[HN Gopher] SF Homelessness - 2022 Point-in-Time Count: Prelimin...
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       SF Homelessness - 2022 Point-in-Time Count: Preliminary Results
        
       Author : devadvance
       Score  : 7 points
       Date   : 2022-05-30 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (hsh.sfgov.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (hsh.sfgov.org)
        
       | rossdavidh wrote:
       | So, this runs rather counter to the news stories I have been
       | reading about the SF homeless situation. That means, either:
       | 
       | 1) the numbers are bogus (e.g. they are missing a higher
       | percentage of homeless in their count than they did in 2019)
       | 
       | 2) the remaining homeless are more problematic in their behavior,
       | thus causing more of a problem even though there are fewer of
       | them
       | 
       | 3) the newsmedia are just printing stories about the homeless in
       | SF more often because it gets clicks, and homelessness is not
       | actually a worsening problem in SF
       | 
       | I would be curious to hear from any SF-resident HN readers as to
       | their opinions on which of these options is more likely.
        
         | proc0 wrote:
         | The other possibility is that this report is straight from the
         | SF dept. of homelessness, obviously they are biased and this is
         | pretty much a PR move. It seems more like damage control, "hey
         | guys, it's not that bad, see?".
         | 
         | Had the city remained cleaned, enforced loitering laws, and
         | protected citizens from petty thefts and crime, perhaps it
         | wouldn't be looking at a dark future after much of the tech
         | force has gone remote.
        
         | KZerda wrote:
         | There's also a fourth thing to take into consideration. The
         | pandemic caused a lot of people in san francisco to start
         | working from home, so a huge number of people who would
         | normally be in higher profile areas, like in downtown, aren't
         | there. BART, for example, has been running at a third the
         | ridership it was pre-2020 (1). Thus, the few people left,
         | especially the homeless, become all the more visible. When all
         | you see are homeless people when walking down Market Street, it
         | becomes easy to think that the problem is a lot more out of
         | control than it is.
         | 
         | (1)
         | https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/202204%20MRR.p...
        
           | rossdavidh wrote:
           | Excellent point, thanks. I could easily imagine that going
           | into a downward spiral, where the lack of non-homeless leads
           | to more discomfort, leads to even fewer non-homeless, until
           | it becomes a no-go zone.
        
         | 121789 wrote:
         | IMO it's #3 plus the point the poster made below about the
         | homeless-to-not ratio seeming higher due to people staying
         | home. I really haven't noticed a significant difference in
         | homelessness since I've lived in SF (mid 2010s). Not that it
         | isn't really bad, I just haven't seen it get worse.
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-30 23:02 UTC)