The number of people sleeping outdoors dropped to under 3,000 in January, the lowest the city has recorded in a decade, according to a federal count.
And that figure has likely dropped even lower since Mayor London Breed — a Democrat in a difficult reelection fight this November — started ramping up enforcement of anti-camping laws in August following a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Homelessness in no way has gone away, and in fact grew 7%, to 8,300 in January, according to the same federal count.
But the problem is now notably out of the public eye, raising the question of where people have gone and whether the change marks a turning point in a crisis long associated with San Francisco.
This is so sick. Instead of doing something about the rising homelessness problem, they just shoo them away so rich people don’t have to see them anymore. Making life even harder for those who already have it rough.
Way to kick the one laying on the ground.
In a podcast docu-series, a woman qualified for free housing and was afraid to take it. She had mobility issues and someone in her unhoused community fetched her prescriptions. She was afraid of not being able to get medication. Now imagine how that feels losing your support system and still sleeping outside.
There’s a popular idea that homeless people don’t want homes.
I’m sure that’s true in isolated cases, but I don’t know if it’s generally true.
Yeah I think that normally boils down to a choice of having condescending assholes run your life and force you to jump through endless difficult hoops while massively restricting your life where they take away everything that helps (including pets, relationships, etc) then when people don’t want to put up with that the system washes its hands and says ‘see, they want to he homeless!’
It’s like someone telling you that if you don’t eat the chips they’ve pissed on you don’t ever want to eat again.
Sure there are people and groups that do want to live in a van or moving between worksites, friends and camps but generally they’re not often counted as homeless because they have a postal address (family, friends, or work) through which they’re registered - my brother would technically fall into this as he lives undocumented and illegally in a caravan behind his workplace but is legally registered at our parents, if he didn’t have somewhere to register his bank account, etc then he’d be classed as homeless though that’s verry different to being a ‘rough sleeper’
But yeah if the question asked was ‘do you want a safe and comfortable place to sleep where you’re allowed to live your own life’ then you’ll get a different response to ‘would you like to go to a kind of prison but it’s less safe, more annoying, and we’re taking your dog away, your gf or friends can’t come over, etc etc etc…’
Eh. Using public well used spaces as your own personal living space is selfish and disrespectful of everyone else. You got a tent, go out and live in the woods.
There is no reason to be in the city if you’re homeless other than access to drugs.
Or doctors. Or jobs. Or grocery stores.
You’d be surprised how many homeless or car bound are employed.
There is no reason to be in the city if you’re homeless other than access to drugs.
And access to literally everything else, which is why most people live in cities. Drugs are also very common in rural areas because young people have nothing better to do and there’s lots of open space to manufacture them.
I’m certainly not a fan of people pitching tents on sidewalks, but let’s at least stick to legitimate arguments.
“The only thing in a city is drugs”
Using public well used spaces as your own personal living space is selfish and disrespectful of everyone else.
Tell that to every person parking their car in public. It’s an insane waste of space and massive subsidy to the already privileged. We give free/cheap rent to cars EVERYWHERE but far far less for actual humans.
If we ban cars, we would probably double the amount of land available housing. Not to mention the benefits in terms of imperialism, pollution, violence, equity, wastefulness, etc.
Imperialism? Are you just throwing words you once heard around or do you have a genuinely unhinged understanding of the world?
I pity you. People like you don’t deserve pity but I pity you regardless.
How DARE people not respect others’ right to live in hell without resources of any kind!
Leaving them to play fortnite in ditches isn’t better than actually trying to do anything, you just think it is because then they aren’t your responsibility.
Do you have any idea how many homeless die daily in those encampments? No clean water, no medical care, violence.
And while 90-95% are just trying to survive, the last 5-10% are often violent, and brutalize the others.
If you want to designate zones and have some form of law enforcement around to deal with the bad ones, great, but your argument is to put them in a big pot, with some truly violent ones, and just pretend everything is OK.
Where is your pity? Oh, it’s not your problem, you’re blessing them with their freedom to suffer out of your sight.
Despite your wacky description of how you imagine being unhoused…
I’m pretty sure people want to stay where they’re living rather than being violently attacked, evicted, and disappeared.
They want to stay in their dirty ditch rather than: https://kdow.biz/news/national/more-shelter-beds-and-a-crackdown-on-tents-mean-fewer-homeless-encampments-in-sa/c5dad968b8fafaab83b51433a204c9ea
I’m glad you know they would rather stay in filth than actually have a clean, private space.
You’re not from California, I’m fairly sure you’re not American either.
I am a Californian, and am not able to read your linked source because there is no option out of their cookie settings.
Also those shelters have been closing during the middle of the day “because of high heat” for the last month here in San Diego. They also aren’t what I would consider to be remotely “clean.”
Housing first is the way to go, we have 50 years of various studies that prove this. Shelters pretty much only help the people that own them.
Edit: I also find your source to be suspect. It seems to be an AM radio broadcasts website. That pretty much narrows down what kind of political brain rot they have, and since conservatives historically don’t like facts and science, I can safely assume that your source is full of just as much shit as you are.
‘I can ignore everything you say because broudcasting on AM means they’re ontological evil!’
Do you not understand that you’re every bit as crazy as the maga loons when you speak like that?
SF has been trying to solve the problem your way for 20 years and it’s only gotten worse.
Incredibly incorrect. SF has done less than nothing to solve the problem for 20 years, and is shocked when doing nothing did nothing.
I guess you’ve never lived in or even bothered to research SF at all. That’s the only possible way you could make such a wildly, ridiculously wrong statement. San Francisco has spent a BILLION DOLLARS on homelessness. Billion.
Per year, for the last several years.
What a ridiculous lie. “Done nothing”. Christ, a single Google search would prove you wrong. That’s a “the sky is yellow” level of absurd lie. It’s insulting.
Spending money while not doing Anything any research group has ever recommended is the same as doing nothing. They’ve spent a billion on 1930s era “solutions” that make conservative liberals feel like theyve accomplished things while doing literally not one thing to actually solve the causes of homelessness. If they spent a million on new city owned no rent housing, that would be more than the entirety of all their other projects combined.
Gotta clear the encampment location for the incoming waves of foreclosure homeless people!
Tracking homeless people is extremely difficult and where all the people once living on San Francisco’s streets have gone is impossible to know.
We all know where they went. Oakland and Richmond.
Homelessness in no way has gone away, and in fact grew 7%, to 8,300 in January, according to the same federal count.
Oh, good, who needs to address a problem when you can ignore it?
San Francisco has increased the number of shelter beds and permanent supportive housing units by more than 50% over the past six years.
Read the article before commenting next time.
Shelters are not permanent living accommodations. They don’t let you stay in them long-term. On top of that, everything from just basic theft to sexual assault happens in shelters.
Also, if you have a dog, you can’t bring the dog with you. If you’re a woman alone on the streets, having a dog around to protect you is a pretty good idea.
So increasing the number of shelter beds doesn’t do shit. Permanent housing units, fine. But touting shelters is just bullshit.
The article specifically describes the housing options that are single-occupant with doors that lock and accommodation for pets. They are also working on solutions for couples to help keep them together where possible. It’s not ideal, and it’s not a permanent fix, but they interviewed someone that’s staying in the safe, clean, cabins while attending a 2 year college program to get a better paying job.
There is definitely more that the state could be doing as a whole, but they are investing a lot of money into programs and housing with free or heavily subsidized rent to help people get back on their feet. The article specifically mentioned a model where “rent” costs 30% of the resident’s income and the rest is covered by a rental assistance program.
I mean,
How do you read the article, see that the number of people sleeping outside is as low as it’s been in a decade, dropped from a number that was increasing, and then say nothing is being done about it?
Your gymnastics are of the type brought to the Olympics by the Russian team.
Homelessness in no way has gone away, and in fact grew 7%, to 8,300 in January, according to the same federal count.
Then YOUR gymnastics are at the Russian elite spy level in a Bond movie.
The story goes on to say that numbers are incredibly hard to count, they’ve put a lot of work into what is supposed to be transitional shelter (single occupant units, repurposed hotels, etc), and work is ongoing to make these transitional housing options truly transitional by working toward affordable housing options in/around the city. Part of the solution is to get people off the “street”, but there’s more work to be done to ensure there are options for those who can’t use the current temporary housing (due to drug use, breaking the housing rules, not comfortable with the mandatory checks, etc). Also still work to be done to, like one person in the story mentioned, ensure that this temporary housing is indeed transitional and not permanent. Their funding is less this year so there’s concern the progress being made will be difficult to improve upon.
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This isn’t a partizan issue, just like immigration, Democrats are fucking horrible on homelessness too.
So why is the number at a decade low under a democratic mayor???
How are you in the comment thread of an article that says homeless camping is at decade low, with a Democrat in charge, and saying the Democrats don’t care?
I guess you’re just that dense.
And that figure has likely dropped even lower since Mayor London Breed — a Democrat in a difficult reelection fight this November — started ramping up enforcement of anti-camping laws in August following a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The mayor isn’t helping the homeless. She is driving them away so they can be someone else’s problem.
She. And part of her platform as mayor is a massive increase in homeless shelter beds, specifically to get homeless people off the streets and into safer environments.
So… She’s actively not “driving them away,” near as I can tell.
