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Comment by wesselbindt | Hacker News Reader

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Geopolitical commentary aside, the city of San Francisco has spent billions of dollars on homelessness and it has only gotten worse. I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes to house people less fortunate than me, but I expect the government to get their money's worth. If I wouldn't want to spend a million on a shoebox, then the city shouldn't either.

What is the point? Not everything has worked, so do nothing? If we read the OP, we can find out about some things that have worked.

The point is that it isn't a money problem, so the proposed solution of diverting money is off point to begin with.

The US does spend tens of billions fighting homelessness though. The US is very generous in this regard.

The problem is it’s not solvable by building homes. It’s about addiction and mental illness. And because of the US constitution, it’s very difficult to help Americans that do not want to be helped.

The US approach to fighting homelessness is the equivalent of hiring more and more cleaners to mop the floor instead of spending a little bit more upfront to fix the leaky pipes. It's both expensive and ineffective (much like the healthcare system).

> it’s very difficult to help Americans that do not want to be helped

This is true but if you were to offer free housing to 100 homeless people how many of them do you reckon would decline the offer? Many if not most of them could be helped back on their feet if there was political will to do so.

Portland (population 622k) spent $531 million (https://www.koin.com/news/portland/shocking-amount-spent-on-...) which is 1/16 of the $8 billion that will fix homelessness according to you.

By your reckoning, Portland, which is 0.15% of the American population should have been able to fix homelessness for its entire population for $12 million. Portland spent 45 times that so we ought to be able to house the homeless in the Ritz Carlton, if your calculations are correct.

But they're obviously not. And your argument is childish.

What genocide? I'm not aware of genocide that is currently occurring that the US is funding. The US is not bombing children.

How would just giving people houses solve homelessness? Do you know what happens to places that house homeless people? How long would this solve the problem for these people? This just seems like anti-Americanism with no quantitative grounding.

They are likely talking about aid to Israel, which then uses it to buy American weapons.

Probably a bigger horror was 20 years ago when the US invaded Iraq, leading to something like half a million dead.

Oh, that’s not a genocide, if that’s what they think it is they should look the definition.

We could use the Israeli solution and launch a rocket at every encampment to weed out the few violent people inside. Call it whatever you want. Would that be a good solution?

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