The fact is it can't just be SF's problem, because SF is a magnet for homeless people from all over CA and the US. That makes it a US problem, and yes, it is a disgrace.
But isn't SF a magnet because of its policies and programs making it a desirable destination for the homeless? Homelessness is definitely a nation-wide program with all kinds of root causes that need to be addressed, but the city of SF is somewhat unique among other "top tier" US cities in the scope of its homeless "problem".
1. The police in SF don't put people on buses to other places. Other places do.
2. The weather in the Bay Area makes us a target for homeless people everywhere.
3. Related to #1, but different: not being "anti homeless people" is a reason people come to SF and Berkeley. I don't this is the same as encouraging homeless people to come to SF and Berkeley.
The programs that SF puts in place as part of the "non-profit industrial complex" that's risen up worsens the problem in two ways:
1) Too many of the programs enable, rather than help the root cause, of homeless folks.
2) These enabling programs are very efficiently communicated among the homeless population, drawing them from all over the state and the country.
I'm not some asshole who hates homeless people. I was raised by a single father because my mother was a mentally-ill and drug addicted person who was homeless or in and out of shelters for the majority of the last 25 years before she died in 2014.
I watched as numerous programs did nothing but enable her addiction and undermine me and my siblings efforts to eliminate her addiction and get her to work.
Not having a job or some collective sense of mission is bad for people, period. We are, at our evolutionary root, not designed to be idle or not tied up in some sense of collective effort to survive.
ANY PROGRAM that doesn't provide this very much needed element of the human condition is going to fail.
My ideal drug rehabilitation program for homeless addicts is this: give them drugs, and make them work at some kind of job to continue to receive them, as well as a basic income. This is based on a more recent theory of addiction (that I wholeheartedly embrace) following the "rat park" model of psychological isolation and emotional injury being a bigger contributor to compulsive drug use than the chemical dependencies.
Edit: Forgot to say that the above would likely result in the majority of folks in the program to quit drugs in a few years on their own as they became happier and more socially connected individuals.
All the programs my mom ever had available basically treated her like a helpless victim: stay away from drugs, take your lithium, and "of course we don't expect you to work. Just sit around and do nothing all day and here's your disability check".
And let me add this: most addicts are actually pretty functional and capable of work if provided some amount of drugs. The cases where an addict won't be able to work are going to involve folks who are in withdrawal and need their fix. They aren't going to be doing clerical work or anything, but day labor and other basic work like that is 100% doable. This is the kind of work that cities like SF have available in large quantities for their public infrastructure.
In one of the most left-leaning states in the union, in one of it's richest cities, all the most well-meaning welfare programs have failed to make a dent in the problem.
If that isn't a fantastic argument for Basic Income I don't know what could be more persuasive.
Edit: Commenter below summarized my (admittedly poorly phrased) point better than I can:
> The current programs are focussed around spending the minimum amount of money possible on as few people as possible, which is an expensive and inefficient proposal. The parent's suggestion is to give people the power in their own lives, which studies have shown can result in huge turnarounds for people in unpleasant situations.
> So OP is suggesting that overly complicated, byzantine, and underfunded welfare programs aren't working, so maybe we should give up and do what experts have been suggesting, and studies have shown results from, instead.
And no, this does not address the problem of mental illness but if we're going to continue to ignore this problem until we can find a solution that works for all homeless, just shoot them now and limit their suffering because it will never happen.
Is anyone able to explain what this view is being down voted? I'm picking that the second paragraph is the problem - there must be hard data on that thought somewhere?
The two are largely the same thing. If you have basic income, you can spend it on cheap housing and effectively have Basic Housing with no additional administrative overhead. If you're saying that we need to specifically provide free housing to the homeless and/or poor then that's a program that some cities have already tried with mixed results. Homelessness is often tied to drug addiction and mental health issues, neither of which are really directly helped by free housing or free money.
If you're saying that we need to specifically provide free housing to the homeless and/or poor then that's a program that some cities have already tried with mixed results
This seems like a bad idea. Any culture that contains something of value needs to absorb new members a little at a time. A culture or scene that tries to absorb many new members all at once is going to be damaged or at least significantly changed in the process.
So it would seem that scattered site housing is the new norm. Now, the problem is that it's harder for such residents to become part of the local community networks. (Often suburbia is distinctly isolating.)
Some social organization similar to a church would seem to be the idea method of providing the residents a social network.
You say this as if giving people who can't contribute to society a place to live and recreational activities would be the downfall of civilization.
Homeless are expensive as hell to have. They visit ERs instead of getting preventive care, not that they can afford either, they devalue property where they squat, they occupy emergency services like police when property owners complain, they spread disease, etc. etc. etc.
You can joke about giving people a home like it's just going to ruin the country, but we're already subsidizing these people with emergency services, jails, and police. Just giving them a home with some basic amenities both gives them the chance to actually contribute and at the same time, and basic income allows them to manage their own money, even if they aren't earning it, to give them some semblance of dignity.
You talk as though all homeless people are in the same category; down on their luck folks who are just having a hard time pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of homeless people who are like that and who really do just need a helping hand and some support for 6mo or a year and they're back to being productive members of society. I won't argue with this because it's absolutely true!
But there are also people who are homeless because of untreated mental illness, who "choose" to be homeless because they're too far out there to participate in traditional society. These folks (probably) need help, but just giving them a house and money for food isn't necessarily the answer.
And there are also folks who choose to be homeless. People who think society is really effed up and that they don't want to be a part of it. I've met folks like this and talked with them at length and they know full well what they're doing, why, and whatnot. They're not down on their luck and they don't have any kind of debilitating mental illness; they have very well founded reasons for rejecting society and you won't convince them otherwise. They obviously have different values than most, but that doesn't mean they're crazy or wrong. If you give them a house they'll probably just laugh at the "idiots" trash it, spend the money profligately and continue doing whatever makes them happy.
Pretending that you've got a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem is either incredibly naive or just downright intellectually dishonest. I'm not terribly interested in people peddling snake oil.
Complaining that a solution is bad because it does not apply to the people who willfully oppose having their problem solved makes no sense. Of course it won't eliminate homelessness in people who WANT to be homeless, I'm not sure how you could solve that problem with all the resources in the world.
And as I said above, this doesn't solve the issue of mental illness but none of the current ones do either. I would argue the majority of homeless people are really just regular folks who have had a serious financial issue (the fastest route to the streets is the medical system) and giving them a leg up will not only get them off the street, but would likely get them productive again.
I'm not arguing that basic income is the silver bullet solution to our cities' problems. I'm arguing for what we spend on the patchwork crap system we have now, we could use much more effectively via basic income WHILE giving these people at least a passing sense of ownership of their own lives.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Basic income is much easier for the government to setup than basic housing. And people could just use their basic income to get housing.
As someone who is for such programs in principle, and willing to pay even more taxes from my high IT freelancer income to support the parts of society worse off, still I am not in the mood for "simple" solutions.
It was tried giving people housing. The problem is not doing that once - the problem is the ongoing process. Even in Africa the helpers switched to letting people pay for basic services instead of giving it to them for free, not because "capitalism", but because it turned out they didn't value free stuff and ruined or ignored it.
Similar with the homeless, and in addition a large part of them has mental issues! If you want to have ruined housing, sure, just give them free housing now. But a solution that involves an entire well-organized system that takes care of them and the housing is needed - and likely a very flexible individualized one. Some may need almost constant help, for others checking on them occasionally and giving nudges and support is enough. "Basic income" is not a solution for this problem. Most of those people on the street are very likely to gain next to zero benefit from (just) getting money.
Well-meaning but condescending welfare programs don't work. Current welfare programs assume that people who are on welfare need to be managed with kid gloves because they're incapable of being responsible, punish people who can't follow arbitrary guidelines, and generally don't provide enough money anyway.
In Vancouver, as an example, people on welfare don't get enough money to rent a bedroom from someone, let alone pay for food, clothes, transportation, taking care of children if they have any, etc. Even if someone on welfare does get a job, there's a decent chance it won't pay them enough to afford child care so it'll be a net loss in the end. You also have to prove that you're out there looking for a job every day, but there's such a stigma against people on welfare that it can be difficult to be hired, so the government is requiring people to go out every day and be told no over and over again.
These people are often unskilled and have no money to learn new skills, so they're stuck getting low-paying jobs which also don't provide enough money to learn new skills, and so on and so on.
A basic income system would save a significant amount of money on bureaucracy, making sure people are looking for work or jumping through hoops to pay someone not enough to live on and then take it away as soon as possible. It would also give people a lot more opportunities for entrepreneurialism, education, child care, and so on.
The current programs are focussed around spending the minimum amount of money possible on as few people as possible, which is an expensive and inefficient proposal. The parent's suggestion is to give people the power in their own lives, which studies have shown can result in huge turnarounds for people in unpleasant situations.
So OP is suggesting that overly complicated, byzantine, and underfunded welfare programs aren't working, so maybe we should give up and do what experts have been suggesting, and studies have shown results from, instead.
Probably because it is assuming that the problem is not enough money. How would giving people $1000/mo get treat addiction or mental illness? I'm not saying that there is hard data that it won't help but there isn't any to show either way.
A lot of places have unemployment or sickness benefits and housing allowances (like where I live). It isn't called the same thing but this ticks many of the same boxes. Couldn't this be used as a comparison?
I don't know, I come to the opposite conclusion - some people simply do not want to be "upstanding" (or even minimally participatory) members of society, whether due to mental illness, severe drug addiction, or simple preference. I don't see how giving them "free" money will change that.
> The city needs to evaluate and track people in homeless programs
> San Francisco, which gets an influx of about 450 chronically homeless people a year, needs to shed any perception that it is a sanctuary for people who are unwilling to participate in programs designed to get them off,
> It is neither inhumane nor “criminalizing poverty” to enforce laws against aggressive panhandling, tent encampments or defecation and urination in public places....are no longer afforded the option to flout the law with impunity.
So plan is to build a few houses and put everyone who is left into jail.
This is becoming an issue in Sacramento as they continue to shut down public restrooms. There's is talk of setting up port-a-potties with full time attendants, so we will see how that goes.
I was in sf for wwdc a few weeks ago - as a separate notion to humanitarian ideas, the mental ill and homeless in the streets really struck me as having a very adverse effect on the vibe of the city -- worse than my impressions as a visitor during previous experiences in the area.
- if you are in the city and need to find a bathroom, good luck -- hearts and minds of the people are closed to you and there is nowhere a restroom accessible as service jobs are constantly under assault from the mentally ill. It's extremely dehumanizing -- I would invite anyone who wants to feel the homeless experience to put on some decent but non fashionable clothes, wait until they urgently need to pee while in an unfamiliar area of the city, and then see how the city feels to you.
- the battery in my phone died and I asked a random passerby if he had the time -- he said "no".
Just an isolated sketch -- but the people in that city generally struck me as terrible and generally very close to depressed -- and I attribute at least some of that to the fact that they are constantly barraged by the souls of the crushed masses dwelling all around them.
Cities have psyches, and sf strikes me as very sick right now.
I was in a restaurant in SF near embarcadero.
A 70+ year old woman eating in another table got her check, about $18, but realized that left her purse at home.
She wanted to leave to get her purse in order to return, and pay. But the lady that runs the restaurant started yelling "where is the money?". There were also some cops eating at the restaurant, and asked if there was anything wrong, and then proceeded to arrest her.
The restaurant was full of people. Many of them seemed to have a good living standard. But nobody got involved in helping an honest senior person in distress.
I got involved. I paid the bill and the cops set the woman free. Even if it was intentional (unlikely), if you are stealing food then you probably need help anyways, especially if you are old.
I was horrified to see how a society so prosper can be so dehumanized. Shame on you people.
"I was horrified to see how a society so prosper can be so dehumanized."
In fairness, where should their morals come from? I'm not religious myself, but it seems that for all their faults religions provide a shared morality. Why should a society without a fixed set of morals be humane? There's no source of truth as to what humane even means. Why is helping an old woman humane? Why should I believe you, or feel shame when something like this happens?
Because most humans feel bad when they see situations like this, even the ones that weren't taught "this is bad" by a religion. Religion just has better marketing.
I believe it is part of our human nature to care for other humans. Why else do people give money away without getting anything in return (even if you count it as an altruistic act)?
That only works for some people. Where do sociopaths fit into your worldview?
s/some/the vast majority of/
Sociopathy is incredibly rare. The existence of it doesn't affect the substance of the parent's (or my) comment, which is about society as a whole, not a tiny fraction of outliers.
But it's a critically important minority - it's well researched that CEOs, bankers, and other highly successful types in business have sociopathic traits. (I attach no moral judgment to that - just stating it.) Full, diagnosable sociopathy and psychopathy are rare, as you point out. People with a decreased ability to feel empathy are a minority, but they have a disproportionate ability to shape society.
For that reason, I'm always somewhat annoyed when other atheists (I'm an atheist myself) rely on some shared sense of human empathy and argue from it - it's only convincing in a society where empathetic people wield power. We don't live in such a world. To convince people to act humanely even if they don't feel empathy, we need to appeal to a higher objective source of truth as the religious do, or find an argument for humane acts that doesn't rely on appealing to people's consciences.
Good point. The religion was a magnet for people's moral compass, and once it became too inconvenient society showed it the door. The elites replaced it with a notion of dog-eat-dog world, and the proles happily ate it up and made it into reality.
In fairness, where should their morals come from? I'm not religious myself, but it seems that for all their faults religions provide a shared morality.
Sure, based on defining in-groups and out-groups so we can decide who is and isn't worth mercy and salvation.
Works great when you're in the in-group. If you're, say, gay, it might not seems so great...
Personally, given that empathy is wired into our cerebrum, I'd think the golden rule would be enough to decide that helping a senior in distress might be the right thing to do.
Altruism doesn't mean "cooperation" or "getting along with others". It's a specific moral philosophy invented and named by Auguste Comte. The actual philosophy is horrific and has nothing at all to do with benevolence toward anyone.
My niece lives in SF, and was assaulted by a homeless lady who knocked her to the ground while trying to steal her backpack. She called me in tears and told me that when it was happening, streams of people were walking by ignoring her, and one guy literally said to her as he walked by "Welcome to San Francisco."
Just a possible alternative that people may have not initially paid enough attention to get the full gist of what was going on and could have thought she was trying to leave without paying or some such.
People are very much in their own world here compared to other places I have lives/traveled. I offer my seat to pregnant, older, disabled, injured, etc. people and notice that most people are too absorbed in their phones or conversations to even notice there is someone that needs a seat.
I never realized the San Francisco Chronicle has two versions of its site. I always used to go to http://www.sfgate.com (which has become like a gossip site). I now realize the more traditional newspaper is at http://www.sfchronicle.com/ (although they have an overlap of articles).
sfchronicle.com is their premium, subscription-based offering. I suppose it'll only allow you to read 10 or so articles before putting up a paywall. sfgate.com is their free ad-based offering.
The reality is that most mid to long term homeless are 100% unemployable. There is no solution for most of these people in our current system. This is not a San Francisco problem but a national problem as it is a direct side effect of our chosen system of resource allocation. We as a country need to either change our current methods of allocating resources or accept it as a price we are willing to pay.
Indeed, but as the article points out, we can do a much better job of managing the problem. Paying $150,000 per year per person is simply ridiculous. We can look at Salt Lake City and Houston for proven examples of better solutions.
It's not just about money. Someone who is severely mentally ill isn't going to able to perform tasks, let alone function without a caregiver.
Living on the streets is very dangerous and stressful. Somewhere around 25% of homeless people have traumatic brain injuries. Not the sort of people you can put in a cubical to do data entry.
Mental illness is a huge component to this, I agree. I think it's pessimistic to say that a sizable portion of this group couldn't become employed in some way. First, not all of them are mentally ill to begin with. Second, a lot of mental illnesses are quite manageable with the right care. Care requires money, and money is acquired by working.
Further, no mental illness has ever been alleviated through boredom, malnutrition, lack of sleep, social exile, and maltreatment.
Also, not every job involves sitting at a computer ;)
There are many obvious things to do. Give them a place and supplies to wash their teeth if they want to would be my suggestion #1. This won't be expensive, and yes, needs to be guarded, but ...
Not all of them. As the article states, SF "gets an influx of about 450 chronically homeless people a year".
Part of the problem is that SF has become known as a sanctuary city for the homeless. People come from all over the US. That is good, from the perspective that we have some positive karma for treating people better than other cities. It is bad, from the perspective that we bear more of the burden.
I found it somewhat useful or similar to asides and enlarged quotations. I for one am fine with publishers trying to experiment with the creative display of their work al la New York Times so long as they don't paywall it off. free content is free content.
I think "people who are homeless because they can't afford homes" and "people who are homeless because they voluntarily enjoy living on the street" are two different problems and should be addressed differently.
In particular, I have no problem criminalizing the latter if we can address the former. Criminal laws are supposed to prevent mass unpleasant behavior in public. Pooping in the street is not a lifestyle choice we should encourage or support. (though "having public toilets" might be a better solution)
there is an entire complex of private contractors who name themselves as 'non-profits' that profit heavily off of 'helping' this system.
if you just eliminated ALL nonprofits, ensured that money donated to them was NOT tax deductible and taxed ANY and ALL ownership of non-profit owned property, you would have more than enough money to feed and house all the homeless.
the only problem is you'd have a lot more people who work int he non-profit sector unemployed.
it is a form of corporate welfare for supposed do gooding where 90%+ of the money winds up in the pockets of administrators employees and contractors all in the name of 'helping' people.
homeless people would literally be better off if there were aboslutely no government or tax subsidized services offering them help and NO WAR ON THE HOMELESS LAWS punishing individual non-institutionally affiliated people for helping/feeding/housing the homeless using informal resources.
Very anecdotally, this was something that I noticed not just in SF, but also LA. The marked difference for me as a Londoner between the huge homelessness problem we have in London and what I saw in SF/LA was the levels of mental illness coupled with dehumanising levels of despair that I saw in the homeless populations of SF/LA.
Does anyone have a good idea of why SF/LA (the US in general?) exhibited this characteristic of homelessness more markedly than in London (where I almost never see the sort of extremely obvious health issues that I saw in SF/LA every time I've been there)? Is it because of the US healthcare system, perhaps?
Incidentally, there is a good episode of the BBC's "The Inquiry" which asks about one route of dealing with this:
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[ 78.9 ms ] story [ 2149 ms ] threadHomelessness is a crisis that is growing all over the US.
Homeless crisis in Hawaii sparks state of emergency http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/homeless-crisis-in-hawaii-spar...
L.A. County supervisors call for a state emergency declaration on homelessness http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-emergen...
Mayor, county exec declare ‘state of emergency’ over homelessness http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/mayor-coun...
2. The weather in the Bay Area makes us a target for homeless people everywhere.
3. Related to #1, but different: not being "anti homeless people" is a reason people come to SF and Berkeley. I don't this is the same as encouraging homeless people to come to SF and Berkeley.
1) Too many of the programs enable, rather than help the root cause, of homeless folks.
2) These enabling programs are very efficiently communicated among the homeless population, drawing them from all over the state and the country.
I'm not some asshole who hates homeless people. I was raised by a single father because my mother was a mentally-ill and drug addicted person who was homeless or in and out of shelters for the majority of the last 25 years before she died in 2014.
I watched as numerous programs did nothing but enable her addiction and undermine me and my siblings efforts to eliminate her addiction and get her to work.
ANY PROGRAM that doesn't provide this very much needed element of the human condition is going to fail.
My ideal drug rehabilitation program for homeless addicts is this: give them drugs, and make them work at some kind of job to continue to receive them, as well as a basic income. This is based on a more recent theory of addiction (that I wholeheartedly embrace) following the "rat park" model of psychological isolation and emotional injury being a bigger contributor to compulsive drug use than the chemical dependencies.
Edit: Forgot to say that the above would likely result in the majority of folks in the program to quit drugs in a few years on their own as they became happier and more socially connected individuals.
All the programs my mom ever had available basically treated her like a helpless victim: stay away from drugs, take your lithium, and "of course we don't expect you to work. Just sit around and do nothing all day and here's your disability check".
And let me add this: most addicts are actually pretty functional and capable of work if provided some amount of drugs. The cases where an addict won't be able to work are going to involve folks who are in withdrawal and need their fix. They aren't going to be doing clerical work or anything, but day labor and other basic work like that is 100% doable. This is the kind of work that cities like SF have available in large quantities for their public infrastructure.
http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Franc...
If that isn't a fantastic argument for Basic Income I don't know what could be more persuasive.
Edit: Commenter below summarized my (admittedly poorly phrased) point better than I can:
> The current programs are focussed around spending the minimum amount of money possible on as few people as possible, which is an expensive and inefficient proposal. The parent's suggestion is to give people the power in their own lives, which studies have shown can result in huge turnarounds for people in unpleasant situations.
> So OP is suggesting that overly complicated, byzantine, and underfunded welfare programs aren't working, so maybe we should give up and do what experts have been suggesting, and studies have shown results from, instead.
And no, this does not address the problem of mental illness but if we're going to continue to ignore this problem until we can find a solution that works for all homeless, just shoot them now and limit their suffering because it will never happen.
Where can I read about these mixed results?
This seems like a bad idea. Any culture that contains something of value needs to absorb new members a little at a time. A culture or scene that tries to absorb many new members all at once is going to be damaged or at least significantly changed in the process.
So it would seem that scattered site housing is the new norm. Now, the problem is that it's harder for such residents to become part of the local community networks. (Often suburbia is distinctly isolating.)
Some social organization similar to a church would seem to be the idea method of providing the residents a social network.
Homeless are expensive as hell to have. They visit ERs instead of getting preventive care, not that they can afford either, they devalue property where they squat, they occupy emergency services like police when property owners complain, they spread disease, etc. etc. etc.
You can joke about giving people a home like it's just going to ruin the country, but we're already subsidizing these people with emergency services, jails, and police. Just giving them a home with some basic amenities both gives them the chance to actually contribute and at the same time, and basic income allows them to manage their own money, even if they aren't earning it, to give them some semblance of dignity.
And in almost every case studied, it's cheaper.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of homeless people who are like that and who really do just need a helping hand and some support for 6mo or a year and they're back to being productive members of society. I won't argue with this because it's absolutely true!
But there are also people who are homeless because of untreated mental illness, who "choose" to be homeless because they're too far out there to participate in traditional society. These folks (probably) need help, but just giving them a house and money for food isn't necessarily the answer.
And there are also folks who choose to be homeless. People who think society is really effed up and that they don't want to be a part of it. I've met folks like this and talked with them at length and they know full well what they're doing, why, and whatnot. They're not down on their luck and they don't have any kind of debilitating mental illness; they have very well founded reasons for rejecting society and you won't convince them otherwise. They obviously have different values than most, but that doesn't mean they're crazy or wrong. If you give them a house they'll probably just laugh at the "idiots" trash it, spend the money profligately and continue doing whatever makes them happy.
Pretending that you've got a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem is either incredibly naive or just downright intellectually dishonest. I'm not terribly interested in people peddling snake oil.
And as I said above, this doesn't solve the issue of mental illness but none of the current ones do either. I would argue the majority of homeless people are really just regular folks who have had a serious financial issue (the fastest route to the streets is the medical system) and giving them a leg up will not only get them off the street, but would likely get them productive again.
I'm not arguing that basic income is the silver bullet solution to our cities' problems. I'm arguing for what we spend on the patchwork crap system we have now, we could use much more effectively via basic income WHILE giving these people at least a passing sense of ownership of their own lives.
Without that I could simply assert that only 10% of homeless want to rejoin traditional society and you'd be powerless to refute me.
It was tried giving people housing. The problem is not doing that once - the problem is the ongoing process. Even in Africa the helpers switched to letting people pay for basic services instead of giving it to them for free, not because "capitalism", but because it turned out they didn't value free stuff and ruined or ignored it.
Similar with the homeless, and in addition a large part of them has mental issues! If you want to have ruined housing, sure, just give them free housing now. But a solution that involves an entire well-organized system that takes care of them and the housing is needed - and likely a very flexible individualized one. Some may need almost constant help, for others checking on them occasionally and giving nudges and support is enough. "Basic income" is not a solution for this problem. Most of those people on the street are very likely to gain next to zero benefit from (just) getting money.
In Vancouver, as an example, people on welfare don't get enough money to rent a bedroom from someone, let alone pay for food, clothes, transportation, taking care of children if they have any, etc. Even if someone on welfare does get a job, there's a decent chance it won't pay them enough to afford child care so it'll be a net loss in the end. You also have to prove that you're out there looking for a job every day, but there's such a stigma against people on welfare that it can be difficult to be hired, so the government is requiring people to go out every day and be told no over and over again.
These people are often unskilled and have no money to learn new skills, so they're stuck getting low-paying jobs which also don't provide enough money to learn new skills, and so on and so on.
A basic income system would save a significant amount of money on bureaucracy, making sure people are looking for work or jumping through hoops to pay someone not enough to live on and then take it away as soon as possible. It would also give people a lot more opportunities for entrepreneurialism, education, child care, and so on.
The current programs are focussed around spending the minimum amount of money possible on as few people as possible, which is an expensive and inefficient proposal. The parent's suggestion is to give people the power in their own lives, which studies have shown can result in huge turnarounds for people in unpleasant situations.
So OP is suggesting that overly complicated, byzantine, and underfunded welfare programs aren't working, so maybe we should give up and do what experts have been suggesting, and studies have shown results from, instead.
Also, from an european's point of view, calling SF policies "left-leaning" is quite amusing.
> San Francisco, which gets an influx of about 450 chronically homeless people a year, needs to shed any perception that it is a sanctuary for people who are unwilling to participate in programs designed to get them off,
> It is neither inhumane nor “criminalizing poverty” to enforce laws against aggressive panhandling, tent encampments or defecation and urination in public places....are no longer afforded the option to flout the law with impunity.
So plan is to build a few houses and put everyone who is left into jail.
- if you are in the city and need to find a bathroom, good luck -- hearts and minds of the people are closed to you and there is nowhere a restroom accessible as service jobs are constantly under assault from the mentally ill. It's extremely dehumanizing -- I would invite anyone who wants to feel the homeless experience to put on some decent but non fashionable clothes, wait until they urgently need to pee while in an unfamiliar area of the city, and then see how the city feels to you. - the battery in my phone died and I asked a random passerby if he had the time -- he said "no".
Just an isolated sketch -- but the people in that city generally struck me as terrible and generally very close to depressed -- and I attribute at least some of that to the fact that they are constantly barraged by the souls of the crushed masses dwelling all around them.
Cities have psyches, and sf strikes me as very sick right now.
The restaurant was full of people. Many of them seemed to have a good living standard. But nobody got involved in helping an honest senior person in distress.
I got involved. I paid the bill and the cops set the woman free. Even if it was intentional (unlikely), if you are stealing food then you probably need help anyways, especially if you are old.
I was horrified to see how a society so prosper can be so dehumanized. Shame on you people.
In fairness, where should their morals come from? I'm not religious myself, but it seems that for all their faults religions provide a shared morality. Why should a society without a fixed set of morals be humane? There's no source of truth as to what humane even means. Why is helping an old woman humane? Why should I believe you, or feel shame when something like this happens?
I believe it is part of our human nature to care for other humans. Why else do people give money away without getting anything in return (even if you count it as an altruistic act)?
That only works for some people. Where do sociopaths fit into your worldview?
s/some/the vast majority of/
Sociopathy is incredibly rare. The existence of it doesn't affect the substance of the parent's (or my) comment, which is about society as a whole, not a tiny fraction of outliers.
For that reason, I'm always somewhat annoyed when other atheists (I'm an atheist myself) rely on some shared sense of human empathy and argue from it - it's only convincing in a society where empathetic people wield power. We don't live in such a world. To convince people to act humanely even if they don't feel empathy, we need to appeal to a higher objective source of truth as the religious do, or find an argument for humane acts that doesn't rely on appealing to people's consciences.
Sure, based on defining in-groups and out-groups so we can decide who is and isn't worth mercy and salvation.
Works great when you're in the in-group. If you're, say, gay, it might not seems so great...
Personally, given that empathy is wired into our cerebrum, I'd think the golden rule would be enough to decide that helping a senior in distress might be the right thing to do.
And if you appreciate that, you will at some moment give back. Not necessarily in the form of money.
Altruism does not need a religion. It also exists in the animal world.
How awful.
People are very much in their own world here compared to other places I have lives/traveled. I offer my seat to pregnant, older, disabled, injured, etc. people and notice that most people are too absorbed in their phones or conversations to even notice there is someone that needs a seat.
Why would they do this?
Living on the streets is very dangerous and stressful. Somewhere around 25% of homeless people have traumatic brain injuries. Not the sort of people you can put in a cubical to do data entry.
Further, no mental illness has ever been alleviated through boredom, malnutrition, lack of sleep, social exile, and maltreatment.
Also, not every job involves sitting at a computer ;)
Part of the problem is that SF has become known as a sanctuary city for the homeless. People come from all over the US. That is good, from the perspective that we have some positive karma for treating people better than other cities. It is bad, from the perspective that we bear more of the burden.
Please stick with the tired-but-true way of making headlines or pulling text to the side to break-up text.
Don't dynamically resize text while you're scrolling. This has to be the dumbest web design I've seen in a while.
In particular, I have no problem criminalizing the latter if we can address the former. Criminal laws are supposed to prevent mass unpleasant behavior in public. Pooping in the street is not a lifestyle choice we should encourage or support. (though "having public toilets" might be a better solution)
if you just eliminated ALL nonprofits, ensured that money donated to them was NOT tax deductible and taxed ANY and ALL ownership of non-profit owned property, you would have more than enough money to feed and house all the homeless.
the only problem is you'd have a lot more people who work int he non-profit sector unemployed.
it is a form of corporate welfare for supposed do gooding where 90%+ of the money winds up in the pockets of administrators employees and contractors all in the name of 'helping' people.
homeless people would literally be better off if there were aboslutely no government or tax subsidized services offering them help and NO WAR ON THE HOMELESS LAWS punishing individual non-institutionally affiliated people for helping/feeding/housing the homeless using informal resources.
Does anyone have a good idea of why SF/LA (the US in general?) exhibited this characteristic of homelessness more markedly than in London (where I almost never see the sort of extremely obvious health issues that I saw in SF/LA every time I've been there)? Is it because of the US healthcare system, perhaps?
Incidentally, there is a good episode of the BBC's "The Inquiry" which asks about one route of dealing with this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rh5my