Homelessness surges in San Francisco while tech's richest grow richer

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Homelessness surges in San Francisco while tech's richest grow richer

The number of homeless people in the city, where the cost of living is more unaffordable than ever, has increased to 8,011

Vivian Ho in San Francisco
Fri 17 May 2019 18.10 BST First published on Fri 17 May 2019 06.00 BST

San Francisco saw a 17% increase in its homeless population since its last homeless count, with numbers rising to levels that haven’t been recorded on these streets in 17 years.

The increase comes amid an IPO boom in a tech industry that has the city’s rich growing richer, the wealth disparities starker and the cost of living more unaffordable than ever.

“The cost of housing hasn’t gone down, so why does anyone expect that the amount of people experiencing homelessness would go down?” said Kelley Cutler, the human rights organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness.

The city released a preliminary summary of its one-night street count on Thursday, tallying the number of homeless people at 8,011. The uptick, according to the mayor’s office, came primarily from people living in their cars, who totaled 68% of those counted.

San Francisco conducts its homeless count every two years, as is required by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The number is believed to be a low estimate, as federal guidelines for homelessness are broader than the city’s definitions, and the city will release a more accurate count in July. In 2017, the count at this time was 6,858 while the later tally came out to 7,499.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/16/san-francisco-homeless-increase-tech-ipo

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Source: San Francisco Chronicle

SF homeless population swells by 17% in latest tally

Kevin Fagan May 16, 2019 Updated: May 17, 2019 2:26 p.m.

Despite creating hundreds of new shelter beds and spending more than $300 million annually on homelessness, San Francisco has seen the number of homeless people in the city rise by 17% since 2017 — with a whopping amount of that increase coming from people living in vehicles.

A preliminary summary of January’s one-night street count released Thursday pegged the new number of homeless people in the city at 8,011, but that number is sure to be lower than the more complete count to be released in July. That’s because it was calculated using federal guidelines, which don’t account for as many types of homelessness as those the city uses.

Still, the federal data give an early glimpse of what city officials will be finding out in more detail later, and the glimpse is bracing.

The number of people living in cars, RVs and other vehicles has risen by 45% since the last one-night count was taken two years ago. That much has been anecdotally evident for months, particularly in industrial Bayview neighborhoods, where vehicle colonies have sprouted in ever-increasing numbers over the past year.

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Read more: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-homeless-population-swells-by-17-in-latest-13851897.php

[highmindedhavi]

1. The bay area should be the shinning example to the world

No excuse with all their money, sad to see last month how big the tent area was in Santa Cruz off PCH

[NBachers]

2. If I lost my little Mission District studio apartment, I'd have to move out of state.

Or join up with the homeless people camped out in the alley outside my garage.

[Farmer-Rick]

3. I once heard a privileged white male born into a rich family say

That the rich don't take money or wealth from the poor. He said that it was a limitless pool that everyone draws from.

But why does an excess of wealth for the most privileged always leads to a drop in wealth of the poorest? When the crash hit the richest didn't suffer but boy did the rest of us suffer. The banks and their rich owners were bailed while I lost my job and almost my farm.

No one bailed me out and if I hadn't been able to raise my own food, we may have not even eaten at times. And everyone and their mother wanted to give us loans. What's that about? I couldn't pay back a loan but that was all the government would do to keep my family from starving.

Now, as the tech industry gobbles up all the homes in San Francisco, the homeless count swells. The rich may not directly take the money out of my pocket but they set up so that I don't have the same advantages as they do. They may not literally push the average home owner out of their houses (though the banks did in the crash) but they ruin the market and cut their own taxes.

If it is a limitless pool, you wouldn't have these results.