San Fransicko

I'm a huge fan of Apocalypse Never so I was quite interested by the premise of this book as well. It goes against the popular believes, yet somehow makes perfect sense.

Main idea of the book is that we should focus on treating mental illness, building as many shelters as possible, and cleaning up open-air drug markets. De-institutionalisation of mental illness and housing-first initiatives are the root of homelessness. There's also the problem of misaligned incentives where the homelessness nonprofits whole intention is to keep more people in this cycle, because they're getting money for it.

And now a long quote:
How and why do progressives ruin cities?
They divert funding from homeless shelters to permanent supportive housing, resulting in insufficient shelter space. They defend the right of people they characterize as Victims to camp on sidewalks, in parks, and along highways, as well as to break other laws, including against public drug use and defecation. They intimidate experts, policy makers, and journalists by attacking them as being motivated by a hatred of the poor, people of color, and the sick, and as causing violence against them. They reduce penalties for shoplifting, drug dealing, and public drug use. They prefer homelessness and incarceration to involuntary hospitalization for the mentally ill and addicted. And their ideology blinds them to the harms of harm reduction, Housing First, and camp-anywhere policies, leading them to misattribute the addiction, untreated mental illness, and homeless crisis to poverty and to policies and politicians dating back to the 1980s.

It could be about half the size, since I find many chapters repetitive. But all in all a very good book and I can truly recommend it.