I do not understand how a people can be so willfully disdainful of the poor that they would rather have streets that stink because of homeless people (presumably unable to access toilet facilities) than just provide housing. Obviously there'd be an issue in terms of location (I can't imagine there's space to build housing in the city itself and some would resent having to leave to a suburb - ideally one with planned transport links into the city for those with jobs) but ...I've heard Americans talk about this in such a weird way, like, it's so simple to solve, with pre-fab houses you could get it built in a year and then have nice streets, but there's this weird moralism of "I suspect they deserve to suffer so everyone must suffer to give them the suffering they deserve". Like who cares, if they truly are terrible people (they're not all terrible people) or completely useless drug addicts or whatever (they're not) then they'll still suffer, its ok, they can suffer inside their homes, they don't need to be suffering smellily on the street spreading that suffering to everyone else. It boggles the mind. Housing people doesn't just help them it helps everyone who would otherwise have... hordes of homeless shitting everywhere. The spite involved here is just so weird to me.
Why would that make the homelessness harder to solve? If they had a house they would still have drug and mental health problems and that's of course *another* problem to solve, and society may or may not want to invest the resources to solve that much more difficult to solve issue, but they wouldn't be homeless. The homelessness part would be solved. Solving homelessness is very simple - ofc doesn't solve all other problems - but this is what I mean, the narrative is, these people are undeserving of and/or need 'tough love' - people are willing to put up with shit filled cities just to punish people for making "bad choices" (regardless of whether they do - according to an article in the SF chronicle 17% of SF homeless are in work, however some charities present much higher figures (although at a national level).
I don't understand why punishing bad choices is worth ruining the environment in American cities to Americans, it's not going to solve the many other social and economic problems no - but clearly you can't solve those problems by refusing to house people either. The investment it would take to provide a basic level of housing is negligible in terms of the the local GDP. It's just spite.
I think this is a well-meaning but very poorly-informed comment. The problem is surely not a lack of funding or resources. The city's homelessness budget was $1.1bn in 2022; it spends something like $141,000 per homeless person. There have been various attempts at building affordable housing, some successful, some not. Much of the issue is around onerous local building regulations and permitting.
I don't have the answer but I think it's a complex problem and you're basically reducing it to "the locals are mean and don't want to pay" which is simply untrue on its face.
I’ve heard Americans talking about the homeless. There is resistance to housing them because they feel like they need to be punished for being bad (or they feel like it’s unfair that they pay insane rents - which is fair I dong think they should have to either but that’s not a reason to not house the homeless). It’s not really a question of meanness as it is a sort of envy driven moralism “I have to suffer, suffering is good for you, if they are allowed to ‘get away with’ not suffering like I did that’s bad”.
and I’m sure if Amazon wanted to build a warehouse or google a data centre there’d be a way to expidite it regardless of regulations, same ways *could* be used for housing but aren’t.
Congrats on the move and wishing you luck settling in :)
I do not understand how a people can be so willfully disdainful of the poor that they would rather have streets that stink because of homeless people (presumably unable to access toilet facilities) than just provide housing. Obviously there'd be an issue in terms of location (I can't imagine there's space to build housing in the city itself and some would resent having to leave to a suburb - ideally one with planned transport links into the city for those with jobs) but ...I've heard Americans talk about this in such a weird way, like, it's so simple to solve, with pre-fab houses you could get it built in a year and then have nice streets, but there's this weird moralism of "I suspect they deserve to suffer so everyone must suffer to give them the suffering they deserve". Like who cares, if they truly are terrible people (they're not all terrible people) or completely useless drug addicts or whatever (they're not) then they'll still suffer, its ok, they can suffer inside their homes, they don't need to be suffering smellily on the street spreading that suffering to everyone else. It boggles the mind. Housing people doesn't just help them it helps everyone who would otherwise have... hordes of homeless shitting everywhere. The spite involved here is just so weird to me.
Most of the SF homeless appear to have severe drug and mental health issues. It’s harder to manage than you’re implying.
Why would that make the homelessness harder to solve? If they had a house they would still have drug and mental health problems and that's of course *another* problem to solve, and society may or may not want to invest the resources to solve that much more difficult to solve issue, but they wouldn't be homeless. The homelessness part would be solved. Solving homelessness is very simple - ofc doesn't solve all other problems - but this is what I mean, the narrative is, these people are undeserving of and/or need 'tough love' - people are willing to put up with shit filled cities just to punish people for making "bad choices" (regardless of whether they do - according to an article in the SF chronicle 17% of SF homeless are in work, however some charities present much higher figures (although at a national level).
I don't understand why punishing bad choices is worth ruining the environment in American cities to Americans, it's not going to solve the many other social and economic problems no - but clearly you can't solve those problems by refusing to house people either. The investment it would take to provide a basic level of housing is negligible in terms of the the local GDP. It's just spite.
I think this is a well-meaning but very poorly-informed comment. The problem is surely not a lack of funding or resources. The city's homelessness budget was $1.1bn in 2022; it spends something like $141,000 per homeless person. There have been various attempts at building affordable housing, some successful, some not. Much of the issue is around onerous local building regulations and permitting.
I don't have the answer but I think it's a complex problem and you're basically reducing it to "the locals are mean and don't want to pay" which is simply untrue on its face.
I’ve heard Americans talking about the homeless. There is resistance to housing them because they feel like they need to be punished for being bad (or they feel like it’s unfair that they pay insane rents - which is fair I dong think they should have to either but that’s not a reason to not house the homeless). It’s not really a question of meanness as it is a sort of envy driven moralism “I have to suffer, suffering is good for you, if they are allowed to ‘get away with’ not suffering like I did that’s bad”.
and I’m sure if Amazon wanted to build a warehouse or google a data centre there’d be a way to expidite it regardless of regulations, same ways *could* be used for housing but aren’t.