30 year San Francisco resident. The issues San Francisco faces today are not from wealth inequality. That’s horse shit. It is in fact dysfunctional government. Also, you are mistaken about the genesis of San Francisco based tech versus the Valley. And you are wrong about the history of workers living in San Francisco and commuting to the Valley.
Most of the homeless aren't inbound. They're being priced out of the market that they've lived in their whole life. You're just illustrating the lack of awareness tech people have in the city.
In many cases the homeless have a better net impact on the world than tech people.
Consider carbon footprint, accelerating “progress” toward ecological collapse, building tech used by authoritarian governments, etc.
People of all classes come to SF for similar reasons, the resources.
Instead of being afraid of solving the homeless problem for fear of attracting more homeless, SF Ought to focus its creativity on solving the problem in a way that works for everyone.
The best solution is, give the homeless free housing.
Since SF industry is extracting / creating wealth (depending on your political slant) from all over the world, then it should be ok with people from all over the world coming in to have basic needs met.
Create shipping container / tiny home villages; provide robotic grown organic foods; deploy scalable mental health and community building tech; etc.
Deploy that tech to other surrounding cities which would alleviate some of the pressure for folks to move to SF if they are homeless.
Repeat the process across the USA.
Repeat the process around the world and alleviate the resource gradient.
You want to take a dent out of the universe? Solve homelessness and resource scarcity.
Or, bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps and exchange labor for government income / support. It will provide meaningful work and structure for the lost and is productive to boot. There are many great works from the 1930s (dams, etc.) which still provide immense value to recreational users and farmers today.
I agree with the reply above mine by Captainredbeard, that bringing back the CCC would help to stymie the crumbling of a large portion of America's failing infrastructure.
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