Recent San Francisco Experiences

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the uptick of homeless in SF?

I think the problem is that SF is too quick to let people who are mentally ill in a hostile way stay on the street.

I think New York, Boston and Chicago have better strategies for getting hostile homeless people off the streets.

I rarely run into a poorly behaved homeless person in most cities, but I always run into them in San Francisco.

Letting people who are mentally ill in that way fester on the street is an abdication of responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the uptick of homeless in SF?

Because other cities sent busloads of THEIR homeless people here via bus. Now we're stuck with them. Plus, we do not have enough housing for the working poor because of all the rich tech firms that came in and hired high earners. That created a housing bubble and rents skyrocketed. So we have public school teachers who are living in their cars, and fire fighters and EMT people who live two hours outside the city. So for example, we've had some contract lawyers working at my law firm and the other day found out the one sitting near me has been taking a 2.5 hour commute each way from Los Gatos. She needs the work.

So the people who had three months of savings, had to spend it. The people who moved in with roommates, lost their rentals when their leases were up. They couch-surfed as long as possible, and then had no choice but to become homeless.

Yea , sure, but if I were homeless or a drug addict or here illegally unable to find steady work, I'd go to the bleeding heart capital of the USA as well. Policy also drives behavior. With all the services, SF can absorb it. Makes perfect sense to me to have them there. The people there like that sort of stuff. Makes them feel good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the uptick of homeless in SF?

The city council protect their choice not to be contributing members of society. Instead they are allowed to camp on city streets, collect their welfare and socialize all day.
Why hold a job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh great, a friend and I are going next week for 5 days (just two women.) I really hope this is exagerrated.

I do know two older (early 60s) family members who just went in April and their only comment was that there were a lot of homeless people.... which SF is well known for. These are Fox News watching 60 year olds, so I hope that's an accurate representation of what they saw. They stayed in Union Square, which is also where we are staying.

Tons of homeless people in union square. I was targeted by homeless youth the last time I was there, and I was nearly mugged. A local saw then casing me, approached me and scared them off. I had noticed them as well and sensed something was off, so I was grateful to the local who stepped in. He said it happens a lot.

Where are you from? Have you ever interacted with any homeless people before? I'm the person going with a friend next week, and I have lived in Baltimore and my friend lives in DC. We both have had "encounters" with homeless before... so this is not unfamiliar for us. Just curious if this was something you'd never dealt with before, which is why it sticks out so much to you, or if it truly was a unique situation.

I did homeless street outreach in Baltimore for 3 years before moving to DC where I do homeless advocacy as my day job. I've traveled to nearly 50 cities domestically and abroad for work, and SF and LA's skid row are the worst I've ever seen. The difference between SF and Skid Row in LA is that it's concentrated in one area in LA, whereas it's more widespread in SF. San Diego is a close second. Then you have Seattle, and then NYC.

DC and Baltimore are tame compared to the other cities IMHO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the uptick of homeless in SF?

I think the problem is that SF is too quick to let people who are mentally ill in a hostile way stay on the street.

I think New York, Boston and Chicago have better strategies for getting hostile homeless people off the streets.

I rarely run into a poorly behaved homeless person in most cities, but I always run into them in San Francisco.

Letting people who are mentally ill in that way fester on the street is an abdication of responsibility.

This is all kind of true, SF does tolerate it more than other cities BUT as PP mentioned, the problem largely stems from other states bussing their homeless population here! How wrong is that? This has been happening for many years. They sell homeless/mentally ill/addicted people the CA dream that things will be better out here and it's not true. I wish we had a greater capacity to deal with homelessness but it's a tough problem to solve.

All that being said, anyone who is scared to come to the Bay Area, just stay away. There are areas to avoid but even the tenderloin has fancy restaurants, you just need to be aware of your surroundings. You are in a city and need to be street smart, but the likelihood of you being mugged or stepping in human shit is very, very small. It really seems like some of you posters have never been to a city before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh great, a friend and I are going next week for 5 days (just two women.) I really hope this is exagerrated.

I do know two older (early 60s) family members who just went in April and their only comment was that there were a lot of homeless people.... which SF is well known for. These are Fox News watching 60 year olds, so I hope that's an accurate representation of what they saw. They stayed in Union Square, which is also where we are staying.

Tons of homeless people in union square. I was targeted by homeless youth the last time I was there, and I was nearly mugged. A local saw then casing me, approached me and scared them off. I had noticed them as well and sensed something was off, so I was grateful to the local who stepped in. He said it happens a lot.

Where are you from? Have you ever interacted with any homeless people before? I'm the person going with a friend next week, and I have lived in Baltimore and my friend lives in DC. We both have had "encounters" with homeless before... so this is not unfamiliar for us. Just curious if this was something you'd never dealt with before, which is why it sticks out so much to you, or if it truly was a unique situation.

I did homeless street outreach in Baltimore for 3 years before moving to DC where I do homeless advocacy as my day job. I've traveled to nearly 50 cities domestically and abroad for work, and SF and LA's skid row are the worst I've ever seen. The difference between SF and Skid Row in LA is that it's concentrated in one area in LA, whereas it's more widespread in SF. San Diego is a close second. Then you have Seattle, and then NYC.

DC and Baltimore are tame compared to the other cities IMHO.

The west coast has always had more homeless than the east coast. Where would you rather be living outside in January? DC or LA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh great, a friend and I are going next week for 5 days (just two women.) I really hope this is exagerrated.

I do know two older (early 60s) family members who just went in April and their only comment was that there were a lot of homeless people.... which SF is well known for. These are Fox News watching 60 year olds, so I hope that's an accurate representation of what they saw. They stayed in Union Square, which is also where we are staying.

Tons of homeless people in union square. I was targeted by homeless youth the last time I was there, and I was nearly mugged. A local saw then casing me, approached me and scared them off. I had noticed them as well and sensed something was off, so I was grateful to the local who stepped in. He said it happens a lot.

Where are you from? Have you ever interacted with any homeless people before? I'm the person going with a friend next week, and I have lived in Baltimore and my friend lives in DC. We both have had "encounters" with homeless before... so this is not unfamiliar for us. Just curious if this was something you'd never dealt with before, which is why it sticks out so much to you, or if it truly was a unique situation.

I did homeless street outreach in Baltimore for 3 years before moving to DC where I do homeless advocacy as my day job. I've traveled to nearly 50 cities domestically and abroad for work, and SF and LA's skid row are the worst I've ever seen. The difference between SF and Skid Row in LA is that it's concentrated in one area in LA, whereas it's more widespread in SF. San Diego is a close second. Then you have Seattle, and then NYC.

DC and Baltimore are tame compared to the other cities IMHO.

The west coast has always had more homeless than the east coast. Where would you rather be living outside in January? DC or LA?

Seriously. The weather is a HUGE factor. East coast cities have temps low enough to kill people in the winter, and hot enough to kill them in the summer. SF and LA are temperate enough that it isnt' an issue. On top of that, SF in particular is experiencing a housing crisis where there really are no low cost living situations available for anybody. Twenty years ago there were SROs south of Market where people on disability or SSI could afford to live, but those are long gone.

[Anonymous]

I was there about 8 months ago with a toddler and had no issues whatsoever. We had a great time. You should go.

[Anonymous]

Another reason SF is a haven for homeless is because of its counter culture roots from the 60s. There's always been a rag tag population there, drifters, hippies, druggies....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh great, a friend and I are going next week for 5 days (just two women.) I really hope this is exagerrated.

I do know two older (early 60s) family members who just went in April and their only comment was that there were a lot of homeless people.... which SF is well known for. These are Fox News watching 60 year olds, so I hope that's an accurate representation of what they saw. They stayed in Union Square, which is also where we are staying.

Tons of homeless people in union square. I was targeted by homeless youth the last time I was there, and I was nearly mugged. A local saw then casing me, approached me and scared them off. I had noticed them as well and sensed something was off, so I was grateful to the local who stepped in. He said it happens a lot.

Where are you from? Have you ever interacted with any homeless people before? I'm the person going with a friend next week, and I have lived in Baltimore and my friend lives in DC. We both have had "encounters" with homeless before... so this is not unfamiliar for us. Just curious if this was something you'd never dealt with before, which is why it sticks out so much to you, or if it truly was a unique situation.

I did homeless street outreach in Baltimore for 3 years before moving to DC where I do homeless advocacy as my day job. I've traveled to nearly 50 cities domestically and abroad for work, and SF and LA's skid row are the worst I've ever seen. The difference between SF and Skid Row in LA is that it's concentrated in one area in LA, whereas it's more widespread in SF. San Diego is a close second. Then you have Seattle, and then NYC.

DC and Baltimore are tame compared to the other cities IMHO.

The west coast has always had more homeless than the east coast. Where would you rather be living outside in January? DC or LA?

Seriously. The weather is a HUGE factor. East coast cities have temps low enough to kill people in the winter, and hot enough to kill them in the summer. SF and LA are temperate enough that it isnt' an issue. On top of that, SF in particular is experiencing a housing crisis where there really are no low cost living situations available for anybody. Twenty years ago there were SROs south of Market where people on disability or SSI could afford to live, but those are long gone.

The only SRO's we have now are in Chinatown, and they are not kept up to code, by a longshot.

[Anonymous]

I am the original poster. I flew out alone w two kids and spent the first day in SF with them on my own until my spouse flew out on a later flight. We had a great time - glad we went.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the uptick of homeless in SF?

Democrats in power for ever, no one dares to do the hard work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the uptick of homeless in SF?

Democrats in power for ever, no one dares to do the hard work.

So how do red states handle homelessness? They sure don't give them much in housing vouchers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the uptick of homeless in SF?

Democrats in power for ever, no one dares to do the hard work.

So how do red states handle homelessness? They sure don't give them much in housing vouchers.

There are red parts of California. The main difference in how it's handled there is just that they enforce the existing rules far more proactively than SF and the other progressive cities do. But the problem isn't fundamentally different there--it's primarily caused by a moderate climate (so people who might otherwise move on are more inclined to stay since they can sleep outside) plus the extremely high cost of housing. The marked uptick in recent years tracks directly to the escalation in housing costs. (The housing boom has also led many owners of SROs to find other uses for their buildings, too, which has exacerbated the situation.)

[Anonymous]

Its a combination of the weather and the local officials either not enforcing vagrancy loitering laws or cities intentionally not enacting loitering laws. There was a women murdered in Golden Gate park. The police were lobbying for the city to close the park at night but the city chose not to do this because it would disrupt the homeless people who live in the park. While many of the homeless people are nice and harmless, there are plenty who suffer from mental illness and drug abuse making them very dangerous to other homeless people and others.