt. The spca has a great facility and it is great that their animals are treated so well. But the contrast between the animals and humans on the street made my heart sink. I hope that we can keep the great facilities for the animals but we find a better solution for the people living on the street. As mentioned in the article many are mentally ill and it is sad to see them scream and yell at ghosts. I've never heard someone say something about throwing feces so this doesn't seem frequent. I'm sure many of the homeless want to keep their place clean but there is a lack of public sanitation to do so. Reports say many went to this area after being told to do so during the super bowl http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/S-F-mayor-...

This is very similar to the homeless situation where I live. We had to recently break up a camp in one of the beach communities too. Many, many drug addicts (especially meth) and mentally ill (possibly due to drugs). Simply providing shelter is not the solution imo. The challenge is so much bigger than that. Drug rehab services need to be provided or even required. The easy access to drugs also needs to be addressed.

I am all for helping people that need our help. I am not for enabling certain behaviors though such as drug use. It is going to be hard to empower drug addicted homeless people if they can't hold down a job or relationships due to their addiction.

I am not saying this is the case for all homeless but at least in my area, it is the majority.

If we want to solve this problem, we need to provide shelter along with drug rehab services & require weekly clean drug tests as a requirement to keep the shelter.

Now the costs for all of that, I am sure is just as big of a challenge.

This is directly contrary to what has been found to work in practice. Mental illness and drug addiction can take years to treat successfully, and it's impossible to treat people who don't live in a fixed location. "Housing first" policies treat housing as the first priority, necessary for even gaining access to help people with other problems.

Without housing, many of these people gradually become worse off and eventually die. Housing should be treated as a human right, without any special conditions imposed.

"we need to provide shelter along with drug rehab services"

Yes, but treatment should be sought voluntarily, not imposed as a condition of housing.

*edit: Treatment should be readily available and highly encouraged, obviously.

I am curious why you feel it should be voluntarily?

If we are doing our part by providing resources and money for shelter/food/rehab, shouldn't they be doing their part to get & stay clean?

We need to be accountable in providing shelter, food, rehab. They need to be accountable for staying clean.

Otherwise, I fear it will not work. It should be a 2 way street.

People need a home before any kind of treatment would be effective. Unfortunately, treatments for both mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse require a long time to work, and relapses are extremely common. Further, these treatments aren't usually effective unless the recipient feels that any needed lifestyle changes are made of their own volition; if they feel "forced" into it, treatment won't work long-term.

This "housing first" approach, when implemented properly, has proven effective in many areas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First

I appreciate your view point. Thanks!

> If we want to solve this problem, we need to provide shelter along with drug rehab services & require weekly clean drug tests as a requirement to keep the shelter.

Yes and no. The question is, are people becoming homeless because they're drug addicts or becoming drug addicts because they are homeless?

If it's the former then yes, clean drug tests - as a requirement to compel them to get better - might help. If it's the latter however, you're just going to drive away the very people that you are trying to help.

I venture to say that most drug addicts don't actually want to be that way. So throwing them a lifeline and then taking it away because they're addicted? Seems callous and unhelpful. You'll never solve the problem that way.

"I venture to say that most drug addicts don't actually want to be that way"

I agree with this which is why I think we should offer the support they need to get better. I also feel that people need to be held accountable. If you are not held accountable for staying clean when you are provided the support you need, it will be easy to go right back into it.

That might be fine for the mental addiction side of it, but is absolutely not for the physical side. It's why addiction is such a serious problem. People seriously cannot just will themselves clean.

Meanwhile, houses in Detroit can be purchased for the cost of a month's rent in SF. The solution is obvious, no?

It seems that people want so badly to live in some of the nation's most expensive real estate that they are willing to be homeless. That's a choice. The quarter billion spent on them is an enabler. It encourages them to stay homeless.

Are you suggesting bussing all of the homeless to Detroit?

I get your point, but Detroit is a really bad example. Who would want to live with undrinkable water and the highest murder rate in the country, with essentially no municipal services, in a house so run down that it'd be condemned in any other city?

You must be thinking of St. Louis and Flint, MI…

That, plus I hear Detroit is bouncing back a bit. The homeless would probably become jobless, there. A slight improvement, I guess.

Oops, yeah the contaminated water thing is in Flint. But Detroit does have high crime, even if the exact rankings vary slightly from year to year.

Homeless flock to SF because it's very tolerant of them relative to many other cities (some of which actually bus their mentally ill to SF), and the conditions are moderate enough that they aren't fighting off hypothermia. It has nothing to do with their desire to live on the curb in front of expensive real estate.

I don't know that you understand the problem at all if you refer to it as a choice. Particularly if you think the alternative choice is home ownership in abandoned areas of the country's most troubled city. Owning some empty, stripped-apart house in Detroit doesn't solve anybody's problems and certainly doesn't eliminate the cost of supporting the downtrodden. Many people in Detroit who have skills aren't finding employment and are barely surviving. A property title doesn't fill your stomach day after day. And the 4-figure houses you refer to are that way because they represent more liability than asset. They need massive investment to make them liveable.

Your comment is frankly ignorant.

What San Francisco needs is a free, high quality, in-patient psychiatric hospital.

No, I am not talking about a stereotypical 1960s Nurse Ratchett type dungeon psych ward. I am talking about a modern and caring facility where homeless people with severe mental problems and drug/alcohol addiction can check in and get help. If they need it, they should be able to live there on a long-term basis.

It says the city of San Francisco spends $242 million a year on homeless services. That'd build and operate a very nice psych hospital.

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