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Comment by smsm42 | Hacker News Reader

So we have:

1. A lot of rich residents and rich companies which supply the city budget with sweet sweet tax money

2. A lot of programs and NGOs that draw large budgets to helping the homeless

3. Political climate that encourages spending money on helping the homeless without requiring anything from them, basically free money

4. Generous programs providing various freebies for homeless people, and no consequences for any behavior short of major robbery (yes, shoplifting is allowed too unless it's over $900)

5. Mild weather that makes living on the street possible year around

And we're wondering why homelessness has not disappeared? There's nobody that is interested in it disappearing, that's why. Well, at least nobody whose opinion matters, anyway. There's a lot of people interested in allocating and spending budgets on fighting homelessness, these aren't people interested in doing something that will make it stop once and for all.

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I downvoted this because as someone that has been what many consider homeless in San Francisco, I am a little insulted by this attitude. It comes across as someone that has never lived this life claiming that it is a good life and generalizing over the homeless population as freebies and criminals.

If there exists a complicated social problem that involves thousands of human beings and someone on the internet claims to have an explanation for it in 10 paragraphs or less, that explanation is probably overly simplistic.

I downvoted you because I am insulted by this attitude. As someone who comes from a country of starvation deaths, I can easily see how the homeless in SF would be considered the 1% of the world.

If the milk of human kindness is all about spreading the wealth..how about spreading the wealth to other countries?

Why should I pay for the homeless in SF when they live in the richest country in the world when I can send the money to Kenya or Vietnam or India and truly create meaningful impact. And so that’s what I do. My taxes already pay towards the healthcare, food and if in SF..smart phone and BART tickets for the homeless. No more tax hikes without an explanation for the $350 million dollars spent in just one year for SF homeless population.

I actually upvoted that because I glad you left this comment. It provides an essential perspective for the global distribution of wealth. USA is the richest and the most powerful nation in the world and it is a ridiculous power dynamic that has no justification. The USA cannot provide housing option for some of its population, but even worse, the USA consistently steals wealth from other nations leaving them impoverished just so they can provide cheap goods for their own citizens.

It is always good to get a reminder that for every USA resident the government leaves behind there are hundreds of impoverished non-USA citizen that still has to pay for it.

Thanks. I agree. But there needs to be no justification.

The USA does not steal wealth from other nations. Please substantiate this comment with an example.

Wealth is not an indicator of quality of life. I have seen this over and over again amongst the rich and the poor. All we can do is live well so we are not a burden to others. The next best thing to do is help when we can.

What I am against..on principle..is that we look to someone else for our happiness. Or survival. I am an immigrant too. I left my country of origin for one reason and one reason only..upper economic mobility. Many immigrants cause reverse brain drain. I have a better quality of life and I can uplift people within my circle of influence. I can do better as an American than as a citizen of my country of origin. And I enjoy the comforts of my new life. And that’s fine with me. I don’t believe we can heal the world by squeezing the hearts of the collective rich.

I don’t understand why I should support someone who doesn’t want to leave SF because it’s chill while I had to leave behind my native country, my family and friends and all things familiar because I wanted the same thing as them. Comfort and quality of life. Only..I was willing to make sacrifices and trade offs. It’s difficult to empathize because it would make a mockery of the sacrifices that I had to make because I wanted something. We can’t ask others to sacrifice their money because some people don’t want to make any sacrifices for their own desires.

We have seen that money doesn’t solve problems. In SF alone..350+ million did not solve homelessness or drug addiction or mental illness or despair due to poverty.

So what is the answer. If the pitchforks against the rich are laid down and the energy is properly channelized to find meaningful solutions, we will get somewhere.

My motto: Do what you have to do. Others are not a measure. What I am NOT is a fan of guilty self flagellation. If I am not going to flagellate myself, why would I allow others to do it to me?

> It’s difficult to empathize because it would make a mockery of the sacrifices that I had to make because I wanted something.

This is a really good and important point. I immigrated from one of the wealthiest countries in the world to the USA. Off course I made sacrifices while immigrating but those sacrifices were not nearly on the same scale as someone immigrating from a place of poverty. I can still visit my family regularly and they can visit me (even though they are of working class; if it were not for a global pandemic off course; for me it’s not that expensive even if it is a little expensive for them). If anything I should be trying harder to empathize with you.

In honesty me and my partner always had the option of moving to my place of origin, they could enjoy the free education we provide there and get a degree there instead. If I were not from a rich nation that would not be an option. In honesty we choice to live in a van. Sure we were underprivileged to the average San Franciscan, but as an immigrant I had it pretty good. And it wouldn’t have been the end of the world if we were forced to live in my country of origin.

We actually ended up moving there anyway. But it turns out that even though USA is officially pretty hostile towards immigrants, my country of origin is far more xenophobic then Americans are, so we ended up moving back (me being a white person probably has a lot to say about the acceptance though).

I know I didn’t really answer you in a meaningful way here. I really only said that your voice matters as much—if not more—as mine. After all I am a person of privilege by virtue of both my skin color and my place of origin (even though I’m born of working class). So to third party readers I guess I’m saying: Read the parent carefully, and understand their perspective. I might have a lot to say because of my experience of living in a van in San Francisco, but there are other people—like the parent—that also have a lot to say, and their perspective is just as valuable—if not more—then mine.

Thanks for your reply. Fwiw, I don’t think you are privileged as you feel from my perspective. I think I would have to know you better, but I hear that you feel privileged.

It cuts both ways. I can’t make any assumption about anyone’s privilege or lack of simply because it’s none of my business and your privilege(or lack of, as the case might be) doesn’t impact my life at all.

However your actions directed towards me and it’s impact on my life would be subject to observation. There are concentric circles of influence for every individual. Yours and mine might never meet.

We can do both. This post is not helpful or productive as it trivializes the argument it responds to and serves as a diversion rather than a productive response; it’s a red herring argument.

if you spend some money one place, you can't spend that money elsewhere as well.

You could argue there's enough money to solve both problems, and a tax on the wealthiest would help accomplish that. that is a view I'm very sympathetic to.

But I think the comment you're responding to is making the first point, rather than the latter.

No, we can’t do both.

Imagine you walk into a theatre thinking it’s going to be a Hitchcock movie. After the 12th minute, they start showing Groundhog Day.

They ask you to come back the next day.

You return. Again, after the 12th minute, Groundhog Day. Again, they ask you to come back the next day.

And they don’t return the money you paid for your ticket. Or a credit. You have to pay for a ticket again. Everyday.

Now. How often are you going to keep returning to someone who steals from you and knows you will return. Meanwhile, any theatre next street is playing the Hitchcock flick.

What would a reasonable rational person do?

Your response doesn’t show that we can’t do both. We do have the resources and social science knowledge to accomplish both objectives.

I don’t really follow your theater analogy, perhaps you can provide an alternate argument so I, and others can understand why you feel that resources are scarce, limited, and the objectives are mutually exclusive.

We don’t have ‘resources’. We have a mechanism for instituting punitive taxes on a minority just because they are wealthy for a spending plan that has no clear path to success.

And who is ‘we’? Peter and Paul want to tax Bob to hand over $$ to Jack and Jill.

1. Please define ‘both’

2. Please elaborate ‘..we can do both’

I downvoted you because I am insulted by your being insulted by his attitude while being insulted. (I didn’t really downvote you)

Yes, people from all walks of life may end up homeless but I'm tired of hearing stories of my friends being robbed at gunpoint/knifepoint or straight up assaulted for a phone and a wallet. People walk into stores and steal without impunity, shoot up drugs, shit in the middle of a street, etc. It's truly appalling. As far as being homeless goes, the homeless here are free to fuck things up for the rest of us.

No doubt there is substantial overlap between thieves / violent criminals and the homeless, but I’m not sure the bulk of the criminals are homeless. I’d also point out that often the homeless are the most likely to step in to help when needed - while people who’re busy going about their lives will often succumb to the bystander effect and continue going wherever they’re going.

I’d want to focus enforcement on criminals (homeless or otherwise) and people who are a danger to public health rather than the homeless in general.

Honest question why are you blaming the homeless for fucking up things for the rest of us? In my experience the rich are far more guilty (as a generalized group) of fucking things up for me.

The rich have polluted the planet, raised the global temperature up a whole degree. The damage is that now I can’t go outside in late summer, if it doesn’t rain the week before, because the air is poisoned by soot from forest fires. The rich are the reason I couldn’t afford a place to rent in San Francisco, their speculative housing investment and gentrification raised the marked rate so much that a working class person from one of the richest country in the world couldn’t afford to live there. The rich are the reason—unless you are one of them—that you are not making significantly more money from your current job, they consistently take away from your contribution to the wealth you generate in your current job without contributing anything of value.

> The rich are the reason—unless you are one of them—that you are not making significantly more money from your current job

Actually, for a significant part of Bay Area - anybody who is working in a startup or a company that has been a startup (including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc.) "the rich" are the reason they have a job and a salary with which they can afford not being homeless. Who do you think makes up VC capital from which startup investments are made? I don't idealize rich people - as a whole, they have the same percent of assholes and criminals as any other group, and as people with many resources their assholery has an outsized impact sometimes - but claiming "the rich are the reason" for all problems and without them we'd all be paid tons of money of of somewhere magic - is just sheer idiocy. Sorry, I lived in a country where (almost) nobody was rich, at least legally - and it was shitty. I do not recommend it to anybody.

I lived in a country where almost nobody was rich and it was fine. Then in the nineteens regonomics happened national resources were privatized and we had millionaires popping up until they almost literlly bankrupted the nation in the great recession of 2008.

Sorry but in my experience nothing ever good comes out of K shaped economy. I have a good reason to be salty towards the rich. I know that currently they are paying my salaries, but I am also aware that I am contributing more towards the wealth they are retrieving then I am. So strictly speaking I don’t need them. But even so, I would be fine if my entire industry would collapse and would leave me unemployed if it meant that the wealth the rich folks are accumulating at record pace would be distributed towards the working classes of every nation. I would rather make minimum wage in a world where that was the norm then to be taken advantage of by a wealthy class who consistently adds to their own wealth while the rest either stays the same or gets poorer.

> up until they almost literlly bankrupted the nation in the great recession of 2008

Iceland I guess? If you like what you've got, don't try real actual socialism. Believe me, it sucks. You'd regret it.

> I have a good reason to be salty towards the rich

If my guess is correct, you experience is an unique result of a very bad situation which was manufactured by some dirty politicians, some PhD'ed idiots and some greedy bastards (see my comment about the assholes above). That doesn't mean everybody who is rich is a bastard. Having money is a wrong marker, and your saltiness is way off target.

> it meant that the wealth the rich folks are accumulating at record pace would be distributed

That never ever happens. I mean, even if it happened it would amount to tiny crumbs for you ("you livelihood and all you've done for living are gone and you have no means to support you family or procure food, but here's your check for $275, enjoy it!") - you can't both whine about "tiny number of people owning stuff" and expect taking their stuff would make you rich - "tiny number" means you only get a tiny part of it. Arithmetics is a cruel science.

But in fact there's no "distribution" ever possible. Never happened, never will. There's only destruction and desolation. It is possible to target Bill Gates's wealth and destroy it. Shut down Microsoft, make all its workers unemployed, blow up the campuses and wipe out the backups. Can be done. You won't be even $275 richer from that though. Nothing will be "distributed", just destroyed. This is the only way it has ever worked or can work. Revolutions do not make anyone richer, but they do make a lot of people starve and die.

> I would rather make minimum wage in a world where that was the norm

No you wouldn't. I lived in that world, and I haven't seen any single person who after experiencing both wanted to remain in the minimum wage world. Millions wanted to move out and took extraordinary efforts - often risking their lives - to do it. Remember the Berlin wall? Why do you think they needed the wall - is it to hold out the West Germans itching to experience the blessings of the East German minimal wage? How many South Koreans you think want to move to North Korea to enjoy the guaranteed rice rations?

> a world where that was the norm then to be taken advantage of by a wealthy class who consistently adds to their own wealth while the rest either stays the same or gets poorer.

But that's not true. The rest doesn't get poorer - in fact, the number of people living in poverty is declining steadily. Yes, I know you had a bad experience in 2008, but if you're willing to have a broader look you can easily see it: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

> The rich have polluted the planet

Rich people aren't tipping over trashcans or shitting on my sidewalk.

> raised the global temperature up a whole degree

This doesn't actually affect you, you've just been brainwashed into thinking it's the most important thing ever. Emissions are going down in all of the most highly developed countries. As technology improves, this will improve as well. You're complaining about progress that has lifted billions of people out of squalor to having powerful computers in their pockets and being able to transport goods across the globe.

> The damage is that now I can’t go outside in late summer, if it doesn’t rain the week before, because the air is poisoned by soot from forest fires.

Maybe they should do some forest management with the billions in taxes they take every year, instead of giving it to street-shitting, drugged-out hobos.

> The rich are the reason I couldn’t afford a place to rent in San Francisco, their speculative housing investment and gentrification raised the marked rate so much that a working class person from one of the richest country in the world couldn’t afford to live there.

When demand goes up, and supply doesn't, the price goes up. This isn't rich people's fault, it's basic supply and demand.

> The rich are the reason—unless you are one of them—that you are not making significantly more money from your current job, they consistently take away from your contribution to the wealth you generate in your current job without contributing anything of value.

They provide you with a job. You are free to start your own business. Rich people can't stop you.

No one owes you anything.

> Rich people aren't tipping over trashcans or shitting on my sidewalk.

Are you seriously equating globally warming the planet with littering? Yes the latter is annoying but the former is literally killing a significant number of people around the world every day. You can’t blame the fires solely on bad forest management. Yes forests in California could (and should) be managed better, but with the climate disaster fueling them I think those effort would be futile.

> They provide you with a job. You are free to start your own business. Rich people can't stop you.

Again, seriously? Reality check, if this were an actual option more people would do it. How many people get rich (or are able to at least make a living) after starting a business from a working wage? In the real world, normal folks can’t afford to start a business, and even if we could, the risk of failure is too great for us to risk loosing everything and ending up in debt for it.

> if this were an actual option more people would do it.

How much more? US has over 31M small businesses. How many do you need to conclude it's an option? 99.9% of businesses in the US are small businesses (obviously, since you only need one person to make a small business and 100K persons to make a Walmart). If normal folks can't afford it, who are all those? I know several people having businesses, in what way they are not "normal"? Not all of them are rich (in fact, most of them aren't, most are making a good living, some better than others, but none I know are billionaires so far) but how this is not normal? I think your picture here is very skewed.

I agree that the scale of damage is greater. I just caution anyone grouping people based on belonging to a category. Being rich doesn’t mean you polluted more than others. Al Gore is rich, but he was kind of focused on that issue.

So for every 100 rich folks that have screwed you over you have an Al Gore that doesn’t. Please have the perspective also that for every homeless person that mugs someone you heard of, there are thousands that wouldn’t even think of doing anything even close to that.

I do have that perspective which was my exact point. Don’t group people and make broad generalizations.

To be fair though, Al Gore likely has a a carbon footprint orders of magnitude higher than the average person.

I don't fear for my families safety just walking outside our front door because of rich people, I fear a homeless, drugged up person assaulting them.

Seriously? Do you have reason to be afraid of the homeless or are you simply experiencing prejudice? If the former is the case I recommend you move somewhere where there are fewer homeless.

But this dichotomy of homeless vs. the rich is really silly. You have less to fear around the rich because they are rich, the homeless might be in a desperate situation and behave accordingly, or as put in the Movie Parasite:

> Ki-taek: They are rich but still nice.

> Chung-sook: They are nice because they are rich.

The danger the rich pose is not something they do to you as you are walking home. It is something they do to the planet (like spilling oil or emitting massive amount of carbon), what they do through the legal system (like evict you), or even just fire you, paying you unfairly, stealing from or influencing your government, etc.

My last interaction with a homeless person, in the park next to my house: he yelled at me, and talked about grabbing his hatchet... while I was walking with my pregnant wife. So yes, I a have a reason to fear for my families safety around the homeless.

I live and work in the Portland, OR area. Homelessness is a real problem here, and they are moving out of the city into the suburbs.

I never claimed it is a good life. I never generalized anything. I am not sure where you found it. What I claimed is many of the people who spend billions of dollars on this problem have incentive to not have it actually solved (as in gone, no problem anymore) - for reasons both political and selfish. I also never claimed I have an explanation for the problem of homelessness. I only have an explanation for why the government of San Francisco does not appear to be able to make any progress in solving it despite spending a real lot of money on it.

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