You are right that mental health is a consideration, but the bigger problem is both simpler and easier to fix: the number of shelter beds (and other forms of supportive housing - including long-term housing) has decreased since 2004 and is woefully inadequate for the number of current homeless.
For more reading on this topic I recommend this detailed analysis: https://medium.com/@josefow/the-one-stat-that-explains-sfs-s... Also Mayor London Breed's analysis and approach: https://medium.com/@LondonBreed/a-bold-approach-to-homelessn...
You can debunk this with a simple observation: Homelessness has grown significantly in the past 20 years. Has severe mental illness grown significantly during that time?
The bigger problem here is Stripe's argument is misleading. They're comparing cost-per-resident instead of cost-per-homeless-resident, when SF actually has a higher rate of homelessness than other cities. We actually spend less per homeless resident than NYC. Totally invalidates their argument that "if it's just a question of money this issue would already be solved."
No, but protocols for involuntary commitment of people with borderline states may have.
> They're comparing cost-per-resident instead of cost-per-homeless-resident
It is pretty easy to derive one from the other, given homelessness levels, and given as SF is has one of the highest ones (slightly lower only than NYC) the conclusion seems to stay - expense level is very high.
> We actually spend less per homeless resident than NYC
Source?
That doesn’t follow at all. NYC spends 10x what SF does on homelessness. SF spends $3.8K [1] on each homeless person while NYC is around 10x that. [2]
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Bu...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/cost-of-housing-homeless-in-she...
Then there's another trick - the money which were strictly defined to help only current homeless (so if the program worked for somebody and she is no longer homeless, or is prevented from being homeless by the program spending, that money not counted) and then divided by the number of people who has been homeless at any point, including those that aren't homeless now. The yearly figure is divided by cumulative number, not by average at certain moment. That's like dividing number of seats in the class not by number of students in each class at the same time, but by number of students that will use that room over a year, and arriving to conclusion that school classes have 0.1 seat per pupil and we need 10x seats.
Maybe? Who's to say it has not?
There are two explanations, idealistic and cynical; I'll let you decide what percentage of accuracy applies to each (neither were 0% or 100%).
The idealistic justification was that the institutional option was pretty grim (think "one flew over the cuckoo's nest") and that many of those patients would do better at home or in halfway houses.
The cynical explanation was that this was at the beginning of the huge anti-tax / anti-government wave that began with Reagan's election and continues today: closing the institutions cut government expenditure.
Reagan and his failed economic policy.
> or how the resulting issues haven't been addressed.
The ongoing personality cult around Reagan and his failed economic policy.
The reaction to unacceptable conditions was correct and justifiable, but we've thrown the baby with the bathwater in the sense that now, mentally handicapped people are homeless all over the place...
on the one hand, it's really frustrating because it seems like his life could be greatly improved if he could be forced to undergo long term treatment. he might even be grateful on the other side. but on the other hand, living in a putatively free society, is there a point where you just have to take someone at their word that they don't want to do something? he doesn't seem to be hurting anyone but himself, and he claims to be happy.
There would probably be a person on the other side who would be grateful, but it's far from obvious that that would be the same person as the one you forced into long term treatment. It's a good thing that our society makes it this hard to involuntarily commit people, and as cco mentions, it would be nice if we could extend this to other kinds of forcible confinement.
As I understand it (and as my friend who is an SF police officer where 90% of his job is dealing with the homeless), the much larger problem is SF's (& perhaps society in general's) failure to provide institutionalized care for people with severe mental disabilities.
No amount of money, support systems, or opportunity for getting off the street is going to help people with severe schizophrenia or dementia who have no family or safety net. A lot of these people the only solution is for them to be institutionalized. Unfortunately, there isn't much of a way for someone to be institutionalized against their will (unless they are causing danger of harm to themselves or others) so they continue to live on the streets.
I think what this city really needs is a place to send people deemed in need of institutionalizing, and the ability for that to be determined. Of course that would never fly in a place like SF, but I think it would be a happier life for those people than life on the streets.