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Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

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Re: Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

#11

Post by kevingadd »

ams6110 wrote: post #10
pstuart wrote: post #5

My mother was one of those "crazy bums". She spent the last 3 years of her life on the streets there. She lived in the East Bay before, so when she finally lost it it was natural to migrate to the nearest large city where she could "live in peace" on the streets. I think a key problem is not just that the mental institutions are closed, but that it's now impossible to detain them unless they are an immediate threat t…

Why did you let your mom live on the streets?

A fair question, I suppose, but before judging too harshly it's worth remembering that many people do not want to be helped.

Re: Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

#12

Post by justin66 »

ams6110 wrote: post #10
pstuart wrote: post #5

My mother was one of those "crazy bums". She spent the last 3 years of her life on the streets there. She lived in the East Bay before, so when she finally lost it it was natural to migrate to the nearest large city where she could "live in peace" on the streets. I think a key problem is not just that the mental institutions are closed, but that it's now impossible to detain them unless they are an immediate threat t…

Why did you let your mom live on the streets?

I'm pretty sure you missed the "impossible to detain" line in his post, or misunderstood it. There is not necessarily a way to commit a mentally ill person in CA if they're not a threat to themselves or others.

Re: Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

#13

Post by pstuart »

ams6110 wrote: post #10
pstuart wrote: post #5

My mother was one of those "crazy bums". She spent the last 3 years of her life on the streets there. She lived in the East Bay before, so when she finally lost it it was natural to migrate to the nearest large city where she could "live in peace" on the streets. I think a key problem is not just that the mental institutions are closed, but that it's now impossible to detain them unless they are an immediate threat t…

Why did you let your mom live on the streets?

She was in a "care home" and checked herself out against doctor's orders. I wasn't in a position to have her live with me, and had been dealing with her illness for about 30 years and was, quite frankly, so frustrated and burnt out that I had given up.

I had no resources to work with, what the hell was I to do?

Edit: I shared my story for 2 reasons. The first was to point out that these "bums" are somebody's family member -- it's easy to forget that. The other was the bit about rethinking what to do with them. I think the "monastery" approach is the most humane and cost effective.

Re: Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

#16

Post by zequel »

Life-long Boston area resident here. On my only visit to SF, what I observed was that the homeless people I saw were much more aggressive than their Boston counterparts. They were very much in the face of the people they were interacting with. Also, I saw a lot more of them. Weather? Generosity? I don't know.

Re: Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

#17

Post by e40 »

ams6110 wrote: post #10
pstuart wrote: post #5

My mother was one of those "crazy bums". She spent the last 3 years of her life on the streets there. She lived in the East Bay before, so when she finally lost it it was natural to migrate to the nearest large city where she could "live in peace" on the streets. I think a key problem is not just that the mental institutions are closed, but that it's now impossible to detain them unless they are an immediate threat t…

Why did you let your mom live on the streets?

That is an incredibly insensitive and provocative question, one that doesn't seem to take into account the simple information contained in the comment to which you replied.

Re: Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

#18

Post by mathattack »

I recall a period during my stint in SF where they started allowing drinking in the parks because "the homeless live in parks and should be allowed to drink at home"

I think they're there because they don't freeze and an idealistic population allows it.

Re: Why are there so many crazy bums on San Francisco streets?

#19

Post by jonnathanson »

California accounts for nearly a quarter of the entire homeless population in the United States [1], largely due to its climate, its support programs, and its dense network of municipal services and population centers. Approximately 14% of all homeless in the US are military veterans, many of whom suffer from PTSD and were turned out of VA clinics in the 1970s and 1980s due to budget cutbacks. The article is correct in placing a lot of the blame on Reagan, who as governor of CA and president of the US, aggressively scaled back support for both veterans in specific, and the homeless in general. As the article mentions, he also closed a lot of psychiatric hospitals, whose inpatients were turned out onto the streets, left to their own devices. Reagan wasn't the only legislator responsible for this turn of events, but he was probably the most powerful.

Perhaps homelessness is inevitable to some degree. Perhaps some proportion of the population in a laissez-faire, competitive country like the modern US is always going to fall through the cracks. Perhaps we lack the will or the budget to solve the problem completely or permanently. Perhaps some people just can't be saved. I'm not going to launch into an armchair, pollyannaish prescription for solving this problem when I don't have a fantastic solution. (That said, I suspect the best long-term solution is at least as preventive as it is rehabilitative.)

Regardless, there's one thing we can control on an individual level: the way we view and treat the mentally ill and the homeless. Let's not further the stigma, or wax poetic about the homeless in SF as some sort of quirky, fun landmark. I suspect that's not the author's intention -- he's setting out to celebrate the homeless, not to denigrate them -- but some of his language lends itself to misinterpretation. As someone with a close friend who's been homeless, and other friends who've been institutionalized, I don't find the "crazy bums" characterization very constructive.

[1] https://www.onecpd.info/resources/documents/pit-hic_suppleme...

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