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A comment on Proposition C. Parent comment

Re:Proposition C by smsm42 on Saturday October 20, 2018 @02:36AM (#18262081)
> Has severe mental illness grown significantly during that time?

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?

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Re:Proposition C by abalone on Saturday October 20, 2018 @12:46PM (#18264090)
> 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.

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...

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Re:Proposition C by smsm42 on Saturday October 20, 2018 @04:42PM (#18265340)
There's a trick there. They remove all administrative costs, all prevention costs, all money that are spent by all government except for one specific department, and then declare that's "real" spending. As if all the other money is not spent, towards the same goal. And, I suppose, they compare it to full spending in NYC (not sure since the second article is paywalled). But whatever happens in NYC, counting only net spending on shelters makes no sense - the money spent on all programs in that area, including of course their admin costs, should be counted. If admin costs or non-direct spending is too high and not important for solving the problems of the homeless, if should be changed, not just ignored. If only 22% of the budget reaches the homeless, then maybe we should advocate first not for raising taxes, but for figuring out why the other 78% do not.

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.

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