Posted on 09/27/2010 7:55:19 AM PDT by SmithL
Since Mayor Gavin Newsom took office, he and the city of San Francisco have spent more than $1 billion on the homeless.
But is it helping?
This year, the city spent $150 million on health care and social services for its estimated 13,500 homeless on the street or in city-funded housing.
That comes to about $11,000 per person.
The city has spent another $176 million, mostly in federal funds, on permanent housing for the homeless since 2004.
Newsom said at a recent Chronicle editorial board meeting that since implementing his Care Not Cash program, the city has taken 12,000 people off the streets, either by putting them in permanent housing or giving them a bus ticket home.
According to the official city count, the number of homeless on the streets has dropped to about 6,500, down from 8,640 in 2002.
And yet, for all the effort and money and statistics, people living on the street and aggressive panhandlers continue to be one of the city's biggest problems.
"We constantly hear visitors telling us, 'Your city is so beautiful, but we get harassed whenever we go out walking,' " said Joe D'Alessandro, head of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Quite frankly, we hear it from the locals a
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
It’s amazing how the problem goes away when you stop throwing money at it.
Taking money from me and giving it to someone else is NOT charity, but theft.
Build it and they will come. Stupid. The best way to handle the homeless is buy them a 1 way bus ticket to their home of origin. Worst thing to do is to create attractive comforts. Guess what happens, they find it comfortable and stick around.
Sounds like they're bringing back the workhouses.
One of my economics papers discussed a supply curve for poverty, particularly in first world societies. With slight modifications, I was able to use the same paper for both economics and sociology.
You should have heard the hissy fit which resulted when I presented the paper to the sociology class. The logic, however, was so impeccable that, once the emotional reaction died down, the class was quiet. I actually got an A on the assignment from the prof, whereas essentially the same paper scored me only an A- with the econ prof.
Ping to the Savage Nation !!!
San Fran Sicko news alert - the home of Michael Savage!!!
As Ronald Reagan and others have pointed out, to increase the supply of anything—which includes homelessness—subsidize it. To decrease the supply, stop subsidizing it. Good luck getting liberals to acknowledge and act on this truth.
If you don’t have services for the homeless, you don’t have homeless. We have nothing for the homeless in our town and we generally only have one at any given time and they generally refuse to sleep indoors (mental).
I’ve been approached twice in the past week by panhandlers in my little suburban strip mall shopping area. I’ve lived in this area all my life and have NEVER been approached by panhandlers before. Either Obama’s Summer of Recovery has really been a massive fail, or panhandling has become a very lucrative “job” in the Obama economy....
Here is some more from 6th and Stevenson. Warning some footage is graphic.
http://www.bluoz.com/blog/index.php?/categories/15-crackheads-of-the-day
For real-time. The crackhead cam
A pretty location — a scummy population. Somebody needs to nuke it.
Excellent! Wish I could have attended your presentation.
Must be getting close to election time. Homeless stories popping up.
I’ll tell you what San Francisco. Send me $10,000 and I’ll promise to never move there and become homeless. That’s a savings of $1000 in year one alone!
They could be drifters. I have been approached by WV drifters looking for cash. He said he needed $25 for gas to get home. When I questioned his details($25 for 70 miles), he said he had a hole in his gas tank. Nice try, dude.
They wander all over town, looking for cash from churches, people, etc. Sometimes they arrive in packs. They’ll run driveway sealing scams, roof scams, etc.
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