Comment by mac01021 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mac01021 | Hacker News Reader

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Surprisingly (to me) it seems this is approximately true [1]:

> San Francisco reportedly is set to spend nearly $280 million in its next budget fighting homelessness – an average of $37,300 for each of the city’s estimated 7,499 homeless residents

I live in a place where I don't see homeless people even on a monthly basis. Maybe a fuew time's per year when I've ventured an hour or more from home. So I'm sure there is a lot of nuance to the problem of homelessness that I don't understand. Still, considering these facts naively, I fail to see how such a large amount of spending can fail to address the issue:

1. $30k per year is more than enough to enable a person to be not-homeless. Rent them an apartment, buy them groceries and medical care, etc.

2. If they refuse to live in that apartment because they have itchy feet, schizophrenia, or just don't like the wallpaper, then perhaps we should suppose that they don't consider their homelessness to be much of a problem.

3. If any of those folks who don't take the city up on the free apartment do something illegal, like defecating in public, they can probably be incarcerated or institutionalized for $30k per year.

4. Some of the people from #2 might not be eliminated in step #3, because they don't break any laws. Being that that's the case, even if we consider them to be a nuisance, shouldn't we just get over it and ignore them?

[1]: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/19/san-francisco-continues...

Hi - small note from someone who has worked extensively with homeless. While each bullet point you make has a superficial logic, they are (unfortunately !) Incorrect due to erroneous assumptions.

If the "problem" was as simple as you assume, the solution pointed out would have already worked.

It's a complex problem, which requires complex solutions. In my experience, the major element is mental health. Many people are on the streets due to mental health issues, or develop mental health issues when on the street.

One take away note: most people are only two simultaneous life disasters away from being on the streets. One disaster (health / family / relationship / job) can typically be weathered, but two or more at once is typically catastrophic. There's many a PhD / CEO / father of four on the street.

This is a fallacy - for all we know, SF might be spending that money to help 20,000 people to find homes, and 7,500 homeless people are still left or newly homeless.

> If any of those folks who don't take the city up on the free apartment do something illegal, like defecating in public, they can probably be incarcerated or institutionalized for $30k per year.

Should a non-homeless person be institutionalized or incarcerated for defecating in public?

Really there is a small but seriously problematic population of people in need of a high level of mental health care who I would guess are the primary perpetrators of public defecation + urination (schizophrenia, addiction/intoxication, etc.). The 1,320 homeless people needing the most aid required $106 million in emergency medical and mental health services in 2015. Putting this money to work institutionalizing these chronic cases seems like a sensible and responsible thing to do – and it isn't hard to pick these individuals out. Staff at the General know all the regulars.

FYI:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17485109

I mean, I feel you, but having witnessed first hand the hell of an incorrect psychological diagnosis followed by state ordered psych ward imprisonment, things can get ugly fast.

We'd need a very very good mechanism for deciding who gets institutionalized if we're going to start suspending legal rights. Far better than we have now. A Galaxy better than "staff at general recognizing" someone.

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