Hundreds of unsheltered people living in tent encampments in the blocks surrounding the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco have been forced to leave by city outreach workers and police as part of an attempted “clean up the house” ahead of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s annual free trade conference.
The action, which housing advocates allege violated a court injunction, was celebrated by right-wing figures and the tech crowd, who have long been convinced that the city is in terminal decline because of an increase in encampments in the downtown area.
The X account End Wokness wrote that the displacement was proof the “government can easily fix our cities overnight. It just doesn’t want to” (the post received 77,000 likes). “Queer Eye but it’s just Xi visiting troubled US cities then they get a makeover,” joked Packy McCormick, the founder of Not Boring Capital and advisor to Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto VC team. The New York Post celebrated the action, saying that residents had “miraculously disappeared.”
We shouldn’t decide the morality of things based on it being legal or illegal. The law is at best an after thought around morality.
I’ll take “it was legal at the time” for a thousand, Alex.
What are you referring to? Are you aware the sweep that was performed was illegal?
You don’t even need to read the article; it’s in the headline.
How does this statement about “legal at the time” correspond to anything in this story?
First of all, I was playing off of the parent comment that legality is wholly divorced from morality, a notion that I agree with, rather than commenting on the article.
Second, even though it’s illegal, well, read the article. It seems to me that even the social aid organizations involved were giving a bunch of coy, shitty non-answers to the journalists involved in this story. This is kind of one of those unsettling moments where the institution has lost faith in itself, like when the SCOTUS found the removal of native Americans to be illegal and President Jackson said “Justice Marshall has made his decision, now let him come enforce it” and caused the trail of tears anyway. I doubt we’re going to see any accountability come of this. So, even though it’s illegal on paper, it’s functionally legal; the state is just going to five finger salute the law on this one.
The law is a essentially the enforceable moral code of the state that enforces it. Most criminal laws were created to penalise acts that are considered morally reprehensible. I wouldn’t say the law is an afterthought around morality but a reflection of the morality of the state. The laws are largely written by the capitalistic class and are a reflection of what they consider right and wrong.
Yeah but the problem with this sentiment is that it eschews responsibility for the state its self, a responsibility for which a people always ultimately are. A state legislature makes laws. City councils create rules. Dog catchers have policies. At any point you can work to take responsibility for those positions. Its not an abstract theoretical thing. These are real material positions.
We are responsible for the society we live in.
Yes. Laws can be changed but in reality but don’t really have that much say nor do they even pay that much attention. Let me ask how much people really vote with the homeless on their mind? How much people voted for Biden because they were genuinely excited for him or because he just was the only way to prevent Trump from coming back? The laws of the state are a reflection of what it deems to be moral and just there’s no way around that.
I totally agree. Point is that a people are ultimately responsible for the state.
Yes. So what is the disagreement about then? Laws are essentially the enforceable moral code of the state. I do believe that people are ultimately responsible for their own laws but because of propaganda and misinformation by the capitalistic class they are rarely fully informed of the laws they vote for. The capitalistic class ensures to public are constantly misled so their candidates and lawmakers get picked. This ultimately sees the ruling 1% in control of the law and deciding what the state or country considers right or wrong. How much people do you think Biden really represents?
of the State
Right there is where the disagreement is. My argument is that laws are ultimately a moral code of a people, because a people are ultimately responsible for their state. It’s a false dichotomy that misrepresents where states and laws ultimately come from. It ‘others’ the state as some kind of inaccessible agent that our actions don’t contribute to. It removes the moral responsibility of state actions from a people, which is not ok. My argument is that individuals are and need to take responsibility for the state and the codification of its moral because they are us. The state is not a separate entity from its people, when it is a state of the people. This thinking of the state as separate from the people is deeply problematic.
So, what’s that say about the law since slavery was completely legal at one point in time?
That once upon a time people considered slavery to be just or morally ok.
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When it comes to actions of government agents, though, following the law is the most basic form of accountability, and unaccountable governments are never good.
A philosophical argument that goes all the way back to Socrates.
So-craytes!
Truth.
Violation of law most of the times is immoral. There are exceptions of course, but it is quite good guide.
The San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing had a 2022-2023 budget of $672 million dollars. This does not include EMT and police services. It’s just what they earmark for homelessness.
In 2022, there were 7,754 unhoused people in San Francisco.
That’s roughly $86,000 per person they spend on getting them housing, and still failing at it. The average rent for an apartment in SF is $3500 a month, or $42,000 per year. They’re spending twice as much as they would if they just got apartments for people.
Where is that money going, I wonder
Housing is just one aspect. Food, medicine, paying for employees (social workers, security, medical staff) etc. But even if say 75% of that was for housing it’s not easy to just say rent them apartments; first off not enough apartment buildings are willing to take them in. It’s difficult to even find cheap motels that will work with cities to temporarily house the homeless even though it’s guaranteed money. Cities are looking at building shelters but then it’s NIMBY time. Without dedicated facilities with mental health, addiction, etc treatment which the US doesn’t have homelessness will be a forever problem.
Two recommendations from me: Podcast limited series According to Need, which is about homelessness in the Bay Area. Book The End of Policing, has a great chapter on homelessness and costs (though I endorse the whole book).
BUT BUT BUT WE CAN’T JUST SOLVE PROBLEMS, WE VAVE TO MANAGE THEM.
7754 is the PIT count of people homeless at one given point in time. Many, many more cycle through homelessness in any year.
Most long-term homeless people can’t just be given free apartments - they have serious, often untreatable problems that would make such a solution unsustainable.
A quick google shows that most homelessness advocacy groups can cite numerous studies that show housing-first solutions are not only more effective, but also cheaper.
And here are some examples:
Look up the groups behind projects like these and you’re sure to find documentation for their effectiveness. I’d much rather fund these than shelters where nobody feels safe.
Are these studies specifically of the long-term homeless population?
Maybe you should read them and report back
You brought them up but didn’t provide a link.
Yeah because they’re so easy to find it’s literally the first five links on Google.
I didn’t realize I was dealing with someone so content to be misinformed.
There’s no such thing as non-personalized google search anymore, you won’t necessarily see the same results as others
Shut the fuck up, there are so many empty, insured buildings rotting away or even sitting in great condition but if we had to build new ones that CAN be done cheaply. No matter how bad they are, their problems would undoubtedly be VASTLY improved by the roof over their heads, and it could be sustained easily by the government taxing the rich even obscenely slightly. But no, instead we pass that burden onto the middle class so they get brainwashed into hating the poor too. Or stigmatizing, looking down on them, writing them all off as lesser beings who don’t deserve a shred of hope. But realistically? Even if you have a million dollars today you could end up like them tomorrow. I remember somebody new starting at pizza hut who had just lost his house and was selling his Ferrari- it can happen to you. So many people are right around the corner from being homeless themselves and don’t know it. Don’t ever let anybody downplay that reality.
I have multiple layers of safety nets between me and long-term homelessness. These include my own personal resources, my family and friends, and access to government assistance. (My family has been on government assistance in the past; we struggled but we were housed and fed.) I can only see myself exhausting (or failing to utilize) all these safety nets if I develop severe addiction or mental illness, and in fact most long-term homeless people do have addictions or mental illnesses.
What do you think happens when someone with out-of-control addiction or mental illness is given a place to live? In the absence of strictly enforced rules (and such rules are one reason many long-term homeless people don’t want to be in shelters) that place will soon be a wrecked crime scene. No matter how many empty buildings there are, almost no one would want that happening to a building he owns, or to a building near where he lives. This is why San Francisco (and many other cities) spend so much per homeless person without success - if simply giving them a place to live worked, cities would have more money and fewer homeless people.
You make it sound like homeless people or drug addicts are animals- learn some fucking empathy, please. Also none of this would be a issue if we had universal healthcare, too. They don’t do either of these things or provide meaningful support to the lower class at all, really because then the police would be even more redundant and people would have additional opportunities to organize. It’s that simple.
Why do the right cheer as if it’s a permanent solution? They’ll be back as soon as the important people are gone. To say the problem is “fixed overnight” is like saying “Look Mom, I cleaned my room!” after you just finished sweeping everything underneath the bed and hiding it with the covers.
I do hope they fix the problem, but I don’t know what else they can try other than just building houses and giving them the keys. That would probably be less expensive in the long run, but taxpayers evidently feel better paying for homelessness programs in perpetuity rather than giving people free shit one time.
Conservatives don’t know how to fix or build anything anymore. They have no solution to homelessness and they don’t care . Sending police to crack some skulls and patting themselves on the back for it is the best they’ve got.
Conservatives don’t have solutions, just stop gaps. They just stall and pass the ball, and lower taxes, its their only trick.
Conservatives didn’t do this. The article mentions cheering but not who actually did this. All it says is the operation was a “black box”.
This isn’t journalism. They made zero effort to get to the facts. Facts such as:
- Who ordered this sweep to occur?
- Who will be held responsible for the illegal actions performed?
Why is this story entirely focused on the New York Post being in favor of it? There is zero effort to hold the people responsible for this to account.
Moderate democrats, liberals, are still conservatives, notice I didnt say Republicans
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Were they moved into sanctuary districts? https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District
DS9 just seems to get more and more relevant with age. Sad we haven’t done any better than projected by the show.
No, it seems like they just had their tents and possessions taken and then we’re forced to find a different street to sleep on. The sad thing is something like Trek’s Sanctuary Districts would take a government that is way less cruel to the homeless than we currently are.
10 months to go until the Bell Riots.
!remindme 10 months 🫠
Either they were meticulously kept out of frame, or Star Trek didn’t have nearly as much heroin addicts
Wow that sure is a shitty thing to do to humans…
Right-wing: “yay” on all shitty things.
Right wingers might have cheered this on (I believe one individual and one news publication were mentioned cheering in the article), but who actually ordered and carried out the sweep?
All the article says is that the operation is a “black box”.
Who ordered this?
But I’m sure YOUR door is open to house the homeless right?
False equivalence
It’s not but ok.
It is, because I don’t have the resources to house strangers in my home to any meaningful extent. I can barely keep myself fed.
A city’s municipality has the resources of a literal City, and is therefore in a position where they can actually do something about homelessness.
yes, in fact it is. But it’s part of my religion.
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republicans love the idea of a brutal authoritarian police state society
Also known as small government
Housing needs to be a right. Every citizen should be able to go to a housing authority and have a roof over their head if they are unable to afford it.
Agreed. I’d go a bit further. Anything regarding sustenance should be a right:
Housing, healthcare, access to clean water, clean air, at least one hot meal a day, and emergency services should be a right.
I’ll even go as far as arguing that internet access should be included in that list.
Better yet, college
In any normal world, any decent society these issues would be addressed. America is a plutocracy. Tax the rich and get money out of politics. A total overhaul of the system would be needed and that would probably take a revolution. The utter corruption is just that overwhelming.
Agreed.
I have nothing against millionaires, but billionaires are a serious problem. They’re like dragons sitting on their piles of gold, spitting fire at anyone who comes near. No one needs that many resources all to themselves
Modern society has really fucked us up. Only 200 years ago we could have all built our own houses and worked on improving our own properties rather than slaving away for a corporation’s profit.
Even if you want out you’re kinda screwed with the price of land most places. My wife and I have good careers, make pretty good money, and yet we still aren’t sure we could afford to start a simple homestead.
I just do not understand why we are not addressing homelessness in more productive ways. We know it can be better managed as some countries have figured it out. Really crazy that we are not all on board with just doing the right thing and having a win win for all. We choose to suffer and we choose to sweep our suffering under the rug when guests come over.
Because that would involve “giving someone something for free that they DiDn’T WoRk FoR!” You can’t give anything to anyone except billionaires because it’s “not fair to meeeee. I work, I don’t get free stuff. They should just Get A Job!™©®”
Because solving homelessness is counter-productive to running a capitalist society.
That is one of the common excuses but countless studies show it is cheaper to just deal with it.
Yeah, the best solution I’ve seen is lots of small, private housing. Basically, give people a bed and a locking door, and they have a way better chance of turning their life around. Let people stay as long as they’re not violating the rules, and don’t violate their privacy.
… that and providing mental health care.
We have a large homeless community in our downtown area and it is rampant with people that have mental health issues and no support system from family or friends. Nowhere to go but out on the streets if you can’t manage your finances when you live in a capitalist society.
But all of that costs money, and… ya know… capitalism means that money is the most important resource…
There are no easy solutions to mental health issues, but helping the quiet majority who just need a locking door and a bed in order to reset their life is inexpensive, relatively easy, and effective. It can even potentially prevent many mental health issues from developing or worsening in the first place, especially if counseling services are provided to residents of these communities.
A private room is far better than shoving everyone in multiple rooms. It needs to be a stream that directs people to the correct support system.
Just lost job - Okay, you go into the program that has employment support. Dealing with mental health issues - Into the program with mental health support. Addiction issues - Into the program with addiction supports. etc.
Have multiple issues, then we get the support needed for those issues.
For this kind of system, it needs to be well funded. Maybe take some away form the bloated police budget.
Of course conservatives would cheer the continued marginalization and traumatization of society’s most vulnerable. They touch themselves to the cruelty.
An extrapolation to say the government could clean up the city over night of homelessness because they were able to relocate a portion a few neighborhoods for an event.
also no one on the left went live on any national tv broadcast to denounce it either
Illegal eviction and illegal failure to preserve tenant possessions. California let them move in and remain, now they must follow their own rules protecting squatters.
They will absolutely be sued for this.
It’s getting there but we’re still pretty far from critical mass. Need 10x more people to truly show the world how far US has slipped in favor of the 0.01%.
Dear conservatives,
Why are you purposefully awful?
With love, Everyone
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I think they’re just awful people and use things like religion to somehow justify their awfulness. It’s easier to go “God says gay people are bad” than “gay people make me feel icky and I don’t want to deal with why I feel icky so fuck them!”
Especially since the original passage was actually about pedastry not homosexuality.
Blame King James for a terrible translation
easy reply:
Can you prove god existed?
Why is it when progressives carry out an illegal sweep of homeless people, and conservatives cheer it, we get a story about conservatives?
Because Democrats are aware of the problems in their party and many disagree with how things are done and try to vote to stop it. While Republicans cheer at homeless people getting kicked while they’re down.
Why is it … conservatives cheer it … ?
At this point the homeless ought to try staging a camp in at the city hall. Get the headlines all over them being dragged out of there.
I remember homeless people doing exactly that in Santa Cruz back in the eighties to great success.
However, public sentiment over the past thirty years really seems to have swung aggressively toward the fuck you I got mine so die end of the pendulum.
Food Not Bombs did it there ten years ago too. They camped outside of city hall every week, getting arrested over and over. They were finally given a vacant lot next to the freeway to freely camp in after that. It started after SC passed anti-camping laws, making it illegal for any unhoused person to fall asleep.
I seriously doubt that’s the case compared to the 80s, the 80s is how we got Reagan, and whatever qualms you have with Mr. Tangelini, Reagan was demonstrably worse.
No fucking shot was Reagan worse than Trump. Reagan was a piece of shit, but he didn’t attempt a coup and (insert list of the thousands of insanely stupid and illegal things Donald Trump has done since being elected).
He didn’t attempt a coup here.
Latin America has a very different opinion of that point though.
Also, Trump let COVID happen because of sheer idiocy, Reagan let AIDs happen as an act of genocide against queer folks.
Are you accounting for candidate Reagan negotiating with Iranians in Tehran in 1980 holding American hostages in order to weaken Carter’s re-election efforts as part of the October surprise, by prolonging the situation until after Reagan won and was sworn in? (Obviously this has some undercurrent that it may have been even more of a VP GHW Bush fingerprint in terms of execution of the plan as he was a recent DCI of the CIA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_October_Surprise_theory
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/24/october-surprise-ben-barnes/
https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/george-h-w-bush-the-11th-director-of-central-intelligence/
Yes. I am aware of, and accounting for, that. Pales in comparison to Trump.
I’d make the argument that Trump was never competent enough to pull off anything so sinister and evil. Trump is more of a calamitous evil buffon spewing bullshit than some 5d chess player of evil. Some people around him may be crafty evil sons of bitches, but Trump is a petulant man child dipshit that actually thinks money makes him powerful, all while having to play pretend that he’s one of the ‘ultra rich’ and not just a scumbag criminal scammer moving debt around trying to hide his business incompetence.
I don’t usually lean in so hard on this stuff, but it’s Sunday morn and I’ve had 3 cups of coffee. /fidgets
miraculously disappeared??? wtf
They also miraculously appeared. San Francisco is a sanctuary city. There are countless cities that just ship off their homeless and make the residents deal with it. The weather does not help either. California is great for homelessness due to the lack of a true winter.
But as a resident it is hard to know how to help and still see them constantly coming.
i hear you. this is why i think what we’re doing isn’t working, and i think it’s going to get worse if we don’t help homeless people with actual housing and medical / mental health care.
So far I’ve lived in Massachusetts and Colorado. Both of those states offer the following to homeless people:
- Housing
- Food
- Medical care
- Psychological care
We still have homeless people. What’s your next move? What additional steps do we need to take to solve homelessness?
it’s not like you fix up the homeless people the one time and then you’re all set forever.
mental illness is an ongoing issue for people dealing with bipolar/schizophrenia/recurrent depression, and new people are going to evidence mental illness on the regular. new people develop addictions. people lose jobs. people suddenly have major health problems or accidents. people are forced to escape violence.
providing the things you mentioned along with case management and follow-up care where appropriate helps. i live in a major city with a municipal umbrella organization that’s considered one of the best (ie most effective) in the country. that doesn’t mean nobody is homeless here.
what would come closest to fixing it long-term? addressing all the other systemic issues and shortcomings. universal medical care (which includes mental health care), ubi and housing, addressing violence (in families and communities) providing quality education, social justice.
the systems we have now only meet the needs of some, and for most only to a limited degree. those with the most needs have the most difficulty accessing appropriate and sufficient support.
in other words? i think capitalism is a big part of the problem. i don’t have any illusions that fixing any of this is easy.
I think housing could be solved if you just took some of the abandoned buildings. However after seeing some of them. I’m not so sure they will leave the shanty village.
