San Francisco Passes a First-of-its-Kind Tax on Big Businesses To Help the Homeless (recode.net)

San Francisco voters passed a measure that has divided the tech community and sparked a national debate about the industry's responsibility to fix the city's homelessness crisis. From a report: The San Francisco Chronicle called the race at 60 percent in favor with 99 percent of the vote counted. Proposition C will raise the city's gross receipts tax by an average of .5 percent on annual gross receipts over $50 million that companies like Square, Lyft and Salesforce generate. The new funds will bring in an estimated $250 million to $300 million a year -- twice what the city currently spends on an annual basis to help the homeless in tech's de facto capital. The thousands of people living on San Francisco's streets serve as a daily reminder of economic inequality in a city that has one of the highest concentrations of billionaires in the nation. Earlier this year, a United Nations expert on housing called the living conditions of the homeless in the Bay Area "cruel" and "unacceptable." The decision to increase funding for the city's most needy is a victory for the local nonprofits behind the measure and their tech fairy godfather, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who, along with his company, has poured more than $7 million into the campaign in the month leading up to the election.

Comments

Take care of the homeless

[lgw]

Do a great job taking care of the homeless and your city will become a magnet for the homeless of the nation. If that's what you want, go for it. Cheaper to turn them all into Soylent Green, but, hey, democracy, and each city can have its own values.

Frankly, this is less odd and government-intrusive than most stuff SF does, and companies of course have the option of just excluding SF from their business if it's not worth the cost.

Re:HAHAH

[drinkypoo]

More corporate flight from California. Good.

It is good. These large employers do harm just by being large. It doesn't matter if we tax them to make them pay their fair share, or if they go somewhere else and become a problem somewhere else. They will be replaced rapidly enough, and they will not be missed. We have the talent.

California is one of the most expensive states

[rsilvergun]

in the Union. Always has been. Not because of taxes, but because people want to live there. The weather's fantastic. They get little or no natural disasters (occasional fire or mud slide, nothing like east coast gets). Great beaches. Lots of parks. And you've got tons and tons of amenities (great sports teams, Disney Land, fantastic schools, etc, etc).

We've had 40 years of offshoring and outsourcing. If the companies could leave they would have done so already. It's high time we Americans called their bluff. Wanna leave? Fine. Go. Door's right there. Don't let it hit you where the dog shoulda bit you. You can go home, but you can't take the ball. If you try, we'll eminent domain your ass. This is our country, and we're through letting you threaten us.