Its backed by statistical evidence, the problem is very big there in a way abnormal even relative to other large cities.
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San Francisco is definitely on a whole other level of homelessness
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
- Start date
Oh, I agree that it's not a one size fits all solution but it is a very important first step. House them while they start treatment for mental issues or substances abuse, if they have them. It's hard to get them treatment while they are still on the street. It doesn't work very well.
Thank you. I see people blaming this on nimbys and lack of housing all the time.
Lack of housing is only a small part of the issue. Building more houses won't solve the issue at all by itself.
The west coast has a bigger issue because we allow public camping and have a hands off approach to drugs and prosecuting homeless. We basically welcome these people to be homeless and the people themselves could give a shit less if we built more housing. They'd sell everything for the next fix.
I thought other cities shipped their homeless to hawaii? or has that changed recently?
As someone who lives in SF... Have none of you mfs been to New York, Seattle, or LA, all of which are 2-8x worse?
Having been to both SF and NYC a bunch of times, it seems way worse in SF due to it being a smaller city.
Surprisingly I don't see many homeless people here in Chicago unless I go to certain spots. Not sure why that is.
You'd rather them be in prisons instead of getting help? Giving them housing makes treatment much easier.
It's a city with serious problems, but it's also beautiful, easy to navigate, has a lot of stuff to see and do, and has a lot of important history. There are worse places to visit.
There are tunnels underneath Las Vegas that homeless sleep in during the hot months. https://youtu.be/DwoUY67CMcg
Also you sort of have to live here daily to really get how bad it's become for San Francisco. Literally every day I see some shit going outside whether that's drug shooting up or literally human feces
Also you sort of have to live here daily to really get how bad it's become for San Francisco. Literally every day I see some shit going outside whether that's drug shooting up or literally human feces
The shocked part made me think you thought they should not be going to the park.
How much is SF homeless problems due to inaccessibility of housing due to living expenses? Is there a sizable portion of its homelessness population coherent, mentally sound, and non addicted?
Here are the actual numbers for reference.
I'm not buying this.
There must be more than 550 thousand homeless.
I misunderstood then. I saw "prosecute" and assumed you meant to seek to arrest them. My apologizes.
I found that Chicago is much more segregated than other large cities, and there's murderous cold for a good portion of the year
Yeah, I think the problem seems far worse in SF because it's relatively small.
I've worked in both SF and LA. I'm sure I saw homeless people in LA but I don't remember it being super common, and any homeless people I did encounter seemed like they were just going about their day. In SF it was extremely common to encounter people on BART who had recently pissed or defecated themselves, or who were belligerent, and seeing people seemingly passed out on the sidewalk was a very common site. I know Skid Row is notoriously bad but I never had a reason to go there. In San Francisco it's hard to go anywhere without encountering homeless people.
Most of hawaii's homeless is locals. Homelessness is a huge problem here though.
Chicago is depressingly segragated. Still, even when I'm in the roughest parts of the southside I don't see many homeless people.
I wouldn't doubt the cold is part of the reason but the likes of Toronto and NYC seem to have their fair share.
As someone who lived in NYC, moved to SF for 3 years, and then moved to back to SF, i see SF as WAY worse.
Luckily we don't need personal anecdotes. We can look at figures. SF is a disgrace.
Y'all should see Vancouver. Not as bad as SF but the city practically encourages homelessness at this point.
Are you talking about the figures like NYC having 78k homeless and SF only having 6,800, less than 1/10th as many? Because that's a figure you should probably should have known before you posted this.
they're still shipping homeless to hawaii for sure. There're more and more homeless people everywhere, I can't even go to some of my favorite beaches or park anymore due to safety concern
Some reasons why the optics are more striking in SF than in NYC.
"A perhaps more startling fact included in the study by the business-oriented Bay Area Council is this: 67 percent of the homeless people in the Bay Area are unsheltered, compared to 26 percent in Chicago metro, 16 percent in Denver, 15 percent in Washington, D.C. metro and 5 percent in New York City. "
"In some places on the East Coast, people are forced to go into shelters and aren't allowed to sleep in public spaces, while in New York, people actually have a legal right to shelter. This is due to a law passed in the 1980s that forced the city and state to provide shelter beds to all New Yorkers who are homeless by 'reason of physical, mental, or social dysfunction.'"
SFGate Article
"A perhaps more startling fact included in the study by the business-oriented Bay Area Council is this: 67 percent of the homeless people in the Bay Area are unsheltered, compared to 26 percent in Chicago metro, 16 percent in Denver, 15 percent in Washington, D.C. metro and 5 percent in New York City. "
"In some places on the East Coast, people are forced to go into shelters and aren't allowed to sleep in public spaces, while in New York, people actually have a legal right to shelter. This is due to a law passed in the 1980s that forced the city and state to provide shelter beds to all New Yorkers who are homeless by 'reason of physical, mental, or social dysfunction.'"
SFGate Article
My habitual running path (a straight line...lol) takes me past a homeless camp. The entire sidewalk for the whole block is covered so I gotta go into the street.
San Francisco's local politics around housing and homelessness is absolutely fucked.
San Francisco's local politics around housing and homelessness is absolutely fucked.
Maybe not right by the touristy part but you can definitely see a a group that big in DTLA.
I am aware of that posted earlier.
1 outdated metric that is useless on its own. The current numbers are 9700 for SF and 58000 for NYC. Of course, NYC is many multiples a larger land area than SF, and of course the population difference, and of course NYC prosecutes public drug use, and of course NYC provides proper housing for homeless or they would all die in the winter, or the fact SFs homelessness is increasing 30% a year, whereas NYC is steadily coming down.
But yes, your anecdote is very compelling.
Nobody is sharing anecdotes except literally you, saying "As someone who lived in NYC, moved to SF for 3 years, and then moved to back to SF, i see SF as WAY worse." I'm posting numbers: SF has 145 homeless people per square mile and NYC has 257, based on the numbers posted in this thread, and that's a big fucking difference. No idea where you're getting "current" numbers - I'm getting 8,011 for SF from ABC, and 62,000 for NYC from Coalition for the Homeless. I'm sure that brings it more to a comparable level, but that still makes "I see SF as WAY worse," something YOU POSTED WHILE COMPLAINING ABOUT ANECDOTES, pretty laughable.
Not knowing what you're talking about, not providing citations, and still acting like a smug jerk in the process is a pretty toxic brew. I recommend knocking it off.
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Just because people are "progressive" doesn't mean they're not selfish assholes. San Fran is a testiment to that in many ways. There's a lot of very well to do, traditional wealthy people that are progressive in voting/politics etc. As long as it doesn't cost them anything directly.
But it's also just the way it is. It's in our nature to want more for ourselves, to progress and grow our own wealth. At least I think so. Most people desire more, and it drives them.
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Even if NYC does have a higher number per capita, there are still more homeless shelters there, right?
I think in general, it's probably more hidden in NYC since homeless people are spread out in certain boroughs. In SF it's more out in the open, and the downtown area is definitely more heavily concentrated.
However, I agree that comparing stories doesn't really mater. Ultimately, CA has to step up its laws regarding helping lower-socioeconomic people at risk of homelessness, then pass that down to cities and counties -- which are doing their hardest to ignore those kinds of laws. I think Huntington Beach was kinda the poster child of this recently.
I feel like SF had to propose the higher minimum wage because of how badly skewed the wage issue was there. However, even $15 doesn't help. :/
Those number are higher now. :(Here are the actual numbers for reference.
These are estimates. It's really hard to count people without a stable address.
I've lived in SF for 4 years, and yeah its bad. SF in general isn't a great place to live, most people are only here because of tech money.
It's the only place where you have to watch out for your dog so he/she won't step on human shit.
It's the only place where you have to watch out for your dog so he/she won't step on human shit.
I think it's a US problem is general. We talk about the cities because it's most visible, but it's a nation wide epidemic.
As stated in this thread it's mostly due to mental problems, but also because there are no social securities.
When cities are sending their homeless away to other cities it's not solving the core issue.
As stated in this thread it's mostly due to mental problems, but also because there are no social securities.
When cities are sending their homeless away to other cities it's not solving the core issue.
San Fran is on a whole nother level on not building housing from 2 of my cousins that instead moved to San Diego instead
These are staggering statistics all throughout this thread, whether they're outdated or not -- even just imagining that things have worsened significantly since the beginning of 2018 is a bit alarming.
San Francisco in particular doesn't seem all that difficult to imagine considering the ravaging that Silicon Valley business has steadily doled out for an extended number of years now.
My own city is a fraction of the population and geographic size and homelessness is very visible issue here, too. I don't know what the numbers are, but I can't go anywhere in this town without seeing a sign of it anymore.
I always feel like crying bullshit any time I see economic strength touted... Gig economy is creeping into most urban settings and it's fucking ruining shit everywhere, not to mention the huge swaths of folks that never bounced back from massive economic shifts that occurred in the mid-2000's and beyond. "Good news" when poverty is this visible is the clearest sign I know this shit is rigged.
San Francisco in particular doesn't seem all that difficult to imagine considering the ravaging that Silicon Valley business has steadily doled out for an extended number of years now.
My own city is a fraction of the population and geographic size and homelessness is very visible issue here, too. I don't know what the numbers are, but I can't go anywhere in this town without seeing a sign of it anymore.
I always feel like crying bullshit any time I see economic strength touted... Gig economy is creeping into most urban settings and it's fucking ruining shit everywhere, not to mention the huge swaths of folks that never bounced back from massive economic shifts that occurred in the mid-2000's and beyond. "Good news" when poverty is this visible is the clearest sign I know this shit is rigged.
The majority of the those homeless people aren't going to bother you. I've walked around in SF alone after 2am and never had any problems. Maybe get asked for some change
I've only been uncomfortable walking around the TL and the Mission (at night by myself) but even at night if you're in a group the homeless won't give two shits except to ask for some change.....then again I really don't hang around that area or downtown SF that much.
Also I've been the dude that would walk around at night in Carol City and Overtown (pretty dangerous neighborhoods in Miami where you can actually get killed minding your own business).
Here are the actual numbers for reference.
I dont see a date on this? But also, most of those places are a much larger geographic area than SF. LA City/County are huge by comparison.
This is what a lot of people don't get. Cities on the west coast have lots of homeless because the weather is good so they won't freeze to death and they have better social services for them. People migrate west to survive.