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Re:Proposition C by olliej on Friday October 19, 2018 @01:31PM (#18258362)
Part of the problem for SF is that a critical part of “solving” homelessness is actually having homes. But a very large group of people (that I cynically suspect overlaps a lot of the pro-prop C people) also fight the addition of apartment buildings. I saw numbers along the lines of 5400 homeless people in SF a long time ago, but even if that number were the same now, that means you need to add enough buildings to support 5400 bed rooms.

Basically there’s no way you can “fight homelessness” and “fight apartments/evil gentrifying landlords”, and actually expect to do anything about homelessness.

Re:Proposition C by 1024core on Friday October 19, 2018 @02:03PM (#18258650)
I live in SF, have for over a decade. I know several homeless people quite well. All of them keep getting kicked out of housing because of bad behavior that they just cannot help themselves from doing. They do not have the ability to live by themselves. They need supportive housing, and a path to get out of homelessness. None of the options today focuses on post-housing issues.
Re:Proposition C by olliej on Friday October 19, 2018 @02:09PM (#18258701)
Same here.

A lot are also alcoholics and/or addicts - this is one of those things where saving money is the short term (not managing the homelessness problem before it got to this point) results in a higher cost in the long term - now you not only have to manage homelessness, you also hav to help the existing homeless recover from long term homelessness.

You also have the long term costs of assisting those with mental illness (as a result of "saving money" by closing down all state level support for mental illness in the 80s - I'm not saying that was a panacea, but having the support helped a lot of people that currently get no help).

Politicians love "saving tax payer money" through short term things like this, because they know that by the time someone has to fix their mess they've moved on/retired and they don't have to deal with it.

Re:Proposition C by dtech on Friday October 19, 2018 @02:00PM (#18258625)
Even if you build 5400 bedrooms tomorrow, they will lower rent and thus attract more people. So you need way more than 5400 bedrooms.
Re:Proposition C by olliej on Friday October 19, 2018 @02:04PM (#18258659)
oh, yeah I know - I was giving a lower bound.

Although the people who fight housing seem to not grasp this.

Re:Proposition C by abalone on Saturday October 20, 2018 @12:28AM (#18261774)
That is a misrepresentation of a lot of pro Prop C people (probably most) who advocate for more affordable housing. What they fight for is higher affordable housing requirements, as they don’t see market rate development in tech boomtowns as a realistic way to solve affordability for the working class.[1]

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/in-expensive...

Re:Proposition C by keerthiko on Friday October 19, 2018 @01:44PM (#18258486)
note: the evil gentrifying landlords are the ones fighting apartments.
Re:Proposition C by olliej on Friday October 19, 2018 @02:04PM (#18258661)
not in my experience