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Yeah, I lived in the Tendernob neighborhood of SF for almost 10 years. I’d always pass by a lot of what you’re talking about...

- At one point I did a lot of walking there and to keep myself entertained I started tracking PPM (poops per mile)

- one day I walked by a woman peeing between two cars, and she noticed me & apologized. Later I walked back that same route and saw her again. She thanked me for not yelling at her, as she had no where else to go :(

- one day while walking to work, a guy facing away from me pulled down his pants and leaned over. I had to dodge what he launched out the backside. It was maybe the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen.

- I gave a beer to a homeless guy, and he chugged it & threw the can into the street. I asked him why he didn’t put it in the trash can right next to us, and he explained that he didn’t want the tiny Asian women who forage for recyclables to get stabbed by the needles in the trash cans, and that one of them would be along to get the can shortly. Sure enough, less than 5 minutes later, a woman pushing a shopping cart full of cans walked by, picked up the beer can, and continued on.

I've peed in a bush in SF. I didn't want to, but that's what happens when you have humans with bladders and zero public restrooms.

I tried to not pee in the bush. I asked around, went to a few grab and go restaurants, a gas station, but none had a public bathroom. My only option was to wait in line and pay cover to get into a bar, wait in line at the high end restaurants in the area, drive across town to Denny's for a cheaper pee, or drive 45 minutes to a saner city. I peed all over that bush, with a grin, as a fuck you to the idiocy of whoever decided to force me, and everyone else, to do it.

My trick is to walk into a random shop, drop some change in the tip jar, and then ask to use the restroom. I’ve never been turned down. Sure, I don’t want to pay to pee, but they have to clean it at their own expense, so I don’t mind chipping in.

Hotels, hospitals and restaurants with long waiting lines.

The S.F bathroom problem is that heroin addicts go into bathrooms, they lock the door, they pass out, and die or have a psychotic break and break everything they can or smear shit all over the walls and then the store is liable for the wrongful death or they have to clean it up.

The bathroom problem is because there is a ban on charging for toilets, nothing more, nothing less.

Most businesses would be happy to have another (minor) profit center, and most people would be happy to pay. There used to be lots available for a small fee. Instead, we get no public toilets at all because it is illegal to charge, and businesses decline to operate them at a loss. Your description is of the symptom, not the cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...

If they had a charge for using the toilets, that would keep severely mentally ill homeless people and junkies from using them, so you are partially right.

...just as they are kept from using them now, along with everyone else, too.

True. In fact...

An elderly woman got evicted from the Tendernob apartment building that I lived in. Every night around 5p, she’d walk into the building, right past security, and into the bathroom. She’d lock the door and spend the entire night in there.

Australia here, Sydney. I would have assumed free public toilets are a government service, like they are here, in parks and train stations and dotted through the inner city on main streets. Are there no public toilets in the US?

The majority of toilets in the US, and all of the nice/good/clean ones, are on private property (businesses, et c). Any that are free to use for all get quickly destroyed.

California (the topic) has some of the highest taxes in the US, but some of the lowest levels of government services provided.

Hmm thanks. That's not good!

I have never had trouble finding a toilet in the 30 or so states I've been to. But I've never been to the west coast, so maybe things are different out there.

Fascinating. Looks like the original motivation for the campaign was the fact that loose change was required as payment, and not really any highbrow philosophy beyond that? This should be an easily solvable problem by now (though judging by the number of quarter-only parking meters around I’m not so sure).

That's fine as long as everyone recognizes this as a conscious, intentional, decision to put the waste in the streets/foliage. Pooping isn't a choice, after all.

Holy Mother, the US put men in the moon but couldn't build some public toilets and now their streets are minefields? Now a small step for man can be just a big mess to clean later.

Calling this "the US" is incorrect. SF is not "the US" and hardly reflects the country in most ways, though carries a ridiculous amount of influence.

> - I gave a beer to a homeless guy, and he chugged it & threw the can into the street. I asked him why he didn’t put it in the trash can right next to us, and he explained that he didn’t want the tiny Asian women who forage for recyclables to get stabbed by the needles in the trash cans, and that one of them would be along to get the can shortly. Sure enough, less than 5 minutes later, a woman pushing a shopping cart full of cans walked by, picked up the beer can, and continued on.

There's something unsettling about this story that I can't quite put my finger on.

Like why didn't he just leave the can next to the trash can? I've saw trash cans in Germany with bottles ringed around them and was told that it was to make it easier for people that collected the deposits.

If there are that many needles it sounds like more needle disposal receptacle are needed

For me, it's all about the jarring contrasts in a fleeting encounter between distant social classes. The guy's homeless along with thousands of others in one of the richest and most technologically advanced regions of one of the world's richest countries. Actively throwing litter into the street comes off as antisocial, until it's revealed to be motivated by empathy for his fellow destitute community members. That woman spends her waking hours collecting empty cans and avoiding needle-stick injuries on the streets of a city in which other people who aren't so different from her spend their time rearranging electrons in very specific ways that entitle them to safe and secure housing, as well as food, drink, and information imported into their homes from across the world.

Friend of the family was on her way to her HS Prom at City Hall at night with a few friends. Dressed to the nines, going to have a great time under the rotunda with her class.

A homeless guy came up to her and put something wet on her arm, directly in front of city hall. It was a lot of acid. She spent the next few days in the hospital recovering/surviving a very bad trip. She still deals with flashbacks, years later and doesn't go out at night. It was an assault, not violent, but much worse all the same.

It used to be just a 'don't go out after sundown' thing in SF. But now it's pretty much all hours of the day anywhere near Civic Center for women.

This sounds so implausible, I don't even know where to start.

First, LSD isn't the kind of a drug homeless people usually do. It has no addictive potential, and it doesn't give you a high. It isn't a "fun" drug, as opposed to the typical heroin/meth/etc. stuff those people do.

Second, LSD is usually distributed in the form of paper tabs. Why would they be wet?

Third, getting high from just skin contact, especially on your arm, is something I cannot find as possible after some googling. The only skin-contact-related use case I've found online is some people putting it on their eyes for faster absorption, but it is not the same as arm skin at all.

I am not accusing you of lying, I honestly believe that you are telling the story you were told by the friend of the family exactly as is. But I have a feeling that the reality was a bit different from what you have described, and I bet I can guess what it was.

My theory: she went to prom, did acid for the first time with her friends there, it ended up being too much and too intense, she got hospitalized, and then she made up that story for her parents. After all, who is gonna be able to track down and find a random non-descript homeless person?

> This sounds so implausible, I don't even know where to start.

Perhaps you should not have then.

I'm not lying, she's not either. Comments like these are why women find it hard talk about their assaults; they are not believed, mostly just accused.

Thanks for the comment.

> Comments like these

Like what? Questioning very hard to believe story?

Despite your incredulousness, I maintain my account's truthfulness.

Thank you for your comment.

>Comments like these are why women find it hard talk about their assaults

How does it have anything to do with women? My arguments would stay exactly the same, regardless if the person in question was a man or a woman or neither. In my eyes it isn't about women lying, it is about high schoolers making up excuses in front of their parents to get out of consequences of irresponsible drug/alcohol usage.

And I even explicitly said that I don't think you were lying, you were truthfully retelling a story you were told. I just doubt the source.

I have explicitly listed factual problems I see with this story. None of which had anything to do with the person in question, but rather the physical properties of the drug and the fact that LSD isn't the kind of a drug that homeless people typically use.

I am addressing factual things, while you simply snark me and segway into a "believe female survivors of sexual assault" argument. Quite literally nothing is similar about those two things, and conflating them as even remotely similar only does injustice to assault survivors and their traumatic experiences.

This was a very good analysis. A fourth point is that drug users rarely give away their hard earned drugs to strangers.

Op is so ridiculous. At start I thought it was burning acid so yeah that would be pretty bad. But your comment made me understand it was about lsd and lol no way this is true.

I'm also a non resident, but with connections in SF. Thus I've been there maybe a month of my life. It's the strangest place I've ever been to:

- I would reliably meet someone who was talking to themselves, out loud, every day. Not an exaggeration. I think my combined count of seeing this in my other 40 years is something like 5.

- A guy pooped in front of me. Just pulled his pants down, revealing more pants, pulled those down, then pooped. Didn't seem to care.

- I bought too much to eat at a Mexican place. As I was paying at the till, a barefoot lady walked in shouting something incoherent, went to my leftovers, and poured them into a plastic bag she was carrying. Then she left.

- Parks that are full of homeless people. Tent cities right in the middle of town.

- All this is mixed in with stunning views, beautiful homes, and normal looking parks.

It's not normal, something needs to be done about the awfulness.

> This was my third time in SF.

> Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley

> The author is in denial.

> it is a really expensive shithole

I'm always amazed by people who have visited a place a few times as a tourist and think "I'm qualified to shit on people who choose to live here". What makes you think you have any say in the situation?

SF has massive neighborhood diversity as far as living situations go. Yeah, the downtown and tourist areas suck. So what? That's the case in a ton of cities. I've lived in a neighborhood here for 7 years that has low crime, no shit on the streets, and is generally a great place to live.

Yeah, we've got a shit DA right now which hurts the city with increased petty crimes. We'll turn it around eventually.

I lived in San Francisco for 15 years, and it’s getting pretty nasty in some places. When ever I meet someone who’s visited San Francisco, almost without exception, they comment on the homeless problem. The problem is SF is so bad you can’t help but comment on it because you’ve likely never experienced anything like it elsewhere in the USA. Who wants to visit a city where the first thing you experience is aggressive panhandling and streets covered in poop?

>What makes you think you have any say in the situation?

He doesn't have a say, but that doesn't mean he can't have valid opinions as an outsider with a more unbiased perspective.

To be clear I've lived in SF Bay Area for 10+ years and I've also traveled extensively/lived in other world class cities.

SF really is a more expensive shithole. It doesn't mean there aren't any charms but anyone who doesn't acknowledge SF's shortfalls vs. other top cities is in complete denial.

Being an outsider has nothing to do with being unbiased. Those are entirely orthogonal. And frankly, that commenters bias was pretty evident, regardless.

Because we walk around our own cities for YEARS and see less of this then we do on a random walk on a single day.

SF is a very densely populated place, so that shouldn't be a surprise (if you live in NYC, I don't believe you).

Lots of people have visited SF as well as more densely populated places both in the US and elsewhere.

So have I - and downtown SF is worse (in terms of littering, human excrement, aggressive panhandling, street crime) than the problematic parts of NYC, DC, Philly and Baltimore, worse than densely populated capitals in Latin America or East Asia or Eastern Europe. It's better than Indian cities but that is a very low bar for one of the world's richest cities.

I sort of doubt that you've spent much time in the most problematic parts of DC/Philly/Baltimore. Their peers are Chicago, New Orleans, and St. Louis. Not remotely SF.

Just curious, what are you doing to turn it around? I don't think it's fair to use the collective "we" in this case unless you're actively working to solve these problems. Otherwise it comes off as incredibly dismissive.

Voting, contributing to campaigns, some volunteering around prop times. Though I'll admit I haven't done much around the recall of our DA outside of donating. I should be doing more there.

I'm also active in my neighborhood in my own way, trying to get people together for events (think trivia, bar game tournaments, etc). Though of course this has limited during covid.

I think your comment is kinda rude, though. Even if all I was doing was voting, I think I'd still qualify to talk on the issues. Anything more is gatekeeping.

I simply asked, didn't suggest you weren't doing things. Please read my comment carefully--I specifically tried to be careful not to imply anything. I asked because I think participating locally is the only real answer, so kudos.

Have the candidates you voted for won any of the elections? Or would your candidates have done differently than the currently elected officials?

Many people blame government but think their own representation is fine.

California has huge problems with affordable housing and homelessness but their left-leaning residents and politicians seem ineffective against the problem. One would think that left-leaning governments would solve these problems more effectively.

For example, why is the governor of California issuing refunds of a surplus budget when throes of mentally ill and drug addicted citizens swarm the streets with no effective assistance or clean area to defecate? It is appalling to say the least.

Some of my candidates I've supported have won. Some I've liked once in office, some I haven't. Some I've voted for again, some I've voted out. Can't win them all. Just have to keep trying.

Sorry my efforts aren't good enough, I guess?

> SF has massive neighborhood diversity as far as living situations go. Yeah, the downtown and tourist areas suck.

The fact that you needed to say that says a lot. While describing most cities of the world, most third world country cities of the world, you would never even mention the word feces, much less defend its presence on the streets.

And in most cities I haven't had to bribe a cop, like the one time I went to Mexico.

And in most cities I haven't heard the result of an acid attack outside of my hotel lobby, like one of the times I've visited London.

I'd take feces over those examples any day. And yet, I'm not going to shit on those places, because I was a tourist. I get that some places, especially some tourist and downtown areas, are more dangerous than others. And I get that my tourist experience doesn't necessarily reflect the day-to-day of normal residents.

Comparing acid attacks in London to San Francisco's problems is like comparing plane crashes to car crashes. The former is worse per occurrence and gets more attention, but the latter is much, much more common and so worse overall.

You've missed my point entirely.

My point is that just because I heard an acid attack outside my hotel in London, it does not make me qualified to criticize London or those who choose to live there.

Just as someone who visited SF a few times and saw some feces (etc) is not qualified to criticize SF or those who choose to live here.

Right, but if you heard an acid attack outside of your hotel three visits in a row, it’d be a different story.

I’ve spent six years in the Bay (SF and Berkeley), and the unfortunate truth is that the feces, homelessness, and public drug use have become prominent features of today’s SF.

Yes but then you ask people you know whether xyz thing is common, and it turns out the tent cities are permanent, and in fact everyone runs into people who need psychological help each day.

Nobody will tell you that London has an acid attack problem. I've lived here for years and heard about it maybe once on the news. Everyone will tell you SF has an issue with homelessness/mental health, and they've seen it with their own eyes.

> My point is that just because I heard an acid attack outside my hotel in London, it does not make me qualified to criticize London or those who choose to live there.

Yes it does. People are allowed to have opinions and express them. I've never been to SF, but I can just tell from what I've seen on sites like this that I would hate it. You can feel otherwise and that's fine, but other people will judge SF for their inaction on issues like ubiquitous homelessness.

"The fact that you needed to say that says a lot. While describing most cities of the world, most third world country cities of the world, you would never even mention the word feces, much less defend its presence on the streets."

Actually, you might ... I distinctly remember the unaddressed stray dog problem in Buenos Aires (circa 2006) which was not confined to any particular neighborhood or area and resulted in a more feces per block than I have ever seen in San Francisco.

I remember a similar but less pronounced problem in Granada (Spain) where I lived for several months in 2008.

Ive lived in SF for years. It’s exactly like this

It’s not just downtown, It’s not like this in any cities at all

Get out more, and stop living in denial.

Sounds like someone (with a random handle and a 20-minute-old account) who spent ten minutes in the Tenderloin and thinks they're an authority on the entire Bay Area and California in general.

I'm pretty sure there are awful terrible neighborhoods in Dallas and Houston and other places in Texas, too. Let's not be absurdly reductive.

Nor does this have anything at all to do with people moving out of SF, of course: that's being driven by economic forces and the fact that the workers in question now have the freedom to work remotely from anywhere in the world, including all the various places where real estate costs 50-80% less than in SF.

SF's areas of poverty are mixed in with the highly visited areas and aren't really getting gentrified. Its easy to make a wrong turn. When you lived in NY did you go north of 110th st or further east then williamsburg?

I've lived in both SF and north of 110th street in NYC. I frequently visit tough parts of Bedstuy. There is absolutely no comparison - the worst parts of SF is much more dangerous than the worst parts of NYC. Expensive shithole is an appropriate description.

A google search says in 2019 there were 41 murders in sf and 99 in brooklyn. though idk where to find crime by neighborhood. seems pretty equal when you account for population

Murder is not the only crime. I, and a bunch of my friends, have been attacked (punched, followed home, etc) by homeless people in SF. This has never happened to any of us anywhere else, and we are a group who travels a lot to a lot of cities, including internationally. I didn't report it to the police when I was sucker punched in the stomach by a homeless guy who ran away afterwards, because I barely saw him and what would the police do? It would just be a waste of my time. Another friend was beaten so badly he had to go to the hospital, but the police did nothing after he reported it.

What point are you trying to make here? What is any cop going to do anywhere in that situation? You need to be aware of where to go and where not to.

2019 Kings county - Aggravated Assault - 9,221

2019 SF - Aggravated Assault - 2,514

https://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/indexcrimes/...

https://sfgov.org/scorecards//public-safety/violent-crime-ra...

SF has an abundance of shit, for sure, but it's nowhere near as dangerous as NYC. From my own experience, I concur that "in New York, trouble finds you."[0]

[0]https://youtu.be/agvzE91Xfek?t=77

Strong disagree, in fact I'd say that apart from Bayview, all of SF is safe, there's just lots of property crime, which I'll grant is shitty. North of 110th St? All of Manhattan's been safe for some time now. 110th St isn't even a little iffy. There are parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx that are no-go zones that have no comparison in SF. If you want screwed up, you have to go to Oakland (and boy is it... Oaktown does it all).

The Bishop of Oakland was robbed at gunpoint while walking near the Paramount Theatre just this past Saturday.

> Also, I've always refused to move to Silicon Valley, despite working in tech. I don't regret it.

It’s much nicer, if you can stand suburbia, and more technology oriented than SF, which used to simply be the Valley’s bedroom community.

Have you been to Detroit? The blight and violent crime are are far beyond San Francisco. Less feces and needles though.

When I lived in India I saw the following...the image will always stay with me and has really changed me. In Bangalore (Koramangala) where I was living was an area filled with very rich people (like western standards rich) who had massive houses, security guards, huge walls and literally right across the street was a garbage dump with people living in it. Was heartbreaking.

>I just hope the Californians moving to Texas don't vote for the same laws that made San Francisco such a hole.

History repeats, you can count on it with certainty.

> I'm so glad I chose to live in Texas ...

People love to pretend that right-wing politicians and policies of mass incarceration make us safer.

Turns out big cities can have high crime rates regardless of their state's politicians and policies.

Houston's violent crime rate is 1,095 per 100,000 population, compared to 715 for San Francisco.

The crime rate is higher in Houston than Chicago.

Memphis has a higher property crime rate than San Francisco or Chicago.

The safest city in Texas is Plano, with a violent crime rate of 149 per 100,000. The safest city in California (and in the entire US) is Irvine, with a violent crime rate less than half of that.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Houston is controlled by progressive Democrats. Plano is more even but voted for Biden by a 9 point margin, hardly representative of "right-wing politics".

Plano, like many Texas cities, is racially diverse, while Irvine has hardly any black population at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California#Demographic...

"The homeless are way more aggressive than they are in Chicago or Texan cities. The feces. The crime."

So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas?

In SF most businesses won't let homeless people (ie. obviously poor people and/or people with severe mental issues) use their bathrooms, and even if they did, most of the city closes down at night, so there's nowhere to go.

SF has some public bathrooms, but they're very few and far between, and if you're homeless, possibly suffering from mental issues and/or on drugs or drunk you're not going to be going on long treks through the city just to use a bathroom.. not to mention that sometimes you just have to go immediately (and the need can be exacerbated by being sick or drunk or on drugs).

So, again, where are these people supposed to go?

Another thing that’s not obvious about the public bathrooms is they aren’t safe. You go in, close the windowless door, do your business, and open it up to find someone standing there waiting to rob you.

In Texas they use restrooms at fast food places, gas stations, and Starbuckses like everyone else out on the town and in need of a pee. Failing that, the one in the local mall. Not having bathrooms available to the public is a problem of SF's own invention.

> So where do homeless people go to the bathroom in Chicago and Texas?

San Francisco has, even by California standards, an unusual lack of an aggressive policy of pushing the homeless out of places where they are visible to economic elites. So, if you are reasonably well-off person, you are more likely to see all of the things that go along with homelessness in SF than elsewhere. (SF also devotes unusual resources to dealing with the impacts of homelessness, but the net result and the frustration it causes for economic elites that are usually the power that directs local politics shows why most cities prefer to spend resources hiding homelessness rather than dealing with it.)

Anecdata is andecdata. I've visited SF a ton for work/business and for tech events and never see anything that I haven't already seen in Boston, LA, DC, any major city. I've always had a great time in SF. It's beautiful, especially at night, usually pretty decent weather, great food, lots of cute girls (everyone disagrees?), a fun place to hike around especially compared to the flat midwest. I don't know if I'd pay what it takes to live decently there, but I'm always happy to travel to SF.