So do you have evidence that most SF homeless are immigrants?
Many people have psychological problems, and/or dependence on various psychoactive drugs. And perhaps they do correlate with homelessness. But correlation does not prove causation. Maybe it's just that homelessness makes it all worse.
By the city's 2017 San Francisco Homeless Count &
Survey, most either were already homeless when then arrived in the city (31%) or became homeless after being here less than 10 years (another 31%, see page 22).
The claim is that homeless (and borderline homeless) people are already attracted to San Francisco, and that making it more attractive isn't going to solve the problem while there are near-unlimited reserves of more homeless people in the rest of the country.
All cities attract homeless people to a greater or lesser extent. It's easier to blend in and live off the system's detritus in a large city than in a rural area or small town, if you don't have any friends or family willing to support you.
Let's be clear, you're arguing against data by waving your hands. Then using your "they're not from here" assertion to justify the city not dealing with the problem. Then suggesting that the Federal government should do this without talking about how that could possibly happen.
I'm pointing out that the demand for housing in any city is elastic; if you house the current 6,000 homeless without addressing the systemic problems, more arrive to take their place and you're back where you started.
Rich European countries which have solved this problem don't do it by putting all the homeless in Paris or Berlin. They're distributed throughout urban, suburban, and rural areas of the country, which is what we need to do.
It sounds like you haven't really gotten to know many homeless people. If you did, you'd realize that what they typically need is not a job but something more like basic income - food and shelter, which can be more easily provided in a place that's not the most expensive city in America.
If you want to see what cheap housing and food without economic opportunity go to rural West Virginia. It doesn't work well. The first steps you describe need to be followed by incorporating people back into the economy.
The natural tendency of a competitive (capitalist) economy is to exclude a subset of people. The "economy" is the cause of homelessness, not the solution. The solution has to come from outside the economy.
My meaning was outside the capitalist system of exchanging services for goods. Many, many people need goods and have no meaningful services to exchange. The idea that we need to cram all of these people in the most dense and expensive centers of capitalist activity is ludicrous and harmful.
I'm not sure how one defines "already homeless" before arrival. Maybe something like "had been homeless before". But maybe they were hoping to do better in SF. But even so, from a sister post,[0] I get that 71% became homeless after moving to SF. So yes, it's arguable that ~30% of SF homeless are immigrants. I guess that they like the weather too.
Still, deportation doesn't seem like a viable option.
> I'm not sure how one defines "already homeless" before arrival.
Shipping homeless and/or mentally ill to other locations is a thing that's been done by a number of jurisdictions, more than once over an extended period of time with San Francisco as the destination.
"According to Didenko and Pankratz (2007), two-thirds of homeless people report that drugs and/or alcohol were a major reason for their becoming homeless."
Many people have psychological problems, and/or dependence on various psychoactive drugs. And perhaps they do correlate with homelessness. But correlation does not prove causation. Maybe it's just that homelessness makes it all worse.