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Comment by 999900000999 | Hacker News Reader

>Nowadays, most of these starbucks/coffee shops have closed or shifted to an in-store hostile setup of a drive through plus a lobby that is mostly intended for delivery drivers, walled off laptop plugs and won't tell you why,

They don't want to become homeless shelters.

Homelessness has rapidly increased in the last decade, to the point where CoWork spaces becomes a viable business.

If you want to do a project pay 300$ a month to WeWork. Before the explosion of homelessness, back when Starbucks, Coffee Bean, would let you sit around for hours, a 300$ WeWork membership would be silly.

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> Homelessness has rapidly increased in the last decade, to the point where CoWork spaces becomes a viable business.

Not sure I see the connection here...?

I think the chain goes:

Homelessness increases --> any place where you can just hang out without paying attracts more homeless people --> there are too many homeless people hanging out for hanging out to remain good for business --> cheap hangouts close --> expensive hangouts like co-working spaces become viable.

Add increased labor costs and your profit margin for late night coffee drops significantly. Add a safety factor, and it becomes a more cost effective option to reduce hours.

We've been seeing that here in my Northern California city for the past few years.

To be clear, I'm not mad at the homeless.

If anything local governments should provide more for these populations, showers at libraries and pop up clinics would do wonders.

Of course the bigger issue would be housing costs going straight to the moon. Rent should be 70% of what it is.

I can’t help but think that adding facilities like shower or laundry at libraries would just make them de facto shelters

Homeless people are going to hang out. Would you rather give them the opportunity to clean up and get some medical assistance or not ?

Ideally you'd plug them into housing assistance programs so the overall numbers of homeless go down overtime.

You don’t? Homeless people need somewhere to go and a welcoming coffee shop is a viable option. Removing tables and making it less “sit down” friendly is a good way to drive all of your customers towards grabbing their drinks to-go.

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