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Comment by megaman8 | Hacker News Reader

SF just passed 300 million/year measure that's supposed to help the homeless and that's in addition to the 240 million/year of funding that's already there. Both of those combined exceeds the budgets of most cities. First I would say, let's figure out how to use that money so that it's actually working. 540 million/year is enough to give the 7000 homeless in SF 77,000$ per year. Let's put that to good use and make sure it doesn't end up in administrative waste before throwing more $ at it.

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The divisor should be 7000 people + however many people are not homeless because of the money SF spends reducing homelessness. I certainly hope that's a number much larger than 7000.

Ah, true enough. Maybe the 7000 are truly the worst off, and in need of extra services.

You're correct. A full 50% of the budget is housing assistance. 10% is eviction prevention. After that, we're getting into the services and support for the 7000+ people that the point-in-time count captures.

Using the point-in-time count as a divisor for the entire budget is so ridiculously asinine I'm shocked so many folks are engaging with it in good faith. "Let's figure out how to use that money" might begin with understanding how it's already spent. Here's a more in depth article correcting this fallacy: http://beyondchron.org/sfs-homeless-spending-myth/

“Since the 1980’s, the media has created an impression—now shared by the public and some supervisors—that you can simply divide homeless spending ($165 million) by the homeless numbers (7000) and then give that amount of money (over $20,000 per homeless person) to get them off the streets. But most of SF’s “homeless budget” is spent on people already housed. The city is not spending $165 million on 7000 reported homeless, but on thousands more living in supportive permanent housing.” - same author, from 2014

This is dangerously ignorant analysis and I'd hope you would take some time to research where that money is spent before sharing your opinion again.

A vital figure is missing from the article, how many people are actually being housed with that budget?

If it's 10k people, that is $16,500 per person (ignoring administrative costs). So that is pretty damn effective budgeting. (roughly)

But, it's 1k people that is $165,000 a person, which is piss poor.

So just shouting down someone else that is missing a few numbers is pointless without all the numbers. You may end up agreeing with their sentiment if you find the end results are the same. (ie, possibly the budget is going to rich land owners pockets instead of actually helping more people)

I'm sorry, taking a budget for homeless and homeless assistance and dividing by point-in-time count is destined for asinine useless territory no matter what information I lack. 50% of the budget is housing assistance. 10% is eviction prevention. 20% is medical care. So just napkin math and 2/3rds of the 77k/y figure is for folks outside the point-in-time count. His "sentiment" is wholly based in steadfast ignorance over what those numbers pay for. Pretending to have a firm enough grasp to _direct_ future spending when whiffing on those basics isn't as endearing as you'd think.

I'm thrilled by the success of the Navigation Centers pioneered by Ed Lee. But it's really, really hard to talk about those specifics with people who just want a numerator and denominator to talk about per-person abstract figures as if policy can drop out of an equation. This may shock the HN crowd, but I live in SF and have awareness of this issue not gleaned from the immediate article.

If you're going to baselessly insinuate that "rich landowners" are pocketing funds, I'd appreciate if you could name the organization you suspect? Hamilton Families? Community Housing Partnership? C'mon, lets rat out those fat cats!

A charity group for the "police and fire fighters" calls me up and asks me to donate. I ask a simple question "how is donated money spent?" I ask them to send me info on this to research before I donate and I never get any.

If we can't see how the money is spent (ie, audited by an actual CPA as the ultimate) then we are all guessing as to how it's spent and who ends up with the money in the end.

You are guessing unless you have seen the books. Outrage against uncontrolled and unmonitored spending is appropriate.

I'm sorry? I listed two specific charities that receive this money and your chosen example, wholly ignoring those two or anything approaching relevance to the topic, is "some rando scam call" you got? I really don't know what you want out of this conversation. So far beyond anything even masquerading as good-faith engagement.

I have had some experience researching charities. Just because you listed two doesn't mean they are good or spend their money ethically. (most do not)

The fact that you think they are good implies that either you researched them and have proof, or you have blind faith in them.

If you researched them, can you provide your sources? If you have not, why do you think they are ethical with their spending practices?

I brought them up. You hand waved about unrelated scams from unrelated persons. The sheer gall to act like you've been engaging in good faith is remarkable.

Do folks normally volunteer for your made up research quests after this much acrimony and baseless conjecture? Ridiculous.

The only thing "dangerously ignorant" is giving someone a free place to live on top of the most expensive real estate in the world, merely because they threaten they might be on the street instead of moving somewhere cheaper like everyone else.

A free place to live? Which program is that, exactly? Refresh my memory if you'd be so kind.

I mean, I'm certain you're not denigrating housing assistance programs for persons who lived in the city before they were homeless and painting it as dangerous outsiders getting free rent. That would be unconscionable.

It would be “unconscionable” to object to a 90% housing subsidy (but not a 100% subsidy) for someone to live on the most valuable real estate in the world rather than moving somewhere cheaper like everyone else?

Um, okay then. Forget I said anything, I guess.

Nah, I'm referring to how you're wildly misrepresenting your position and now presenting an exceptionally poor reading of the objection. If you manage to say anything of substance I'll be sure to recall it.

But really, I'm game! Name a specific program you object to? Single out one of the nonprofits that receives these funds? I'm curious what the nice folks down at Hamilton Families did to deserve this much of your ire.

I mean, it couldn't possibly be sour grapes that those lucky ducky homeless folks get to stay in smoke-drenched SF while you had to bounce to Austin like "everyone else?" How was ACL this year?

Presumably, the things a government needs to buy to help are housing and personnel, which are unusually expensive here by a wide margin. So having far and away the highest spending per person needing assistance seems correct.

Are those numbers correct? If so, that's insane. For $77k/year, SF should be able to house every single one of them with money to spare.

The latest tax increased it from 30k to about 60-70k. As to why it's doing so little, there's a variety of explanations. Some say that homeless often have mental or drug abuse issues that keep them from being able to live on their own. Others (including the mayor) say that the money is more than enough, and we need more accountability of what we already spend. 70k is about the median wage of a single person in SF.

Even losing half the bureaucracy, that leaves 35k/year for actual aid. Toss half of that at misc care and other programs. 17.5/year left for housing. Not much, but should still be enough for group home type arrangements. Or, at least I would hope so.

I've never been involved in these programs on either side, but it's amazing that $70k/year might not be enough to house somebody.

1/2 for bureacrazy? that sounds like a lot for just overhead

Well, whatever money you spend to provide a service goes straight into someones pocket first, before a homeless person gets anything in return.

You're going to be real surprised then when you find out what assisted living or memory care costs for your parents. Hint it's at least double what normal cost of living is. And many of these folks do need that level of care and supervision.

Sure, that doesn't surprise me.

But how many of those 7000 homeless need that level of care? Half? 2/3? SF should at least be able to get the "easy" people off the street.

Maybe they already have?

They have definitely worked hard to do so. On BART I happened to start talking with somebody wearing a jacket from the Homeless Outreach Team. It's his job to talk people into getting the help they need and getting off the streets. The ones we talked about are definitely the difficult cases.

That doesn't surprise me at all. There's a homeless guy in my neighborhood I've been talking with at least 7 years. He has mentioned being born at the hospital 3 blocks from my place, and I'm sure he grew up in the neighborhood. He's polite, friendly, and very set in his ways. I suspect he has some sort of alcohol-induced anterograde amnesia. He has absolutely no interest in living in any sort of setting where he'd be constrained by others. From the way he talks about it, I expect there's some sort of history of abuse by authority figures.

I don't think it's impossible for him to get help. But I think it would have to include living in his neighborhood and I think it would need a lot of patient and intensive help from professionals. Otherwise he's just going to do what's familiar to him.

There's a lot of bureaucrats and cronies taking their cut, I'd be surprised if 10% of that actually made it to the homeless

Considering the annual cost of a taxpayer for a prison inmate is $31k a year, surely thats a problem that can be solved with that budget.

In California it's about $75k/yr[1] so that budget should be roughly enough.

https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/aug/09...

A fair amount of resources spent in prison inmates is dedicated to keeping them inside the prison.

The vast majority of that 300 million per year will go to bureaucrats for group meetings to discuss how to solve the homeless problem. San Francisco voters have no say in the matter and they are unable to influence change because these organizations are run by unelected bureaucrats. If you vote for another figurehead they will keep the same bureaucrats.

Reference, please.

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