Homeless Population Jumps by Thousands Across the San Francisco Bay Area

I'm one of the homeless you speak of, since last year. I came to the BA in 2011 after graduating Uni and worked as a programmer, to SF in 2014, and then had my reputation destroyed in 2016 by a false assault allegation by my old boss to HR--limiting job prospects via black list. I've an uncommon name and rare specialization.

I think of "destitute" as the keyword, at various layers of Maslow's hierarchy. The ones you talk about are destitute socially but probably have food and temporary sleeping provisions, seldom rising above the 3rd layer into esteem tho. I have a bit of my old network supporting me, and I sometimes think I'll get off the street.

I work as a waiter 30hr/wk in Mountain View at minimum wage, and don't make enough money yet to have housing prospects. Answering interview questions without needs being met sends overwhelmingly negative signals. I have all my professional stuff like books and computers in a storage unit, but rarely have a place to use it.

I don't apply for high paying jobs in my field because I know that I lack the basic necessities to make a good impression. I've tried and do entertain opportunities that fall on my lap, but I always make a blunder due to not having the resources I need and they fade away. It feels safter to not try, given domino effects of interviewing poorly (permanent record, data). "Learned helplessness" for sure. I was hired to my current job on the spot, thankfully, and almost didn't get it due to logistic issues that I'm intentionally vague about.

Personally I was not a supporter of Prop C and take no government assistance, instead fasting and meditating when I can't earn money and nobody in my network can help me out.

We'll get through this. I'm staying strong.

I agree. Grouping together "Mentally ill and/or severely drug addicted homeless person dropping syringes and trash across the city" with "Reasonably normal person who has had really bad luck, or has some weaknesses in maintaining employment but is otherwise a functioning adult" does a huge disservice to any conversation on homelessness.

> It means a severely addicted and mentally ill person who lives on the street.

To whom? To me, "homeless" is "someone without a home" (I'd also consider someone living in a car to be homeless). It doesn't matter to me how they got there or whether or not they suffer from a mental illness or some ailment that makes it difficult or impossible to find work. Bottom line is that they don't have stable shelter, and that alone is a huge problem.

The solution for any individual who is homeless certainly varies based on their physical and mental condition, but I don't see a problem with counting all categories of people together.

I certainly agree, what gets lost in the discussion is that people who have no permanent address are a population not a type. That population has many different types of people among it (as does any population). One need only volunteer at a food bank or a shelter to see how widely variable these types are.

The discussion for helping different types need different solutions. We need substance abuse clinics and counselling for the folks whose addictions have resulted in them becoming non-functional. We need housing assistance for the under employed who are working but cannot afford to both feed themselves (and often their families) and pay rent for a place to live. We need mental health services for people who are suffering with mental health issues, both genetic and non-genetic (for example someone who is diagnosed schizophrenic needs a different support system than someone suffering from PTSD or TBI. We need to create meaningful and functional communities for people whose challenges or disabilities make it impossible to participate in the existing communities.

There isn't "one" fix that we can apply because there isn't "one" type of person associated with the label "homeless."

What I have observed, is that people who are opposed to any state assistance of any kind to anyone (and there are people across the political spectrum in this group) will argue against any fix by holding it up against the type of homeless person for which it provides no benefit. They will argue against drug rehab using people who need housing assistance. They will argue against mental health services using people who need drug rehab. They will argue again housing assistance using people who need mental health services. It is sadly easier to get people to say 'no' because the solution is not generalized than it is to get people to agree to move forward because at least it helps someone.

I still remember the first tram I caught in SF, an elderly asian man boarded the tram and bumped into a homeless person. He apologized profusely, and the man turned around and the punched him directly in the face.

No one (including me) did anything or even looked twice.

Disgusting place.

The phenomenon you're talking about wouldn't explain much of the problem, given that most homeless people lived here before they were homeless. In the 2017 census, 69% of SF homeless were from SF, and 21% were from elsewhere in CA. 10% out of state.

It's on an EBT card [1] but can be used to withdraw cash from fee-less ATMs.

[1]: https://www.sfhsa.org/services/jobs-money/county-adult-assis...

$500 doesn’t get you very far on an opioid addiction.

Well, they've gotta spend that 300 million dollars a year somehow ( i think that was increased recently to 500 million? ). i know some of it goes to housing assistance.

The guardian made a piece that SF is a net exporter of homeless people.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...

Weather?

Weather. I used to be homeless in Toronto (at lived in the Don Valley forest for a time) and it's actually kinda fun - in the summer.

As soon as that first cold spike hits, you feel like death inside.

Would you rather spend winter in NYC or SF? Would you rather spend summer in Atlanta or SF?

Anecdotally, you will also see this in Denver; however, we have Winter, so it is not year-round.

They have them in NYC. They hang out around Union Square during the summer.

Some (many? most?) of these kids are homeless by choice, it's a subculture as much as circumstance. They flock to the Bay Area (Berkeley/Oakland, and the Haight area) to be a part of the scene.

It's not just California. You see the same homeless population in Santa Cruz as you do in Eugene. But these visible homeless are a tiny fraction; what we're talking about here are people living in cars and RVs.

Uh... how many places have you lived in and for how long, and how much contact have you had with the homeless? And when we say homeless, what do you mean? Those who temporarily don't have homes, those don't want to live in a permanent structure, etc.

I've lived in the South, New England, Texas, and California. There are homeless people every where. Before you conclude that the demographics are actually different (I'm not disputing it is -- California is different but not as stark as you may think), ensure that your observations aren't biased (I don't mean personal bias but some places put more effort into hiding their homeless population).

There is a spectrum of choice when it comes to homelessness. One extreme are those with severe mental and physical disabilities and the other is... https://vanlifecustoms.com/vans

There are quite a few people who actively aspire to live in vans on the streets of the bay area. There are more who are on the end of having other options (but don't want to, say, have a connivance store job in a small midwest town) but don't take them for whatever reason. If you had a few resources, wouldn't you rather try to make your way to live in SF instead of NY, especially in January?

Being young makes it more likely that the lifestyle is a choice and when it isn't, being young makes it easier to migrate to the best possible place to be homeless.

I lived in SF for 20 years and now live in NYC. I see young homeless people here all the time but they generally look very down and out. The ones you see that are care free with the dogs are more "travelers" that benefit from the good weather on the west coast.

A lot of the more permenant homeless population in SF are mentally ill with nowhere to go.

It's mostly the weather. I prefer the weather in Miami to the weather in SF by just a little bit, but if I were homeless, it wouldn't even come close. I would vastly prefer the weather in SF.

The weather is a big factor in peoples' decisions to move places. It's near the top of the list in any discussion on which city people would prefer to live in on the city-data forums. People who aren't homeless take the air conditioning or heating for granted when comparing the weather in two different cities.

Also very prevalent in Boulder.

It happens in Hawai'i, too. I volunteer at a homeless shelter and routinely serve young people. Some of them have nicer clothes than I do.

There is an episode of Portlandia satirizing young homeless people too, so I'd imagine that is another example.

I saw young homeless people in Montréal about 15 years ago. I don't remember if they were happy or if they had dogs. But I think they were anarchists living out some sort of lifestyle choice. I don't recall seeing any of this when I visited last year.

some of the younger homeless folks are that by choice. The largest % of the population isn't though.

The abundance of young homeless with dogs also appears to be a thing in France.

This is a national problem (ie. anyone in the US can be homeless anywhere), and yet it's trying to be solved at a city level.

Logistically that is impossible and makes no sense.

As for why there are so many young people homeless in SF, it's probably because SF is one of the most willing cities trying to solve a national problem by itself. We also have great weather (not too hot in the summer, not too cold in the winter). And probably a lot of generous people walking the streets.

It's really horrible what our national government has allowed to happen in our country and it's impractical for our city to hold the burden to solve this nation's problems.

I thought that this was an issue on the entire West Coast and not just California.

You can still sometimes see groups of young (teen-ish to 20-ish) homeless people in Harvard Square, including with dogs sometimes, though not as much as you used to. There at least used to be a mobile health clinic that would visit "The Pit" area around the Harvard Square subway station, where young homeless kids would congregate. (Also, non-homeless kids, such as from affluent suburbs, hanging out and being cool/punk/real with the homeless. But some of them actually are homeless, maybe escaping from rough family situations.) I understand there recently is/was a dotcom-y charitable homeless shelter in Harvard Square (unless it already disappeared; sometimes projects fail, or are career steps).

Cambridge, Boston, and Massaschusetts are wealthy, and good about social programs and safety nets for the poor, by overall US standards. But the winters get cold, so a lot of homeless who are able might go to the SF Bay Area.

We see a good number of young homeless people in Denver.

This phenomenon exists in Phoenix / Tempe as well. Most likely due to weather [as noted below] and relatively high population

The young homeless people I knew on the East Coast were almost universally "travelers". They'd hop trains to Florida in the winter and migrate north in the summer. Most of the East Coast is inhospitable at one time of the year or another -- when the low temperature is above 70 F (20 C) or below 30 F (0 C) it can be very hard to sleep outside.

Other cities building shelters on the outskirts, and often in areas without public transit access, so that people get off the streets and are out of sight. The weather patterns almost everywhere else in the country also drive people into those shelters, either with extreme heat or cold.

Here, there is never a time of year when people have to get off the streets, and we don't have enough beds for them even if they did. The Bay Area is also a huge sprawl, so it isn't clear where we would build such housing to be out of sight and out of mind even if we were going to.

> I never saw this in NYC or anywhere else on the East Coast or in the Midwest.

Human beings have a tough time surviving when exposed to the elements, and winter lasts for 6 months in the North East and Midwest. It is difficult to live when you are soaking wet and it is 34 degrees outside.

Hope this helps.

The situation has been around for a long time, what we're seeing is a bum-rush. Groups of people just come in and take over areas: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bum-rush

There's a continuum of "forced" versus "willing": raising the cost of rent beyond what someone can comfortably afford, but maybe they could manage if they didn't buy anything else and ate only beans and rice is only slightly less coercive than raising the rent beyond what they can afford at all.

Yup, there are lots of services in places like SF and San Jose for them, so they are flocking here.

From what I've seen of the canvasing, it's pretty thorough. They walk around all the neighborhoods with clipboards.

This explanation doesn't seem to jibe with my understanding of the facts/trends surrounding % of homeless residents that came from outside the bay (generally pretty steady and a small %).

I'm feeding more bread crumbs to the pigeons than ever, but even more pigeons are coming. It's such a paradox.

SF does a homeless census every 2 years. It answers many of the questions you might have. Eg in the 2017 census:

* 69% were from SF and 21% from elsewhere in CA (10% out of state) * 39% reported psychiatric or emotional conditions

http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Poin...

Where have you looked? I followed the citations on the wikipedia page about homelessness in the Bay Area and found this in about 30 seconds: https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2017-10-2...

> vs arrivals from elsewhere

This particular attribute (what was the person's place of residence at time of homelessness) is answered by the study. (Called the PIT Count or Point-In-Time count). As the article notes, the study that the article is referencing is not released yet, so we can't see the stats for this particular iteration of the study. However, in the previous study[1] (2017, these are done every two years), 69% of respondents were from SF, and another 21% from some other county in CA.

[1] The results of previous studies: http://hsh.sfgov.org/research-reports/san-francisco-homeless... ; I presume the new one will be posted there once it is released. The article says that will be in July

The percent is only so high because JFK closed the mental wards and expected communities to pick up the difference.

It’s not unthinkable that a recession could indirectly help by lowering construction costs.

Seems like this could be heavily correlated with weather.

Weather is a driving factor that one shouldn't overlook. SV has a massive housing problem. Let's not defer the issue. It's a substantial issue.

It’s easy to preach empathy from a leafy suburb. I certainly used to. When you are actually inhaling piss, stepping over feces, and weaving through tents every time you go outside, the situation is a bit different. Much of HN lives in urban SF and moves around the city without a glass and steel cage. In that light, homelessness moves down Maslow’s hierarchy from a moral reasoning problem to a visceral disgust/fear, a threat to the safety and dignity of home.

It’s one thing to be “against” mass incarceration and the criminalization of the poor, another to be okay with zero police response to your own assault/burglary. It’s one thing to be pro legalization, another to be okay with street dealers on your block. One thing to believe homeless people have a right to go where they please, another to stay committed when they decide to camp at your doorstep.

Maybe I am the only fake/uncommitted liberal but I get the sense that this kind of right-shifting after a few years in SF is not uncommon.

>> Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not.

I've never heard is phrase and I really like how you phrased it. There's no way to determine the apathy of humanity more than being homeless and seeing just how little people give a damn. We're trained to ignore these people, and then when we become one, we see just how awful we have been.

There was actually a 1985 Twilight Zone episode about this...

> Remember, you are your brother's keeper, whether you want to be or not.

However, you need to be careful not to apply that with too heavy a hand.

"When do you take someone's freedom of choice away?" should always be a heavy decision.

Please don't do this here.