The cost of homeless people.

[Greenman]

San Francisco is looking to add a half percent tax on the gross income of every company that's based in SF. They expect that will raise three hundred million dollars a year, which will be added to the three hundred and fifty million a year they already spend on homeless issues. It works out to eighty five thousand dollars per homeless person every year. This seems a little pricey to me.
It got me to thinking about how I would handle the problem given that kind of budget, and made me realize that even with that kind of cash, I don't know how I'd go about it. Obviously throwing buckets of money at the problem isn't working, so what's next?

 

[whm1974]

Given that I was homeless for a few months I'm heavily biased toward social programs that will actually prevent people from ending up being homeless and help those who do off the street. I consider the saying that homeless people choose to be homeless to be a bunch of nonsense.

 

[UNCjigga]

Even if you just gave that $85K to each homeless person as a salary, they'd still have a hard time finding housing. I think I saw something about how a family in SF earning more than $100K can still be considered below the poverty line in SF.
Insane...

 

[whm1974]

Even if you just gave that $85K to each homeless person as a salary, they'd still have a hard time finding housing. I think I saw something about how a family in SF earning more than $100K can still be considered below the poverty line in SF.
Insane...

It really boggles my mind that in the US their are areas where cost it that much just to barely meet basic needs.

 

[Brainonska511]

Even if you just gave that $85K to each homeless person as a salary, they'd still have a hard time finding housing. I think I saw something about how a family in SF earning more than $100K can still be considered below the poverty line in SF.
Insane...

That's what happens when you have entrenched interests blocking the one thing that will cut housing costs (build more housing).

 

[zinfamous]

Actually giving them free housing with minor incentive programs for work and placement is vastly, vastly cheaper than the status quo (doing nothing and letting them skyrocket health costs for EVERYONE through ER visits). This is for chronic homelessness, which is still something like only 20-25% of all homeslessness? Most "homeless" are back on their feet within 2 weeks, and essentially cost society nothing in the end.

It's the chronic homeless, like "Million Dollar Murray," that run up $1 million/year tabs, where in previous decades he would have been cheaper and safer to maintain in typical mental healthcare clinics. Oh...Ronny Rayguns thought we didn't need those anymore, though. So his good big heart shuttered those programs across the nation (too expensive and no profit for ME, a CHRISTIAN!) and our streets have long since been flooded with indigent, mentally ill homeless, that are causing you and I both money and anger and you, OP, a lot of personal, misplaced grief and disgust.

Thanks, Ronny Rayguns!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5223068

I think Denver and Reno have been quite successful with this?

 

[Greenman]

That's what happens when you have entrenched interests blocking the one thing that will cut housing costs (build more housing).

There isn't a lot of room in SF for more housing, and there sure as hell isn't enough infrastructure.

 

[whm1974]

There isn't a lot of room in SF for more housing, and there sure as hell isn't enough infrastructure.

This may sound like a silly question, but why would anyone would want to live somewhere where they need to make over 100,000 just to meet basic needs? How much do groceries cost in SF?

 

[Puffnstuff]

Too many Americans have become calloused towards people of lesser means through no fault of their own and I believe that we have a moral obligation to assist them with meeting their basic needs. With that said I think that we should do more to provide them with basic housing and food. Clearly this thinking is resisted by the right who want to oppress the already oppressed among us.

 

[compuwiz1]

Too many Americans have become calloused towards people of lesser means through no fault of their own and I believe that we have a moral obligation to assist them with meeting their basic needs. With that said I think that we should do more to provide them with basic housing and providing them with food. Clearly this thinking is resisted by the right who want to oppressed the already oppressed among us.

I'm on the right. You have no idea how much clothing and personal care products I keep in the trunk of my car, for them, or how many meals I have brought to them. It's a constant errand. While I might be a conservative, I'm still human. My change of view happened when a man I once knew, as successful, was cut down by alcohol and drugs. He lost everything, and in the end, robbed a convenience store for a petty 40 dollars, because he wanted to go to jail, to get off the streets. It was really sad. That same man, today, is in recovery, remarried and has a house of his own again. It took him 10 years to get back, but he worked hard and proved himself.

 

[woolfe9998]

This may sound like a silly question, but why would anyone would want to live somewhere where they need to make over 100,000 just to meet basic needs? How much do groceries cost in SF?

Groceries cost the same as everywhere else in the Bay Area, which in turn is maybe slightly higher than the national average. It's housing that's expensive. Even with rent control, it only precludes the landlord from raising your rent more than 1% per year, but rent can be raised to whatever the market will bear for new tenants. So a homeless person wanting to rent a place would have to pay through the nose.

The reason housing is so expensive is mainly because people want to live there for whatever reasons people want to live there. High demand means high prices. Your question is indeed a bit silly because the very reason you need over 100K to make ends meet is because people want to live there.

 

[sportage]

I hear rich people asking WHY are we housing Illegals and feeding their kids, handing out those silver blankets, etc etc, when we could be helping our own? Our homeless?

Oh well....
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The "gap" continues to grow.
Wider and wider the gap becomes.
What will those super wealthy folks living behind gated walls do with most of America when most of America can no longer survive paycheck to paycheck?
Their income impossible to live off of, and their safety nets all taken away?
I know.... expand that gap even further.
And then.....?
At some point, I guess the super rich will have no other choice but to do with most of America what New York does with their trash.
Pile it on a barge and ship it out to sea. Then dump it.
Thats one solution. I guess.
If not that, simply find new ways to block the whole mess out.
Out of sight, out of mind.
America, the richest nation on earth, will become two worlds. One large chunk immersed in poverty, and the other living high above the mess within gated glass towers.
Shuttled from place to place by flying super craft much like in the TV cartoon show THE JETSON'S.
Funny... In THE JETSON's, all life takes place inside futurist circular homes perched high in the clouds. They never show what the ground looks like. What the terra firma looks like.
Just maybe this is an omen for what is to come.

 

[soulcougher73]

A few homeless rehabilitation camps set up around the US would be nice. You house them, feed them, school them, treat them, etc until they are fit to join society as a productive member. They can refuse all those things, but they still have to stay there. Would probably be cheaper on a national level and is more ethical than just letting them live on the streets and piss on buildings and get into some bad drug habits or something. ROUND EM UP!!

 

[K1052]

There isn't a lot of room in SF for more housing, and there sure as hell isn't enough infrastructure.

This is not true.

 

[overst33r]

How do other rich countries handle their homeless? Does money work? What works? What can we learn?

 

[Greenman]

This is not true.

Yes, yes it is.

 

[frowertr]

So I went to school and got a degree, worked my ass off for my family, bought a house and cars and boat, and pay my mortgage and bills etc...

But you guys propose to house the bum on every street corner AND give them cash as a bonus?!? Don’t you people realize that if you just give them money and homes then suddenly EVERYONE will claim they are homeless?!?

No, rescue missions are the best we can do. It's silly to just throw money at them. They will go and buy drugs and whores on the next block and turn the home you just purchased for them into the neighborhood crack house.

 

[interchange]

Housing first programs work, and it might be a good idea to try and get some people out of the Bay area due to the economic barriers.

 

[IronWing]

If the homeless would just buy houses like decent people, homelessness wouldn't be an issue.

 

[realibrad]

Groceries cost the same as everywhere else in the Bay Area, which in turn is maybe slightly higher than the national average. It's housing that's expensive. Even with rent control, it only precludes the landlord from raising your rent more than 1% per year, but rent can be raised to whatever the market will bear for new tenants. So a homeless person wanting to rent a place would have to pay through the nose.

The reason housing is so expensive is mainly because people want to live there for whatever reasons people want to live there. High demand means high prices. Your question is indeed a bit silly because the very reason you need over 100K to make ends meet is because people want to live there.

The big problem in SF is that they are not building up like most other large US cities. SF has a horrible habit of trying to "preserve" the city, so they pass zoning laws to limit density and growth. Demand grows because the bay is where the jobs are, but they wont let housing be built. So, everyone has to live in the valley and drive into the bay every day.

Its not that demand is the only thing driving prices, its the limiting of supply.

Interesting link here.

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/8/14856316/san-francisco-density-map

 

[Indus]

How about building the homeless homes instead of a wall?

 

[realibrad]

Yes, yes it is.

No, this is incredibly false.

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/8/14856316/san-francisco-density-map

SF density - 18,262
NYC density - 28,256
Mumbai density - 53,000
Paris density - 55,000
Manila density - 107,497

 

[repoman0]

Don’t you people realize that if you just give them money and homes then suddenly EVERYONE will claim they are homeless?!?

lmao. This is the mind-numbingly brainless P&N statement of the day right here. "Dude .... but then, like .... everyone will just WANT to be homeless!" Straight out of a conversation between two sixteen year old stoners sitting in the basement of their rich parents' house.

 

[realibrad]

Housing first programs work, and it might be a good idea to try and get some people out of the Bay area due to the economic barriers.

Can't do that. There is a big fight right now because poor people being forced out by high prices is wrong according to the Left which makes up a majority in the Bay. You can't allow only the rich to live in a place.

Keep in mind, this is the same city that protested Google because it was using private buses for its workers instead of letting them use public transit. They were upset because Google and its luxury buses were taking money away from the city transit system hurting the poor.

 

[Chromagnus]

Can't do that. There is a big fight right now because poor people being forced out by high prices is wrong according to the Left which makes up a majority in the Bay. You can't allow only the rich to live in a place.

This is how a lot of homelessness is created/made worse? The poor can no longer afford housing because prices are sky rocketing so they end up on the street. It seems like a valid discussion/fight to be having.

Personally I feel like both sides go a bit too far to the extreme. Economic development is important and helps a city thrive but low cost housing is also important. I don't know how SF does it but I know other cities that have quotes when approving building projects that certain percentages of residencies need to be low cost.