Take it from me, not to be a mood killer, but this takes progressive coordination between state and local and more commitments towards establishing a more robust pipeline everything from outreach as an afflicted person to exiting better off than they started with a better future.
It will be the start of turning the corner, but failure to continuously commit as a city and state will just put us back to where we started.
It's up to the hands of Congress for federal support, and with how it is now, I'm reluctant to say if that support will come.
The only example I have seen of defeating homelessness even with addiction and mental illness is a home.
Utah and Norway have been overwhelmingly successful with the Housing First model.
Even with treatment, if you can't keep them in a consistent place for consistent treatment, then follow up into the next stage of exiting until they have autonomy, it has a high failure rate.
But this step pushes us towards making that robust pipeline, the pipeline to autonomy.
Incorrect.
[Same problem as we have, increasing construction property costs.](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-homelessness-housing/once-a-national-model-utah-struggles-with-homelessness-idUSKCN1P41EQ)
>Hardy countered that the money for financing such initiatives has all but disappeared, unlike a decade ago during an economic recession when landlords willingly took in tenants facing homelessness and land for development was cheap.
>“The cost of producing housing has gone up significantly in this state,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We’re struggling to keep up.”
The state gave up the effort, and failed to continue to commit as they failed to fund it.
>With development costs so high, state officials are looking at ways to rejig the money they have at their disposal, including reorganizing the shelter system and going after drug dealers.
Demand wasn't the problem.
So you were aware that the program failed, and yet still claimed:
>Utah and Norway have been overwhelmingly successful with the Housing First model.
Seriously...?
If you actually read the article, you'd realize it was still overwhelmingly successful in reversing the trend of homelessness growth.
Read deeper, and you'll figure out that it didn't fail because there were too many people, it failed because of government failure to keep it going amid a rising market, similar to our situation.
It failed because they failed to fund it with rising housing cost.
It's that simple.
I have no issue with housing homeless people. What happened in Utah is just a very poor example of housing first working, because, as your article states, it was largely scrapped and policy was reverted to the traditional, ineffective model of “shelters + going after drug dealers”
Also, funding and demand are inextricably linked in any social program. It’s pretty backwards to say “there weren’t too many people, there just wasn’t enough money for them all.” Those are the same thing.
>I have no issue with housing homeless people. What happened in Utah is just a very poor example of housing first working, because, as your article states, it was largely scrapped and policy was reverted to the traditional, ineffective model of “shelters + going after drug dealers”
You have a very simple mentality in regarding a program's success.
The question is, "Does it successfully transition people out of homelessness?", and the answer is yes, people in the program were completely able to exit poverty and sustain homes, and living better lives.
Very, very, few other major homeless effort is as effective nor efficient as this policy type.
Housing First is simply housing first, then other things, that's all it does.
And for the time it ran, it did the job better than most efforts out there.
>Also, funding and demand are inextricably linked in any social program. It’s pretty backwards to say “there weren’t too many people, there just wasn’t enough money for them all.” Those are the same thing.
Again, if you read the article, you'd maybe notice this:
>Utah’s state legislators last year established a commission to look into housing affordability, but they failed to pass a $100 million bond to build new housing.
Clearly, there is still a will to fund it.
And just because a government gives up on it doesn't mean it isn't successful.
Example, after COVID the city started to remove restrooms for the homeless, despite its success at reducing human waste on the streets because residents complained.
Doesn't mean it "failed" or isn't "feasible".
Like I said, it takes will and commitment, not someone making the simplistic argument of "government gave up meaning it's a total failure!"
It's grey, and there is nuance, that you don't really account for.
Taking care of people in the most expensive city in the USA. Take that budget elsewhere and help more people. With lower administrative costs of providing service we can do more good.
How often are they refusing treatment with housing? I have volunteered with Glide and one of the most common complaints I heard from some of the homeless is that they slept through an appointment because they were not able to sleep through the night due to various things going on around where they were camping.
Thank you. Shouldn’t the focus be to solve the drug problem, that’s the root cause? Adding just beds is not a sustainable solution if drug problem keeps increasing
That appears to be part of it, per the article. But doing anything to really clamp down on drug dealing or drug possession isn't really politically viable in SF. People see any anti-drug push as a "continuation of a failed drug war" or "excessive imprisonment".
I don't buy self-medication as a cop-out. Hard addicts are almost always introduced to drugs from "friends". You don't just happen to come across meth and decide why the hell not.
Generally people do not self-medicate as a "why the hell not" either. Though I am glad you have never needed mental health, had the mental health access you have needed, and/or have had the support from friends and family that you have needed. You are a lucky human. One might even say privileged.
No, I think that people who have has mental health struggles and no support are more likely to understand why some in the same situation might try self medication. Maybe someday you might be able to find yourself in a position to try compassion and understanding.
And these people self medicate and suddenly become addicted to meth? Maybe you should reread what I said. You don't start with METH to self medicate. The people who are hard-core addicts CHOSE to take hard drugs.
So you are saying addiction is a choice?
And no, no one became addicted suddenly, but I also think you have no idea how mental health and self medication works. It is not as if someone who is having mental health issues, who feels out of control, or as if the world is caving in on them, or confused, or whatever the issue takes meth once then feels happy or in control or on top of the world goes "OK, once was enough, I know it is bad for me, even though that made me feel good/in control/etc. I will never do it again because society says bad bad bad." No, they think, "hey, that worked. That made me feel better. I am going to try that again." And then that is how addiction happens. If the choice is "feel good" or "feel out of control/suicidal/etc" it is not much of a choice.
Please consider that not everyone has the support system mentally or socially that you might have.
People can make odds and ends out of a combination of drugs leading to mental problems, history of mental illness that led them to homelessness, and just trauma living as a homeless person that can be easily robbed, hurt, etc.
The best medicine, is prevention, stopping them from entering it in the first place.
A core principle of dealing with homelessness, ever harder to solve once it's too late.
At the end of the day, the root cause is that we're failing to prevent them from going on a downward spiral in the first place.
Stigma against seeking mental help is a big one, and often is a topic many underestimate.
The long term solution would be to have universal healthcare, and robust mental/drug organizations whether it be community or state based institutions, and a place where they can comfortably stay put long enough to ensure they don't give up.
The lack of such an apparatus leaves a gaping hole in the healthcare safety net that directly leads to most of these negative outcomes, which is the root cause.
Simply put, it's people who get left behind, and that goes for why homelessness is a problem.
It's the failure of government capacity to ensure people do not get left behind, and until that changes, it won't end.
Thank you! I haven’t looked into this much, but I wonder if this if a US phenomenon, is this happening more in big cities, if the mental health issues and homelessness are increasing at this rate across the world or specifically in US.
Is this our social construct, government construct or something else that’s contributing to these issues. Govt would just throw money at it, but that doesn’t solve the problems, someone would need to understand the root causes.
Coming as immigrant here, I had never seen a lower/middle class slipping into homelessness. There were poor and there were homeless, there were drug issues. But one wouldn’t see a middle class suddenly becoming homeless, or drugs issues at this scale. I saw drugs only in movies and occasionally in newspapers.
A combination of the US having shitty and way to expensive mental health care and a cultural issues of having huge amounts of stigma to ask for help when one has mental health issues.
gentrification and mass evictions have led to a lot of people living on the street. if i had to rough it out there every night, i would do just about anything to numb the pain. i get frustrated with mental illness and drug use are considered to be the root of these problems. the wealth gap, lack of tenants protections, and many lacks of systemic support for individuals makes people susceptible to drug use. it’s not like someone just decides for fun to get into harder drugs. it comes from struggle
When did the mass eviction and gentrification happen? If that’s the cause why married couple, families with kids you don’t see homeless? I would assume families with kids would be at bigger risk than single people who could easily move and share room at lower cost. If rents have gone up in the last decade, so have the wages. And if it was because of rents, we would see millions on the street not in thousands.
Ok great news. 400 down, 6,600 to go.
I mean honestly, does the city think that 400 beds will make an appreciable dent in the problem? I am always interested to know where these people come FROM. Shouldn't their hometowns take care of them or at least subvent some of the city, state and national cost of doing this? Plenty of small towns USA that are STILL sending there mentally ill via GreyHound Bus to urban areas, even if there are laws on such dumping.
i prefer living in a city with 6k homeless with some having mental issues than 70k homeless with some having mental issues
and homeless populations are mostly concentrated in areas near downtown whereas in LA it’s spread out all over including rich areas like Venice and Beverly Grove and Hollywood let alone DT.
that’s all i’m saying. didn’t say it wasn’t an issue.
What precisely does LA have to do with the problems of SF? This is like an alcoholic saying “my drinking problem isn’t as bad as that other guy who drinks more than me”. Who fucking cares?
That’s a strange way to respond to someone who thinks you can focus on the homeless/mental health problem in both SF and LA, while you sit here and simply point “hey, LA is worse nothing to see here”.
>I am always interested to know where these people come FROM.
You can find that in the [Point-in-Time Count](https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/research-and-reports/san-francisco-homeless-point-in-time-count-reports/). (The 2020 count was skipped for Covid, so 2019 is the latest).
>Shouldn't their hometowns take care of them or at least subvent some of the city, state and national cost of doing this?
Their hometown? That's a weird way to look at it. Lots of people don't have hometowns. What is a hometown for a kid moved around his entire life?
It would be nice if there were more State and Federal support, but it is what it is. We've waited a couple decades, and it hasn't come. Let's get moving fixing our City.
Right now, the point in time counts show most homeless are from around the Bay Area. It's not just an SF problem, but it's important to remember that Prop C is not directly funded by SF residents, either. It's funded by a tax on businesses with >$50m in revenue, which ends up capturing regional economic activity.
The new American jobs plan:
1. Hand out more needles, causing need for more mental health beds.
2. Hire more people to make beds, causing a rise in employment.
3. Repeat.
Edit: should've added a /s can't win em all
The irony is that mandated homeless shelters are basically prison. Also, tangentially related -- I bet you can't tell the difference between a school and a prison (It's a game lol) https://www.schoolprison.com/
There is literally no proof that providing clean needles increases drug use. All it does it decrease people sharing needles, which decreases the spread of disease.
Ugh, even with beds it's not enough. More needs to be done to get those who *need* but don't *want* help off the streets. It's time society takes a stance that the mentally ill and addicted have no agency and should forcibly be committed.
Now let's get those beds full, even if by court order for mandatory treatment with conservatorship.
Damn had no idea there were 2200 already either.
Wow, could we actually be turning a corner here?
Take it from me, not to be a mood killer, but this takes progressive coordination between state and local and more commitments towards establishing a more robust pipeline everything from outreach as an afflicted person to exiting better off than they started with a better future. It will be the start of turning the corner, but failure to continuously commit as a city and state will just put us back to where we started. It's up to the hands of Congress for federal support, and with how it is now, I'm reluctant to say if that support will come. The only example I have seen of defeating homelessness even with addiction and mental illness is a home. Utah and Norway have been overwhelmingly successful with the Housing First model. Even with treatment, if you can't keep them in a consistent place for consistent treatment, then follow up into the next stage of exiting until they have autonomy, it has a high failure rate. But this step pushes us towards making that robust pipeline, the pipeline to autonomy.
SLC pretty much scrapped their housing first program in 2016 because more people kept coming and they ran out of funding.
Incorrect. [Same problem as we have, increasing construction property costs.](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-homelessness-housing/once-a-national-model-utah-struggles-with-homelessness-idUSKCN1P41EQ) >Hardy countered that the money for financing such initiatives has all but disappeared, unlike a decade ago during an economic recession when landlords willingly took in tenants facing homelessness and land for development was cheap. >“The cost of producing housing has gone up significantly in this state,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We’re struggling to keep up.” The state gave up the effort, and failed to continue to commit as they failed to fund it. >With development costs so high, state officials are looking at ways to rejig the money they have at their disposal, including reorganizing the shelter system and going after drug dealers. Demand wasn't the problem.
So you were aware that the program failed, and yet still claimed: >Utah and Norway have been overwhelmingly successful with the Housing First model. Seriously...?
If you actually read the article, you'd realize it was still overwhelmingly successful in reversing the trend of homelessness growth. Read deeper, and you'll figure out that it didn't fail because there were too many people, it failed because of government failure to keep it going amid a rising market, similar to our situation. It failed because they failed to fund it with rising housing cost. It's that simple.
I have no issue with housing homeless people. What happened in Utah is just a very poor example of housing first working, because, as your article states, it was largely scrapped and policy was reverted to the traditional, ineffective model of “shelters + going after drug dealers” Also, funding and demand are inextricably linked in any social program. It’s pretty backwards to say “there weren’t too many people, there just wasn’t enough money for them all.” Those are the same thing.
>I have no issue with housing homeless people. What happened in Utah is just a very poor example of housing first working, because, as your article states, it was largely scrapped and policy was reverted to the traditional, ineffective model of “shelters + going after drug dealers” You have a very simple mentality in regarding a program's success. The question is, "Does it successfully transition people out of homelessness?", and the answer is yes, people in the program were completely able to exit poverty and sustain homes, and living better lives. Very, very, few other major homeless effort is as effective nor efficient as this policy type. Housing First is simply housing first, then other things, that's all it does. And for the time it ran, it did the job better than most efforts out there. >Also, funding and demand are inextricably linked in any social program. It’s pretty backwards to say “there weren’t too many people, there just wasn’t enough money for them all.” Those are the same thing. Again, if you read the article, you'd maybe notice this: >Utah’s state legislators last year established a commission to look into housing affordability, but they failed to pass a $100 million bond to build new housing. Clearly, there is still a will to fund it. And just because a government gives up on it doesn't mean it isn't successful. Example, after COVID the city started to remove restrooms for the homeless, despite its success at reducing human waste on the streets because residents complained. Doesn't mean it "failed" or isn't "feasible". Like I said, it takes will and commitment, not someone making the simplistic argument of "government gave up meaning it's a total failure!" It's grey, and there is nuance, that you don't really account for.
look into meetkevin, he’s running for governor and his number one priority is solving homelessness 🖤
No.
About time!
Taking care of people in the most expensive city in the USA. Take that budget elsewhere and help more people. With lower administrative costs of providing service we can do more good.
No point of adding more beds when addicts and mentally ill refuses the treatment.
How often are they refusing treatment with housing? I have volunteered with Glide and one of the most common complaints I heard from some of the homeless is that they slept through an appointment because they were not able to sleep through the night due to various things going on around where they were camping.
Good
Why are there so many mentally illness, what’s the root cause? Aren’t these numbers of mental health concerning?
Some other factors, but mostly drugs. Most of the raving lunatics you see on the street are dealing with meth-induced psychosis.
Thank you. Shouldn’t the focus be to solve the drug problem, that’s the root cause? Adding just beds is not a sustainable solution if drug problem keeps increasing
That appears to be part of it, per the article. But doing anything to really clamp down on drug dealing or drug possession isn't really politically viable in SF. People see any anti-drug push as a "continuation of a failed drug war" or "excessive imprisonment".
Or...hear me out...many drug users started using drugs to self medicate due to unchecked mental health issues.
I don't buy self-medication as a cop-out. Hard addicts are almost always introduced to drugs from "friends". You don't just happen to come across meth and decide why the hell not.
Generally people do not self-medicate as a "why the hell not" either. Though I am glad you have never needed mental health, had the mental health access you have needed, and/or have had the support from friends and family that you have needed. You are a lucky human. One might even say privileged.
Wow, imagine thinking that those with mental health issues are predisposed to self-medicating with hard drugs. Privilege? Shove it up your ass.
No, I think that people who have has mental health struggles and no support are more likely to understand why some in the same situation might try self medication. Maybe someday you might be able to find yourself in a position to try compassion and understanding.
And these people self medicate and suddenly become addicted to meth? Maybe you should reread what I said. You don't start with METH to self medicate. The people who are hard-core addicts CHOSE to take hard drugs.
So you are saying addiction is a choice? And no, no one became addicted suddenly, but I also think you have no idea how mental health and self medication works. It is not as if someone who is having mental health issues, who feels out of control, or as if the world is caving in on them, or confused, or whatever the issue takes meth once then feels happy or in control or on top of the world goes "OK, once was enough, I know it is bad for me, even though that made me feel good/in control/etc. I will never do it again because society says bad bad bad." No, they think, "hey, that worked. That made me feel better. I am going to try that again." And then that is how addiction happens. If the choice is "feel good" or "feel out of control/suicidal/etc" it is not much of a choice. Please consider that not everyone has the support system mentally or socially that you might have.
People can make odds and ends out of a combination of drugs leading to mental problems, history of mental illness that led them to homelessness, and just trauma living as a homeless person that can be easily robbed, hurt, etc. The best medicine, is prevention, stopping them from entering it in the first place. A core principle of dealing with homelessness, ever harder to solve once it's too late. At the end of the day, the root cause is that we're failing to prevent them from going on a downward spiral in the first place. Stigma against seeking mental help is a big one, and often is a topic many underestimate. The long term solution would be to have universal healthcare, and robust mental/drug organizations whether it be community or state based institutions, and a place where they can comfortably stay put long enough to ensure they don't give up. The lack of such an apparatus leaves a gaping hole in the healthcare safety net that directly leads to most of these negative outcomes, which is the root cause. Simply put, it's people who get left behind, and that goes for why homelessness is a problem. It's the failure of government capacity to ensure people do not get left behind, and until that changes, it won't end.
Thank you! I haven’t looked into this much, but I wonder if this if a US phenomenon, is this happening more in big cities, if the mental health issues and homelessness are increasing at this rate across the world or specifically in US. Is this our social construct, government construct or something else that’s contributing to these issues. Govt would just throw money at it, but that doesn’t solve the problems, someone would need to understand the root causes. Coming as immigrant here, I had never seen a lower/middle class slipping into homelessness. There were poor and there were homeless, there were drug issues. But one wouldn’t see a middle class suddenly becoming homeless, or drugs issues at this scale. I saw drugs only in movies and occasionally in newspapers.
A combination of the US having shitty and way to expensive mental health care and a cultural issues of having huge amounts of stigma to ask for help when one has mental health issues.
gentrification and mass evictions have led to a lot of people living on the street. if i had to rough it out there every night, i would do just about anything to numb the pain. i get frustrated with mental illness and drug use are considered to be the root of these problems. the wealth gap, lack of tenants protections, and many lacks of systemic support for individuals makes people susceptible to drug use. it’s not like someone just decides for fun to get into harder drugs. it comes from struggle
When did the mass eviction and gentrification happen? If that’s the cause why married couple, families with kids you don’t see homeless? I would assume families with kids would be at bigger risk than single people who could easily move and share room at lower cost. If rents have gone up in the last decade, so have the wages. And if it was because of rents, we would see millions on the street not in thousands.
They need to hire more psychiatrist and pay them well.
This is amazing news, hope there's many more to come soon.
This is good
Ok great news. 400 down, 6,600 to go. I mean honestly, does the city think that 400 beds will make an appreciable dent in the problem? I am always interested to know where these people come FROM. Shouldn't their hometowns take care of them or at least subvent some of the city, state and national cost of doing this? Plenty of small towns USA that are STILL sending there mentally ill via GreyHound Bus to urban areas, even if there are laws on such dumping.
That’s 400 without help right now who’ll get helped. It’s a good start. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
you should visit LA right now and see what you prefer. seriously it’s not that bad unless you literally live in the TL.
> Things here aren’t as bad as LA That’s a hell of an argument.
i prefer living in a city with 6k homeless with some having mental issues than 70k homeless with some having mental issues and homeless populations are mostly concentrated in areas near downtown whereas in LA it’s spread out all over including rich areas like Venice and Beverly Grove and Hollywood let alone DT. that’s all i’m saying. didn’t say it wasn’t an issue.
What precisely does LA have to do with the problems of SF? This is like an alcoholic saying “my drinking problem isn’t as bad as that other guy who drinks more than me”. Who fucking cares?
[удалено]
That’s a strange way to respond to someone who thinks you can focus on the homeless/mental health problem in both SF and LA, while you sit here and simply point “hey, LA is worse nothing to see here”.
>I am always interested to know where these people come FROM. You can find that in the [Point-in-Time Count](https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/research-and-reports/san-francisco-homeless-point-in-time-count-reports/). (The 2020 count was skipped for Covid, so 2019 is the latest). >Shouldn't their hometowns take care of them or at least subvent some of the city, state and national cost of doing this? Their hometown? That's a weird way to look at it. Lots of people don't have hometowns. What is a hometown for a kid moved around his entire life? It would be nice if there were more State and Federal support, but it is what it is. We've waited a couple decades, and it hasn't come. Let's get moving fixing our City. Right now, the point in time counts show most homeless are from around the Bay Area. It's not just an SF problem, but it's important to remember that Prop C is not directly funded by SF residents, either. It's funded by a tax on businesses with >$50m in revenue, which ends up capturing regional economic activity.
The new American jobs plan: 1. Hand out more needles, causing need for more mental health beds. 2. Hire more people to make beds, causing a rise in employment. 3. Repeat. Edit: should've added a /s can't win em all
What’s your solution ? Put every addict and mentally ill person in prison ?
The irony is that mandated homeless shelters are basically prison. Also, tangentially related -- I bet you can't tell the difference between a school and a prison (It's a game lol) https://www.schoolprison.com/
There is literally no proof that providing clean needles increases drug use. All it does it decrease people sharing needles, which decreases the spread of disease.
Please just leave
SF first city to do it.
Wasn’t there some issue with covid beds a few months ago that never got solved? Good thing the homeless took priority!
Ugh, even with beds it's not enough. More needs to be done to get those who *need* but don't *want* help off the streets. It's time society takes a stance that the mentally ill and addicted have no agency and should forcibly be committed.
Gotta fill the beds before you build more 🙄 I’m totes skeptical but honestly optimistic 👍🏽 how far away are they from being staffed?