San Francisco tech worker: 'I don't want to see homeless riff-raff'
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
You see, I was addicted to heroin, and basically homeless, for three years living in Vegas after my mom passed and I divorced.
My beautiful co-junkie girlfriend ODed and died, literally in my arms, in a room at the MGM Grand the first time she ever shot up. I thought she was doing meth like she always did. She was such an amazing soul and I still cry when I think of her and that horrible night.
I allowed a bunch of homeless "friends" to stay with me as I was blowing through my money. I fed them all the time; gave them money for dope sometimes.
Several of them ended up robbing me for money, clothes, computers etc etc. I ended up in the Tunnels for about 6 months before I could finally get out of town.
I finally kicked cold-turkey on the floor of a county jail medical cell back here in Florida as I had missed court dates and had warrants. This was 5 years ago and I have worked hard to pull my life back together.
Before this, my 5yo daughter was physically grabbed by a homeless person in the streets of downtown Chicago, off Michigan Ave., and to this day she still talks of the fear she felt that day.
Who knows what could have happened if I wasn't 6'3" and prison-hardened from the 22 months I did for selling MDMA in 2001?
So I feel I see all sides of this situation from real experience. It's hard writing this because I try not to remember all that garbage and pain.
I think this guy has the right to express himself and his fears without being knee-jerk dogpiled by the offense mobs, but that's just me.
[edits]
You’re never really out of the woods, but you get better at finding your way out and choosing not to venture too deep.
I said something similar only a couple days ago. Then I realized, that's not what I want; what I want is for the pain and hurt to stop. What a long coming revelation that was.
It takes time. Like what @evincarofautumn said, you get stronger. Never forget where you come from. Efforts count. Collect some useful tools. You might try http://www.7cupsof tea.com
However i'd like to point out that such articles come about, even if it's not expressed directly, less because the homeless are victims. It is because an entire people, homeless as well as citizens are the victims here. The following is harsh, but there is no other way to put it without compromising the reality: The victims here are the homeless people for being abandoned by their government, as well as the average citizen for being abandoned along with the homeless. There is no reason that homeless people should have to fend for their live on the street, with little to no hope of reintegration; nor that average citizens should have to live in a city where their safety is endangered because homeless people do not receive adequate reintegration efforts.
There are known and proven ways to handle this problem, while simultaneously improving the lives of every single citizen, homeless and not homeless. Look to Europe.
And until the american governments can agree to implement these, homeless will have no choice but to do and take what they can get, average citizen will need to be very aware of their safety, and news outlets will write confused articles like this.
Contemplate those who abuse their children, spouses or others were often abused themselves. It's natural to want those elements removed from society and I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking that way, however the nuanced view is to consider the problem like a virus spreading. How do you contain it, how do you prevent it, how do you treat it, what is innate in people that makes them susceptible to spreading this social calamity? You can ask the big questions, or dig a big pit and throw the problem in there - hoping it won't come back to haunt you.
With that said: where the life or well-being of a single person isn't worth much, in subtle ways everybody suffers. You aren't truly rich if you're dodging the hungry and homeless in your luxury car, or walled up from the desperate and deranged.
... why is he free to express himself, but people who disapprove of him aren't? It's not like they're setting fire to his house or stealing his dog. He can say what he likes, other people can say what they like.
Here's the deal, Mr. Keller: I don't want to see homeless people in SF any more than you do. But, I'd rather we help them not be homeless rather than sweep them away like so much sidewalk trash. People become homeless for a variety of reasons: job loss, addiction, mental illness, criminal record, etc. Homelessness becomes a trap, because it's really hard to get a job, get sober, get competent medical care, etc. when you're homeless. These things can be done, but it takes a certain amount of skill to navigate the web of bureaucracy necessary to get any help.
Some people don't want help, and that's sad, but we live in a society where we can't force these things on people. One of the tragedies of homelessness is that it's really, really damn difficult to help them-- even the ones who want help. I know this from experience.
But, still, rants like this are nothing but counterproductive. If you want to see fewer homeless on the street, try helping instead of ranting.
SF is 'trying' and isn't succeeding. Stop spending my unaccounted for tax dollars on this if it isn't going to solve the issue and is just going to make SF a mafia wife enabling the homeless.
Living in SF, I agree there is a problem. In fact there are two.
1) There are the schizophrenics who need some help (but nobody knows exactly what or how).
2) And there is the unfortunate reality of downtown: - smells of piss - no public bathrooms (because they become campsites) - escalators break on public transportation often because people excrement on them - trashcans get dumped out so people can find cans for recycling - people walking across certain busy streets ignoring traffic - various campsites especially in soma
I don't think this has to be an either-or issue. Helping the homeless is not an opposite of keeping downtown clean. I seem to notice people giving up on the latter though because they assume that the only way to do so is to blame the former, which is a no-no.
I don't see too much wrong with that. If someone's living on the streets because they like it, more power to 'em. As far as services go, it's almost a logical consequence of having them that a certain few are going to abuse them. I'd rather accept that than have people who truly need and want help not get it.
But then that's it -- out of the homeless people who genuinely prefer that lifestyle, does that negatively impact other people? And it's hard to answer that, because I think a lot of the discomfort about homeless people surrounds people defecating on the sidewalk, people asking for money, and the mentally ill yelling obscenities and freaking people out... etc.
So the the question becomes: if we could help the people who do not want to be homeless, including those who have mental health issues, and get them off the streets and into places where they can heal, what would be left? If the remainder is just people who like the homeless lifestyle, would that be ok? Would non-homeless people feel comfortable with that? I don't know the answer to that, even on a personal level.
Not news, not for hackers, not tech, not startups.
This article is purely about trying to perpetuate class warfare.
I think if you had played your political cards closer and left out that last sentence, you wouldn't have gotten downvoted so quickly; as it stands, you allowed your comment to be a proxy vote for whether inequality is an important issue.
If only they were more concerned with class warfare within the British Isles than mocking the rest of the world's politics.
But my parents are visiting me from abroad in a few months (I've lived in the Bay Area for about 5 years now), and I'm legitimately afraid something dumb will happen. I usually just walk fast around town, pre emptively avoiding people who seem to be in a universe of their own (and I'm a pretty tall/wide guy, so i've never had a problem fending off loud/obnoxious people when they confront me individually), but my parents will be in leisure visitor mode, and I don't want my mom to have to deal with a coked up naked guy yelling at her.
Is that entitled? Yeah, maybe. But I'm not mad at the homeless people - I feel for them. I'm mad at the politicians of SF, who can't properly give a support network to the mentally ill in our streets. Other major world cities aren't in the state of disarray that SF is, so it seems like something that can largely be improved on.
It's a terribly stupid letter.
But it's also pretty silly that we're paying attention to it. It's self-evidently stupid.
Mom asked the cop what was going on and he said "You can't go this way, we're investigating a multiple homicide".
Oops. Mom still brings that up nearly 2 decades later.
Wow, what a real piece of work this guy. He honestly believes the most offensive thing in his post is him calling them "riff-raff".
He also earned being called a nitwit.
I'm at the top 10% income earners in a wealthy country and I don't feel think I've necessarily earned it more than the other 90% of the population. I lucked out. I had loving parents that guided me and pushed me to have an education. I don't suffer from any mental or physical disease. Seriously, going to school to get a degree and learning on my own how to build software systems, that's the easy part and wouldn't have been possible if I didn't have the luck of being born in the right social circumstances and with the right biology traits (health and smarts).
If one's own parents labored and suffered to create value and provide for their child, does that child not deserve to enjoy the fruits of that labor? If that child honors their parents by continuing a tradition of hard work, albeit more comfortably, why does he need to feel ashamed of his success? At which generation do we disinherit the sacrifices of those who came before us?
There's a difference between not feeling ashamed and feeling entitled to it and superior to the others that didn't inherit those fruits.
But, hey, Internet. Used to be you'd just write cranky letters that the Chronicle interns would auto-bin; today, you can catch the international media's attention, become the poster boy for clueless gentrification, and feed your startup's reputation into the dumpster fire, all in a few hours. Truly an age of miracles and wonders.
It seems like the motivation for the article is to call attention to a stereotypical "tech bro". Is "tech bro" in common usage?
I guess I didn't realize that appending "bro" to create a pejorative term has become so common.
You could do the same thing by changing "Tech Worker" to "White Man," that is: pick some group he belongs to and try to blame the whole for his callous delivery.
http://programmingisterrible.com/post/50421878989/come-here-...
Sure he's been exposed to some obscene behavior and perhaps mentally unstable homeless people, but I don't think he has considered that there is undoubtedly thousands of otherwise normal people in very unfortunate circumstances that don't deserve to be lumped with "those people".
> "Charity is the drowning of rights in the shithole of mercy." -- Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
People have the right to a fair shot at life. When that is achieved, we will not have "done good", we will merely have ceased to do atrocious evil. By which I don't mean to knock generosity and volunteering at all, I really hope my reply doesn't come across that way. Of course it does a lot of good, for all involved parties, and every life saved and every meal or even smile given counts. I still would call it a workaround rather than a solution, in the context of "mercy vs. rights", but it's a workaround that doesn't keep us from looking into long-term fixing of things, so I don't mean it as a "yes, but", but really as an addition.
Psychotic and not uncommonly violent people are attacking citizens apparently everyday for the past decade? Suck it up!
I think this would be a better link than the OP as the OP is an interpretation of the original work.
While its clearly a shitty blog post, it seems like his concern is largely stemming from the number of altercations he personally experienced and the Guardian is interpreting it much harsher than is truly necessary.
Shitty blog posts happen but private blogs shouldn't be attacked by a news publication so blatantly.
Maybe so, but how much do you want to bet that blog post comes down within the next few days?
Better?
yeah, the post is not great, but writing a news article about it is a bit petty.
Plus, he has a point regarding what happened during the Super Bowl.
Also, if it hasn't been posted elsewhere: https://medium.com/@jimatdeltaco/open-letter-to-a-guy-who-wr...
This name surprised me.
I assume it's a fake name for the reporter, or at least, unrelated to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McC... .