211–220 of 441 posts
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As long as they aren’t harming anyone why can’t you respect their wishes and leave them alone if that’s what they want? What if someone decided you needed help even after you made it clear you didn’t want it?
Does taking a dump in front of your building count? Because I have many experience of that, including a couple where they entered my building and took a big dump in the lobby.
27 year San Francisco resident here. The government here is dysfunctional because that's what people voted for. The fact that people pay so much to live here says that people are willing to put up with a lot in exchange for living in a diverse and beautiful city.
I've lived in south china pre-2000, in southern Europe and in south America. The first (and only) time I've seen human excrement on the streets was 2 years ago in San Francisco. It's very... odd. I mean, I don't think we should obsessed with the human feces part of it, but it would be nice to understand what's going on that it is so visible.
I sat and chatted to a homeless fella hanging out at Fisherman’s Wharf in SF for a while. He wasn’t from CA, from Missouri IIRC. He was gay, his family disowned him, he got into drugs. He got bitter, did some nasty stuff to people he hated, did some other misguided things and basically had hit rock bottom. I asked him what he thought would be needed to bring him out of homelessness and keep him inside society. He sai…
For those that are mentally ill, and especially if they are violent, you force them to get the psychiatric help that they need. It's an unpopular opinion. But frankly it's long overdue. For those that have the option to go to shelters, receive plenty of benefits (which SF most definitely provides) but prefer to be homeless, they need to be separated from major city areas where tourists, business people, and every day…
It's time we reverted it.
About 10% of humans have been addicts across most cultures throughout most of recorded human history, and they desperately need help (even if they claim don't want it).
There should obviously be a ton of safeguards in place before committing someone against their will (e.g. 1 or 2 doctors should declare that the patient is unable to care for themselves and make rational decisions, assessment at regular intervals, ensuring the patient has the right to get a new doctor, etc.), but I don't think we'll be able to solve homelessness without it, because this is what we used to do differently prior to the homelessness epidemic, and this is what other nations have been doing.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman%E2%80%93Petris%E2%...
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There's human feces everywhere outside the tourist/financial districts, and the entirety of the inner city (Tenderloin) is disintegrated and full of poverty, homelessness and crime - and it's predominantly people of color who accumulate there. If that's "diverse" and "beautiful" then I'd hate to think what "monocultural" and "dull" looks like...
> There's human feces everywhere outside the tourist/financial districts, This is not accurate. The Sunset, Richmond, Parkside, Presidio, Marina, and many other parts of the city are very clean (or at least not notably dirty for a city). Perhaps the Marina/Presidio could be called tourist areas but the Sunset and Richmond certainly are not.
Whenever I visit SF I run into someone who looks like an extra from a zombie movie every time, without fail. Sometimes they "violently beg" by lunging at your feet as you walk past. Scream obscenities. Offer stolen goods at red lights. And if you somehow don't see them you can certainly smell them.
Just because we collectively got desensitized doesn't make all this OK.
As someone who's family has been in the bay area for over a century I was disappointed the article didn't mention any of the old money families who've controlled SF politics for decades. This article[0] mentions some, though not all of the families (The Aliotos aren't mentioned here for example). While I haven't fully kept up, I know in the 90s at least a quarter of the financial district was held by two families. Th…
27 year San Francisco resident here. The government here is dysfunctional because that's what people voted for. The fact that people pay so much to live here says that people are willing to put up with a lot in exchange for living in a diverse and beautiful city.
Not sure I would ever call San Francisco "beautiful" - it was a dirty, beat-down city when I lived there in 1999/2000. Unless you can afford a view to just stare over the actual city to the waterfronts, pretending a bum isn't taking a shit on your doorstep right now and leaving their heroine needle for you to clean up. Working in Manhattan many years later, I expected much the same arriving for the first time, but su…
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> It’s played on my mind many times over the years, how do you help someone in that scenario? Acceptance? If he's clean, groomed, not bothering people, and OK with is life as it is, maybe there is room for him in society. I think a lot of the problem stems from the fact that we all agree that "the homeless problem" should be solved, but we can't agree on what "the problem" is. To some it's "I don't want to see and be…
How about hygiene? Where do you think they relieve themselves? How many times a day do you think they'll need to use a toilet and how many times do they find one? Hint: they don't really care. Source: experience living in SF.
See: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/alexander-the-gr...
"ALEXANDER THE GRATE: So, one thing about food insecurity — everybody talks about that, but nobody mentions toilet insecurity. What comes in has got to go out, and that’s not readily . . . Before the Eisenhower Memorial, with a free restroom here — that’s back up by the resources by the way — the closest one to the area was at the Washington Monument, a mile away, basically."
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San Francisco was brilliant before tech, and will be shining in the next boom. Some things are bigger than now, and maybe bigger than we can fully understand. Here’s some enjoyable reading for those with a few minutes to spare: http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/early.html To me the confluence of cultures, like the brackish waters of the bay, are it’s hallmark. The issues around sudden wealth, excess, limited housing, and…
San Francisco had a declining population from 1960 until 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_San_Francisco So according to people voting with their feet: no, San Francisco was not a brilliant place before tech. Or at least it wasn't brilliant enough to attract a net increase in population.
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You want a cop to physically detain a homeless person which will just result in sending him through a pointlessly cruel and expensive criminal justice system where he'll pop-out the other side with nothing but unpayable debts that'll drive him through the same cycle again - all because he urinated on a car of someone who won't even realize it happened?
How much of a bubble do you have to be in to think someone peeing on cars is a non issue
As someone who's family has been in the bay area for over a century I was disappointed the article didn't mention any of the old money families who've controlled SF politics for decades. This article[0] mentions some, though not all of the families (The Aliotos aren't mentioned here for example). While I haven't fully kept up, I know in the 90s at least a quarter of the financial district was held by two families. Th…
The Economist is as useful in terms about learning about the world as reading headlines.