CDR: RE: Re: Shunning, lesbians and liberty

[Bill Stewart]

At 12:27 AM 10/1/00 -0700, James A.. Donald wrote:
>Similarly, where do we see homelessness?  Most of it is in San Francisco, 
>half jokingly known as the people's republic as San Francisco, because of 
>its drastic governmental management of housing.

There are a few causes, some the fault of government, some not.
First of all, the weather here (and most of the California coast
south of here) is much better than inland - it's hard to freeze to death.
If you're going to be homeless, it's a lot better here than
New York or Wisconsin.  And the city's relatively tolerant of bums,
in spite of occasional mayoral progams to make them go away.

Another is the government's policy on mental health funding -
some years ago, they started dumping previously-government-funded
mental patients on the streets, even if they were somewhat crazy.

Then there's the price of black-market heroin - some of the 
homeless I know are drunks; others are junkies when they can
afford junk.  San Francisco housing is expensive enough even if
you're not spending your welfare check on the black market.

Then of course there's the problem that San Franciscans
don't like new buildings in their back yards, whether they're
businesses or houses, especially yuppie houses or
apartments for poor people.  And they don't like landlords,
so it's seldom worthwhile to go through the hassle and expense
of getting permits to build apartments that'll get rent-controlled.
So the price of existing housing goes through the roof,
and anybody in a rent-controlled place can't afford to move
to a non-rent-controlled place.  And business rents go way up,
so warehouses and other marginal buildings get replaced with condos,
and live-work spaces get used for offices instead of residences.

Meanwhile, of course, San Franciscans are Liberals who don't want
anybody living in substandard housing, so non-city-funded flophouses
tend to get closed down or remodeled into yuppie housing,
and small cheap crowded tenement housing isn't legal either.
It wasn't very good, but it was better than being on the streets.
Of course, some of the fires in local flophouses really _have_
been caused by smoking in bed, as opposed to creative avoidance
of laws against tearing down buildings to build better ones.

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart at pobox.com
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