AB71: $2.4B Tax Hike to Create a ‘Statewide Homelessness Solutions Program
californiaglobe.com
californiaglobe.com
> Over 150,000 persons have experienced homelessness in California
That comes out to about $16k in extra funding per person who experienced homelessness.
San Fransisco spends ~364 million to tackle the problem, and has between 8k - 17k homeless, meaning they spend between $21 and $45k per homeless [0]. Maybe it would be a lot worse if they hadn't spent that money, but throwing more money at it and moving up the governance to a higher level likely won't make a dent. I'd imagine local, on the ground officials would have a better shot at it as opposed to state officials.
[0] https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/19/21027974/san-francisco-home...
here in Atlanta they just hire each other between city and county. So county leaders get on Atlanta committees and vica versa. People don't understand how ingrained the idea of padding paychecks of themselves, friends, and family, that politicians have turned the system into. government has more than enough money to solve problems but the problem they set about solving was how to enrich themselves, their friends, their supporters, and other party members.
In Georgia tax commissioners have in law the right to sell their services to cities on top of what they are providing by their job title!
The number of political appointment if not elected jobs that pay over 100k is ridiculous and many pay a quarter a million or more per year. Worse this all factors into their public pensions and many can take them before 50.
While that sounds super debbie downer, I think the reason it's this way is the open secretiveness of politics. Everything is out in the open, but no one cares. If the general public applied the same amount of passion and reseach for celebrities, the latest Star Wars/Marvel show or games to the local, state or fed gov affairs, the amount of gov ineptitude and corruption would be a fraction of what it is today. Even more so, representative gov is supposed to make that a whole hell of a lot easier for the public. Hold the few experts accountable that can better trudge through everyday politics. But... that's all wishful thinking and ranting.
Whether or not it will actually achieve that...? I don't know. And not for "government is incompetent" reasons, but because it's a hard problem with root causes that are difficult to address.
I think the more local the action the more effective. For instance, a neighbor can help out one person most effectively. That person may need shelter, food, mental health services, mentorship or something else. When you expand that out to a city, it makes it more difficult since the organization has less knowledge about the individual. And as you expand it to larger and more disconnected entities, the results become worse.
One argument could be that corruption and general incompetence may be lower on the state level as opposed to local, since state level is a more competitive political climate. In other words, I think governors are more likely to get voted out as local officials, many of whom are unelected, but I could be wrong. The other argument is that state has more shared resources and more experience that would overcome the fact that they're more disconnected from the subjects they're trying to help.
But the trade-off exists and I believe that the most effective way organizations are small local organizations as opposed to large top down state-level organizations. And since local organizations have failed, my impression is that higher level, more bureaucratic organizations will similarly fail. I think we should focus on re-thinking about how we handle the problem and not just throw money at it, because the moneyed interests may even be hindering the effort.
The fact that San Francisco spends so much and is largely ineffective at solving this issue might imply that cities are not, in fact, suitably equipped to tackle this issue (even if well funded and motivated), and that instead a group which can centralize planning, concentrate resources and expertise, and deploy them where they are currently needed would do better.
This is the core argument of economic conservatism. One level up is “CA knows CA better than the Feds”. One level down is “I know my family better than my town”.
> This is the core argument of economic conservatism. One level up is “CA knows CA better than the Feds”. One level down is “I know my family better than my town”.
And one argument against it is that the lower level that "knows better" may not actually have the resources or capabilities to actually address the problem with that knowledge. That's pretty easy to see when you get down to the “I know my family better than my town [does]” level, when the only individual-level solution is some improbable pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps fantasy.
Well, for starters, $16k will pay a year's rent in many parts of California, just not in San Francisco.
Most of the homeless in California live in the cities with the highest cost of living. Are you suggesting the state transport the homeless to low cost areas and rent them apartments?
The vast majority of reasons that homeless people stay in urban areas is the failure of the surrounding areas in providing for their basic survival.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
I know Utah has had great success with a housing-first model that gets people off the street first and then helps them work on other issues like addition and mental health problems.
This could drive down housing costs in cities under pressure and benefit everyone.
Thomas Sowell [1] has spent his entire life on this topic.
Why are they collecting 2.4 Billion and setting aside just 2.4 Million for the homelessness solution.
I am sure I am misreading something or perhaps not understanding?
In the medium and long term people develop severe substance abuse habits and lose their ability to get and hold down a job (sometimes called economic scarring).
You can use additional money to do basically do poverty relief programs on the medium and long term homeless and from a humanity point of view that's really important - but I don't know of any programs that have consistently shown reintegrated of these populations. That is, they are working other than in services aimed at the homeless population.
It needs to be partnered with stopping putting people on the front of the belt (the short term homeless) which is only really achievable through bringing down the cost of long term accommodation. I only know of one way to do that which is to build more homes.
I feel like you've created your own definition of "homeless" and are using that to say that schemes to prevent homelessness are not working.
When you look at official definitions (eg, "statutory homeless") you see much greater "churn" in the homeless population. Many people become homeless, are helped, and stop being homeless. There are a smaller number of people who are trapped in vulnerable housing or in hostels or rough sleeping.
I'm not suggesting the support is good though. There are many problems in England. For example, the way that people are forced to be evicted before councils provide help, or the use of very expensive and very low quality B&B accommodation.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
So if someone is homeless in London, we pour £££ of taxpayer money into private landlords' pockets.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...
YOU voted in single party rule in CA. Frankly I'm amazed at how little they have exercised their monopoly...they have the votes to pass stuff like this by the hour.
It takes a monopoly just to get basic things done in this state.
The tendency is that neither the tax nor the proposed program has been thought through in such cases.
I consider anything paid to government (or infrastructure like tolls) to be going into the same pot, and any claims that it will be used for specific purposes to be bullshit.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2011-mar-08-la-fi-hi...
Now let's spend 1.8b of that money on administrative overhead, and bring $ per homeless from 50k/homeless to 100k/homeless, to the same level as newgrad base salary.
If you think extra tax will solve it, go on, feel free to donate to government.
This is what happens people of questionable literacy and comprehension levels start proposing laws.
In any case, that article references now removed text from the bill. The current text of the bill can be found at its source: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
Why this article hasn't been updated I cannot say; but I have doubts about the motives of the author given the "pedigree" of this news agency.
"The California Globe, founded by an associate of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, describes itself as “pro-growth and pro-business, non-partisan and objective” — but serves up a steady diet of conservative news and opinion." - https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler...
There needs to be a cultural shift away from sprawl and single family housing to modest 3 story apartments. Once you have enough vacant housing you can consider giving it away.
You should also have low nuisance commercial business like supermarkets mixed into your residential neighborhoods. Reducing car dependence would help people who cannot afford a car or maintain a used one.
Drug addicts need safe places where they get clean drugs and where the dosage is controlled by a trained doctor. The idea is that the doctor slowly tapers off the dosage. Recovery is possible if you give them the minimum necessary dosage to fend off withdrawal effects but not enough to cause a high. It also keeps needles off the street.
A lot of crimes are committed by desperate addicts who cannot fund their addiction. Some of them do prostitution, others steal. If you give them what they really want they don't have to engage in destructive behavior.
we have plenty of money and plenty of land in california. but we cant house all of the homeless in bay area.
Just look into who owns this website and read some of their other articles, such as under the LGBT tag.
Also, these generalizations are entirely in the eye of the beholder. They're a creation of your own passions, based on whatever data sample happened to activate them. This explains why the people with opposite passions to yours see HN in exactly the opposite way: it's a big enough place to encounter a data sample that will activate any pre-existing perception. I've written about this many times:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
If we're to have a community that doesn't suck, at some point we all need to understand these mechanisms well enough to avoid repeating them uncritically.
The short version is that what you've posted here is actually the same, even though it seems opposite on the surface, as how people with one ideological bit flipped call HN a "leftist SJW and socialist haven", "always politically left", "they don't like conservative opinions here", "a liberal echo chamber", "the HN crowd is mostly woke", "heavily leaning to the left", "HN has a very anti-libertarian echo chamber", "HN has a heavy socialist lean, you are not allowed to have a differing perspective", "dang is an SJW cunt", and "any thought that differs from SV, left-leaning orthodoxy, is instantly flagged, downvoted, or deleted".
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Obviously implementation matters, but I don't in principle why it shouldn't be done, apart from "oh but they are laaazt, why should I help them?"
Perfectly reasonable stance, except that what will happen is that you will pay more taxes and people will continue dying in the streets, most probably in even greater numbers over time.
These programs create dependence and never tackle root causes.
I don't think that argument is entirely valid. I do see the concern. This is about implementation.
There are about 60k people who are homeless in LA, of which 48% are sleeping in the streets. so around 29k
Compare that to london where something like 10k, but the population is double that of LA. That figure has tripled in ten years, because we have cut back on programmes to treat the causes of homelessness.
So it is perfectly possible to tackle homelessness and stop people dying on the streets.
In rich countries, especially those with the "all lives matter" mindset, It is reprehensible that we are letting people live in the open on the streets.