A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco
Homelessness is a solved problem.<p>SF residents don&#x27;t want the solution.<p>Real estate is the primary wealth building asset class of long-term residents who bought property ages ago or inherited it.<p>In California property taxes as assessed at time of sale, so you hold onto properties realistically valued at multiple millions while paying taxes at rate appropriate to tens of thousands.<p>Bulldozing a single family home to build a multi-family unit has an enormous cost on the back end given re-assessment.<p><i>Any potential</i> drop in property values has massive protest. 
It&#x27;s such a nice free-ride you will fight tooth and nail for.<p>These residents just want the homeless population &quot;dealt with&quot;.<p>The only solution viable for these residents is getting rid of homeless people through force.<p>This in untenable give that these residents also have internalized a set of liberal moral values, which mostly means alleviating guilt by dumping money onto ineffective non-profit organization who at worst are siphoning public funds for themselves or at best are trying their best at executing strategies which have minimal impact.<p>Consider that between 2010 and 2020, SF built <i>~25,000</i> new housing units.<p>Charlotte, NC, a city with a lower population, built <i>160,000</i> new units.<p>Norway has homeless population of 0.07% by mostly doing one thing: building and giving homes to people who don&#x27;t have them.<p>That would cause property values to plummet. Many long-term residents would have to seek employment after a lifetime of living off rents.