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Comment by baron816 | Hacker News Reader

Imagine if every homeless person in SF got over their drug habit or was cured of their mental illness or physical disability or what ever other issue they had that drove them to being homeless. Then they all got stable jobs that they were good at and happy with. What kind of jobs do you think they’d get?

Would they all become SWEs making $300k? Maybe they’d be lawyers, or marketing executives, or university presidents, or hospital administrators?

I doubt it.

The problem is that those people aren’t going to be able to get the kinds of jobs that would make it possible to even afford rent a place here.

And most homeless don’t have the kinds of issues I listed before. And many among the ones who do have those issue as a result of becoming homeless.

The city can throw any amount of money at trying to help the homeless, but it’s not going to make a difference if the minimum cost of living is above what they could ever earn.

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They'd move out of SF, something they can't do now due to the availability of drugs, good weather, and sympathetic tourists with money to spare.

It's really great that you can blame your problems on tourists.

> The problem is that those people aren’t going to be able to get the kinds of jobs that would make it possible to even afford rent a place here.

Even people with decent jobs in the core Bay Area cities (or even the peripheral ones) often commute in from some place more peripheral and cheaper to live then where their jobs are located.

The point of the article is that the homeless need homes. It is encouraging the city to spend money on that, which seems to address your main point.

> The problem is that those people aren’t going to be able to get the kinds of jobs that would make it possible to even afford rent a place here.

So we're back to bus tickets, then?

Only partly joking because you're completely right. I'm not sure a path from homelessness to financial stability really exists in San Francisco right now.

Amazon could always use more workers.

But I agree with you about the rising cost of housing. It's ridiculous.

You cant live in San Francisco then. Pack your bags and live somewhere you can afford. That may sound harsh but its reality. You're not entitled to live anywhere you want just like i cant live on billionaires row in manhattan.

edit: should have known this wouldnt be popular considering half of HN is trapped in cali absurd prices but refuse to leave. Too bad. Applies to you as well.

That's a common response. The problem is that it ignores the fact that San Francisco needs those people to fill jobs that need doing. https://nyti.ms/3yuq3nX

The common response to that then is then we should just raise the pay in an area until every job pays enough to afford to live there, or if not those jobs are clearly not important enough. The problem is that the number of these jobs is growing faster than housing stock. Market forces can't solve the problem of more jobs than homes unless you can build homes or destroy jobs. Take a look at https://bit.ly/36ySeFS - Santa Clara County added 300,000 jobs between 2010 and 2020 while building around 6,000 homes per year (5 jobs per home).

SF is the same story: total housing units in San Francisco increased by about 23,000 from 2010 to 2018 (https://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/1996.0013CWP_2..., slide 6). Total employment in San Francisco during the same period grew by almost 300,000.

Seattle: total housing units in Seattle from 2010 to 2019 grew by about 59,000 homes (https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/population-and-demographics/abo...). Total employment (labor force) in Seattle during the same period grew by 243,000 (https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUDV534264400000006?amp%253...)

If you really need them, then pay them more. Otherwise you dont need them do you.

People dont want to pay a business enough so they can hire people? Then you dont get the business.

Economics works itself out if you let it.

I feel like you didn't really address anything past the second sentence of the comment you were responding to.

> Economics works itself out if you let it.

Sure. But exclusive single-family zoning, for example, isn't exactly "letting it".

> Economics works itself out if you let it.

It's not just the businesses that are lost. Entire towns are at risk. We're facing the same problem in a lot of small mountain towns here in Colorado. Businesses can't hire because workers can't afford to leave anywhere near. The poor business environment and rising prices destroys the quality of life for locals, and the feedback can drain the population.

I feel like this is an experiment that hasn't been fully conducted on a large scale anywhere, but I fear it will be soon.

My point is if rich people are moving in and driving home prices up, then those same people should have the ability and willingness to pay higher prices to local businesses who can then pay employees more.

If their business is not a necessity or something the community wants, then yes they are going out of business.

I have sympathy for that small town feel, trust me. But thats how its going to go.

The most common policy responses in this thread are suggesting that the solution is to allow more building by relaxing zoning restrictions and lowering the amount of public input on new development, ie greater property rights.

How are you not for that if you believe what you stated in your last sentence?

There shouldn't be a billionaire's row in Manhattan. There shouldn't be billionaires.

>Imagine if every homeless person in SF got over their drug habit or was cured of their mental illness or physical disability or what ever other issue they had that drove them to being homeless.

Wow, privilege makes you blind, indeed.

In my experience the percentage of homeless that have serious addiction issue (alcohol, meth or heroin) approaches 100%

In the US, the majority of homeless people are homeless for economic reasons[1], and not because of mental illness or addiction.

[1] https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_...

Your document doesn't really support your claim.

>at least 2.5 to 3.5 million Americans sleep in shelters, transitional housing, and public places not meant for human habitation [...] At least an additional 7.4 million have lost their own homes and are doubled-up with others due to economic necessity

In other words, if we expand the definition of homeless to include people who are living with others "due to economic necessity", then most of the "homeless" are homeless for economic reasons. That's not exactly the same as "most people who are conventionally homeless (for a lack of a better term) are homeless for economic reasons". When you say "homeless", most people think of "sleeping on the streets", not "crashing at a friends house".

>In other words, if we expand the definition of homeless to include people who are living with others "due to economic necessity", then most of the "homeless" are homeless for economic reasons. That's not exactly the same as "most people who are conventionally homeless (for a lack of a better term) are homeless for economic reasons". When you say "homeless", most people think of "sleeping on the streets", not "crashing at a friends house".

That seems to be a distinction without a difference, IMHO.

If you have friends who will let you crash on their couch, does that make you less homeless than if you don't have any friends? Or at least none that will let you crash on their couch?

The vast majority of homeless people wouldn't be homeless if they could afford to rent/buy housing.

That sounds like economic reasons to me. Or am I missing something?

> Or am I missing something?

You seemed to have missed the point of my comment. I'm not advocating for/against whether "homeless" should count people who are living with others due to economic necessity. I'm pointing out that heavyset_go's definition of "homeless" likely differs drastically than the one used by honksillet, and that him sneakily changing the definition to make a counterclaim is misleading at best.

And you seem to have missed the point of mine.

Which was that the "definitions" of homelessness you're comparing aren't really relevant to whether or not homelessness is primarily an economic issue.

I'd add that nitpicking about those definitions doesn't add anything to the discussion, nor does it elucidate anything useful or interesting IMHO.

It's pretty clear that the vast majority of homelessness, however you might reasonably define it, is related to economic hardship and insecurity.

I spent nearly six years homeless. I have never used meth or heroin and I don't typically drink alcohol.

I'm not an addict. I never have been.

You are the perfect person I want to have a conversation with. Assuming we are operating under a similar definition of homelessness which people find to be a problem, IE dispersed living on public property within city limits.

How did this happen? What became a barrier for work mainly? Skills, network ? Did you find groups of other homeless similar to yourself or did you isolate yourself.

You might be interested in some of my blogs:

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/

https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/

http://whathelpsthehomeless.blogspot.com/

In addition to the links she gave, you can look back at her HN comments. Lots of good stuff here.

>How did this happen? What became a barrier for work mainly? Skills, network ? Did you find groups of other homeless similar to yourself or did you isolate yourself.

Not GP, but the biggest barrier to work I had was not having a regular place to shower or keep clean clothes.

For some strange reason, employers don't like it if you're unbathed and in dirty clothes. I was never able to figure out why. Perhaps you could opine on that?

Sarcasm aside, I do remember reading and talking to formally homeless folks saying that they would commonly have gym memberships for this very reason.

Second to that at least in the city I live in, many barbershops and dry cleaners offer free service to homeless who are going to be interviewed.

People can be homeless without living on the street. Homeless doesn't necessarily mean shelterless, it means you don't have a home.

What experience is that? Handing out food to homeless people a while back about 1 of the 20 was drunk and the rest sober and lucid. One had given up heroin.

Not according to the National Coalition for the Homeless:

> The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2003) estimates, 38% of homeless people were dependent on alcohol and 26% abused other drugs.

https://nationalhomeless.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Subs...

>> The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2003) estimates, 38% of homeless people were dependent on alcohol and 26% abused other drugs.

Actually, more recent data[0] shows that 36% of chronically homeless people have drug dependency/mental health issues. And since only ~20% of the homeless are chronically homeless, that's less than ten percent of the homeless population.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27953080

Drugs are escapism. Nobody wants to be addicted to booze or meth or heroin if they were otherwise happy with their life. The same factors lead to addition and homelessness.

Is anecdotal evidence is a solid basis for public policy?

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