S.F. spends more than $200 million a year on homelessness, but why does the problem persist?

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | November 4, 2001 | Patrick Hoge

[sarcasm]

San Francisco is spending about $22,000 every hour on homeless people this year, but still can't get Joe Dinovo and thousands like him off its streets.

The Chronicle and horrified passers-by encountered Dinovo, a one-legged drug addict, lying in his own vomit at high noon last summer on the sidewalk near 16th Street and South Van Ness Avenue. He was naked from the waist down.

[sarcasm]

Remember - we're all only one paycheck away from being homeless.

[Brownie74]

but why does the problem persist?

The problem persist because we keep throwing money at the problem. This money provides shelter, food, clothing, and medical care to the homeless.

If you cut off the money and the freebies, these people will find work to support themselves.

[Gorzaloon]

"If you divert money from housing and put it into homeless shelters," said Trotz, "then you have your homeless and indigent populations living in huge warehouses."

At least they are living and not eating out of garbage cans. I have been to San Francisco, and have seen it, and do not intend to repeat the experience. The beggars in Matamoros and Reynosa have better manners and more class.

These are no longer "people", but some subspecies of h.sapiens, and to keep them in the wild is a disservice to them and to Society. They can be fed and kept healthy, as is Civilization's duty, but if they are incapable of caring for themselves, or unwilling to do so, to turn them loose is reckless endangerment.

I admit that after being harassed by them there, I fell victim to the uncharitable thought that the problem could be solved by $50 bounties.

[Vigilanteman]

Divide the $200 million by 12,500 (their high estimate) and that's $16,000 each. Send them and the money to Arizona. I hear there is a no nonesense sheriff there who will dress them up in pink underwear and have them learn some new skills in a tent city in the desert.

[Garrisson Lee]

Simple, when Bill Clinton was president, we had no homeless people. But the day after he left, there was a flood of them. You all know what we have to do. [/extreme sarcasm]

[sarcasm]

The problem persist because we keep throwing money at the problem.

Where is your compassion?

[VeritatisSplendor]

San Francisco is a much better place to be homeless than almost anywhere else because the weather is so mild and the rents are so high (so you save more money). Until quite recently, San Franciscans were very tolerant of the city's homeless people because they were much less aggressive than the New York variety. Most of them were drug-damaged hippies who had never made it out of the 60's. Unfortunately the situation has deteriorated because the city has been unwilling to impose even minimal standards of behavior on the homeless -- Wille Brown is finally beginning to "get it".

Shelters were necessary in N.Y. in the winter simply because people sleeping on the street could freeze to death, so they were less reluctant to go to the shelters at other times because they were familiar with them. It will be harder to impose them in San Francisco.

[rogers21774]

Remember - we're all only one paycheck away from being homeless.

Not me. At the worst I'm only one paycheck away from my next opportunity.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

A couple of years back, the SF board of supervisors had the "solution" to their homeless problems - - give them each a shopping cart to call their own. I kid you not.

[Brownie74]

Where is your compassion?

In a ziplock bag. LOL!!

[VeritatisSplendor]

By the way, S.F. has plenty of high-tech self-cleaning pay toilets on the streets, to which the homeless are issued free tokens. The ones who don't use them are the ones with mental problems.

[tom paine 2]

All of the areas of the country that have mild weather have this problem. SF, LA Phoenix,Tucson etc.there is no incentive for these people to get off their asses and go to work. My dad used to call SF a drunks paradise where you can drink all day, pass out and not freeze to death in the process. I visited my old Submarine base in Point Loma CA not long ago, and right over the hill from Pt. Loma was Ocean Beach; the drunks and drug abusers cover the lawn. What keeps them there is a generous society that keeps giving them money to subsidize their "lifestyle"

[ExSES]

"but why does the problem persist?"

Because, in the late 60's/early 70's society "deinstitutionalized"! People who were incapable of caring for themselves were "freed" from confinement in order to protect their "civil rights"!

The "freed" became free to wander the streets in whatever drug induced or psychotic condition afflicted them.

The "problem" will never be solved without returning to the era when those who could not function on their own are confined for their own good until they can do so!

[sarcasm]

I thought that you put it in the mail.

[Brownie74]

.....have them learn some new skills in a tent city in the desert.

I'll second that. But, why spend money on tents?

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Brown admitted, "I don't have an answer," to homelessness

I do....send them to New York.

[Dutch Boy]

Sounds like they are paying people to remain homeless. Give them just enough aid to cause their deaths to occur over years instead of forcing them to choose life or death.

Everytime I read articles like this I wonder if this is what is meant by natural selection. Sounds a bit cruel but for the libs that put so much faith in Darwin they sure seem to violate his "laws" ar every turn. Could it be their turn to be thown out of the gene pool?

[Brownie74]

That was my boloney sandwich I put in the mail.

[unclejon]

This is basicaly Econ 101. Than is, when the government subsidizes a comodity or activity, the result is an oversupply of same.

[LibKill]

The homeless are of two types (generally):

A. Those incapable of taking care of themselves, generally mental cases.

B. Bums too lazy to work.

Type A should be scooped up, cleaned up, and kept in a nice clean mental facility where they can be fed and kept safe. It's the civilised thing to do.

Type B should be arrested when sleeping in public, panhandling etc. If you tolerate their behavior they will increase it. If you punish it they will be discouraged.