Liberal policing and policies in San Francisco

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right, the big problem with quality of life in SF is not crime. It is cost of living. SF is beautiful, relative safe for an American city and has pretty good weather. NIMBYism keeps housing supply low. So people can’t afford to live here. If SF was such a hellhole, the average house wouldn’t cost over 1.5 million.

It’s both. You don’t get what you pay for. Filth everywhere

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SF is not very dangerous compared to many other American cities. It’s just that Fox News and other right wing outlets whip up republicans into a frenzy about it. Cities in red states like New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Louisville, Jackson MS, Gary, and Cincinnati all have much higher murder rates. Yet it does not fit the narrative so Fox News talks about SF, even though it is wildly prosperous.

SF has its problems, but the right blows it waaay out of proportion.

I don’t have proof but my guess is that murders mostly happen to people in bad neighborhoods, so if you avoid them you are safe. In SF you are never safe from stepping into shite, being mugged, or your car window being smashed.

[Anonymous]

Now, instead of blaming it all on the homeless who come from all over, let’s think WHY they are coming

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Now, instead of blaming it all on the homeless who come from all over, let’s think WHY they are coming

Honestly I’m sure the weather is a big draw. It’s never too hot and never really too cold. You’ll never freeze to death like you would in NY, and you won’t die from heat stroke like you would in a place like Phoenix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Now, instead of blaming it all on the homeless who come from all over, let’s think WHY they are coming

A better question is why they are tolerated.

Camping on the street or in a park should be illegal. Anyone doing so should be offered a choice of going to a shelter (where they will not be permitted to have drugs, alcohol, or weapons) or a treatment center.

Society should fund shelters and treatment centers sufficiently to house the homeless, and fund the police sufficiently to promptly respond and clean up any encampments.


This applies to SF, DC, LA, etc.


Citizens need to stop thinking they are being kind by allowing their cities to be overrun by squatters. They aren't serving anyone's interests by surrendering all public spaces to drug addicts and unmedicated psychiatric cases.

[Anonymous]

Homeless and junkies go to SF specifically because idiots in SF tolerate open hard drug use and have pretty much decriminalized the use of hard drugs. Reap what you sow, idiots.

[Anonymous]

Over a billion dollars over a two year period dedicated to homeless. A billion.
https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/budget/

San Francisco has the highest per-capita budget of any major city in the country. At $15,650 per person, it is about 40 percent higher than Bill de Blasio’s over-the-top New York City budget. You would think San Franciscans would have wonderful city services coming out of their ears. Wrong.

San Francisco represents perhaps the greatest failure of governance in the country, and with this failure comes enormous waste, inefficiency, and dysfunctional politics. Beginning with providing tent living for the homeless, which costs about $61,000 per individual per year. This is not a typo. Not one too many decimal places. Remember, this is San Francisco, which squanders money at a rate that makes your head spin. San Francisco’s enormous spending on homelessness has worked about as well as throwing gasoline on a fire.

The city’s 2020–21 budget for the Department of Homeless and Supportive Housing is about $852 million. To put that in perspective, Sacramento’s city budget is about $650 million, which covers all public services for their population of over 500,000.

San Francisco estimates about 8,000 homeless living in the city. The $852 million budget works out to about $106,500 per homeless individual. Just imagine how much medical treatment and housing could be provided at that level of support. But how the budget is spent would be comedic if the problem weren’t so tragic.

During the pandemic, San Francisco distributed 262 tents across six locations. These tents are sheltering just over 300 people. I don’t know how much the city paid for these tents, but one can purchase a perfectly fine, very large tent from REI for about $400. The annual budget for these tents is $16.1 million, which comes out to about $61,000 per tent per year. This includes meals, bathroom facilities, and security.

https://www.hoover.org/research/only-san-francisco-61000-tents-and-350000-public-toilets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right, the big problem with quality of life in SF is not crime. It is cost of living. SF is beautiful, relative safe for an American city and has pretty good weather. NIMBYism keeps housing supply low. So people can’t afford to live here. If SF was such a hellhole, the average house wouldn’t cost over 1.5 million.

It’s both. You don’t get what you pay for. Filth everywhere

With all of the tech sector billions you'd think SF should and would tax those high flyers to provide the resources to deal with the homeless and clean up the streets. For a supposedly liberal-run city it's odd that isn't happening.

[Anonymous]

The really tech folks don’t have SF proper as their primary residences. They’re living in Santa Clara or San Mateo counties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SF is not very dangerous compared to many other American cities. It’s just that Fox News and other right wing outlets whip up republicans into a frenzy about it. Cities in red states like New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Louisville, Jackson MS, Gary, and Cincinnati all have much higher murder rates. Yet it does not fit the narrative so Fox News talks about SF, even though it is wildly prosperous.

SF has its problems, but the right blows it waaay out of proportion.

There are a few major differences between SF and the cities you mention:

1. SF previously didn’t have a major crime or as an extreme of a homeless problem as it does now. Things have gotten much worse. Have things gotten that much worse in St Louis? They likely were already bad to begin with.

2. The other cities you mention have large AA populations compared to SF. New Orleans has always had a large portion of its population below the poverty line and struggled with crime. SF has a minuscule AA population which almost always result in a lower crime rate.

3. SF for many years has been a prized American city with a large amount of tourism. Do you really put St Louis in the same category in terms of what it has to offer?

I will admit that fox focused heavily on SF, but most likely because it’s such an easy story line that gets to its viewers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s crazy how people jump on the bandwagon for these, obviously less effective criminal justice laws, and then are shocked when their political party loses power as crime rises. Like shocked pikachu face how did I not know that ending policing in a violent neighborhood would result in a 30% murder increase? Or who knew taking shoplifting less than $1000 would only result in a misdemeanor would somehow spur a shoplifting crimewave?

This has me concerned because I am liberal. Not a progressive a moderate liberal.

What happens when republicans win and the pendulum swings the other way and there is a massive crack down on crime that disproportionately hits people…basically it’s hard to find a good policing middle ground, but this lax crap needs to stop.

Honest question though. Why is it considered a massive Republican crackdown when it is literally enforcing the law and protecting property rights? This is an opportunity to stop playing partisan games and identify bad policy and do something about it.

+1

It’s disgusting that caring about our laws and not wanting a business robbed or looted or people to be assaulted is apparently a “republican” idea now.

You might not like “stop and frisk”, and I think there’s a valid discussion to be had about that. But we’d better start cracking down hard on criminals or next year there’s gonna be a red wave like we’ve never seen before.

Bring back law enforcement and policing practices that lead to inherently unequal justice outcomes? Yea keep trying to reimpose this through fear-mongering.

It is not "unequal" when criminals are prosecuted and laws are imposed. It is not "disproportionate" when the ones prosecuted are the criminals. I don't give a crap what the color of their skin is for god's sake. This line of thinking will absolutely be the death of this country if we aren't careful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have relatives all over this region. Several in SF that love it. More on the peninsula and east bay. We’re in South Bay. The crime is less of an issue here than when we lived in DC. It’s mostly property and nuisance crime. SF is amazing if you are single or married without kids. In fact prepandemic, I was shocked at how many Google employees chose to live in SF and sit on a bus or train for over an hour to get to work. The peninsula, South Bay and east bay is better for families but boring for people without kids.

The only people I see ranting about crime here are the very old retire in place types who have embraced right wing nimbyism. Of course they are sitting on over 2 million in equity (equity thanks to the progressive tech sector) in their house yet able to stay because progressive tax policy exempts them from many taxes, reduces their utility bills etc.

There is a lot of “ranting about crime”. Our voices just get drowned by the loud screams of progressives who can afford to live in relatively crime free areas

Really? So San Francisco is actually full of conservatives and all of the liberal voices are in the SF burbs? /s

I just find it hard to believe that people on whose steps the homeless sh*t are voting D

You don't understand how literally crazy the California Republicans are. I'm in California. I know so many people who would have voted for the Newsom recall if the Republican party had managed to put forth a non-crazy candidate. But they didn't and can't.

There is a groundswell of people here ready to vote for a moderate Republican, but the moderate Republicans can't get nominated in the California Republican party. Literally people will pick poo in their doorsteps when the other option are people who sound like they should be committed themselves.

[Anonymous]

Cali has relaxed laws that allow all this crap to happen. Even the smash and grab epidemic now popping up in Cali. Also, nobody wants to solve the homelessness there. There is too much money to be had involving this. So many families depend on the money they make “solving homelessness”. It’s a big money maker. Never going away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right, the big problem with quality of life in SF is not crime. It is cost of living. SF is beautiful, relative safe for an American city and has pretty good weather. NIMBYism keeps housing supply low. So people can’t afford to live here. If SF was such a hellhole, the average house wouldn’t cost over 1.5 million.

It’s both. You don’t get what you pay for. Filth everywhere

With all of the tech sector billions you'd think SF should and would tax those high flyers to provide the resources to deal with the homeless and clean up the streets. For a supposedly liberal-run city it's odd that isn't happening.

They have thrown simply stupid amounts of money at the problem. It isn't a problem of resources. It is a problem of an ideology that puts the interests of those who contribute nothing to society over those who are indispensable to society.

Sprawling homeless encampments, smash and grab looting gangs, rampant vandalism and property crime of all types... these are all manifestations of an unwillingness to address the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SF is not very dangerous compared to many other American cities. It’s just that Fox News and other right wing outlets whip up republicans into a frenzy about it. Cities in red states like New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Louisville, Jackson MS, Gary, and Cincinnati all have much higher murder rates. Yet it does not fit the narrative so Fox News talks about SF, even though it is wildly prosperous.

SF has its problems, but the right blows it waaay out of proportion.

There are a few major differences between SF and the cities you mention:

1. SF previously didn’t have a major crime or as an extreme of a homeless problem as it does now. Things have gotten much worse. Have things gotten that much worse in St Louis? They likely were already bad to begin with.

2. The other cities you mention have large AA populations compared to SF. New Orleans has always had a large portion of its population below the poverty line and struggled with crime. SF has a minuscule AA population which almost always result in a lower crime rate.

3. SF for many years has been a prized American city with a large amount of tourism. Do you really put St Louis in the same category in terms of what it has to offer?

I will admit that fox focused heavily on SF, but most likely because it’s such an easy story line that gets to its viewers.

Have you experienced Oakland???