App Wants to Track Every Homeless Person in San Francisco

As this comes up in most threads on how SF spends money on the homeless:

- The SF homelessness abatement budget includes a lot of money to support low income renters and other services that are used by people you might become homeless if not for city assistance.

- Considering that health coverage for a high tech worker with no chronic conditions can easily run 20k+, it's not surprising that an unhoused individual who may have many health conditions costs more to care for.

In addition to what some other commenters have said, I'll add that 7500 is a point-in-time count, it's lower than the total number of people that are homeless in SF at some point during the year [0]

0: http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/San-Francisc...

If $40k /person/ year bothers wait until you see what we spend on juvenile offenders in the state of California ($300k / person / year!!!)

https://www.ocregister.com/2019/01/31/we-need-a-bold-vision-...

I'm not defending the practice, but it's disingenuous to suggest that it solves nothing. Ostensibly it's a means by which the city can determine which programs are most effective at getting the homeless population off the streets which I think is a laudable goal.

As illustrated by the article, there's no shortage of money, but that money doesn't seem to be effective in addressing an issue that residents of the city are very concerned about.

Do you have a better idea? Genuine question.

> But ONE System faces immense obstacles just getting people to sign up. City employees must gain subjects’ trust, learn their real name, and persuade them to join a monitoring system. Participants must sign the program’s medical-records privacy protection forms—a tough task for those suffering from mental illness. To get into permanent housing, program members need to pass a background check, which can take 45 days and requires an identification card, something that many people living on the street lack.

The article addresses that. If you thought big brother was watching you, this would seem to fit nicely into that, wouldn't it?

If you want to stay off the grid, why live in a city full of CCTV and other ways to track people? Why not live in the forest?

Just my opinion: I imagine that with neuroplasticity, there are plenty of positive connections to their current positions. Coping mechanisms can attach positivity to anything, can justify attaching negativity to anything else. It seems like if they hadn't learned how to cope they would be dead. :/

Those people are psychotic (to varying degrees). You should take what they say as true of how they feel, now how things are.

If you meet someone who 'chooses' to be homeless, you should wonder what their other choices were. I doubt they chose homeless over, say, good job and loving family.

Most of the people who 'choose' street life have truly awful alternatives. Drugs, mental illness, family abandonment, etc are often at play. Convincing themselves that they want to be homeless can also be a form of adaptation to make the condition more bearable.

I have only anecdotal data to support my opinion that this is a truly dumb idea. It really tells of the lack of empathy for people on the street

It’s amazing what can come out techies brains.

I can see why it would be helpful to be able to find someone with a history of mental illness, who is likely avoiding help. But I agree that it crosses into very murky territory, and the avenues of abuse are many. Couple of quick meetings, maybe some legislation, and suddenly the police and councils have access to a GPS map of homeless individuals. Then they can deploy security and anti-loitering measures wherever a few too many show up.

You're right! Caseworkers are absolutely critical to a functional social services system!

Perhaps they could use a records management system that helps them keep track of everything across a sizable, and maybe not perfectly coordinated, series of agencies? It might even make it easier to advocate for our vulnerable neighbors and friends who need understanding, compassion, and assistance.

Right now I'm sure you're thinking "Surely SF caseworkers have something like that!". And that's a very reasonable assumption to make - they certainly do now. They didn't before, when care and aid for those who are unhoused was more disorganized.

Except that the program is voluntary. Nothing to “fight back” against.

People on house arrest already have ankle bracelets to track them, and people in prison are tracked because that’s how prison works.

There are definitely some (mostly) young, carefree people who actually opt-in to that lifestyle. They're probably overrepresented near a University. They have friends and family they could go stay with to get back into society at a moments notice. I feel like they get conflated with people who "choose" homelessness because they have an addiction, or because the church that runs the shelter abused them as a kid, or because their schizophrenia makes them paranoid about social service workers. They need help to function in society, the same way an asthmatic would need help running a 5K.

Yes there are some who are homeless by choice. However they are a tiny minority. The vast majority are homeless lack the ability to care for themselves.

>Are not some people homelss/nomadic by choice because they wanted to live off the grid?

I'm sure there are, but people who are nomadic by choice is not the problem that cities are trying to solve.

The _public_ issue of homelessness results from mental illness and drug addiction and societal restrictions on enforced institutionalization, rather than resulting from free choice or even lack of income.

Yes, check out /r/vagabond.

It's an interesting culture. I remember one article where they were trading "markings" or their own little "hobo symbols," and one self-described "hobomedic" was sharing his extremely convoluted symbol, saying "if you ever see this, there's medical help available here!"

No idea what "medical help" might mean, but based on his "kit pics" it would involve aspirin, Band-Aids, and holistic oils. Also, the choice of his own convoluted"symbol" over universally recognizable symbols like a + or something has its own implications.

And for the other thousands of homeless people who aren't a haircut away from a programming job, what do you recommend?

Yeah, better establish a great system of universal healthcare and built social housing mixed with normal housing everywhere around the city. And get the poor a small basic income to get them off the streets until they find a new dignified job themselves.

Europe does stuff like that in case they need some examples to copy.

Eh, I don't think it's stupid it's just not going to solve homelessness. I'll preface this by admitting that I'm not well-versed with the problem (other than what I see), so this could be off-base and I'll feel stupid for having written this.

Understanding the who/when/where of homelessness isn't stupid - Epidemiology is a well-respected field built around just that (for health and diseases, obviously). Certainly part of solving the problem is understanding the distribution of the problem.

Does anyone currently track that information with any appreciable amount of accuracy? If so, I could definitely see this as being pointless. If not, sounds like really useful information to know.

Obviously lots of questions and suspicion here makes sense, like why it's a private company and not an NGO, why they can't anonymously track this information, etc. but "tracking whereabouts" is also a feature of many epidemiological studies.

You're right! SF needs to address housing, treatment, and health care! SF doesn't need another iOS app shat out by some smug prick with no clue.

One of SF's problems is that it's been impossible for the city to meet needs and coordinate care over a sizable population when it can't figure out who needs what and where reliably. The idea here is basically a medical record system so that SF can deliver all the items you so wisely and correctly point to! When you know someone's history, what has and hasn't worked for them, you can figure out how to compassionately delivery to them the treatment, housing, and care they need.

Not only are you right about what's needed, San Francisco is right there with you.