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submitted 3 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] norimee@lemmy.world 92 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 23 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

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...'

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world -2 points 3 months ago

SF has been trying to solve the problem your way for 20 years and it's only gotten worse.

[-] escapesamsara@lemmings.world 6 points 3 months ago

Incredibly incorrect. SF has done less than nothing to solve the problem for 20 years, and is shocked when doing nothing did nothing.

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] escapesamsara@lemmings.world 1 points 3 months ago

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.

[-] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

If they spent a million on new city owned no rent housing

...they would get laughed out of the room? That barely buys a single condo in an existing building in SF.

If they did literally nothing else, and ignored all the people who overdose and die of exposure and end up sick etc etc...just did absolutely nothing and saved their budget for 10 years, MAYBE they could approach a partnership to THINK about breaking ground on a single building. Which would take 20 years to build.

Building new homes is just such an expensive approach that it's not worth considering in SF.

this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
206 points (96.4% liked)

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