<story><title>San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-05/san-francisco-voters-approve-taxes-on-ceos-big-businesses</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ransom1538</author><text>&amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can&amp;#x27;t figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;SF resident for 15 years until I left.&lt;p&gt;I walked around and talked to homeless.  From the dozens I have talked with:&lt;p&gt;1.  They are not from SF.&lt;p&gt;2.  They were homeless somewhere else and it sucked.&lt;p&gt;3.  Pan handling cash is easy. $100+ a day.&lt;p&gt;4.  The SF programs kick ass. Suboxone clinics, Free cell phones, free bus passes, monthly stipends $$, even occasional housing&lt;p&gt;5.  The police do not hassle much, you can shoot up on the street no problem.&lt;p&gt;It is a system designed to create more homelessness.</text></item><item><author>GhostVII</author><text>San Francisco&amp;#x27;s solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don&amp;#x27;t work. At some point you have to realize that more money isn&amp;#x27;t always the solution, you actually have to fix your beurocracy. It&amp;#x27;s insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can&amp;#x27;t figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smsm42</author><text>So we have:&lt;p&gt;1. A lot of rich residents and rich companies which supply the city budget with sweet sweet tax money&lt;p&gt;2. A lot of programs and NGOs that draw large budgets to helping the homeless&lt;p&gt;3. Political climate that encourages spending money on helping the homeless without requiring anything from them, basically free money&lt;p&gt;4. Generous programs providing various freebies for homeless people, and no consequences for any behavior short of major robbery (yes, shoplifting is allowed too unless it&amp;#x27;s over $900)&lt;p&gt;5. Mild weather that makes living on the street possible year around&lt;p&gt;And we&amp;#x27;re wondering why homelessness has not disappeared? There&amp;#x27;s nobody that is interested in it disappearing, that&amp;#x27;s why. Well, at least nobody whose opinion matters, anyway. There&amp;#x27;s a lot of people interested in allocating and spending budgets on fighting homelessness, these aren&amp;#x27;t people interested in doing something that will make it stop once and for all.</text></comment>
<story><title>San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-11-05/san-francisco-voters-approve-taxes-on-ceos-big-businesses</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ransom1538</author><text>&amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can&amp;#x27;t figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;SF resident for 15 years until I left.&lt;p&gt;I walked around and talked to homeless.  From the dozens I have talked with:&lt;p&gt;1.  They are not from SF.&lt;p&gt;2.  They were homeless somewhere else and it sucked.&lt;p&gt;3.  Pan handling cash is easy. $100+ a day.&lt;p&gt;4.  The SF programs kick ass. Suboxone clinics, Free cell phones, free bus passes, monthly stipends $$, even occasional housing&lt;p&gt;5.  The police do not hassle much, you can shoot up on the street no problem.&lt;p&gt;It is a system designed to create more homelessness.</text></item><item><author>GhostVII</author><text>San Francisco&amp;#x27;s solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don&amp;#x27;t work. At some point you have to realize that more money isn&amp;#x27;t always the solution, you actually have to fix your beurocracy. It&amp;#x27;s insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can&amp;#x27;t figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>runarberg</author><text>Speaking as someone that lived in van in SF for 6 month before I left for immigration reasons:&lt;p&gt;1. I’m not from SF, I came there to live with my partner who was in school there but we couldn’t afford a place to rent.&lt;p&gt;2. I’ve never been homeless anywhere else and I wouldn’t have been homeless in SF if rent was fair.&lt;p&gt;3. I’ve never pan handled, but I didn’t need to. Dumpster diving is easy, there is plenty of free food options (including free farm stand with organic vegetables; I also cooked for food not bombs but that was more for the fun then the food).&lt;p&gt;4. Didn’t get any free phones, paid for my own bus fairs (or just jumped the muni).&lt;p&gt;5. Police never hassled me too much. Only one time when I parked near Dolores Park too see if they had their porta potties open all night (they didn’t). Police advised us to stay out of this neighborhood. We did and moved back to a friendlier neighborhood in the lower mission.&lt;p&gt;6. Showering is impossible for the homeless. I could really only shower and shave once a week. I had to wait in a line for a ticket at a charity and then wait there for an hour or two at a cramped space for my turn. Sometimes I would sneak at my the campus of my partner’s school and steal a shower.&lt;p&gt;Speaking from experience the only thing that is creating the  homelessness in SF is lack of reasonable, affordable, and accessible housing options.</text></comment>