Startup Advisor Alice Zhang on SF Homeless: "Put them all in labor camps"

Then again, the last time the country had a really serious problem with the long-term unemployed, (a lot more severe than what we have now) the government did put a lot of them to work --- not as a punitive measure, but by giving them jobs in FDR's Works Progress Administration. Which is exactly the sort of "bleeding heart liberal" government assistance that can't possibly get through Congress right now.

Long-term unemployed doesn't necessarily mean homeless, but it does include most of them --- including many people with serviceable skills and habits, who used to hold down good jobs, but just got a bad break.

Someone with a few IQ points would analyze that data and suggest that, if SF's problem is unique, then SF is doing something that other cities are not (or vice versa) and therefore the problem is simple to solve. Just figure out what SF needs to do the same as other cities, and the problem goes away.

I've heard it suggested that the problem is simply that SF does not have enough free public toilets. I used to live in London England, with lots of homeless, and we had no shit in the streets. Used needles, yes. People shooting up as you walked by, yes. Urine smells from the alleys, yes. But not shit.

London had a rather clever solution to public toilets. They had those low rotating gates that you had to put a coin in to enter the bathroom. Of course homeless folks just jumped over the barrier or if there was an attendant, begged to be let in the wheelchair gate. It worked. The streets were kept relatively clean.

Some would say that London tolerated petty crime, i.e. people jumping over the gates, but no city can work without some tolerance.

However... I would turn this in a better direction and say that having a place for the homeless/mentally ill to go for rehab would be better than pretending they don't exist. I don't see how having them "shit in the street" helps anyone. And yes, I've seen this myself in Los Angeles.