Posted on 09/04/2023 5:58:45 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Perhaps it is a little early for another update here on the “homelessness” situation in San Francisco. (My last update was about six months ago in March 2023.). But there is a good reason for an update now: At least a few people seem finally to be catching on that the basic idea behind “homelessness” advocacy is to exploit an issue that brings forth great human empathy to generate vast taxpayer funds and then to not solve the problem. The spending continues and increases without limit. There is way too much money — for advocates — in “homelessness” for the problem ever to get solved, or even to decrease materially.
Two recent pieces from Bay Area writers commenting on the situation are: Sanjana Friedman at Pirate Wires, August 17, “San Francisco's Homeless Ticking Time Bomb”; and Susan Dyer Reynolds in the Marina Times August edition, “Fraudenbach: How the Coalition on Homelessness is holding San Francisco hostage.”
From the intro to Friedman’s piece:
The hardest thing you’ll ever have to comprehend in terms of San Francisco’s government is the city’s leaders aren’t incompetent. This is what they want. . . . Once acquainted with the basic facts of the crisis, including the incredible sum of money dedicated to solving the problem, the average San Franciscan concludes the city must be run by morons. . . . Even with supportive services, the numbers don’t add up. This is because the average person assumes the small cabal of activists who run the city’s bloated homeless industrial complex want to temporarily shelter and rehabilitate the homeless. They do not.
(Emphasis added.). So, what do they want?
The goal of San Francisco’s activist government is to provide every person who moves to the city with a free, one-bedroom apartment for the rest of their life.
Needless to say, that goal is completely impossible to achieve.
My March 2023 post recounted the story of the big 2018 referendum, where San Francisco voters approved a payroll tax on city businesses to raise an additional $300 million per year to address the homelessness crisis, and to finally solve it once and for all. The $300 million got added to prior spending of about $285 million, close to doubling prior city spending on the homelessness issue. Note that these figures only include spending on the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), and do not include other amounts of government spending on the homeless individuals, including cash grants, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and much more.
Friedman has the latest numbers on homelessness headcount and spending put out by the city, which as she states “don’t add up.” The number of “homeless” in the city is given as 7,800, of which 4,400 sleep in the streets and 3,400 in shelters. (These numbers are based on a survey taken in 2022, which is more recent than the 2021 data used in my March post.). In a city of just over 800,000 people, this is just shy of 1% of the population. Spending this year for HSH is said to be $672 million. If spent on the 7,800 identified as homeless, that would come to more than $86,000 per head — a fantastic sum, given that none of the money actually goes to the supposed beneficiaries in cash. Rather, all of it is spent on the Homeless Industrial Complex to provide shelters and “services.” (The homeless people get cash and in kind benefits from other programs outside of this budget.)
But Friedman goes on to say that more than half (56%) of the budget of HSH does not go to the current homeless population, but rather to provide something called “permanent supportive housing” (PSH) to some 9,000 people who were previously homeless. That would be approximately $3500 per month for each of these people. Friedman describes the deal they get:
[T]here are no PSH-wide income maximum or minimum cutoffs, and no PSH-wide requirement that the tenant show progress in becoming financially independent, such as by working an ever-increasing number of hours, or even regularly looking for a job. If you're hopelessly addicted to drugs, SF will essentially enable your addiction in perpetuity, or for as long as you want.
If the remaining 44% of the $672 million is dedicated to the 7,800 currently on the streets or in shelters, that would come to about $3200 per month for each of them, the majority of whom live on the streets. Again, that $3200 is only for “homelessness” services, and does not include food, clothing, medical care, or anything else, all of which are provided by other government handouts.
Anyway, some 9,000 got the PSH apartments, and promptly another 7,800 turned up for the next round.
And, from Reynolds’s piece:
San Francisco’s homeless advocates believe money is the answer, with organizations coaching new arrivals to say they’re “from San Francisco” while helping them navigate the system. The “nonprofits” themselves complete what has become a billion-dollar industry chasing its own tail, with 59 providers receiving $240.6 million in fiscal year 2019–20, according to the latest audit by the city’s budget and legislative analyst.
Money may not be the answer to the homelessness problem, which never improves no matter how much is spent. However, it is clearly the answer for the advocates, who are pocketing money by the hundreds of millions. Remember, of that $240.6 million mentioned in Reynolds’s piece, exactly zero goes to the homeless individuals. All of it goes to the service providers. (The other $400+ million of the HSH budget also does not go to the homeless people, but rather to the government workers.)
Reynolds’s piece culminates with this quote from ex-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown: “[The homelessness problem] is not designed to be solved. It is designed to be perpetuated. It is to treat the problem, not solve it.”
He sure got that one right. There is way too much money in homelessness for the problem ever to be solved.
I met a young man who was homeless in Louisville. He went to a couple shelters on very cold night. Each told him they were full, and he couldn’t stay. He begged to sleep on the floor in the entrance, or anywhere inside. Still no. He said he realized then that homeless advocates are a racket.
I met a young man who was homeless in Louisville. He went to a couple shelters on very cold night. Each told him they were full, and he couldn’t stay. He begged to sleep on the floor in the entrance, or anywhere inside. Still no. He said he realized then that homeless advocates are a racket.
My apologies. Don’t know how that happened.
cloward-piven
alinsky
commie
The vast majority of homelessness is a result of mental illness, not money or a lack of housing.
In the past a lot of these people would be institutionalized...
During the 19th and early 20th century they had ‘poor, or workhouses’ for those unable to hold or find a job. The industrial revolution resulted in hundreds of thousands being unemployed and unemployable because their former occupations had become redundant and unnecessary. And people who had obvious mental issues were sent of to mental asylums, the only place capable of dealing with them.
The methods and conditions were horrible, but the net effect was cleaning up the streets. By the med 20th century, pretty much everybody could obtain a job, so the lack of employment dissipated.
Mental health issues increased, so much so that institutions were overcrowded and many of them were old and needed replacing... The result was a relaxing of the criteria for institutionalizing people with mental health conditions by the ‘experts’.
They decided that letting these lunatics run free and clear of the system was a better idea than dealing with them, and in the end it made their jobs a lot easier. Thus, the mess we find ourselves in today.
Millions of people who should be institutionalized are free to wig out in a way they see fit... And sometimes they do it right in front everybody... And if you’re a very unlucky person, they may be wigging out right in front of your residence on a daily basis. The fact is, despite the annoyance and embarrassment they cause, most of them are completely harmless... Meaning that they won’t stab you, or try to harm others... But every now and then one of them will go full tilt and kill somebody.
Until the ‘experts’ decide to start doing their jobs and taking care of these tortured souls... That’s the way it’s going to be. Like it or not.
“It is an industry for the left.”
It fits right in with the Marxist left ideology of “You will own nothing and you’ll be happy”. It’s a lie, of course... like everything the Marxist elitists espouse. But it’s a lie they live by. They don’t want anyone... except themselves, of course.... owning their own home, driving gasoline-powered cars, and being financially independent. They want everyone ELSE (the peons, the masses) on foot, unable to afford their own home, and dependent upon “Government”, the leftist god, for every thing. And if they have to provide “happy” drugs to keep those masses compliant, that’s coming, as well.
The left’s whole agenda is purely greed-driven and based on the “more for me, none for you” theme. They want us eating insects and fake meat while they dine on only the finest cuisine, per usual. Why don’t they just cut to the chase and go ahead with their ultimate “Soylent green” goals? We know where they’re going with this. At least, some of us know.
Yes, they certainly do.
To create a problem and then never solve it is the democrat way. It’s a great way to get votes and tax dollars out of the bleeding hearts and weak minded sheep.
I recall years ago it was theorized that Bush II got the Afghan and Iraq wars going to give himself a legacy. And it was a winner that kept going for 20 years.
It’s not unique, I’ve watched people do this at the work place to better their appraisals and/or get promotions.
“But there will come a time when that same population is considered among the most expendable to those same planners.”
Just as expendable as the prior landowners in Lahaina.
“It’s an industry of the left.”
Indeed. Big cities have entire departments employing hundreds if not a thousand people to supposedly address the problem, and the cities receive millions upon millions of dollars in federal aid.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that most of that money (over 50%) is spent on salaries and benefits and another 20%-25% is spent on other things unrelated to homelessness. At the end of the day only 25% - 30% actually goes towards food, housing, etc. for the homeless.
Cities complain about it but will not work to fix it because there is far too much “free” money.
It bears repeating.
I have been going to Israel, working on excavations and other endeavors since 1980. My first visit to the Jericho Refugee Camp was in 1982, where I met some of the leaders of the UNRWA as well as Palestinians. My last visit was 2014, and the people running the camps are the children of the people I first met. The camp has not changed at all in the nearly 40 years I have observed it, after soaking up hundreds of millions of Euros and Dollars. However, there are huge villas that have been built to the East by about 3 miles, which overlook these man made slums. That is the purpose of the UNRWA - loot those rich Western countries. The principle is the same in our left run cities here in the U.S.
the problem is spiritual
they need Jesus, they need to change their heart, they need the spiritual rebirth
they are killing themselves with drugs and alcohol and do not want to change.
I am already in, for the last 7 years,a homeless ministry, and I know this first hand.’’
almost none want to sober up, and refuse to go to long term housing if they have to unless it is winter, the cold shelter will take them in, but the treatment programs are what they avoid.
I have given awqy over 200 Bibles by now...only 2 ever went to church, only 3 ever went to the long term mission, only 4 ever prayed with me to get saved, one of them got on a bus, never saw her again, the others just went back to their drugs.
it is depressing to see so many reject salvation and then get huffy if I dont feed them each time I see them.
alcohol and meth are killers.
Over half the homeless are mentally ill. Pass an ordinance no more loitering or living on the street and reinstate public “mental health” institutions. Two options are either they can move on or agree to an evaluation and potential involuntary commitment to a mental institution to get treatment. Because of the nature of the occupants, these institutions are rarely pretty...but neither is the mentally ill living on the streets and threatening the public pretty. Those are the hard choices.
The rest are addicts. Two choices. Move on or get taken to a rehab facility. If they are encamped on the street after rehab. One choice, move on.
not always true, they may have been full to capacity, the cold brings the street people to shelter, lots of trouble inside if the number is high, if he got there early, it might have been easier.
also, was he telling you the truth?
was he sober when he went to the shelter?
if you are high, they might not let you in.
Trump nods
Correct. Another significant factor is the destruction of the nuclear family with one man, one woman bonded for life raising children under one roof. When I was nine years old, my family moved from a very stable area where life was mostly like Leave it to Beaver/The Andy Griffith Show to one tortured by addictions and divorce. I’d never even HEARD of divorce until then. I noticed, in fifth grade, that the kids whose parents were “getting a divorce” or were already divorced seemed lost. And they were.
Every Business needs 2 things.
Product
Customers
In this case the product is “The Homeless Individuals”
The “Customers” are those who give to Charities and Local Governments.
The Business Owners are the “Homeless Advocates”.
Finally every “Organization” be it private or public has One Goal.
GROWTH
This is never going to go away.
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