Hundreds of unsheltered people living in tent encampments in the blocks surrounding the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco have been forced to leave by city outreach workers and police as part of an attempted “clean up the house” ahead of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s annual free trade conference.
The action, which housing advocates allege violated a court injunction, was celebrated by right-wing figures and the tech crowd, who have long been convinced that the city is in terminal decline because of an increase in encampments in the downtown area.
The X account End Wokness wrote that the displacement was proof the “government can easily fix our cities overnight. It just doesn’t want to” (the post received 77,000 likes). “Queer Eye but it’s just Xi visiting troubled US cities then they get a makeover,” joked Packy McCormick, the founder of Not Boring Capital and advisor to Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto VC team. The New York Post celebrated the action, saying that residents had “miraculously disappeared.”
Ok putting all this aside for a moment. If you just give someone a place to live you solve many immediate problems. The social worker knows where they are, the food stamps can be delivered right there, you get them out of the elements, any type of medication and you know where it is supposed to go, sanitation is also taken care of if nothing else they can shower.
So right it isn’t an end all be all solution. You can easily have a whole bunch of underlying issues my point is you already got them housed you rid them of a whole mess of problems at once.
Just a fyi. I had a month from hell once and ended up homeless. It was amazing how fast I lost everything. Ended up living in my car until I could I could rebuild. The thing I wanted the most was a clean shower and a change of clothing.