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Comment by ddevault | Hacker News Reader

Many of the other comments are missing the point. It's ultimately because there are a lot of desperate people in SF. The bay area has the highest homelessness incidence in the country. Mental health services are poor to non-existent. The city is full of people with no options, no healthcare, and no support system. We could criminalize homelessness even more, and brutalize the desperate with more police interventions, but that's a lazy and unsympathetic explanation for why this is happening. Society has failed the poor and SF is exhibit A.

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This. In europe we treat sick people, in the US they leave them on the streets, and then task the police with beating them regularly. I live in europe, in a nice house. We don't have any guns in our house, and we don't fear random weirdos trying to break into our house, because our society takes care of and treats sick people. Because we are not scaring and harrassing them all over the place, they aren't running rampant around areas of our city. I don't care about having health insurance, because I already have it as a citizen, paid for with my taxes. If I'm fired from my job, I still have health insurance.

Sounds like communism to me... /s

Also EU, agree with this.

This is honestly not true. There are in fact a shocking amount of resources in San Francisco for people living in poverty.

resources...for people living in poverty typically means you need to be poor to access such help.

Such an approach keeps problems alive.

Surely resources for people living in poverty are no longer necessary for someone once those resources have the desired effect and they stop living in poverty?

Looks to me that the logical alternatives to means-tested aid are either no resources for anybody, which seems undesirable, or resources for everybody, no matter how well-off they are already, which seems wasteful. What do you suggest instead?

Policies that mitigate risk factors for poverty are known to work better.

Family-friendly policies that help parents raise their children.

Universal healthcare coverage.

Walkable neighborhoods.

Good public transit.

Etc.

Are all those homeless originally from SF, or do they migrate there?

If it's the latter then I assume that social services are just overwhelmed?

I'm pretty sure that if I was made homeless tomorrow, and knew I had no prospect of pulling myself out of that situation, I'd migrate to somewhere with a climate like that of SF.

Some migrate. At least it is warmer than e.g. NY.

The overwhelmingly vast majority migrate. Some of them might have had a sublet apartment or lived at a friend's couch for a while before becoming homeless.

So the statistics say "most homeless lived in SF prior to becoming homeless", but if you actually check local school records you know they didn't grow up here.

In addition to the year-round mild climate, SF's local laws (and enforcement or lack thereof, e.g. legalizing theft of less than $1000 or intentionally spreading HIV) attracts desperate people, as well as people who simply enjoy the lifestyle, from all over the US, by rewarding them for doing what they do.

Basic "supply and demand" also applies to crime, playground needles and sidewalk turds: if you lower the "price" (punishment) at constant demand (people who want to steal or shoot up in public), the supply increases.

You’re putting a lot of stock into SF’s failures, but keep in mind that other cities ship their homeless to SF, and as a result, SF gets a disproportionate share of homeless.

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