Post by robeiae on May 3, 2021 7:31:26 GMT -5
www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/04/28/san_francisco_diagnoses_its_homeless_perilous_trifecta_-_and_bungles_the_cure_774461.html
Long read. A few excerpts:
It seems like this is a problem that comes up year after year after year and no one ever accomplishes jack shit, apart from funding some new initiative or the like, though these things seem to have no impact. The monies being poured into the problems here are just astounding. $285 million divided by 18,000 is almost $16,000 a year. I live in a two bedroom townhouse in a pretty good neighborhood in Miami. If I had a roommate, my yearly rent would be around $12,000.
Long read. A few excerpts:
City Hall has begun coming to terms with the crisis. Mayor London Breed recently hired a director of mental health reform, Dr. Anton Nigusse Bland, who compiled a statistical summary of the problem. People have long known that San Francisco has a homelessness problem, but Nigusse Bland discovered a population-within-a-population—the so-called “perilous trifecta”: 4,000 men and women who are simultaneously homeless, psychotic, and addicted to alcohol, meth, or heroin. About 70 % of them have been on the streets for more than five years; 40% have been on the streets for more than 13 years.
[snip]
According to the San Francisco County Jail, the homeless account for 40% of all inmates -- despite being less than 1% of the city’s overall population, and even after San Francisco decriminalized many quality-of-life crimes associated with homelessness. Again, the perilous trifecta looms large. Inmates with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders are more likely to be homeless and more likely to be charged with a violent crime compared to the general jail population. The pithy observation about deinstitutionalization is largely true: The people who might have once lived in the state mental hospital have simply been transferred to the county jail.
[snip]
Like many major West Coast cities, San Francisco has gone all in on “Housing First,” the theory that the municipal government must provide free housing for the homeless in perpetuity, with no expectations of sobriety, work, or participation in rehabilitation programs. For a city with a recurring homeless population of 18,000, this is an enormous expense. In 2019, San Francisco spent $285 million on shelters and “permanent supportive housing,” plus $65 million on traditional public housing, vouchers, and SRO units. At the same time, voters passed an additional $600 million bond to build “affordable housing.” But still, 67% of the Bay Area’s homeless are unsheltered.
[snip]
In the past, the solution to this paradox was compulsion. The state took custody of the “gravely disabled” and treated them in long-term residential institutions. However, with the exposure of civil rights abuses and the release of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the United States gradually dismantled its mental health system, reducing the number of mental health beds per capita by an astonishing 95% between 1955 and 2016. Today, California has fewer beds per capita than the national average, with San Francisco having only 219 adult psychiatric beds available at a given time -- drastically insufficient for the number of people in need.
[snip]
According to the San Francisco County Jail, the homeless account for 40% of all inmates -- despite being less than 1% of the city’s overall population, and even after San Francisco decriminalized many quality-of-life crimes associated with homelessness. Again, the perilous trifecta looms large. Inmates with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders are more likely to be homeless and more likely to be charged with a violent crime compared to the general jail population. The pithy observation about deinstitutionalization is largely true: The people who might have once lived in the state mental hospital have simply been transferred to the county jail.
[snip]
Like many major West Coast cities, San Francisco has gone all in on “Housing First,” the theory that the municipal government must provide free housing for the homeless in perpetuity, with no expectations of sobriety, work, or participation in rehabilitation programs. For a city with a recurring homeless population of 18,000, this is an enormous expense. In 2019, San Francisco spent $285 million on shelters and “permanent supportive housing,” plus $65 million on traditional public housing, vouchers, and SRO units. At the same time, voters passed an additional $600 million bond to build “affordable housing.” But still, 67% of the Bay Area’s homeless are unsheltered.
[snip]
In the past, the solution to this paradox was compulsion. The state took custody of the “gravely disabled” and treated them in long-term residential institutions. However, with the exposure of civil rights abuses and the release of Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the United States gradually dismantled its mental health system, reducing the number of mental health beds per capita by an astonishing 95% between 1955 and 2016. Today, California has fewer beds per capita than the national average, with San Francisco having only 219 adult psychiatric beds available at a given time -- drastically insufficient for the number of people in need.