Why is San Francisco's homeless problem so atrocious?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the SF Local poster, and there ARE teachers who are living in their car and showering at a gym before teaching kids, then coaching, then tutoring. It's heartbreaking. I have rent-control, and even with that the percentage of my income that goes towards rent is already creeping up to one I'm not super comfortable with.

Well they are fools. A teacher can easily get a job in another school district in a nearby town/city or in another state.

If you think finding a teaching job in a new district is easy, you’ve clearly never tried it.

[Anonymous]

If I were homeless, I'd live in CA because of the weather and the scenery. That being said, it's amazing that the state/city haven't done more to address this problem. SF is so dirty and rundown now that I don't like visiting anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: the stats from a pp - you need to drill down.

DC has 3,770 homeless adult individuals (that number doesn't include adults in families who you don't see on the street). And DC counted 9 unaccompanied homeless youth.

SF has well over 5.5k homeless adult individuals plus well over 1k unaccompanied homeless youth.

I have worked in the homeless advocacy arena for two decades, and I do think it's odd that SF and other parts of CA continue to have such issues with visible street homelessness despite having invested so much money to address the problem. San Diego and LA similarly have significant issues--as does the Orange Couny area. Seattle does, too---and Seattle is widely heralded for its innovative strategies to address homelessness.

It does make me wonder if the generous infrastructure attracts or enables street homelessness---particularly when it comes to youth. SF, LA and Seattle have big homeless youth populations (in excess of 1k). DC only counted 9---yet as a pp pointed out, SF only has 1k more homeless people than DC. Why is that?

The differences in population between DC and San Francisco can be attributed to the differences in overall population. SF proper is bigger than DC proper and SF metro area is bigger than DC metro area.

But the counts are for the city, not the metro area. Ie: numbers for MoCo, PG, Fairfax, etc. are not included in the DC count. They are broken out by jurisdiction.

And the youth numbers are shockingly different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw a PBS segment and one woman went from the east coast to SF in the 60s and has been homeless since. She said she chooses to live that way because she has no rules or boundaries to limit her and just wants to be a free spirit. She believes she was meant to live this way and can't see any other way.

I read an article recently about LAs hiking trails are turning onto homeless camps right on the path itself. for miles and miles all you could see was tent after tent and dogs everywhere.

But there are many cities in California with good weather, public parks etc.

What is it which has enabled that woman to live year-round for 50 years as a homeless person in San Francisco? Are they giving out public buffets of food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Why are you giving them crazy levels of medical care? What about money for small expenditures and large ones like drugs - is theft rampant?

Grace Cathedral serves meals to homeless, as do a few other churches in the city. There are a few needle exchange places, and there are outreach orgs that walk around handing out free clean needles to those who want them. I believe about 60% of the needles handed out come back.

Also, there are a lot of tourists here. I, as a local, have problem saying "No, sorry" several times a day to homeless people asking for food or money. But many tourists can't do that, or get flustered because they've never been out of their suburban community and don't know WHAT to say so they give money.

As for why we're giving homeless people medical care - why shouldn't we? Should we let them painfully die on a street corner from something treatable?

No. They should be functioning members of society like the rest of us. Have jobs, put a roof over our heads and pay taxes.

Much of the homeless population is due to mental health issues. Mental healthcare is very expensive and not readily available in this country to many who need it. It's hard to be a functioning member of society without being mentally stable.

Canada has universal care, yet Toronto has a visible street homeless problem...and they don't have good weather there.

[Anonymous]

I once had a cup of hot coffee thrown on me by a mentally ill homeless person in SF while walking on the embarcadero. Also have had men expose themselves to me on the BART and Muni.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don’t get this. Any normal person would MOVE to another city before becoming homeless. It’s not like a google employee moves to SF, can’t find housing and chooses to live in a box on the street.

Anyone on the brink of becoming homeless does not have the resources, mental or financial, to just simply move to another city.

[Anonymous]

I saw a news story that said it was heroin. Showed all the homeless in camps and clusters shooting up. Lining the tunnels of the BART with needles in their arms and used needles strewn about.

My 17 yo wanted to go to San Fran with a friend alone and I vetoed that.

[Anonymous]

Good weather and benefits.

[Anonymous]

I’m from the West Coast. My HS lit teacher was voluntary homeless in SF for many years before teaching (so it would have been in the 1980s or 1990s). No doubt there’s an entire culture. I don’t want to feed into any Republican narrative but it’s basically not what people assume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the SF Local poster, and there ARE teachers who are living in their car and showering at a gym before teaching kids, then coaching, then tutoring. It's heartbreaking. I have rent-control, and even with that the percentage of my income that goes towards rent is already creeping up to one I'm not super comfortable with.

Well they are fools. A teacher can easily get a job in another school district in a nearby town/city or in another state.

If you think finding a teaching job in a new district is easy, you’ve clearly never tried it.

I am a teacher and if it came down to me being homeless or moving, you had better believe I would be moving. There are plenty of teaching jobs if you are single and willing to move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother was homeless there. The services available were amazing. He got his teeth fixed, knee surgery, and acupuncture for his anxiety. Not a drug addict. He’s mentally ill. He didn’t get anything like that here.

My brother in law is an alcoholic. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in California so he would qualify for disability payments and a host of other services including medical care. He refused to use those services. After my husbands parents died, he moved here where he lives in a condo we bought for him and lives on $700 in monthly disability payments. He has Medicaid and does not use it except for the emergency room. He is frequently taken there by ambulance after falling or getting into fights when drunk. My husband worked for months to get him into expensive rehab programs and he refused to get out of the car twice when we took him to the places. We now try to take him to lunch when he will go and check in on him. Basically he drinks and watches TV. He comes to no family events and our children do not know their only paternal uncle because he won’t see them.

This is all to say that if we were not warehousing him with government disability payments, he would be homeless on the streets of San Francisco. Thank god someone is trying to help the homeless because we have learned they do nothing to help themselves.

[Anonymous]

San Francisco's gotta do something to get it together, especially the homeless drug users.

My company used to host a conference there but stopped in 2016 after too many attendees had negative encounters with the homeless people. And when I say negative encounters, I mean assaulted and harassed (coffee thrown on them, trash thrown at them, etc.).

Just look at this news clip from April of 2018...insane!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New job creation vs new housing in the Bay Area is something like 8:1. There are so many homeless people, because there isn't enough housing. Sometimes it really is that simple.

The peninsula is full of 1% liberal elites who are of the typical liberal not in my back yard people who fight tooth and golden nail to prevent adding density to their precious neighborhood.

Typical west coast liberals.

Do Orange County conservatives encourage the construction of smart growth in their low density suburban neighborhoods? I mean cmon, you are posting in DCUM, a blog about a metro area that has quite it's share of conservative NIMBY's (esp in NoVa). NIMBYISM is bipartisan. As, to a considerable extent, is YIMBYISM.

Of course if you are less interested in housing supply than in bashing liberals, I can see why you would focus on the lib NIMBYS in the Bay Area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is all to say that if we were not warehousing him with government disability payments, he would be homeless on the streets of San Francisco. Thank god someone is trying to help the homeless because we have learned they do nothing to help themselves.

http://www.alexandriagazette.com/news/2018/jun/29/mother-light/

When the discussion turned back to the council, it was clear the neighbors’ comments had an impact on Councilman John Chapman.

“If folks don’t know anything about me and my family, we’ve had our bouts with homelessness in this city,” said Chapman. “We’re fourth generation Alexandrians. Generations before me owned businesses, owned homes. I own a home here. It’s sad to see what I just saw in terms of how we talk about the homeless here in this community. I’m sad. Nobody vetted me when I was in 8th grade and I was homeless. Nobody vetted my mother. But I sit up here on this dais and represent everyone in this community and I do it with pride because we are inclusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother was homeless there. The services available were amazing. He got his teeth fixed, knee surgery, and acupuncture for his anxiety. Not a drug addict. He’s mentally ill. He didn’t get anything like that here.

Okay, major problem #1. San Francisco treats its homeless to freaking excellent healthcare.

Problem #2 - best year-round weather.

Too foggy and chilly.