I stayed in Tenderloin and was shocked when walking back to hotel people having sex on the footpath in front of their tent, while a few tents down someone shooting up. Then what looked like a 14 year old (at most) prostitute soliciting at the corner.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the depths of the Philippines, and never saw anything that bad... and that was during a single stroll to the hotel!

Sure I do. I'm from picturesque, rural Montana. My first visit to LA in the 90s was quite shocking. But a war zone implies a level of lawlessness that doesn't apply. Most of what is going on, people using drugs, using the bathroom on the street, etc, it isn't good but it doesn't really affect you. In a war zone, you have high odds of being maimed or killed any second for no good reason. It's a poor analogy. I think the homelessness is a problem we need to desperately to address but this kind of militant rhetoric doesn't help at all. In fact for several decades here it has made things worse.