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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael Visitors from Germany are regularly shocked by the number of homeless people hanging around in San Francisco. It has become normal for them to set up tents right in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing regular pedestrians to walk on the street. And the police don't even come anymore when someone randomly smashes car windows to rummage inside for something of value; this has become as much a part of the cityscape as the Cable Car. Recently, we saw someone in the middle of the city selling a whole stack of vacuum-sealed meat from the supermarket out of his coat.
San Francisco spends $305 million annually on an estimated number of 7,500 homeless people. Now, Left-liberal voices aren't getting tired of emphasizing that one should by no means do the math and determine the alarming expenditure of more than $40,000 per homeless person per year, but rather take into account that the city also uses the money to pay the rent for people who would otherwise slip into homelessness.
In my opinion, the problem is that those responsible do not have to account for the fact that the problem gets worse every year. Why do they present higher homelessness numbers each year despite annual expenditures in the hundreds of millions? There is simply a lack of uncovering misconduct and holding people accountable, both the failures in the city administration and the homeless who, despite offered help, continue to make their living through burglaries.
The topic is, of course, endlessly discussed, and last year someone came up with the hot idea of throwing even more money at the problem—maybe it will get better! However, there was nothing in the city coffers, but in recent years, wealthy internet companies like Salesforce and Twitter have settled in the downtown area, and they are swimming in money! As always in such cases of financial shortage, San Francisco lets the citizens decide, and their voting behavior is 100% predictable when it comes to taking money from wealthy people or companies, as long as it doesn't cost them anything personally.
Badda-bing-badda-boom, on November 6 (along with the Midterm elections) in San Francisco, there was a vote on Prop C, and about 60% of the voters voted 'Yes'. From now on, companies with over 50 million in annual revenue must contribute between 0.175% and 0.69% to the homelessness fund, and large companies with over 1 billion in revenue must donate 1.5% of their payroll costs. If you're thinking 'Taxing revenue is madness, why not tax profit?', I completely agree with you.
This is, however, not yet the end of the story, because as soon as the vote was over, prompt reactions followed. legal concerns regarding Prop C surfaced. According to California's constitution, tax increases decided by a public vote require a two-thirds majority. Consequently, a tax association promptly filed a lawsuit with the California Supreme Court, and now the matter is on hold. The companies do have to pay the levy, which is supposed to funnel a total of 250 to 300 million dollars into the homelessness fund, but the city is not allowed to spend any of it until the matter is legally resolved. I wouldn't hold my breath for that long.
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