What is the correlation between homelessness, spending on welfare, inequality, and individualism?
Tonight I saw a man get hit by a car and I called an ambulance for him.
And the night before I found these fellows collapsed in the oddest configuration I’ve seen. People would stop by to check to see if they were alive and occasionally look through their things to see if there was anything worth taking. I couldn’t help imagining a “press X to loot the body” button.
The night before that there was a 14 year old girl ODing on my way to SF commons to join a freestyle singing and rap workshop.
As I’ve assigned myself night shifts at the security desk at Frontier Tower (I’ve started working as Head of Security here) and been seeing these things day after day I’ve decided to explore my curiosity.
What are the root causes of homelessness and addiction?
I was shocked to find almost no relationship between spending on welfare or inequality and homelessness.
However, there is a positive correlation between homelessness and individualism.
USA spends 25% of GDP on welfare (35% including private spending) and Mexico spends 7.5% of GDP on welfare
USA has 75 people per 100,000 sleeping on the streets and Mexico has 5 per 100,000
Does this mean culture is the biggest factor - not how our government spends its money when it comes to homelessness?
To be clear, I think social welfare spending can be done in an effective way (Scandinavia for example) and there's more nuanced breakdowns.
Also zoning at least around California makes it extremely hard to build cheaper housing
I’m trying to take groups to build on my friends 130 acre land 1 hr away where he is happy for people to live there for free but zoning restrictions make it tough to build anything even on his private rural empty plot by Napa
Who can dive into the SF 800 million dollar budget spent on homelessness?
There are an estimated 4,000 people sleeping on the streets in SF and 8,000 total homeless including those in shelters/transitional housing.
We are spending $100,000 per year per person
There HAS to be a way to use that better.
And perhaps a harder question - how can we adjust our culture?
