The death of tech idealism and rise of the homeless in Northern California
Mood
controversial
Sentiment
negative
Category
news
Key topics
Tech Industry
Homelessness
Northern California
Social Impact
Idealism
Discussion Activity
Active discussionFirst comment
44m
Peak period
20
Day 1
Avg / period
11
Based on 22 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 21, 2025 at 9:28 PM EST
2d ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 21, 2025 at 10:12 PM EST
44m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
20 comments in Day 1
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 23, 2025 at 2:59 PM EST
11h ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
We call that “the voting populace”
There are plenty of houses. The issue is demand; people are paying $4,000/month to live in a shithole because nobody knows what things are worth. Rich executives, H1Bs and digital nomads all flock there to displace working-class families that support the basic service economy. If you built 400 condos, 1600 more rich people move in. Supply is not the issue as far as I can see it.
Maybe you’re used to seeing half measures. Be careful with that because half measures are sometimes used as justification to throw out the whole idea of progress instead of doing it properly (“well we tried that and things were still bad so now we have to do it my way”)
Are there?
Home ownership is a functional unmovable number in the USA: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSAHORUSQ156S
The problem is that we only have plenty of houses... that are under occupied.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-q...
We dont build high density housing. We killed off the boarding house. There's like one left in DC when there used to be dozens... They were common enough that even in the 80's you could make a tv show about it, now if you said bording house someone would look at you like you had 9 heads.
We dont have SRO's any more... In 1940 the YMCA of New York had 100k rooms for rent...
https://ishc.com/wp-content/uploads/YMCAs2.pdf
> If you built 400 condos, 1600 more rich people move in. Supply is not the issue as far as I can see it.
Do you know what the largest predictor of voting is? Home ownership. DO you know what drives home owners to the polls more than anything else? Protecting the value of their home.
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/wealthy-bay-area-town-a...
The state has, and continues to sue towns for the fuckery that they have been doing to block housing development to prop up property prices. 60 percent of people who are the most likely to vote will turn up to the polls to make sure the costs do NOT go down. It is the tyranny of majority...
SO yes there are plenty of HOUSES, and not enough of everything else that we need for people to live.
No. They are 98% drug addicts or mentally ill people. And the "Homeless Activists" are simply people who make their careers over spending the billions of dollars given out by the various governments to "address" the homeless crisis.
It's well known that the money that gets given out attract more homeless people. People will go back and forth between LA and SF and collect money and use it to buy drugs from drug dealers. And the fact nothing is being done to stop this is why homelessness has gotten worse despite the billions upon billions of dollars that get spent every year. Gavin Newsom admitted that California spent $24 billion on homelessness and there was no accountability, and homelessness went up. The same goes for SF with their homeless business tax that amounts to over $600 million per year.
It's insane that left-wing governments think that spending MORE money will solve the problem when in fact it is the cause of the problem. If they stop spending so much money then all the homeless activist grifters will leave and so will the "homeless" that are here only to get a payout and buy their drugs.
That might be true, but there are plenty of drug addicts and mentally ill people in West Virginia (#1 in per capita overdose deaths and well above CA/NY/etc in suicides) and yet West Virginia has a pretty low rate of homelessness (roughly 1/5th CA's and 1/8th NY's) so that's clearly not the explanation.
> No. They are 98% drug addicts or mentally ill people.
Drug addicts and mentally ill people can be down-on-their luck. That somebody is mentally ill or have an addiction does not mean that society should discard them.
BTW addiction is very rarely the root cause of a wasted life. It's usually a failed coping strategy.
> It's well known that the money that gets given out attract more homeless people.
Homeless people are not infinite resource. You can solve homelessness on the country level, not only on the state level, and then it doesn't matter which state attracts more homeless people - because there's very few of them in the whole country.
> It's insane that left-wing governments think that spending MORE money will solve the problem when in fact it is the cause of the problem.
Poor countries in Eastern Europe does not have this problem. Maybe instead of pretending US is the whole world and if it can't deal with something - it's impossible to deal with it - try to listen to what people did elsewhere?
Knowledge is prerequisite for all else. Do pity the millions who will grow old before reading Ishiguro’s ‘The Remains of the Day’ - you too? Could you see its point?
Society is too large to see itself; someone must observe on our behalf. In this pursuit poesy may tell truth where ten thousand theses have honestly lied.
Upton Sinclair was not a meat processor.
It was clear 30 ish years ago to him how it would turn out.
It might be appalling but it should not be shocking.
15 more comments available on Hacker News
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.