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Comment by kangax | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering why homelessness is not as large in NYC? The prices here are as high as in SF. Is it due to the slower rate of a price increase? Colder weather?

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NYC has a homeless problem that's actually worse than San Francisco [0]: Their homeless population in 2017 was upwards of 76,000 people.

Where are you getting the information that New York's problem isn't as bad?

[0]: https://www.wnyc.org/story/more-homeless-people-live-new-yor...

> Where are you getting the information that New York's problem isn't as bad?

He must have visited the city and walked around. The population might be larger, but the problem is less egregious in NYC; we don't just let them camp out in the streets and rule the city.

This is very misleading and doesn't mean what it sounds like it means.

NYC has a homeless population of 76,501, but according to HUD, only 5.1% of NYC homeless are unsheltered. In SF, the unsheltered rate according to HUD is almost 90% - nearly the worst in the country. That means NYC actually has fewer unsheltered people than SF on the streets despite a much larger homeless population.

So while NYC has a big issue with housing affordability and homelessness, they are actually doing a much more effective job of keeping people off the streets and reducing the rate of the kinds of severe public health issues you will see everyday in downtown SF.

Places that get cold usually have less homelessness.

Or they just have a less visible homeless problem because more of the homeless are sleeping in shelters instead of on the streets.

NYC shelters nearly 95% of it's homeless population. SF only manages to shelter about 11% of it's homeless population (about the worst rate in the country). Thus there are more homeless people on SF's streets despite a much smaller total homeless population than NYC (and NYC is of course also a much more populous city).

My recollection: when I took a class on Homelessness and Public Policy through SFSU, the number of homeless in San Francisco was similar to the number in New York in spite of it being a much smaller city.

The most current stats I have indicate that California has about 25 percent of the nation's homeless:

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...?

Yes, exactly. The point is that in a warm climate there may not be more homeless people, just more visible homeless people.

NYC now shelters most of its homeless mainly because state law requires it. We’re spending a ridiculous amount of money putting homeless people up in hotel rooms because the process to get new shelters built is stalled and we can’t even build enough market-rate housing to account for population growth, let alone affordable housing.

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