Hacker News Reader

Also the essence of ‘San Francisco has a lot of homeless’ isn’t really a logical argument against those policies since homeless will often migrate to where the functional support services are. San Francisco may well be doing amazing things with getting people back on their feet at a relatively lower cost than prison.

You need to go many levels deeper on statistics to understand if it’s working or not.

View on HN

> since homeless will often migrate to where the functional support services are.

I've heard this a lot but I don't have any reason to believe it's true. Never seen a reputable study that asserts it. I've known a lot of homeless people but none that relocated for this reason. Most who moved were looking for work or trying to get closer to family. Most didn't move at all and were just where they had always been, or in the city they were living in when they became homeless.

when I did homeless outreach in San Diego I was told around 40% of the people we were helping were from out of state that moved there but couldn't stay afloat for various reasons, leaving them homeless in the area

Drug tourists migrate to San Francisco because they can get free money to buy drugs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com