San Francisco Passes a First-of-its-Kind Tax on Big Businesses To Help the Homeless (recode.net) 528
San Francisco voters passed a measure that has divided the tech community and sparked a national debate about the industry's responsibility to fix the city's homelessness crisis. From a report: The San Francisco Chronicle called the race at 60 percent in favor with 99 percent of the vote counted. Proposition C will raise the city's gross receipts tax by an average of .5 percent on annual gross receipts over $50 million that companies like Square, Lyft and Salesforce generate. The new funds will bring in an estimated $250 million to $300 million a year -- twice what the city currently spends on an annual basis to help the homeless in tech's de facto capital. The thousands of people living on San Francisco's streets serve as a daily reminder of economic inequality in a city that has one of the highest concentrations of billionaires in the nation. Earlier this year, a United Nations expert on housing called the living conditions of the homeless in the Bay Area "cruel" and "unacceptable." The decision to increase funding for the city's most needy is a victory for the local nonprofits behind the measure and their tech fairy godfather, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who, along with his company, has poured more than $7 million into the campaign in the month leading up to the election.
HAHAH (Score:5, Insightful)
More corporate flight from California. Good.
Re:HAHAH (Score:5, Interesting)
More corporate flight from California. Good.
It is good. These large employers do harm just by being large. It doesn't matter if we tax them to make them pay their fair share, or if they go somewhere else and become a problem somewhere else. They will be replaced rapidly enough, and they will not be missed. We have the talent.
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need a really good job to be able to pay $2.5K /mo for an studio apartment
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California is where great companies are born. Other states is where they go to die. It's been like this for decades.
Utah has been experiencing a tech boom for over a decade.
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And it still hasn't replaced Novell.
Re:HAHAH (Score:5, Insightful)
In reality, it will probably have the opposite effect.
Tackling homelessness and taking homeless people off the street improves location desirability, which increases people's desire to live and work there. Besides do you really want the mega corporations and America's financial engine to leave California?
If they go to your red state they will bring urbanization with them. Urban areas tend to lean to the left and rural areas to the right. If large corporations left California, they would take leftist ideas with them. Your red state might turn blue.
Re:HAHAH (Score:5, Insightful)
Tackling homelessness and taking homeless people off the street improves location desirability, which increases people's desire to live and work there.
You are assuming that the new spending will actually be effective. That may or may not be true. Homelessness is a difficult problem to solve, and SF already has plenty of shelters and programs that don't work. More spending on homelessness will also pull more homeless people from other areas of the country, which may actually make the problem worse on the streets of San Francisco.
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Tackling homelessness and taking homeless people off the street improves location desirability, which increases people's desire to live and work there.
You are assuming that the new spending will actually be effective. That may or may not be true. Homelessness is a difficult problem to solve, and SF already has plenty of shelters and programs that don't work. More spending on homelessness will also pull more homeless people from other areas of the country, which may actually make the problem worse on the streets of San Francisco.
Regarding your first point. Yes, I'm assuming the spend the money wisely. Naturally there is a good chance that they won't. I'm being an optimist for now.
For your second point; homeless people don't tend to travel far from where they live. Often they lack the means to. A large percent suffer from mental disorders (which is why they're homeless in the first place) and many become addict to drugs or alcohol as a crutch. They're not going to leave their suppliers.
Most homeless people are not reading inte
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For your second point; homeless people don't tend to travel far from where they live. Often they lack the means to. A large percent suffer from mental disorders (which is why they're homeless in the first place) and many become addict to drugs or alcohol as a crutch. They're not going to leave their suppliers.
Bussed out: How America moves its homeless [theguardian.com] is an article from last year which shows how the homeless can end up thousands of miles away. Many cities offer 1-way tickets to the homeless based on the promise the homeless won't come back. A 2013 news article announced that Nevada Gets Sued For Dumping Homeless Patients With Mental Illnesses Onto Buses. [thinkprogress.org] A stark quote in that article claims that Nevada "may have systematically sent away as many as 1,500 patients over five years".
Re:HAHAH (Score:4, Insightful)
"For your second point; homeless people don't tend to travel far from where they live."
California is different. We are one state -- with 25% of the entire countries homeless population. Yes, we're a large population state -- but still at 10% of the entire country, our homeless numbers are 2.5x what they should be per capita.
We have many MANY "homeless" on our streets from all over the country. They're shipped out here for crappy "sober homes" that drain whatever insurance they might have then they are out on the streets here.
The biggest part of the problem is that all solutions try to tackle the issue as an economic problem. Most of the homeless literally living on the streets are addicts or mentally ill. Los Angeles, for example, plays "whack-a-mole" on encampment cleanup with LAPD and HOPE who go out there and try to offer services. They are generally refused. Why? Because shelters dont allow drug use.
And here's the thing about drug use -- drug dealers don't work pro-bono. They want to be paid. And by the time an addict has run through every social safety net (moving back in with mom/dad, sleeping in sisters spare room, a friends sofa) they have no where to go. Services that the get like EBT cards are drained and the money used for drugs. Locally, heroin can run about $4-$8 a dose -- but a modestly far along addict would need so many doeses that the cost would be around $80+ per day. that's $30k per year. Where do you think they get the money? The "smack" faerie?
Addition had a direct link to local crime.
You are spot on about addicts not moving away from either drugs or resources to get drugs.
We were stupid to effectively decriminalize drugs and petty theft (which killed off drug court as an option for addicts to avoid jail/prison time and the conviction record). It was far more effective than the "free range" approach we've taken to addicts over the last 5 years. What we SHOULD have done is put more funds in to post release follow up and support and support while incarcerated for those who couldn't stay clean on drug court programs. Would have slowly drained the prisons of drug users, too.
It's no kindness to leave them on the streets to slowly kill themselves, spread disease and victimize their communities.
California is one of the most expensive states (Score:5, Interesting)
We've had 40 years of offshoring and outsourcing. If the companies could leave they would have done so already. It's high time we Americans called their bluff. Wanna leave? Fine. Go. Door's right there. Don't let it hit you where the dog shoulda bit you. You can go home, but you can't take the ball. If you try, we'll eminent domain your ass. This is our country, and we're through letting you threaten us.
I should add (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:California is one of the most expensive states (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot Earthquakes.
True but they're few and far between (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and I don't remember the last time (Score:2)
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Have you BEEN to downtown LA?
Talk abut Shit Holes.
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Deport them to Beverly Hills, Palo Alto, Santa Barbara, you know, where all the SJWs live.
Re:HAHAH (Score:5, Informative)
You know that at least one big business CEO was promoting this, right? Or don't you care about facts?
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Yeppers. So, what's going to happen to Salesforce when they lose ~25% of their net income to this tax?
Or are they carefully set up to not actually have to pay this tax?
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That's not how impeachment works. The House impeaches by itself. The Senate convicts. Without the conviction, the impeachment has no effect. That's why Bill Clinton was impeached, but not removed from office.
So if the Democrats were as petty as the Republicans, they could impeach Trump. They do not have the power to remove him from office unless they can prove wrongdoing sufficient to convince some of the Republicans
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He lied in response to a question that should never have even been asked. The entire line of questioning was inappropriate, as was the investigation leading up to it, because a consensual relationship (and at no point was there even the slightest hint that the relationship was anything less than consensual) is simply not a legitimate reason to investigate a sitting POTUS, married or not. Don't get me wrong, what he did was wrong morally and ethically, but it wasn't criminal, and initiating such a highly
Obligatory Archer Quote (Score:2, Insightful)
You want to push more business out of your city, this is how you push more business out of your city.
I'm not saying it was extortion (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, why aren't people angry that they're constantly being threatened with economic disaster every time we do anything to upset our corporate overlords? Do we like being pushed around and told what to do?
Like I said on another thread, we didn't put up with this shit when the Mafia did it, why are we doing it now?
Take care of the homeless (Score:5, Interesting)
Do a great job taking care of the homeless and your city will become a magnet for the homeless of the nation. If that's what you want, go for it. Cheaper to turn them all into Soylent Green, but, hey, democracy, and each city can have its own values.
Frankly, this is less odd and government-intrusive than most stuff SF does, and companies of course have the option of just excluding SF from their business if it's not worth the cost.
Re:Take care of the homeless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Take care of the homeless (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup, next time I see someone homeless in my area, instead of giving them $5. I'll take them to the bus station and buy them a ticket to San Fran.
Although you joke; New York has done just that. They've paid to have homeless people shipped elsewhere. Other than government intrusion though- homeless people don't tend to wander much- they're not going to go to SF unless someone does buy them a bus ticket.
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This is why homelessness isn't a city issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Consequently, about 25% of the homeless are people with severe mental health issues (vs about 4% for the general population). Add to that about 30%-40% who are addicted to drugs or alcohol (vs 10% for the general population). The large prevalence of mentally ill and substance abusers among the homeless prejudices people against the homeless in general, making recovery harder for the about 50% who are homeless simply because they've hit a rough patch in their lives.
At a city or county level, it's usually cheaper to simply boot the homeless out than to really tackle the issue. But that doesn't reduce the rate of homelessness, it merely hides it from view (in those cities). Just like a burglar alarm may reduce the chances of your house being robbed, but doesn't reduce the overall burglary rate (the burglar flees your home and robs another house instead). The problem really needs to be addressed at the state or national level for an effective solution - geographic areas large enough that simply booting them out doesn't appear to be a solution to legislators.
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Cheaper to turn them all into Soylent Green
Just to be clear, you're saying the preferable thing would be to kill people because the act of killing them is cheaper than anything else, and cost is the most important measure on which you'd base your actions?
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Cheaper to turn them all into Soylent Green
Just to be clear, you're saying the preferable thing would be to kill people because the act of killing them is cheaper than anything else, and cost is the most important measure on which you'd base your actions?
I think you misunderstood. The comment did not state that *just* killing people is cheaper. It implied that you additionally sell the product as Soylent Green which is more economical than plain killing.
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Just to be clear, you're saying the preferable thing would be to kill people because the act of killing them is cheaper than anything else, and cost is the most important measure on which you'd base your actions?
Well, we could build tax-funded asylums for the large percentage of the homeless who are mentally ill and will never adapt to society. But we as a democratic nation decided a couple decades ago that that was too expensive. I merely suggest the next logical step.
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There is a history. The 'insane' are often political dissidents.
The current solution (putting the truly batshit on the streets, then letting soft headed people invite them to their city with bread and circuses) seems to work OK.
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Nothing like that represents a serious mental illness. When you're hearing voices, or have crippling paranoia, or otherwise have a delusion that prevents you from functioning you need outside help. I have a feeling you've never seen how bad this gets.
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I think you're totally missing the sarcasm...
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Do a great job taking care of the homeless and your city will become a magnet for the homeless of the nation..
The hard part is defining "taking care of"... Handouts of food, clothing, gender reassignment operations, free recreational drugs and even just shelters for occasional bad SF weather don't help the homeless much but that's almost certainly what this new tax will help pay for. Most of them need medication (non-recreational) and supervised long term care and rehab. The rest need job training and/or an address to put on applications.
Re:Take care of the homeless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Take care of the homeless (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what we used to have, but there was a huge moral panic about the deplorable conditions in those facilities and public outcry lead to them being shut down. There's just no getting around the fact that people with severe mental health issues aren't going to behave like well adjusted human beings, but from a pure cost to society perspective, it's probably much cheaper to house them in sanatoriums than it is to run around putting out the small fires that arise when you leave them to wander the streets.
Of course we still have these places-- lots of them. They're just not called "sanitoriums". They're called nursing homes, or IMD's (Institutions for Mental Disease), or ICF's (Intermediate Care Facilities), or other things.
I know some mentally ill people (Score:3)
Anyway nursing homes are only for the elderly, and even then the ones that don't cost $5k+/mo are underfunded. Don't count on one if you get dementia.
The rest of those institutions will only house you if you're an active danger to yourself or people around you. You know that joke about "I cut myself to feel alive"? It comes from mentally ill people cutting themselves to show self harm so that they can be admitted to a loony bin long enough for an attack to safely p
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It's not true that nursing homes are "only for the elderly". In Chicago a lot of nursing home residents are young-- I've seen people who are placed in nursing homes by their parents at age 21. And they don't always cost $5k a month (although of course some can cost that and more-- I've heard of $11k/month for dementia care). A lot of them just take your disability check as payment, giving you $30 back every month as walking-around money. (Ridiculously small amount of walking-around money-- it's basica
Re:Take care of the homeless (Score:4, Interesting)
The ACLU was on point. People like to blame Reagan, but he closed empty loonie bins after the ACLU got the nuts released.
There is a long history of police states putting dissidents in loonie bins.
I suggest making it easier for family to put loonies away. Absent family, make the government first put a trustee in charge of the loonies checks, then make that medical professional (with a legal responsibility to care for the nut) ask for the commitment.
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That article does not say what you think it does, try reading it.
Migration (Score:3, Insightful)
In short, if you are homeless, get yourself to San Francisco any way you can. They are spending tons of money on the homeless.
Re: Migration (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how homeless people don't take you up on that. It's almost like being homeless is shitty no matter where you go...
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Re: 30% (Score:2)
You say "traveled", but really it's a euphamism for "got relocated". NV is the source of much of the homeless problem, but unlike CA, NV is cool with breaking the law, so yet again CA has to pick up the tab for all the poor, degenerate red states filled with rural junkie welfare queens.
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These are humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Where I live they go so far as to put concrete "spikes" to make flat areas unusable by the homeless.
This all starts from the "every zygote is sacred" mentality -- when you prevent abortion, someone has to pay for all the costs of supporting the resulting child. The more children, the more jobs are needed. That pushes more people to the bottom wages and increases living costs as more have to share.
These decisions are causing future problems -- and guess what? The future is now. It has been for many years.
When people have true control over their reproductive rights, fewer children are brought into society and those competitive costs decrease... which means fewer homeless people.
Anon because some religious cultists have attacked clinics and doctors in the past for simply helping people. Don't get me started on the fuckery that is religion and it's incredibly harmful effects on society.
Holy crap you're not kidding (Score:3)
For the record the big uptick in homelessness started under Reagan. He closed the insane asylums. It was part of a libertarian movement that said it was wrong to keep these folks locked up. Of course we didn't provide them any alternative housing or mental healthcare services (since in addition to "freedom" the idea was sold as a way to save money) and, well, predictable results.
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When people have true control over their reproductive rights, fewer children are brought into society and those competitive costs decrease... which means fewer homeless people.
How about if people were more conscientious about their "reproductive habits" and weren't being so damn promiscuous, perhaps we wouldn't be in the position that you ascribe to "every zygote is sacred".
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This is some troll, leaping from hot button topic to topic.
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Let me guess, you also advocate eliminating manufacturing jobs "because human" and opening the borders to billions of foreigners "because human". Your heart bleeds for "humans" so much that the solution is to eliminate them and every trace of human civilization.
And this is why political discourse is fucked.
You are incapable of having anything approaching a rational discussion. What the GP says might challenge just one your ideas. Insted of thinking about and analysing what you believe, you instead brand hi
Efficiency (Score:3)
I am all in support of taking care of the homeless.
However, San Francisco seems to get the least bang for the buck.
They need a completely different strategy. Pity that with all the smart people in the area, they cannot come up with any effective solutions.
I saw a documentary recently. Drug addicts, excrement on the street. Felt like third world than one of the richest areas in the world. I hope the documentary was not exaggerating. I haven't been there in a decade and that was for a conference. I just remember aggressive pan handling. The documentary said some conferences pulled out as well. They didn't feel safe, they said.
Re: Efficiency (Score:2)
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_Everything_ is inefficent (Score:2)
As the saying goes, never let perfect be the enemy of good.
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They need a completely different strategy.
A Citizen's Dividend fixes the economy where there's high unemployment pretty damned quick. Don't know about SF itself; I know at the Federal level it's huge, and at the State level even an incredibly-weak policy would work for Maryland.
SF passing a gross receipts tax is bad juju, though. That is the worst kind of economics failure.
Imagine a gross receipts tax without the target on "you have too much revenue"--or just imagine that your back-end businesses are big. Your supply chain is affected.
With
There you go again... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:There you go again... (Score:4, Insightful)
How does "economic equality" translates to "everyone is poor"? That's a typical U.S.A. point of view.
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Observation.
Now, I've seen the US's poor and the Caribbean Islander poor in person, read about plenty of other poor groups. If everyone on earth had the resources that the US poor do, something close to 70% of the world population would have an enormous gain in wealth and free time.
Because the whole topic is phony -- agitators trying to divide people so they can gain power and spend money other people earned. There's no reality involved at all.
Um.. no. Just no (Score:3)
If everyone has enough money to buy food, housing, transportation that wouldn't make your wealth any less valuable.
OTOH it would diminish your power. For example, when you show up at a strip club with a wad of $20 dollar bills those girls aren't glomping on to you for your good looks for winning personality. Give those girls UBI and a lot of them wouldn't bother becoming strippers; and they'd never give you the time of day.
Doubling down on failed solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
Throwing money at the homeless problem has not solved it. Clearly most of these people have mental health issues or drug/alcohol dependency issues. That means that appeals to rationality are not going to work, but relocation might. Allow cities to exclude people for bad behavior, and suddenly this becomes a non-issue.
In the meantime, every tax that we spend just makes government more intrusive in our lives, and puts us farther down the path that the Soviet Union explored. The more we depend on government, the weaker we get as individuals, until you end up with a lot of clueless people shrugging their way through life.
Homeless (Score:2)
The more we depend on government, the weaker we get as individuals, until you end up with a lot of clueless people shrugging their way through life.
You mean "homeless"?
Re: Doubling down on failed solutions (Score:2, Insightful)
Allow cities to exclude people for bad behavior, and suddenly this becomes a non-issue.
What?? It will obviously remain an issue for someone. Most notably it will remainan issue for the homeless. BUT, even from what is apparently the perspective of someone for whom homelessness isn't the problem, the homeless are, they will still be *somewhere*. Do you plan to deport them, or is there some other void into which they can go that is magically nowhere and out of everyone's sight and mind?
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Problem with right wingers is not that they're all insensitive people. It's that they're misinformed or don't pay attention to any bit of details beyond the surface, looking at everything as black and white (no racial pun intended).
What does "throwing money at the homeless problem" mean and precisely where does this money go? Does it go to the homeless individuals, or does it go into subsidized housing? Or does it go to social workers and programs?
You're also flat out saying that people with mental health i
I am all for this (Score:3, Insightful)
Just my 2 cents
Stupid. Very stupid (Score:3)
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Lets deposit it in the bank and...ITS GONE! (Score:4, Insightful)
California collects GIGANTIC amounts of maoney and promptly wastes it.
That plus a lot of it is stuffed in to State Employee Pensions.
We should send relief (Score:2)
Earlier this year, a United Nations expert on housing called the living conditions of the homeless in the Bay Area "cruel" and "unacceptable."
We've got the UN calling the conditions cruel?
How about we send some relief workers to California to pick these homeless folks up and fly them to Geneva to apply for asylum.
Or at least bring these folks to cities where some decent housing is affordable without a 6-figure income
Good for them (Score:3)
California has it especially bad. They pay more into the federal coffers than they get out. Meanwhile those mega corps manipulate elections in other states to get special privileges. I see this as a way for California to claw back some of the money they've been paying out.
Where is this money even going?? (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems like after this new tax, California may be well in excess of spending $100k/homeless person per year. At what point does it make more sense to buy them all housing in one other state and pay for meals and everything in perpetuity?
From what I've seen though homeless people in California get pretty much nothing from all this money supposedly devoted to them. I'll bet if you looked over the people administering these programs you would find SO MUCH corruption...
$40,000/year (Score:2)
That’s the amount per homeless person that SF already spends on these people. Yet so many of them continue living in the street because that’s what they prefer.
Is the new revenue going toward a mandatory mental health program for homeless? It will be a total waste if it isn’t.
And suddenly ... (Score:2)
Thanks, SF.
Socialism is like a mousetrap .... (Score:3, Interesting)
It works because the mouse isn't aware why the cheese is free.
Uber-liberal San Francisco will continue to destroy itself as long as it embraces these "rob from the rich and give to the poor" policies. But perhaps it's necessary to let some of our cities follow these flawed ideas through, in the hopes that it educates more people?
Again, though it falls on deaf ears with the people who aren't already in agreement .... A vast majority of the homeless will not better their situations, even if large amounts of money are spent on giving them free things. Many have mental illnesses and simply aren't capable of functioning as contributing members of society. Occasionally, they even HAVE money but are living on the streets anyway, because that money is tied up in some sort of trust, set up for them by family members who knew they had issues. They're not in a frame of mind to withdraw that money and use it constructively on things like renting an apartment.....
America has some real challenges dealing with mental health, but I'm not sure the science is even at a stage where we can provide many solutions? You can give a lot of these people treatment, but serious mental problems don't get cured by any of the drugs out there. At best, some drug combinations work temporarily for a person, until their effectiveness decreases over the years. And it's a crap shoot if a new drug cocktail can be prescribed that gets them back to a functional state again for X number of additional years.
Once upon a time, we just locked them all away in asylums so the public didn't have to see or interact with them. Now, we don't - so you see them sleeping in the streets. It is what it is, but I don't want to punish businesses for any of it.
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One problem society has is that it is difficult to deal with someone with a little bit of mental illness. There's quite a range where there are people really not able to cope with basic adult responsibilities without help, but where hospitalization is overkill.
From A Bay Area Slashdotter - Soon Homeless (Score:5, Interesting)
On my street in Campbell, I've seen the same houses go $750,000 to over a $1,000,000 in less than 5 years. Even with two tech workers, it's not easy to pay that off.
The thing you won't be able to understand: a lot of the homeless in the SF Bay area, are blue-collar working people. People work to maintain the cities they often cannot afford to live in. This is also what happened in Orange County. The people who clean Irvine and Tustin Ranch live in Costa Mesa. What is also being built here seems a little like the old Science Fiction movie Metropolis.
Most of the traffic problems here are caused by single drivers going to work from where they can afford to work where they cannot afford to live.
There is also an attitude here that people don't believe how rich they are, which is caused by the high property. If you make $40,000 year, you might not be able to afford a 2-bedroom apartment here.
There are a few simple solutions:
1.) If you buy a house, you must keep it and live in for 5 years--unless you get divorced or show bankruptcy. This makes property homes and communities and not investment tokens.
2.) Zone more areas for apartments.
3.) Stop outlawing poverty and homelessness. Homelessness is an equal-opportunity affliction. This means no more police harassment.
4.) Give people a place to shower and go to the bathroom. It's not only the homeless people who need to use bathrooms. Pregnant women and men with prostate problems have to go more, too.
6.) Let people sleep in their cars.
7.) Make sure that homeless people can vote.
8.) Make social workers live as homeless people for 1 month before giving them jobs--on the lowest benefit afforded to the homeless people.
9.) Build small pod-hotels for the homeless people, like they have in Japan.
10.) Offer wash-machines for homeless people. If people can was their clothes, then they don't need to carry as much with them.
11.) Require that the "Salvation Army" either give homeless people clothes--or give up their non-profit status.
12.) Give more money to help the homeless, and get that money from reduced administration. It takes a lot of money in administration costs to deny people help.
13.) Consider giving 1/4th of the tax money to help a homeless person that might otherwise be spent to keep someone in jail.
14.) Give homeless people carts and storage solutions but expect them to organize their stuff. Riding along the Los Gatos Creek trail, I've seen homeless camps that where a shambles, but I also saw a well organized one, with signs of cottage industry.
15.) Few if any social programs have any kind of meaningful feedback. All social interviews should have a program in social worker performance review sheet. Are the programs working? Was the interviewer fair?
The problems surrounding homelessness won't get fixed unless the people involved run. As far as I know, the only politician around here gives a damn about the homeless--was himself homeless as a child when his families home burned down.
Downpayment assistance (Score:2)
This money should be used for providing downpayment assistance. Amny californians pay more in rent than a mortgage but as the cost of living is so high they never can save for a downpayment. Living paycheque to paycheque means a job loss means homelessness. If they got downpayment assistance and could move into homes then a job loss would mean they could still live in those homes while they go through a restructuring of their loans with the banks.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There were plenty of $0 down mortgages back in 2008. Do you know what happened afterwards?
If they got downpayment assistance and could move into homes then a job loss would mean they could still live in those homes while they go through a restructuring of their loans with the banks.
No, they would be foreclosed. This is much worse than if they rented an apartment and could move out of the area.
Re:Downpayment assistance (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people in 2008 survived by living rent free in their foreclosed houses. If these folks had been renting the homelessness would have been much worse. banks did not move to take possession as noone was buying and if they did an eviction then they would have to pay to guard an empty house or have it vandalized.
People taking 0$ loans did not cause 2008. The Mortgage brokers reselling these loans as AAA in order to get big bonuses caused 2008. If 0$ loans MBS had been priced properly we wouldnt have had a bust.
adult babies (Score:3)
so you pay people not work, to be irresponsible bums, and now you're going to sink more money into the effort? You'll have even more hobos, is what you'll get.
It Is Fair (Score:2)
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If Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is so morally great, why would he give $$ millions on campaign and to activists to tax other people instead of just giving the money to poor? It's always strange how rich people ask for tax increase on everyone else, they could give their money at any time, no new laws required.
Because they're more interested in appearing to care about an issue than actually fixing it. An increase in homelessness results in more power for the government, which means more government employees, which means more Salesforce licenses.
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It's because he can leverage his one-time expenditure of his money into an annual year-after-year, decade-after-decade expenditure of other people’s money.
San Francisco is going to be the homeless capital of the world. Congrats.
You're not being cynical enough (Score:2)
And he doesn't need more gov't employees. He can raise the fees charged for his existing corporate welfare. That's how corporate welfare works. Socialism for the rich and dog eat dog capitalism for you and me. You're never gonna take away his socialism. He's too good at getting it. How's about you start asking for some yourself? Maybe start with
Re:why don't just give money to the people (Score:5, Informative)
It's all right there in the summary:
1. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, along with his company, has poured more than $7 million into the campaign.
2. The new funds will bring in an estimated $250 million to $300 million a year.
So, a bit over 7 million was spent once to generate 250 to 300 million every year from now on. And even if it's repealed next year, it's a net gain of over 240 million for the homeless until then. The only way it would have been bad is if the law didn't pass, but it was a calculated move on his part. What you can do for the homeless with seven million is nothing compared to 250+ million.
Re: why don't just give money to the people (Score:3)
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How would increasing wages solve the problems of the homeless? Does the homeless get hired anywhere for jobs?
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Almost half of the homeless are employed either full or part time; they just can't afford housing. This is especially true in overly regulated California where the cost of development is so high and NIMBY policies make any type of affordable housing a pipe dream.
Cutting unnecessary regulations or increasing wages (through company policy not government regulation) are both ways that would drastically reduce homelessness. You'll always have issues with the extremely mentally ill sub group of the homeless po
Re: (Score:2)
Steeling someone else's money and redistributing it has always failed. This won't work out. The real cause is these people are all drug addicts.
Actually, a great deal of them have mental disorders or psychological disorders which is why they're homeless in the first place and can't get a job. Many probably are drug addicts, some probably were drug addicts before being homeless, and some homelessness caused them to turn to drugs.
A large number of them though, their biggest crime is neither being wealthy enough, nor having family that were wealthy enough, to provide them adequate mental health care to allow them to lead normal lives. The mental iss
some homeless are veterans and we need to do bette (Score:5, Insightful)
some homeless are veterans and we need to do better for them.
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Seeing as white SF has been getting their black and brown people out for decades, I doubt this will help them.
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True, but wasteful taxation is not.
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And why not give them homes while we're at it?
But you'll never be able to do that, because then they're no longer homeless and by definition no longer need any help. At least that's the capitalist way of thinking, especially in the U.S.A.
Re: Willie Sutton for a government office (Score:2)
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It means a homeless in the USA gets more in a year than someone working in the fast-food industry.
Blame Greenpeace (Score:2)
California's housing problem is due to misguided environmentalism putting large swathes of land as forest reserves next to expanding cities. This means that houses are overpriced.