My petite SO made the mistake of parking in the wrong parking spot outside a verizon store next to Tenderloin and a homeless person chased her around our car trying to stab her with a screwdriver. In the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. And because it's sf, a couple guys saw what was happening and crossed the street to avoid getting involved, and the useless sf police took 8+ minutes to show up.
SF tolerates street trash acting up and acting out in ways real cities -- eg nyc -- simply don't.
I get off at the civic center bart station and coworkers are regularly worried about their safety.
I don't know what the solution is, but I don't care about them. It's fundamentally unreasonable to expect people to be unsafe walking around sf in the middle of the afternoon.
Then he spit on me.
I can't describe in words the pure unadulterated rage and anger I felt in that moment. I wanted to pulverize every single bone in his body, over and over again, until he was a bloody pulp. Until there was nothing left, except a blood stain on the ground. But I didn't. I turned the other cheek, but not for a pretty reason. I simply didn't want to get his blood on me.
It's hard to love someone that hates you and possibly wants to harm you, but I think that's the first step to solving the homeless problem in SF. Compassion is a difficult trait to master.
"street trash" is a particularly nasty way to refer to people. They might be mentally ill, drug-addicted, and perhaps criminal, but they're still human beings. Maybe, just maybe, if society treated people who find themselves at rock bottom with a bit of respect and compassion then they wouldn't end up in a situation where they chase women around cars with screwdrivers.
There's an interesting theory that suggests there's two different sorts of wealth - private wealth and public wealth. Private wealth is living in a nice house and driving a fancy car. Public wealth is living in a clean, beautiful community where it's safe to walk around without fear. If you want to be happy then both sorts of wealth are equally important.
Here's a tip; if someone is engaging in crime, they're a criminal. In this case it sounds like at least assault. This isn't a downtrodden Okie with his family in a hooptie trying to make ends meet until the Depression is over, it's a nutjob trying to attack someone with a lethal weapon.
There are reasons why people turn to crime. If we deal with those reasons before the crime happens then, in general, everyone is better off.
it's a nutjob trying to attack someone with a lethal weapon.
Someone who is dangerously insane probably shouldn't be living on the streets. They represent a danger to the public. It's clearly preferable that those people are given aid in whatever ways necessary so no one gets stabbed. That's the problem with looking down on these people and referring to them as trash - you put yourself in the position of thinking they shouldn't be helped at all, so you end up having to live with the threat they pose.
I would prefer to give aid to the poor women accosted and assaulted by this criminal, than give aid to the criminal. Life is full of choices.
Now therr might be people who had a good upbringing and education, no psychological issues and all opportunities in life but they still become criminals. These are generally corrupt politicians and bankers and asshole CEO's and such, NOT the kind of people who would be hurt by harsh anti-crime policy.
Just how anti-encryption laws don't hinder cruminals, only good-meaning activists and journalists, neither do harsh laws against crime help against actual crime. See how Denmark and other nordic countries treat criminals - they have extremely low crime rates as result.
Between me + SO, 9 years in nyc, 10 years in sf.
I wouldn't tolerate unleashed dogs begging for food, shitting in the streets and otherwise accosting strangers for no reason.
I refuse to tolerate this behavior from Human Beings.
Act like a human or cease to expect to be treated as one. (Mental illness aside, of course.)