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Comment by tranchms | Hacker News Reader

The problem isn’t even San Francisco. It’s the entire Bay Area. In 1 hour in any direction you have exorbitant rent/ housing.

Building codes make it next to impossible anywhere in the bay to affordably build.

I live in Belmont, and my gf lives on Van Ness downtown.

They need to create more housing pretty much ANYWHERE in the bay. And somewhere close to the major business areas.

When I moved here years ago to work at a startup, the cheapest housing I could find was $800 sharing a house with 10 roommates. Having 4-8 roommates it’s not uncommon.

Who is making money off this scheme?

And on an unrelated note, downtown San Francisco has turned into a writhing cess pool of filth. Homelessness, unstable/ crazy people. Rampant drug use and needles everywhere. Tents lining the streets. Prostitution. Human excrement all over the sidewalks.

The only way to avoid it is stay in your bubble and pretend is doesn’t exist.

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>Who is making money off this scheme?

The outside of SF, the Bay Area is composed of two groups of people: -People who rent -People who vote in every election/attend city council meetings at 7pm/attend city planning meetings at noon on week days

Everyone who owns a house near san fransisco has the price of their property, and thus their money, reduced by more houses being built near san fransisco. They get more money by reducing the supply of houses, thus all the house owners, usually more rich and people who already live in an area, are against more houses being built.

Property owners are making out quite well.

My landlord inherited their house decades ago. They rent it out and make some good cash off of it. They could sell it for $1.8m. Either way, they're doing just fine.

Other landlords I've had owned apartment complexes for decades or inherited them and they too are making out really well because their property taxes are so low.

Have you or your gf been there for a while? Is the homelessness worse than before? I lived there about six years ago so I’m curious.

Based on my subjective observations, homelessness definitely seems to have gotten worse in the South Bay Area in the past few years. If you go biking or walking along the various creek trails and railroad tracks you'll see more encampments. Some of them are fairly well hidden but if you stop and look you'll see the signs.

By the way, this is one of the reasons why it's tough to get people out of their cars and commuting by bike. Many people don't feel safe cycling through those areas.

I've been here for 8, my (totally anecdotal) observation is that a lot of the homelessness + drug use has moved up market from the mid market/tenderloin area towards duboce triangle and the castro making it more noticeable/visible. I wouldn't be surprised if the absolute numbers increased too but it seems like a lot of the development/companies that moved into the mid market area may have led to an increase in police enforcement that has led to a dispersion.

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