I live in the neighborhood, and have for more than a decade. I fairly-frequently walk by Brenda's, and also walk through many other parts of the Tenderloin and into Union Square, and through the waterfront.
On bad days, I have seen single-digit numbers of cars with smashed windows. On typical days, I see zero. Your report just doesn't jive with my on-the-ground experience, whether past or present.
If you were in town for some big event of some sort, I guess you should consider the possibility that folks associated with the event decided to turn hooligan and smash shit.
We walked from the Ritz to the Opera House, and I can't tell you how many windows on cars were smashed. Maybe you've lived there so long you're blind to it.
> Maybe you've lived there so long you're blind to it.
I assure you that I'm very much not blind to it.
I'm super angry about how the city governors refuses to suppress the anti-housing faction, and lines their pockets at most every opportunity. But I'm definitely not blind to the folks living in the streets and their regular goings-on.
And while I'm angry about what the government is failing to do, I'm not _shocked_ and/or _appalled_ by what's happening on the streets. In my personal experience, I've found that folks who are shocked and/or deeply offended by a thing tend to remember the thing as being far more extreme than it actually was. shrug
Not _shocked_ and/or _appalled_ by people literally dying of overdoses in the streets. Photo-albums strewn in the street when a burglar decided it was worthless and ditched it? A family purely distraught - the father sitting on the curb crying with his family when he discovered their U-haul was looted during their overnight stay at a hotel it was parked in? Stealing a dog from an old man who left it tied up outside a store for a moment. Stealing a ~10 year-old's small pink bicycle in front of unSafeway as the family went in to buy snacks and water for their bike ride, to find it gone when they came out. A man... entertaining himself while glairing intently at children in front of the Union Square McDonalds?
These, and infinitely other unmentionable things (including a myriad of stories that involve myself as the victim, many of them worse than above): absolutely a daily occurrence for me in the TL.
What is your bar for "shocking"? I believe you are blind.
I'll let you sort out the politics, but where I live, we don't see any of that. No one should have to worry about that stuff. This is a serious concern. Disease outbreaks occur because of these conditions.
Something that really puzzled me about the homeless was many of them would be standing but bent over with their hands on the ground, and head between their knees. WTF is with that?
Yep. Housing the homeless and providing the medical and psychological care they need is the humane thing to do. The _inhumane_ thing to do is to simply move them out of the way so that rich tourists don't have to see them. (This is sometimes what the SFPD is ordered to do, and it boils my blood every time they do it.)
> Disease outbreaks occur because of these conditions.
You might be surprised at the medical outreach work that happens in the city. You'd do your psyche a bit of a favor by learning about the support programs in the city, maybe.
> ...many of them would be standing but bent over with their hands on the ground, and head between their knees.
Some are high. Some are physically damaged.
Next time you're in town, you should _really_ talk to some of these folks. (edit: And by "these" folks, I don't mean "the folks who are clearly high out of their gourd", but I mean "the folks who are out on street living a normal life... just without a roof over their heads") The majority of them are actually quite pleasant people who are fun to chat with.
You seem like a pleasant person. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think I will be returning anytime soon. You guys have a level of problems I want to stay far away from. Sometimes to be humane, you have to be inhumane.
You guys do have some great restaurants. I hope you're able to keep them.
Let me put it in terms that Gene Roddenberry would have explained. He emphasized it in his work. You might have heard about it. Star Trek. "The needs of the many, out way the needs of a few, or the one."
When you're more interested in the humanity, and dignity of those afflicted (the few) than those not afflicted (the many) then you're going to continue to generate more afflicted. You have to stop the problem at the source.
That means: Cutting off the drug supply. Enforcing laws. Everything you most likely despise. You only care about those that are on those streets.
You have to make it harder to become homeless, than it is to be a successful functioning member of society.
Jobs are not the problem. There are jobs everywhere. In one of my businesses, I needed truck drivers. I can't find them because hardly anyone can pass a drug test. I will pay for them to get their CDL, if they're drug free. It's not happening. I sponsored 3 people from India to drive trucks for me. They work 6 hour days, make $35 an hour, with route bonuses, and benefits.
I have a software company (or had), where we did DoD projects. It is next to impossible to find anyone that can pass a background check for a security clearance with the FBI. Why? Drugs.
I had another software company that was in the Casino Gaming space. It was difficult to get people licensed. Why? Drugs.
There is opportunity for everyone, bad decisions put you in the street. Then people like you and I have coddled these people, and give them enough to get by, so they don't want to return to being a functioning members of society. Anything else, they steal or commit another crime to get more drugs.
I have spoken to many of these people. Your presumption shows your character. I have donated more money to this problem than you will make in your life. Money is not fixing the issue. I have stopped supporting many alcoves. We keep creating more, and more that end up needing help. The majority of the problem revolves around drugs.
Drugs cause mental issues. This is a fact. People don't want to work. They want drugs.
So, I will not be returning to SF. I will not fund the business I was there to invest in. Keep going with your idealism. The universes own laws will eventually catch up with you, as history shows us every time.
For the life of me I cannot understand why we tolerate antisocial behaviour in our public spaces. The difference in experience between Market Street and most streets in Berlin or Kyoto is astounding.
Forced relocation to care communities (which would need to be built) is the only move I see. Food, Shelter, Waste disposal, etc. The idea of a group of homeless people being able to set up a camp wherever they want, when everything else in society needs to go through planning permission is insane.
> That means: Cutting off the drug supply. Enforcing laws. Everything you most likely despise.
Speaking about presumptions that show one's character...
> Money is not fixing the issue. ... You have to make it harder to become homeless, than it is to be a successful functioning member of society. ... Jobs are not the problem.
On this we agree, very, very, very strongly. Jobs are not the problem. A lack of money for homeless assistance (and "assistance") programs is not the problem. (In fact, there's certainly way too much money thrown at those sorts of programs.) Based on what I've observed over the years here in San Francisco, for the situation in San Francisco, lack of housing is the problem.
As I said upthread:
> Housing the homeless and providing the medical and psychological care they need is the humane thing to do.
When you can't find housing because there is no housing to be had, and when it's tough as shit to hold down a job because you don't have a solid place to sleep, to clean your clothes, to safely store your alarm clock that's gonna wake you up for tomorrow's shift, etc, etc, then you have one of those "self-perpetuating cycles" that leaves you jobless and homeless.
> That means: Cutting off the drug supply.
That's effectively impossible. We can't even do this inside our prisons. If their child is determined, parents usually cannot do this inside their own homes. I guarantee you that even Singapore has drugs and drug use within its borders.
> Enforcing laws.
Yep. We're a nation of laws, and all laws should be enforced at all times. I very strongly believe this... to an extreme degree.
However, you do need to think about a few key points:
1) You can't extract money from someone who doesn't have an income to garnish or assets to confiscate. This renders fines and other monetary penalties largely ineffective.
2) The obvious alternative to fines is prison time. Because our prisons aren't built to rehabilitate, if you're tossing folks back into the very same situation they came out from, once released from prison they're going to be right back in prison in short order... because nothing about their life changed, except for the fact that they got an unpleasant roof over their head and three square meals for a little while.
2a) In practice, that boils down to "We have decided to house the homeless in prisons, rather than in houses.". Most (all?) of the time, that's _way_ more expensive than, like, housing folks in houses and hooking them up with a rehabilitation program so that it's -as you said- "harder to become homeless, than it is to be a successful functioning member of society".
2b) Our prisons have finite space, and are typically substantially overfull. It's better to have free space for new violent offenders (and other substantial threats to public safety) than to cram them 110% full by cramming in nearly every homeless person.
> There is opportunity for everyone, bad decisions put you in the street.
Bad decisions, but also bad luck. Sometimes bad shit happens to decent folks, and sometimes something comes along and absolutely wrecks you... wrecks you so bad that if you don't have really solid friends (or generations of accumulated wealth) to help you out, you're absolutely going to lose everything you have because you're rendered totally useless for a very, very long time.
> [I can't find truckers, or TS/SCI-ready employees because "everyone's" smoking weed and the regulations haven't caught up with the fact that weed is legal now in 75% of the US.]
I mean, this is self-explanatory.
Not too long ago, it was the case that you couldn't get TS/SCI if you were openly homosexual. The requirements for high-end clearance tend to lag substantially behind what's acceptable in the wider world. It's also a goddamn shame that weed stays in one's system for so very long after its psychoactive effects are gone. It makes testing for "Was this guy doing hazardous work while under the influence?" very tough... so tough that absolute prohibition is the easiest way to deal with it. It'd be super cool if we could build more sensitive tests, but that probably won't happen until FedGov drops the charade and de-schedules weed.
"You honestly, really think all those people just sat down one day and decided to be homesless Because they’d be coddled?!"
Strictly speaking this is simply a straw man via oversimplification (as is nearly the entirety of this post and the others I've seen from bbor in this thread)...
But I've seen this _variety_ of straw man so often that I want to break it out into a specific fallacy on its own.
Not sure what to call it but the "Oh, so you think X decided one day just Y?"
"Oh so you think Elizabeth Holmes just sat down one day and decided _I'm going to scam billions out of investors and risk lives and pretend I made a blood testing machine_"?
"Who sees this advertisement for Tide and just decides _I'm going to buy Tide because I saw this advertisement?"
"Oh so you think I listen to Andrew Tate one day and now suddenly I'm abusing women?"
"Oh, so you think I'm going to do heroin one time and suddenly I'm going to be homeless and addicted?"
No. We're the culmination of dozens, hundreds, thousands of behaviors (with genetic and environmental influences) that create a trend.
So, err, I'll entertain your bad-faith rhetorical question and answer: no, nobody thinks anyone "sat down one day and decided to be homesless [sic] because they'd be coddled." San Francisco (on behalf of the voters, you and I) have created thousands of tiny incentive structures that maximizes the pain people experiencing homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness, while simultaneously maximizing the negative impact to the housed, because you believe everyone who is housed deserves to be the victim of assaults, burglaries and all the other fun because they aren't supporting your policies.
Let me guess: housing-first? Certainly their drug addictions and mental illnesses will instantly vanish with a free house in the most expensive real-estate in the country? Anything short of this, well, they can stay on the street and find comfort in stealing things to fund their heroin/fentanyl self-medication.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond :) Always appreciate a dialogue.
the others I've seen from bbor in this thread
I think we can both agree that using the word "bbor" in the context of this conversation is kinda funny.
fallacy
"Figure of speech"
Oh so you think I listen to Andrew Tate one day and now suddenly I'm abusing women?
Probably?
thousands of tiny incentive structures
Like... feeding them? Giving them shelter so they're less likely to die of exposure, and because people hate when they sleep within sight?
you believe everyone who is housed deserves to be the victim of assaults... because they aren't supporting your policies.
You literally spent the last 75% of your comment talking about the Strawman Fallacy and then...
To be explicit here: Ok, you win, no one decides to be homeless in literally one single moment, all of life is the culmination of decisions and life events, totally agree with you. The rest of my comment was about how fucking awful it is to be homeless. Which you would agree, no? I cited some insane statistic elsewhere here about them being almost 20 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime, and 9 times more likely to be sexually assaulted.
I guess you don't have to work if you live on the streets, but I can't believe anyone would argue that they're "coddled". The only reason people would prefer homelessness is if they've been beaten down by the system to ridiculous degree, e.g. felons; what are they supposed to do after serving their time, considering it's way harder to find housing or employment in an economy that's already brutally hard? [1][2][3][4][5] From there, consider people who have suffered abuse, drug addiction, mental health issues, and just plain shit luck. Do they deserve whatever psychotic/violent shit "be tougher on the homeless" implies?
This is really the gist of it: what should we do?
Yes, my plan is housing first, on top of fixing our insane, unprecedented level of inequality (except for the Gilded Age, which hopefully we agree was a Very Very Bad Time). I think the idea expressed above that we just need to... beat them up more..? and that will fix the problem is heartless beyond belief. Curious to hear your thoughts!
Reich states that 95% of economic gains following the economic recovery which began in 2009 went to the top 1% of Americans
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the wealth held by billionaires in the U.S. increased by 70%... "the steepest increase in global billionaires’ share of wealth on record."
As of late 2022... 735 billionaires collectively possessed more wealth than the bottom half of U.S. households ($4.5 trillion and $4.1 trillion respectively). *The top 1% held a total of $43.45 trillion*.
It's not a figure of speech. It's a very deliberate attempt at deeply mischaracterizing the position in an attempt to make it appear absurd. "Oh yeah, that's right, who would ever wake up one day and decide to be homeless? What an idiot who would think that!"
That's not how it works. You think you're being funny. You can't keep it together enough here to even genuinely engage. In case anyone else is reading, no, one exposure to Andrew Tate's toxicity is not what causes one to become misogynistic. It's an entire society and repeated exposure to his ideas, and ideas like his that cause it. It is not one exposure to a Tide advertisement that makes somebody sit down and say, "hey I should go buy Tide because of this advertisement!"
Not like feeding them and giving them shelter. Remember, you don't want to give shelter. You, and your ilk, the vocal faction of SF politics, will accept nothing short of housing first.
I obviously believe it is awful to be homeless. You say I straw manned you - tell me, am I wrong? Do you support anything short of housing first?
If, say, the voting public doesn't want to give everyone 1000sqft in the heart of San Francisco, but is in favor of sheltering and forced drug rehabilitation and mental health facilities coupled with enforcing laws. You're telling me that you would not prefer the current state?
My thoughts are your (presumed) preference of status que over a compromise that doesn't cause maximum suffering for all is the worst of all worlds. You're the "Bernie or Bust"er of the unhoused. You're the person who would rather have Trump than Biden, if you can't have Bernie.
"Well, if I can't give everyone a free house in San Francisco, and change the distribution of wealth, I'd rather people suffer and die in the streets (via decriminalizing everything, and being anti-shelter), because then at least the taxpayers will also suffer the consequences of it, and then maybe things will change."
Not OP, but if someone is on the street openly using drugs and defecating on the sidewalk, those are crimes. They can be addressed through therapy or community support or jail. But they need to be addressed, even if the person in question would prefer they not be.
I can't recall the last time I saw a single thief-smashed car window where I live. If the occasional single digit breakage is no big deal then maybe you've gotten used to it?
it happens... I live in a nice suburb of seattle. someone smashed the side window of my mini to get into an empty grocery bag about 3 months back. we barely have package thiefs. Shit happens.
> On bad days, I have seen single-digit numbers of cars with smashed windows
I lived in New York for ten years, and can count on two hands the number of smashed car windows I’ve seen. In every case except one, there was someone nearby calling the police; in that one it was me.
I live in a downtown district of a mid size city: it is not normal to see a freshly smashed car window with any frequency whatsoever. You may have normalized this for yourself - your response seems to validate the person you’re disagreeing with.
On bad days, I have seen single-digit numbers of cars with smashed windows. On typical days, I see zero. Your report just doesn't jive with my on-the-ground experience, whether past or present.
If you were in town for some big event of some sort, I guess you should consider the possibility that folks associated with the event decided to turn hooligan and smash shit.