No doubt, chronic homelessness is a problem in San Francisco. And there's truth in this quote, from a fentanyl-addicted homeless person.
But I hesitate to base my entire view on the situation from a hot take of conversation with someone deep into drug abuse. They will feed the addiction first, and only then go on to address their other needs.
The article leaves me wanting to hear from people in recovery. Perhaps they are harder to find. Or perhaps (even more likely) I misread the article.
Nevertheless, I hang on to the real money quote:
The bitter joke of the story is that in San Francisco, the mother works full-time, drains her savings, but still can’t make ends meet and is forced to move away.
For example, a recent report on the SF homeless population flags 15% of them as having a traumatic brain injury.
You can spend as much as you want on other things, but those people need permanent, long-term medical care and nothing less is going to help.
No, that's $486M/6864 = $70,800 per homeless person per year. It's only after multiplying by the 9 years she lived in SF do you get $630k. It's a lot, and probably poorly spent, but probably only 10x what is reasonable.
As a society, even spending all this money, we are failing to help some of our most vulnerable citizens. It’s quite telling that conversations about social safety nets always become about money rather than reducing harm effectively.
This article sheds some light: https://missionlocal.org/2019/07/in-san-francisco-we-obsess-...
> the Department of Homelessness itself applies a multiplier of 2.89 to the PIT count to estimate how many individuals are homeless not just on one day but throughout the entire year.
Hard drug addiction can be seen as a terminal disease. The main cost to the city is truck rolls for EMT response. $100k/yr is much more than it costs to feed and house an individual in basic accommodations. The main cause of overdoses is purity/potency. Taken together, it seems like treating the situation as a public health problem with a palliative approach would save the city a lot of money as well as making life better for those trapped in it. Especially if SF could then turn around to the state and claim healthcare reimbursement for doing so.
Also, I cost more, on a per year basis, than the individual in the article, as I require an orphan drug and will for the rest of my life.
I am American but fortunately live abroad so I don’t have to put up with people writing BS narratives and stories that “link” arbitrary statistics together, which people with economics backgrounds tend to do. All in all, this is clickbait.
The solution to the “problem” in the article is houses, regardless of drug usage status.
