San Francisco has a homelessness epidemic that is both heartrending and a threat to public health, and it has only worsened for decades, and continues to get worse even now.
There are many different factors behind this crisis, but one incontrovertible fact looms over every explanation: there isn't anywhere for homeless people to live, and housing is the most reliable solution to homelessness.
Accordingly, the city of San Francisco's Prop C is proposing to tax its giant, super-profitable, tax-avoiding tech companies (with gross turnover exceeding $50m) to build housing for 4,000 homeless people.
While some tech companies (like Salesforce) have backed the measure, Lyft and Stripe have made major contributions to fund the No-on-C campaign being run by the Chamber of Commerce's PAC.
Lyft's CEO calls the company "woke" and it is often positioned as "fair trade Uber," an ethical alternative to the Ayn-Rand-inspired performative cruelty of Uber and its management. But Lyft's major investor is the human monster and Trump ally Peter Thiel who believes women shouldn't be allowed to vote and thinks that "democracy is incompatible with freedom," and every dime Lyft makes enriches Thiel and gives him more money to spend on achieving his apocalyptic extremist agenda.
“We happen to believe, and a lot of donors to the No on C campaign believe, that over-taxation that is disproportionate can jeopardize jobs in San Francisco,” Lazarus told me. Mayor London Breed also came out strongly against the measure, trumpeting the same rationale — jobs, jobs, jobs.Yet an economic impact report by the San Francisco City Controller cast doubt on those claims, finding the overall impacts to jobs would negligible, amounting to a 0.1 percent difference in The City’s job market and gross domestic product over the next 20 years. The controller also found the measure “will likely reduce homelessness.”
Up to 4,000 people homeless in San Francisco could be housed under the measure, and 1,000 new shelter beds would be built in the next five years.
One person who believes in “Our City, Our Home” is Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, as he and Salesforce are backing Prop. C to the tune of $2.5 million.
Lyft drops $100k against SF tax to fund housing for homeless [Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez/SF Examiner]
(via JWZ)
(Image: Grendelkhan, CC-BY-SA)
