‘Gut-wrenching’ videos of SF bike route populated by homeless spur debate
sfexaminer.com
sfexaminer.com
Some highlights:
- I've had to call the police about people who appeared to be dead sprawled out on the sidewalk of Market.
- When stopping at an intersection, a homeless woman laid on the hood of my car until I gave her $10.
- My wife had 'sticky stuff' thrown at the back of her head as she walked near the Tenderloin.
- I saw a family chased by a homeless guy with his pants down laughing, and yelling, "your kids ever see one of these?"
- I've seen several people defecating on the street, with really no shame or attempt to hide it.
- Both of my kids have been physically touched and yelled at (like, in their face) by homeless.
- I've lost count of the number of people I've seen shooting up or smoking crack.
I unfortunately know very little about homelessness. I donate money to shelters and programs because ... I don't know what else to do. I've tried talking to them to learn more, but everyone has been incomprehensible.
All that I know is that it makes me very sad to travel here. This city, which used to be one of my favorites, is in a sick state and at war with itself.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/01/30/18767847.php
It's like the system is broken and nobody there has the humanity to bother trying to fix it.
Perhaps the $200 million spent on the homeless attracts more homeless people to San Francisco.
It was stated in 2015[1] that there were 6686 homeless people in San Francisco. That seems low, but if it's even in the ballpark that means there is a lot of money spent per capita on the homeless there. It's no wonder there are so many of them.
From [1]:
> The most recent homeless count, conducted in January 2015, found 6,686 homeless people in the city. Seventy-one percent of people reported living in San Francisco when they became homeless, up from 61 percent in 2013. Just 10 percent said they were living outside California when they became homeless, and the remaining 19 percent were living in the state but not in the city.
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/What-San-Franciscans-k...
So 29% were homeless somewhere else and then decided SF was a better place to live as a homeless person. QED.
Don't you need to know how many people became homeless in ST and moved somewhere else in order to even attempt to draw some form of conclusion?
In general do homeless people continue living in the suburbs or do they move to cities?
What exactly to do you feel was QED'ed here?
E.g. a homeless man comes to San Francisco and lives on the streets. He gets temporary assistive housing but is kicked out for criminal activities after a month, and is back on the streets. Do you think that statistic captures him as an outsider homeless, or an insider?
There's a big continuum here, but it's rare for someone to have been living here and paying their bills for a couple years and then become homeless because they're kicked out by an evil landlord or whatever. And even when it happens, San Francisco is pretty dang effective at getting and keeping them off the streets.
That's sort of all besides the point, because the actual homeless people that people get angry at--that homeless woman setting up a tent to block my fire escape, and that homeless man who punched me in the head in broad daylight on Market Street--don't respond differently to interventions regardless of whether they are an insider or an outsider.
i dont belive the numbers either, but since san francisco was a place you came to just get by and have a good time for many decades. there are a lot of people who used to live on couches or had a squalid rent control from the 80s that got gentrified onto the street. or who got out of prison and everything they knew was gone. there are still leftovers kicking around that used to do odd jobs at the shipyard - i think that closed in the 60s.
but i can also guarantee you that the huge rows of busted up beige trailers with cardboard in the windows aren't locals. and they aren't here because they are getting handouts, but because there is a kind of under-economy of trash/scrap handling, prostitution, meth dealing, heroin, and barter on those sidewalks.
It wouldn't surprise me if so many homes were between tenants on any given day, but it would be shocking if so many homes went unoccupied for more than a month at a time.
Census data
"Man, I used to really enjoy my morning bike ride, and it was nice the way the highway gave gave me cover from the elements when it rains - but with all these poor people seeking shelter here is a really downer. Not a great way to start of the morning. Can't we make them move into the field or out of the way or something? It's kinda selfish of them to set up right here in my bike lane. My tax dollars paid for this highway - I bet they don't even pay taxes... And what if someone runs into one of them and gets hurt? You can't sue them for the bike repairs, they don't even have any money. They're like someone driving without car insurance, totally irresponsible! The city needs to do something about this."
While clearly satire, It's amazing how much the focus really seems to be on the perception of people being homeless, or the chance of a biker being hurt, rather than actually on any of the people living there.
There can be no bike path, or public transit, or public park anywhere in San Francisco until poverty is eradicated globally? That's equally absurd.
Homeless shelters, mental health services, and bike paths are all responsibilities of local government.
i see a lot of homeless encampments in sf. by my home, right next to my shop, and all the way in-between (down chavez, the strip written about in this article). at least 50 people in that 1 mile stretch.
homelessness has been an issue in sf for quite a while. but i think there has been a qualitative turn. the homeless used to try to find a place out of the way, where they could stay unmolested as long as possible. camps got bigger, were busted up, and everyone moved on.
today, they are going out of their way to put themselves front and center. yesterday, when trying to chase away three tents that suddenly appeared on the sidewalk right outside my front door, i was told that this was public property, and that i can call the police all i want. which of course i did to no effect.
suddenly the encampment down the block, with the concomitant human waste, snaring dogs, asphalt fires, and all manner of detritus needs to be crossed to get into my shop and there is apparently nothing to be done about it. public works comes out a couple times a week to collect trash and spray down the street.
i was already used to dealing with hugo, whose been living on the our street for a couple years - passed out in the doorway from huffing paint. he's really an ok guy. he steals power from us and sells bikes assembled from stolen parts. and old crazy bill that parks in front of the shop and yells and threatens people. all the tweaked out scrappers. that used to be what you put up with for light industrial space. but it was stable.
today, its pretty hard to even drive down the street with all the tents and dogs and stolen bikes lying around.
there are easily 3 acres underneath the highway where people can live, and have for decades. but now its some kind of occupation, a ticketless burning man. a giant middle finger to anyone that can afford to have a home.
I roll my eyes every time somebody self righteously points out that 'we should all feel really bad for these poor people'. Enough is enough. I refuse to talk to them anymore, I will never give money to a panhandler again. I'm going to carry pepper spray for when(not if) I have an altercation with one. I know many people who have.
Don't know the solution to this but the typical progressive answers "universal basic income" and "free housing" are laughably naive in this context. Who is going to volunteer to have the apartment complex full of babbling lunatic druggies in their neighborhood?