That one of the richest cities in the world continues to exhibit such acute human suffering and allow it to fester is horrifying. These people need help - but it's easier to write them off as addicts and pretend to wonder why they're filling up the sidewalks.
It's also related to the idea that personal freedom trumps many/most other interests. That's probably good, however it does mean that people may choose to live outside of mainstream society and in our metaphorical faces. What can we do about that without curtailing all of our freedoms?
Freedom is pretty meaningless when you're without basic necessities for survival. Better socioeconomic safety nets would increase freedom for the vast majority of Americans - homeless ones included.
The funding for the homeless in San Francisco was $600m last year and next year, with $1.1b this year due to some legal stuff.
With a homeless population of 7,754 (according to [1]), that $600m works out to $77,379 per person.
The median income in San Francisco is $54,549. They're spending ~41% more than the median income per homeless person per year, and I don't think that includes externalities like hospital visits or increased police presence, etc.
I don't think they're being written off. It's possible that $77k a year isn't enough, but it starts to beg the question of whether treating them in one of the most expensive places in the world makes sense. $77k would buy an awful lot of treatment in much of the state.
The people who are getting contracts from the government to "address homelessness" have an incentive to make the problem worse: so they get more contracts.
I'm open to that view, but I would politely request some kind of sources. I can't prove a negative, and a quick Google check isn't showing anything nefarious.
From what I could find, a huge portion of that budget goes to partnered non-profits [1]. I added up the top 17 from the image, and it's $216.7m, or ~30% of the total Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing budget.
I spot-checked the top 3 recipients of those funds, and they all have CharityNavigator scores over 95 (100, 100 and 97). That's not dispositive of your point, but heuristically, it seems on the up-and-up.
Maybe not officially, but the people certainly have given me the impression that they do.
> With a homeless population of 7,754 (according to [1]), that $600m works out to $77,379 per person.
I highly doubt most (let alone all) of that money is actually going toward the homeless people themselves, though (even indirectly, e.g. for healthcare). I'd best most of it, rather, goes toward bureaucratic overhead.
> The median income in San Francisco is $54,549.
And the median rent for even a studio (let alone anything better) is $27,000/year - i.e. $8,817 more than what's generally deemed affordable via the "one third of income" rule. Factor in all the other things more expensive in SF, it's no wonder why homelessness is so rampant when wages don't keep up with the cost of living.
> Maybe not officially, but the people certainly have given me the impression that they do.
I don't know that they've written them off so much as they feel helpless to tackle the problem in any meaningful way, and are frustrated about it.
If someone had a better plan than "throw another $200m at it and see if it gets better", I think people would be on board. I don't live there anymore, so I don't really follow it, but what I recall is mostly trying to dump more funding into the same programs as if it would hit some critical mass and make a difference.
> I highly doubt most (let alone all) of that money is actually going toward the homeless people themselves, though (even indirectly, e.g. for healthcare). I'd best most of it, rather, goes toward bureaucratic overhead.
That's the budget for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, it's not a slush fund. As far as I'm aware, they're not paying ER bills or anything like that. Those externalities are in addition to this funding.
As I said to the other commenter, if you've got evidence of poor fund usage, I'm open to that idea, it wouldn't shock me. As far as I could validate, they're spending the money well. I checked ~$100m in funding that went to partnered non-profits (there was ~$250m in the list). The worst non-profit I saw spent 78.5% on it's funding on programs. The other two did better at 92.8% and 98.1%.
> And the median rent for even a studio (let alone anything better) is $27,000/year - i.e. $8,817 more than what's generally deemed affordable via the "one third of income" rule. Factor in all the other things more expensive in SF, it's no wonder why homelessness is so rampant when wages don't keep up with the cost of living.
I genuinely don't think the city can fix that. There's more people that want to live in SF than there is housing. Lower the prices and people will move to SF (hell, I'd think about moving back). Raise the median wage and prices will rise; the tech people will still make more than the median wage. The only thing I can see working is dramatic redistribution of wealth, which will probably crater the city finances as everyone with money leaves.
It's a small, highly desirable, highly productive, geographically constrained city. Capitalism practically dictates that the poor won't be able to afford to live there.
That's a false dichotomy, though. The third option is to move somewhere they can afford to live. It sucks, but it's happening all over the country.
Not with California's caps on property taxes. A land value tax used to fund a citizen's dividend / basic income would absolutely fix that - but the ones who are wealthy enough to own land in California - and particularly those wealthy enough to own land in the Bay Area - are also the ones with political power, so until the people of California hit a breaking point that ain't likely to happen.
The problem, in other words, is statewide, but especially acute in SF and its metro area (and lately the metro areas surrounding it).
> The only thing I can see working is dramatic redistribution of wealth, which will probably crater the city finances as everyone with money leaves.
Driving everyone without money to leave would surely crater things just as badly. Indeed, it's no wonder that "nobody wants to work" when even Sacramento and Stockton are unaffordable and people are commuting in from Modesto and beyond.
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[ 45.5 ms ] story [ 758 ms ] threadThe funding for the homeless in San Francisco was $600m last year and next year, with $1.1b this year due to some legal stuff.
With a homeless population of 7,754 (according to [1]), that $600m works out to $77,379 per person.
The median income in San Francisco is $54,549. They're spending ~41% more than the median income per homeless person per year, and I don't think that includes externalities like hospital visits or increased police presence, etc.
I don't think they're being written off. It's possible that $77k a year isn't enough, but it starts to beg the question of whether treating them in one of the most expensive places in the world makes sense. $77k would buy an awful lot of treatment in much of the state.
1: https://sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-population
From what I could find, a huge portion of that budget goes to partnered non-profits [1]. I added up the top 17 from the image, and it's $216.7m, or ~30% of the total Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing budget.
I spot-checked the top 3 recipients of those funds, and they all have CharityNavigator scores over 95 (100, 100 and 97). That's not dispositive of your point, but heuristically, it seems on the up-and-up.
1: https://sfstandard.com/public-health/the-standard-top-25-san...
Maybe not officially, but the people certainly have given me the impression that they do.
> With a homeless population of 7,754 (according to [1]), that $600m works out to $77,379 per person.
I highly doubt most (let alone all) of that money is actually going toward the homeless people themselves, though (even indirectly, e.g. for healthcare). I'd best most of it, rather, goes toward bureaucratic overhead.
> The median income in San Francisco is $54,549.
And the median rent for even a studio (let alone anything better) is $27,000/year - i.e. $8,817 more than what's generally deemed affordable via the "one third of income" rule. Factor in all the other things more expensive in SF, it's no wonder why homelessness is so rampant when wages don't keep up with the cost of living.
I don't know that they've written them off so much as they feel helpless to tackle the problem in any meaningful way, and are frustrated about it.
If someone had a better plan than "throw another $200m at it and see if it gets better", I think people would be on board. I don't live there anymore, so I don't really follow it, but what I recall is mostly trying to dump more funding into the same programs as if it would hit some critical mass and make a difference.
> I highly doubt most (let alone all) of that money is actually going toward the homeless people themselves, though (even indirectly, e.g. for healthcare). I'd best most of it, rather, goes toward bureaucratic overhead.
That's the budget for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, it's not a slush fund. As far as I'm aware, they're not paying ER bills or anything like that. Those externalities are in addition to this funding.
As I said to the other commenter, if you've got evidence of poor fund usage, I'm open to that idea, it wouldn't shock me. As far as I could validate, they're spending the money well. I checked ~$100m in funding that went to partnered non-profits (there was ~$250m in the list). The worst non-profit I saw spent 78.5% on it's funding on programs. The other two did better at 92.8% and 98.1%.
> And the median rent for even a studio (let alone anything better) is $27,000/year - i.e. $8,817 more than what's generally deemed affordable via the "one third of income" rule. Factor in all the other things more expensive in SF, it's no wonder why homelessness is so rampant when wages don't keep up with the cost of living.
I genuinely don't think the city can fix that. There's more people that want to live in SF than there is housing. Lower the prices and people will move to SF (hell, I'd think about moving back). Raise the median wage and prices will rise; the tech people will still make more than the median wage. The only thing I can see working is dramatic redistribution of wealth, which will probably crater the city finances as everyone with money leaves.
It's a small, highly desirable, highly productive, geographically constrained city. Capitalism practically dictates that the poor won't be able to afford to live there.
That's a false dichotomy, though. The third option is to move somewhere they can afford to live. It sucks, but it's happening all over the country.
Not with California's caps on property taxes. A land value tax used to fund a citizen's dividend / basic income would absolutely fix that - but the ones who are wealthy enough to own land in California - and particularly those wealthy enough to own land in the Bay Area - are also the ones with political power, so until the people of California hit a breaking point that ain't likely to happen.
The problem, in other words, is statewide, but especially acute in SF and its metro area (and lately the metro areas surrounding it).
> The only thing I can see working is dramatic redistribution of wealth, which will probably crater the city finances as everyone with money leaves.
Driving everyone without money to leave would surely crater things just as badly. Indeed, it's no wonder that "nobody wants to work" when even Sacramento and Stockton are unaffordable and people are commuting in from Modesto and beyond.
Oh the humanity!