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Comment by forthefuture | Hacker News Reader

> “I strongly believe that it is not compassionate to allow human beings to live on our city streets,” wrote the measure’s author, supervisor Mark Farrell, in an op-ed. “Let’s help get the homeless into housing, not tents.”

I guess this would be the other side.

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However, the article also points out that the measure doesn't provide any additional funding to pay for the housing that would be needed.

San Francisco spends roughly 35k/year per homeless person. Funding is not the issue. There are all sorts of issues around mental health, drugs, tolerance in certain neighborhoods, political corruption, inefficiencies in government etc. that contribute to the situation we have today. I guarantee you, though, that if a bunch of homeless people started camping out in Pac Heights, the issue would get "resolved" pretty quickly.

> Funding is not the issue. There are all sorts of issues around mental health, drugs, tolerance in certain neighborhoods, political corruption, inefficiencies in government

Ho-hum. People become homeless because they don't have money. I've worked alongside more than one tech who has been homeless at some period in their lives. Some slept in their cars, some slept on park benches. Jim Carrey talks about how he was homeless as a teenager, what was the "mental health, drugs" etc. problem he had? He was actually working a full time job as a janitor after school.

San Francisco is full of white, upper middle class prep school assholes who have been handed everything their whole lives, who are parasites like Ron Conman, sucking vampirically off the labor of the young people working at the various startups. They sit in Atherton with their trophy wives and little brats and think up ways to fuck over the homeless people in the city. This is what the czar and his family did in Russia before the Bolsheviks lined those parasites up against the wall in 1918.

Long term homelessness is generally not just a result of lack of money. Healthy individuals can usually get out of homelessness with a bit of help. People suffering from severe mental illness or severe substance abuse have a much more difficult time escaping homelessness because they often have no support network and no way to rebuild one, and they have difficulty retaining any sort of employment.

... and the police are their de facto social workers / case workers.

Funding is the issue, because

> There are all sorts of issues around mental health, drugs, tolerance in certain neighborhoods, political corruption, inefficiencies in government etc. that contribute to the situation we have today.

Can be addressed with funding.

Funding is the issue when it comes to a lack of housing, social and mental health services for the homeless.

I expect the property owners in the vicinity of any such proposed homeless shelter/housing would block its construction.

I think these guys are smart enough to know that people aren't setting up tents despite alternatives. How can it be compassion if what this article says is true; that the measure apparently provides no other kind of relief for them, just criminalizes their existence?

The good people of my town do this all the time. They campaign to close trailer parks or tear down low-income housing. The excuse is always "nobody should live like that".

But never do they create alternatives. Giving one the cynical feeling that its really all about rich people protecting their property values.

In my life, I've lived in a handful of home-owning working class and upper middle class metropolitan areas. Every single one of them has had a "crisis" when developers want to build low income housing. I'm talking putting signs on lawns, knocking on doors, scheduling protests, going to town hall meetings and starting grassroots campaigns to protect their property values under the guise of public safety and "think of the children".

Their stated fear is that crime will increase, but press them with some sympathy towards their anxiety and they'll freely make it known that they view their property as an investment and don't want to be in the presence of people they feel are beneath them.

I also spent a majority of my childhood in the low income housing people are so against. We didn't live in fear of robbery, assault nor was there a rampant drug problem. We frequently left our door and windows unlocked and many neighbors had our key. I had a large and healthy social circle as a kid because of the close vicinity to others the property provided. The sense of community was higher there than any other place I've lived. I've brought this up only to be told that I just don't understand.

What they say: "people shouldn't have to live without dignity"

What they mean: "people shouldn't live here without dignity"

What they do: "people without dignity shouldn't live"

They'll go somewhere.

No one can disagree with that statement. But from the article, this seems to be a typical "ban status quo, promise something better" bill where 90% of the proposal is mysteriously only concerned with the "ban status quo" part:

"Opponents of the measure point out that the proposed law does not include any funding for additional housing or shelters, and the city’s existing shelters have long waiting lists for beds."

I agree, tents don't preclude housing. Let's help the homeless get into housing, but let's not force them out of tents.

Except that the only way it "helps" them is by providing an "extra incentive" to get off the streets, which is hardly the issue.

Except in the next paragraph it says there is no provision for any housing in the bill, just removing the tents.

Unless those houses are already built ... that is pure uncut bullshit.

But with current rents in SF any permanent residence for a homeless will be seen as the city paying him 1000$ monthly. So giving homeless people housing is no starter.

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