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Comment by Gimpei | Hacker News Reader

Crime has exploded across the US since the start of COVID, not just SF. So I'm not convinced Chesa is to blame. Which isn't too say I'm a big fan of his either.

Homelessness is indeed a problem, but according to the biannual survey, most of the unhoused are from the bay area. This suggested the crisis is the result of skyrocketing rents and the steady disappearance of SROs. Yet another thing we can thank Nimbys for.

Shoplifting does appear to be a real issue, although it's unclear why it's so much worse in SF. Proposition 47 is statewide after all.

I was born and raised in SF. Crime was much much worse in the 80s and 90s. Not saying we don't need changes, but it isn't a post apocalyptic hellhole... Yet.

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I was born and raised in SF as well. SF is beginning to look and feel like late 80’s/early 90’s SF. Increase in hate crimes against Asians. Car break-ins. Burglaries. Fewer people on the streets.

I think part of what is happening is that criminals refocused on residents because there aren’t tourists around to prey on anymore.

Chesa Boudin made it worse. No more bail so people accused of crime are free to sometimes commit more crime. $950 and below shoplifting is now a misdemeanor.

Walgreens doesn’t even report the shoplifting anymore. They just closed stores. 13 and counting.

SF does look a little cleaner now than a few months ago. The tent city at City Hall is hidden behind a fence. The tents in other parts of town tend to be clustered in alleys instead of along main streets. Still far fewer people walking around than before. Interestingly, the Marina looks as rich and lively as ever unlike many other parts of SF.

The City feels dead. SF Chinatown looks and sounds more like Oakland Chinatown now. Quieter. Far less car traffic and traffic noise. Easier to find parking. Few tourists. Mostly locals.

Well, the pandemic and economic depression have certainly exacerbated things. I also doubt that tourism in most places in California will really resemble pre-quarantine times until at least June 15th.

Yes. The economic downturn definitely was another major cause. There was increased crime even in the suburbs. However, that crime was mostly car break-ins, catalytic converter thefts, garage break-ins, package thefts. Violent crime doesn’t seem to have increased much unlike in SF and apparently other big cities.

Fair, but a lot of the anecdote details you mentioned aren't really attributable to the increase in violent crime. As mentioned elsewhere, Walgreens closing might be caused by economic downturn impacting a business strategy of market saturation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27273139 and second child post).

The city also feels dead because tourism everywhere in the U.S. is currently dead. SF Chinatown is most definitely not comparable to the state of Oakland Chinatown:

https://abc7news.com/man-shot-killed-in-broad-daylight-oakla...

Oakland's homicide rate is skyrocketing, but so are its housing prices. Goes to show that in the Bay Area as a whole, crime and desirability of living often fail to correlate. SF's problem might simply be people don't want to live in a dense area during a societal shutdown.

I probably wasn’t clear enough. I think there has been an increase in property crime in the suburbs but their violent crime rate doesn’t seem to have increased as much as it has in the cities.

Violent crime has increased in the cities based on statistics that I have read.

Walgreens is probably multifactor but it is guaranteed that the shoplifting hurt badly.

Yes the cities are dead partly due to lost of tourism. However, it isn’t only that. Commercial real estate occupancy rates are worse than during the dot com bust.

Real estate is multifactor. Real estate is booming everywhere in the Bay Area possibly with the exception of SF, not just Oakland.

I think the problem ailing cities is density. East Bay real estate booming while SF prices declining is possibly effect and cause. A tiny apartment in a dense city is not a great place to be in during a quarantine. And correct, the end to all of those commercial real estate leases means much less money going into the economy. New York and other big cities are facing the same doom-and-gloom narrative:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/12/opinion/New-York-San-Fran...

So yes, SF's crime issues are a pervasive problem. But the current decline ultimately all come down to economic factors and simple geography. Maybe Boudin has exacerbated things, but he has been in office for a minute compared to the past decade of spiraling property crime in the city.

I think the elephant in the room is the mental health crisis. You don't notice the person walking by you who lives in their car. You notice the person who is shoeless in traffic and screaming. We elected to close our mental health treatment facilities and turn these people out to the street to fend for themselves. Then when they deny offered treatment or shelter we claim they did it through their own volition and allow them to die on the sidewalk in confusion and poor health. This is the reality.

There are only 6000 psych beds in all of California right now, but the state has spent 13 billion over the last 3 years on 'homeless'. Far more will be spent this year but the problems are getting worse.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/audit-california-track-h...

It's baffling how short we are on the services we need in the richest state in the richest nation. LA county alone is anticipated to have over 100,000 homeless in the next few years. That's the population of Burbank. They aren't exactly sure how much over as they couldn't do the annual count this year, but COVID related job loss and expiring benefits should be of no help.

There's one huge issue here though, especially for a nation as liberty focused as the US. Many of the mentally ill, especially at higher levels of severity, do not seek nor desire treatment.

How would one balance the issue of disrupted mental health, with clear impediments of decision-making, against violations of personal liberty, such as with forcible commitment.

Ideally we would look at things analytically. If you've been hit by a car and are unconcious and unable to consent to treatment, you are still treated. It should be that if you are mentally ill and unable to consent to treatment, you should still be treated. If one day I lose my mind and I am on my own on the street, I would hope that I would get taken to treatment rather than be allowed to die on my own.

It's time we put virtue signalling aside when it comes to medical treatment. If someone is experiencing hypothermia and not in the right state of mind, we don't allow them to strip off their clothes in confusion even if that is the natural stress response to hypothermia, we hold them down and get them warm and well. If your friend is drunk and belligerent, you keep them home where they can sober up safely instead of letting them wander into traffic, even if they try and wrestle away. We should do the same for those suffering from mental illness, who due to their illness are in no state to care for their wellbeing, and we should do what we can to treat them until they are in the right state of mind.

I'm definitely in agreement here that there is that threshold, but what I'm not so clear about is where that threshold lies. It's one of those things which I feel the boundary is nothing but grey. However, one area where I think might be relatively easy would be the case of crime + health. Rather than jail, forcible internment in said mental health facility might be a better alternative.

On an aside, it's funny how "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" had such an impact on mental health treatment, and how mental health institutions were viewed.

Walgreens has closed over 17 stores due to increased shoplifting. It is 400% higher than the national average in SF. It’s higher in SF because the repercussions are much lower because SFPD doesn’t even bother looking. Look at the reaction to the theft of the camera. The police said the DA need video evidence, eyewitnesses don’t matter anymore, even with a picture of the car. The criminals are free to commit crimes consequence-free.

While I'm sure shoplifting is a concern, where I lived (around Market/Van Ness) there were 4 or 5 Walgreens stores within a 3 block radius. And several CVS, Safeway, Whole Foods and many other smaller independent ones on top of that. And I (and everyone I know) still ordered everything on Amazon. A couple of them have since closed, and it was long overdue IMO. Shoplifting or not there was no way they were all profitable.

It' easy to find video online of thugs hopping over the counters of shops in San Francisco, hitting shop assistants and strolling out with armfuls of merchandise. They know they will not be caught or punished, so a lot of stores are just closing.

People in affluent areas of SF seem oblivious to all this and keep voting - and donating - to the political class who tell them everything is finally going great... and they assume this is true. https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/walgreens-and-cvs-stores...

https://youtu.be/CLbvtRIo3i8

My friend owns a Shoppers Drug Mart in Toronto. They employ the same strategy there too. In areas with high foot traffic they have a lot of stores close by to make it hard for anyone else to start a business in the area. It ends up being more overall profitable because they take all the sales in that area leaving it harder for newer competitors to operate profitably.

ABC stores in Honolulu employ the same strategy. There are mutilple ABC stores on the same block sometimes.

The biannual survey point in time counts of homeless across California are so wildly inaccurate and skewed there have been grand jury investigations and findings in counties such as California. There is a giant 'homeless industrial complex' that essentially operates on a model of the ore homeless to 'serve' the more money they ingest, buying motels at way over market rate as 'homes' for the seriously mentally ill and substance abuse casualties as if this will magically solve their issues. Bus therapy and general migration to where the grass is greenest is fueling this, along with very lenient drug law.

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