Downtown San Francisco Whole Foods Closing a Year After Opening
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This is of course really bad for local businesses. And yes, a certain fraction of the homeless population needs managed care in controlled facilities until they recover, but neither the city nor the state nor the federal government wants to pay for that. Practically, that means there are areas of the city where homeless are ignored, and areas where they are chased out. If homeless people show up and start acting out in Pacific Heights etc., the cops do show up... it's just policing for the wealthy in that respect.
However, much of the rest of the city is really no different than anywhere else, but for some reason there's an epidemic of opiate use down around that Mid-Market area and that's also where the worst of the mental illness episodes seem to take place, i.e. people screaming their heads off at all hours for no apparent reason. It's too bad, for some years that whole zone was seeing an economic boom and was getting a bit nicer.
The shitty drivers are really the greatest threat to public safety across the rest of the city at present, something about the end of the pandemic has turned drivers into imbeciles it seems. (Homicides are about twice the level of auto-related deaths, but the reckless and drunk drivers are everywhere, not concentrated in the worst areas).
I suppose the organized gun-armed gangs of smash-and-grab car thieves targeting the tourist zones are part of the problem, in their nice cars with the removable license plates, but the cops are apparently too worried about their image to do anything about that. Bait cars could be an option, but then they might have to shoot somebody, which would be bad PR. Their mentality seems to be, "why risk it?"
It's lifting the veil on a fundamentally thoughtless, greedy society that refuses to effectively care for or help hungry people who have nothing.
The implication is it will fix things and then maybe businesses will return. But why did they tear it down and reduce staffing to start with? What did they expect to happen? Can’t imagine as soon as COVID hit they said “no need to worry about crime anymore, let all these officers go”.
Then what was Whole Foods thinking? Shouldn’t they have done some kind of study to analyze that particular area before opening a “flagship” location there just a year ago?
I guess it could have been a case where everyone in the decision chain might have see the train wreck coming but nobody wanted to raise their hand and object. The only way out is to let the train wreck happen. That wouldn’t be too outlandish, I’ve seen similar things happen.
Although that same corner where the Whole Foods was was the first place I saw someone openly injecting heroin on the street while other people were watching (while the Trinity Place building was under construction a few years ago).
There are a lot of weird and intense juxtapositions right over there.
I definitely would be interested in seeing all of the missed opportunities and failures in prioritization; that would require a reflective insider, which seems unlikely in the near term future.
Shellenberger's central thesis is that addiction, mental illness, and "disaffiliation" are the primary causes of homelessness. However, this oversimplified view ignores the complex interplay of factors such as affordable housing shortages, job loss, and systemic inequalities that contribute to the problem. By focusing solely on progressive policies, Shellenberger turns a blind eye to the broader socio-economic context that has given rise to homelessness in the Bay Area.
The book's methodology is highly suspect. Shellenberger relies heavily on secondhand accounts and outdated ethnographic studies while failing to engage with the current experiences of homeless individuals. This glaring omission undermines the credibility of his analysis and reveals a lack of empathy for those affected by the issue.
Shellenberger's penchant for exaggeration and misrepresentation further erodes his argument. He is quick to criticize progressive approaches such as harm reduction and housing first policies but offers little in the way of evidence-based alternatives. Instead, he proposes vaguely authoritarian solutions that betray a deep-seated ideological bias.
Ultimately, the book's distorted portrayal of homelessness serves only to fan the flames of the culture wars.
I don't necessarily agree with the book, but I feel I need to respond.
- Criticizing something doesn't imply offering a solution. This has been a bedrock of philosophy and discussion from Socrates. So let's dispense with that first.
- Two, I'm not part of any political religion and I don't consider single-handed critiques of any group to be a problem. Considering that so much slant is added to my information from progressive sources, reading an alternative perspective is helpful.
- A lack of empathy is thrown around loosely, especially in certain circles, but frankly I don't think that's fair. How much empathy do you think is required for a situation where people are engaged in activities that are harmful to themselves and others?
- All government-imposed solutions are "vaguely authoritarian". I'm not an anarchist, I don't see why this should bother me. To take a separate example that you would agree with, repealing zoning laws at the state / provincial level and forcibly changing the characteristic of a neighborhood is fairly authoritarian measure (as it strips local autonomy) but we accept its necessity.
- What does exaggeration and misrepresentation (the start of your paragraph) have to do with criticizing "progressive" policies?
- Can you clarify what you mean by an "ethnographic study"?
- Many of your criticisms seem to be based on vague allusions to things in the book, can you offer concrete examples?
I'm willing to be convinced that the book is complete nonsense but not by the arguments you are presenting.
EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken."
My initial response was clear and specific. Rather than addressing my main argument, you assigned me a task/homework. I take your assumption of me being a bot as a compliment, as I've been striving to enhance the professionalism of my HN comments, particularly in discussions with strong opinions where emotions run high.
Even this response reads like a response from such a model.
> Because unlike poverty and mental illness and drug abuse and weather and welfare benefits and other factors, the places that have the highest housing costs, and the least housing supply, have the largest homeless populations:
> [graphs]
> In literally any other realm, this would come as no surprise. You can’t have what you can’t afford. If someone says, “I want a $2000 laptop, but can’t afford it,” nobody would find that hard to believe. But if someone says, “I really want the single largest and most crippling expense known to man, housing, but can’t afford it,” for some bizarre reason people would say, “that’s not true!,” or “correlation isn’t causation,” or “homelessness isn’t a housing problem,” or something patently insane. As I said before, the topic of homelessness breaks people’s brains.
> The story of homelessness in America is perfectly captured by the following quote in the Economist:
>> Few Americans lived on the streets in the early post-war period because housing was cheaper. Back then only one in four tenants spent more than 30% of their income on rent, compared with one in two today. The best evidence suggests that a 10% rise in housing costs in a pricey city prompts an 8% jump in homelessness.
> And that’s just it: before modern-day homelessness, there was poverty, there was mental illness, there was nice weather, there was welfare, there were liberal places, and there were drugs. So, something must have changed. And what changed were the rents:
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/everything-you-think-you-k...
A related critical article I found on the Wikipedia page for his book seems to be exactly along these lines: https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/blog/san-fransicko-incorrect-a...
Nevertheless, it's entirely possible that San Francisco's other policies have exacerbated the issues caused by homelessness and housing unaffordability. I don't think it's too much to ask that the city should allow more housing to be built and that organised retail theft gangs be punished.
He has posted multiple videos of himself interviewing homeless people on his Twitter page, so this is a very strange criticism of him.
I recall headlines of restaurants struggling to find cooks due to the cost of rent + commuting being too prohibitive for service workers of the city.
Who knows, maybe this "death-loop" is actually healthy for the longterm well-being of the city.
People in need tend to congregate around help services provided by the city, and Sanya has a lot of those services. It is unclear if homeless are "moved" to Sanya or if it is just a natural place for them to end up, because of the mentioned services. Housing, food and vending machines are also extra cheap in Sanya.
The situation for homeless Americans is a lot more dire than living in Sanya, from an outsiders perspective. I don't envy having to sleep in SF streets.
Launch a "Gentrification Relocation Program" for the ultra-rich, where they're given an all-expenses-paid trip to Mars, solving Earth's issues one rocket at a time.
Create a "Homeless-themed Escape Room" to help tech bros gain empathy and understanding of the struggles faced by the less fortunate, all while working on their team-building skills.
Establish "Adopt-a-Billionaire" initiatives where the homeless can select a wealthy patron to support their journey towards self-sufficiency, with the added bonus of receiving personalized financial advice.
Develop a "Homeless Monopoly" board game that highlights the systemic barriers faced by those in poverty, with bonus spaces for empathy-challenged players to experience unexpected setbacks and financial ruin.
Initiate a "Hunger Games: Empathy Edition" competition where participants are placed in a simulated environment of scarcity and adversity, forcing them to confront their lack of understanding and support for the less fortunate.
Unfortunately George Carlin's idea on the matter seems to be hard to implement. But is still the best proposed solution
I feel like most of that would just be 200 pages of saying "And then, San Francisco didn't allow enough housing to be built." over and over.
I very much doubt the visible homeless problem is a result of housing - the iceberg is a result of housing. The visible homeliness wouldn’t be solved if rent were half - that doesn’t treat schizophrenia
How do we solve the mentally I’ll problem? Is it that involuntary commitment with excessive oversight is incomparable with American values of freedom ?
The problem we are having today is we’ve excused criminal behavior due to mental illness. I agree prison probably is inappropriate in most cases, but so is just letting them back on the street.
A lot of seriously mentally ill folks burn their family care due to the extreme burden it places on them, and the fact a lot of mania and schizophrenia accompanies a willful belief in their own sanity and autonomy, and a lack of personal knowledge of their state. This makes keeping them under care and medications extraordinarily difficult.
Prison isn’t the answer. Mental health facilities is. That’s the real alternative to letting them back into the streets. Prisons aren’t equipped to treat anyone.
The problem is that the latter is far too attractive and convenient for a large percentage of this country. Then simply move out of a city center, get some guns, put up some fences, and it’s no longer a problem that you’re directly personally affected by.
If you dig into news about current inpatient care for the mentally ill, I think you’ll see something white washed but not too dissimilar to the past sanitariums. Heavily medicated patients confined to close quarters without much supervision and that that exists is unskilled providers, with 30 minutes or less of professional care a week. Patients frequently assault each other and because they’re often placed their by the police for criminally insane behavior there’s no recourse or different place to move them to just an upgrade to their charges. Sexual assaults are rampant by staff and patients. It’s barbaric, but even then, there aren’t enough beds so people in crisis have to wait months getting limited care through outpatient if they have find a psychiatrist with an opening- most don’t take insurance, and even then it can be a six month wait.
By itself? No.
But literally every viable path to addressing serious mental illness requires stable housing as a prerequisite. Without it, there's literally no way to manage the problem - just different ways of shifting it around over and over again.
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/0...
Reagan hasn't been Governor of California for nearly 50 years.
He certainly did try to crush it on state level, too, as a governor.
I'm still not seeing why the present-day problems can reasonably be blamed on "Reagan".
Why don't Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump, and Biden bear any responsibility? Or, in California, Brown, Deukmejian, Wilson, Davis, Schwarzenegger, Brown (again), or Newsom?
Why haven't any of those people undone what "Reagan" supposedly did?
That’s why it’s Reagan’s fault. He set up the stage so effectively it’s taken this long to turn around the basic issue of payment, and now we have no providers or services or infrastructure left to pay for.
If things are still messed up 40-50 years later, it's not due to "Reagan". That's just an excuse.
As for the idea that the mental health infrastructure was some kind of wondrous utopia before "Reagan", I draw your attention to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies
Many other citations are available.
I don’t hold it was a utopia. But if you want to see something worse than Bridgewater, look at the streets and see humans rotting in front of your eyes in the depths of untreated, yet easily treated, mental illness. It’s certainly morally convenient to do nothing, and morally wrong to try and get it wrong - but I think trying and failing in some cases and succeeding in others is better than failing in all cases by default. My father and great uncle were both clinical psychologists in the public mental health system, and there were many institutions that were high quality and served a population we let simply decompose on our streets now. If we traded a non utopia, we traded it for a total dystopia.
California and other warm states, on a long timeframe, absorb a lot of homeless people -- only places you can sleep outside all year and, like, not die. Not an option for NYC or Minneapolis. So inevitably they have all of these people, and no place to put them. Nor the political will to crack down, since California Capitalists want things to be nice while still flogging the NIMBY-isms.
Then again, it’s not like the high rises ever end up including a significant amount of affordable housing anyway, so that doesn’t even make a dent in the issue.
The city's approach to drug use probably doesn't help, but the pandemic-motivated downturn in foot traffic is the most obvious culprit.
You need customers for retail to exist. People working for SF-based companies don't want to go to the office (you might make an argument it's for crime reasons, but it feels obvious the overriding reason is just wanting to work from home). So retail is suffering. Notice how crime plays at best a second order effect there. Yet every story on HN about this topic is filled with people saying it's crime.
No druggies/dealers = people move back to the area
People move back to the area + no druggies/dealers = businesses move back to the area
It feels just like there are so many more simple narratives here. Like seriously, there's a supermarket that looks larger and has a parking lot just there! Why would people bother crossing a 4-lane highway to go to whole foods? And so you're left with a huge supermarket that is trying to cater purely to foot traffic, outside of a place with that much of it to begin with. It sure feels like hubris meant this site simply did not work.
It just feels like such a stretch to claim that crime is the thing here.
Walgreens’ CFO has said outright that the crime stuff was overblown , 2 years later [0]
[1] has a breakdown of the arguments for why this stuff doesn’t align with reality (“biased” of course, as it’s a media critique podcast, but I find their arguments convincing. I admit they confirm my priors)
“Safety” and “shoplifting” are of course not the same. And many people here talk about feeling unsafe going there. But people also mention it being empty! And there’s a Safeway across the street.
Companies like making money. Something tells me you don’t close down a massive store if it were making money. “Large supermarket without a parking lot in an area without much foot traffic” just seems like an expensive proposition.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli...
[1] https://citationsneeded.medium.com/news-brief-organized-crim...
I wager SF was affected harder more than most downtowns due to high commercial rents, tons of startups that were nimble and moved, and lots of progressive big companies that are actually adapting to WFH reasonably well.
I wish commercial rents would drop significantly and more mixed use was permitted for new galleries, bars, clubs and residential.
I personally have hope SF will figure it out. It’s a town of constant change.
Yeah, though I think it doesn't help that downtown SF has relatively low population density compared to downtown Manhattan. When the return-to-office plans started to kick in there weren't a ton of workers with very short commutes who were eager to be back in-office.
What's the minimum number of officers per capita in a major city?
Looks like between 15-20 cops per 10k. 800k would be right around 1500.
There may be a non-linear relationship. It's 1/2 the ratio as NYC.
Please remember that the legal city of SF is quite small, compared to the area you think of as SF.
update: I am guessing this is what your non-linear part is about; I missed that on first read.
I have no idea which way density argues. It means that cops are denser at the same per capita numbers which means their proximity to the highest priority should be closer. So faster emergency response. I don't know why a denser area would need more police, but I could be very wrong on that.
My thinking goes something like: a line of densely parked cars up Polk street with a bunch of people with their phones out at night making it hard to tell who is holding a flashlight probably means you need more cops patrolling the area to prevent crime vs my now suburban street with a few cars and no one walking at night means it would both be easy to spot opportunistic burglars and unlikely they'd hit up my street mostly for lack of targets.
I, too, could be wrong as I am saying this with no data.
Plenty of commuters, shoppers/diners, and criminals from outside SF, so number of police officers per city resident is not a very good metric.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/08/st...
Never knew about this location, I have to say wow that was pretty bold of them opening in UN Plaza. Nice gigantic development at Trinity Place. Interesting to see the page is still up https://www.trinitysf.com/whole-foods/
I've noticed a pattern of using whatever convenient trendy excuse (crime in SF) for leadership to avoid stating the real reason that might cause them to be accountable for a bad decision (perhaps a low grossing store due to poor location market-fit analysis). I'm quite skeptical now when reading these trendy rationalizations.
The first week I was here my former CTO was murdered.
Now there's some guy outside my hotel that's screaming at the top of his lungs between 3 and 7 AM every night. Nobody is stopping it.
At least I haven't heard any gunshots, which is the norm in my home city (Atlanta).
Muricans use guns.
At one station, two kids were fighting and one threw the other into the train. No one at the station did anything. I was coming from Tokyo and the scene was so insane that I could only sit and record a video. Like I felt physically unable to move beyond bringing my phone up and hitting the record button.
I still watch the video sometimes and wonder if I should have done something.
https://www.ktvu.com/news/woman-gives-birth-on-san-francisco...
1. The Navigation Center program, which offers temporary shelter and connects homeless individuals to housing, healthcare, and other services in a low-barrier environment.
2. The Homeless Outreach Team (HOT), which proactively engages homeless individuals on the streets, connects them with resources, and helps them access emergency shelters.
3. Project Homekey, a state initiative that San Francisco participates in, focuses on converting hotels and motels into housing units for the homeless population.
4. The Eviction Defense Collaborative, which provides legal assistance and support to tenants facing eviction, helping to prevent homelessness.
5.The Rapid Rehousing program, which offers short-term rental assistance and support services to help homeless individuals and families quickly transition to stable housing.
While there is still much work to be done, it's important to recognize that efforts are being made by the city, nonprofits, and community organizations to address these challenges. We should work together, rather than point fingers, to contribute to positive change and uplift those in need.
SF is the bastion of far left programs and the situation has gotten exponentially worse. All they know is how to tax people and spend money but get no results. The homeless budget ballooned from $300 million a year to $600 million, and the results are demonstrably worse and crime has only gotten much much worse.
SF is a failed experiment that proves that these far-left policies of "Harm Reduction" actually increase harm, and all of the progressives get in line to fill their pockets with government money and all of a sudden realize they don't want to help the homeless.
It's essential to recognize that the increase in homelessness is not merely a result of "far-left policies," but rather a combination of various factors such as housing shortages, economic disparities, and systemic issues. Dismissing the entire progressive approach as a "failed experiment" is a narrow-minded view that stifles any potential for constructive dialogue on the matter.
Additionally, insinuating that all progressives are interested only in lining their pockets with government money is a baseless accusation that only serves to further divide the conversation. Your hostility toward progressive policies and activists detracts from any meaningful discussion about finding long-term solutions to homelessness and addiction.
If we are to make any progress in addressing these issues, it's crucial to engage in an open, honest, and evidence-based dialogue, rather than resorting to incendiary rhetoric and unfounded accusations. A more balanced and informed perspective is necessary to truly understand the complexities of the situation and work towards sustainable solutions.
The woman who gave birth to her baby is a crack addict, that has delivered a baby that has no chance. The chemical damage done to this baby is on the order of killing her. And people just throw their hands up in the air saying "there's nothing we can do, but let's supply them all with an open drug market so that people can buy drugs freely." It's disgusting, SF is suffering, the addicts are suffering and who is profiting? The "advocates". The director of a homeless center makes $250,000/yr and meanwhile babies are born on the street. Explain to me how they aren't lining their own pockets?
The ONLY way to can explain $600 million per year being spent, and SF being in its current state, is through corruption and fraud.
Inhumane conditions aren't unique to SF. Sacramento, Chico, San Jose, Oakland, and LA. These also aren't unique to California.
NYC, PDX, SEA, ATX.. take your pick. Same shit, different city.
> I've noticed a pattern of using whatever convenient trendy excuse (crime in SF) for leadership to avoid stating the real reason
Interesting, because I’ve noticed a trend of people bending themselves into pretzels to avoid starting that crime is an issue.
A segment of the homeless can not be reached by social programs, and crime tourism is rampant.
The unspoken deal is law enforcement doesn't have to put themselves at risk for performative arrests, and the wider Bay Area doesn't have people pushed outwards from the city.
The answer is: yes. It's all of these things. And all of the partisan, it-wasn't-us bickering gets us absolutely nowhere.
More housing needs to be built. Rezone everything. Hire more police, bring back beat work. Prosecute quality of life crimes. Commit those who are too mentally ill, or too addicted to proactively seek help on their own.
All I ask is in our western cities can I walk without getting stabbed?
Can I not have to hear some random maniac screaming or have to divert around someone urinating?
Is that too much to ask?
We have collectively lost our minds. These nutcases need to be forcefully removed and then incarcerated in asylums.
When people are fucking starving, fucking feed them.
When people are fucking homeless, fucking house them.
When too many people are fucking broke, raise taxes on the rich and aid the less fortunate more.
Nowhere else besides the most unequal countries in the world have such desperate poverty. And the gross mismanagement and lack of funding in proportion to the scale of problem.
I can speak first-hand on this issue because I experienced a period of about 8 years of semi-homelessness in the SF Bay Area. Except for SF due to compactness, there is essentially no proactive aid to street people. Aid is paltry, requires stacks of paperwork, regular wasted time, and treatment like a presumed criminal. An individual has to be essentially disabled AND unemployed/unemployable in order to receive a tiny amount of cash and a slight bit more that can only be spent on food but only at certain shops.
It's a crazy city isn't it. Please be kind. if everyone wants something and SF is the open place you go to get it, well it's a clusterfuck of people as is the reality of a clusterfuck of people.
My friend told me once, about USA that of course it's a massive shit show. We put it on the front door that we want everyone, and so we have to deal with... everyone. All races, religions, idealogies oh dear. and then people say how lovely Sweden is. i mean it is lovely, but it's a little easier to be lovely when everyone looks acts and believes all the same things in all the same ways.
I just don't want you to trash SF like it should be something for you to extract what you want from it. if you have bad things to say about SF, give us your energy to represent change. if you're doing that from Texas because "well fuck taxes" than you're just a transaction. and you're mean.
I don’t like a lot of what the parent post says but I think we should consider that there’s a grain of truth somewhere in it.
cities that are more progressive, like portland, sign themselves up for the worst of it, yes!
fwiw im a socal native, and not all west coast cities have unsheltered problems. but the solution is obvious: have no regard for human life. Irvine, Ca is "so safe" and pristine and lovely because it expels the riff raff outside of its borders.
out of sight out of mind
fwiw more swedish people live in the US than in Sweden.
> everyone looks acts and believes all the same things in all the same ways
then you are not making a good argument because clearly not everyone in Sweden looks and acts the same, considering the fraction of its population who came from overseas.
I'm just getting at the idea that by design, USA seems to want to deal with all of these people. There's 2x order of magnitude difference of chaos.
I'm not waiving the US flag btw, im just saying it seems reasonable that's it a 2x magnitude more complicated problem no?
It's interesting to see so much 'the city is changing' type messaging when this is just how San Fran has always been.
Thanks for your stay, we hope you had a good time. Try not to get stabbed or shot on your way out.
On the real though, this pining for SF's old status quo because it fulfilled some weird grunge fantasy is just getting old. Yeah SF was a grimy, shitty, somewhat cheap place to live filled with equally shitty art and crap bands. It was shitty all the way from the 1960's until the early 90's when a homeless guy wandered in the TV repair shop we were at in the mission and pulled a knife and me and my brother while my dad was at the counter. Maybe it was great before then and maybe a lot of the people there want it to be better. Sorry if you don't get what you want.
Bee Tee Dubs, bro, people from or who live in SF don't call it San Fran.
The pandemic has unquestionably changed the way we work and live, causing a shift in foot traffic patterns and affecting local businesses. However, we should also consider that this particular store might have faced unique challenges, such as its location in a neighborhood grappling with increased drug use and crime. It's possible that the company's decision to close the store is more a reflection of those specific circumstances rather than an indicator of a broader downward spiral for San Francisco.
The closure of this Whole Foods store is undoubtedly a loss for the community, but it should not be interpreted as an inevitable sign of a citywide "doom loop." Instead, let's focus on finding innovative solutions to tackle the challenges faced by the city and work towards a more vibrant and resilient San Francisco.