San Francisco is imploding

[Anonymous]

San Francisco is NEVER going to solve the homeless crisis because if they house 10,000 people overnight by some miracle, then 10,000 more will arrive from across the country. This is why places like California, New York, DC, Portland, etc. are going to always have homeless people. Lax laws such as no drug enforcement, cheap cost of drugs - fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, plus generous handouts means people from across the country will continue to pour into SF and other cities like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SF is ripe for investing in now

It’ll fall somewhat from here but it’s not gonna become Detroit

is sf a dump? Yes

Would I personally live in sf? No

If you aren’t too over levered and can stomach some volatility, people getting into sf now are gonna make a killing in 15-20 years

I think you seriously underestimate SF’s risk for complete meltdown due to commercial RE implosion. If companies flee, which they’re already doing in SF, RE values tank. What’s SF going to tax then? They’ll try to dramatically hike taxes on residents, who will just leave. Is a death spiral due to their overly progressives politics. They’re following the same self destructive behavior as Baltimore. I bet if you asked people in the 1920s if Baltimore could ever become a rundown murderpit they would never be able to comprehend it because Baltimore was so wealthy back then. Yet here we are in the now with Baltimore more murders some years than NYC.

+1

I think people are really sleeping on the upcoming commercial real estate implosion.

However, unlike Baltimore, San Francisco is breathtakingly beautiful. People will always pay a premium for that. The base of bad things is just going to be higher.

But what makes San Francisco unusual is tech. I lived in the area for a couple of decades. In 1999, San Francisco was a real city. By 2019 it was a bedroom community for tech bros. They don't give a damn about community. That's the problem.

The dynamics of San Francisco are different than most cities. There is a finite amount of real estate. It's a peninsula. The younger people that can afford to buy something are almost always FAANG types or PE or similar. No teacher is buying a home in San Francisco.

So the voting base has become a bunch of 30 year old millionaires who just don't care. They're not living in the Tenderloin. Crime is an existential problem or a minor inconvenience. And since no one goes "downtown" at all anymore for work, people don't care. Tourist problems

The whole thing is sad. But I think geography and the reality of tech people means that San Francisco remains an expensive dystopia for a good while longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SF is ripe for investing in now

It’ll fall somewhat from here but it’s not gonna become Detroit

is sf a dump? Yes

Would I personally live in sf? No

If you aren’t too over levered and can stomach some volatility, people getting into sf now are gonna make a killing in 15-20 years

I think you seriously underestimate SF’s risk for complete meltdown due to commercial RE implosion. If companies flee, which they’re already doing in SF, RE values tank. What’s SF going to tax then? They’ll try to dramatically hike taxes on residents, who will just leave. Is a death spiral due to their overly progressives politics. They’re following the same self destructive behavior as Baltimore. I bet if you asked people in the 1920s if Baltimore could ever become a rundown murderpit they would never be able to comprehend it because Baltimore was so wealthy back then. Yet here we are in the now with Baltimore more murders some years than NYC.

You underestimate Sf’s geography — it’s pretty rare on the planet

Money will always find its way to coastal areas with picturesque views and temperate weather

It’s not going to devolve into South Africa levels of dysfunction

CRE will get repurposed on a multi decade time horizon — if you have a family office between 5-10 billion, allocating 10-15% in Sf is smart and will pay off over a generation

You vastly overrate SF’s self worth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amazing. We have reporters in war zones, but they cannot go to sections of SF.

This feels crazy to me. I just got back from a two week work trip in SF. Stayed downtown close to where my client’s office is. It was fine, I walked every day and didn’t have any interactions that were alarming at all. It’s a beautiful city. I agree with PP who said the Tenderloin is like the one big area to avoid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:San Francisco is NEVER going to solve the homeless crisis because if they house 10,000 people overnight by some miracle, then 10,000 more will arrive from across the country. This is why places like California, New York, DC, Portland, etc. are going to always have homeless people. Lax laws such as no drug enforcement, cheap cost of drugs - fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, plus generous handouts means people from across the country will continue to pour into SF and other cities like it.

Doesn't help that all of the western red states are sending their own homeless, their own drug addicts and so on to San Francisco rather than dealing with it themselves. And then they have the gall to point at the people THEY SENT THERE and say "oh look, how disgusting San Francisco is with all those homeless and drug addicts on the streets."

[Anonymous]

DD and her friends went to SF for the day/late night a few days ago. It’s fine and wasn’t dangerous. It’s also still crowded with lots of traffic.

Retailers are very dependent on commuting workers, business travelers and tourists. Pre-pandemic it was a big thing for wealthy Chinese to fly to SF or LA to shop for luxury brands bringing back suitcases of goods. Business travel has still not recovered.

The other issue that will slow SF bouncing back is the SV bank collapse. The big FAANG companies are on the peninsula and South Bay. SF had satellite offices and start ups. Interest rates and the SV collapse has really hit start ups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD and her friends went to SF for the day/late night a few days ago. It’s fine and wasn’t dangerous. It’s also still crowded with lots of traffic.

Retailers are very dependent on commuting workers, business travelers and tourists. Pre-pandemic it was a big thing for wealthy Chinese to fly to SF or LA to shop for luxury brands bringing back suitcases of goods. Business travel has still not recovered.

The other issue that will slow SF bouncing back is the SV bank collapse. The big FAANG companies are on the peninsula and South Bay. SF had satellite offices and start ups. Interest rates and the SV collapse has really hit start ups.

It doesn't matter than tech companies are there. People are working from home and are demanding it. They're fleeing extremely high cost of living areas littered with homeless, open drug use, defecating/urinating in the streets, and rising crime. Office buildings for these tech companies are remaining vacant. Landlords are losing massive money hand over fist if they can't find occupants, and the value of the RE goes down. That means the tax base for the city is imploding. Major hotel chains are leaving the city. Bookings for the convention center in SF are severely down through 2027. It is not just a short term downturn. A few anecdotal stories of safe travels to SF aren't disproving what's obviously happening in SF. First commercial RE implodes. Next comes a big correction to residential RE (prices are already going down in SF). The city loses huge amounts of money because property values tank, business renvue tanks so there are less taxes, and there are less incomes to tax because WFH. In a panic move, the city's only option will be to hammer residents with huge increases to income taxes. Watch, it will happen. SF went from fine to now having gigantic budget deficits due to big losses in tax revenue. It's Baltimore all over again.

And SF really isn't that much prettier than Baltimore. Baltimore was once beautiful too in its heydays with stunning homes, a water front , big parks etc., but it is now rundown because of 60 years of rot. Why would SF be magically immune? No city is once they enter a death spiral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Francisco is NEVER going to solve the homeless crisis because if they house 10,000 people overnight by some miracle, then 10,000 more will arrive from across the country. This is why places like California, New York, DC, Portland, etc. are going to always have homeless people. Lax laws such as no drug enforcement, cheap cost of drugs - fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, plus generous handouts means people from across the country will continue to pour into SF and other cities like it.

Doesn't help that all of the western red states are sending their own homeless, their own drug addicts and so on to San Francisco rather than dealing with it themselves. And then they have the gall to point at the people THEY SENT THERE and say "oh look, how disgusting San Francisco is with all those homeless and drug addicts on the streets."

This is just false and is being pushed as a narrative to try to somehow make excuses for the homeless problem in SF.

Seventy-one percent of those surveyed reported living in San Francisco, 24% in other California counties and 4% outside California.

Of those with a prior residence in the city, 17% said they had lived in San Francisco for less than one year, while 35% said they had been in the city for 10 or more years. The remaining 52% of those respondents said they lived in the city between one and 10 years before becoming homeless.

https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/#

[Anonymous]

There was a video posted recently by a guy walking to work and what he is to deal with. Walking through shanty towns of homeless in the middle of a sidewalk (in a nice neighborhood), drug users everywhere, poop all over. It was terrible.

SF will collapse soon as tech companies and retailers leave. Austin is more popular now, tech workers can be remote so no need to work in a city where you have to dodge poop and needles on the sidewalk. Nordstrom just packed up and left thus leaving the largest mall/retail center pretty much empty.

It will be the next Detroit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Francisco is NEVER going to solve the homeless crisis because if they house 10,000 people overnight by some miracle, then 10,000 more will arrive from across the country. This is why places like California, New York, DC, Portland, etc. are going to always have homeless people. Lax laws such as no drug enforcement, cheap cost of drugs - fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, plus generous handouts means people from across the country will continue to pour into SF and other cities like it.

Doesn't help that all of the western red states are sending their own homeless, their own drug addicts and so on to San Francisco rather than dealing with it themselves. And then they have the gall to point at the people THEY SENT THERE and say "oh look, how disgusting San Francisco is with all those homeless and drug addicts on the streets."

This is just false and is being pushed as a narrative to try to somehow make excuses for the homeless problem in SF.

Seventy-one percent of those surveyed reported living in San Francisco, 24% in other California counties and 4% outside California.

Of those with a prior residence in the city, 17% said they had lived in San Francisco for less than one year, while 35% said they had been in the city for 10 or more years. The remaining 52% of those respondents said they lived in the city between one and 10 years before becoming homeless.

https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/#

The chief of police just said out of the last 45 people arrested for public drug use in SF (there behavior must have been atrocious to get arrested ) only 3 out if the 45 had SF addresses. Even the article states:
Others argue that the data is flawed because it’s self-reported and that it still finds that more than 2,200 people of the city’s total 7,754 unhoused population were homeless before they moved to San Francisco.

My brother lives there and says must residents know that homeless are encouraged to say they are from SF even when they are not. There are plenty of journalists who have filmed themselves asking homeless where they are from and if the response is SF. But then they ask them what high school they went to and they don’t respond or then admit they aren’t from SF and recently arrived. Often they add how easy it is to be homeless there 650 dollars in general assistance plus $250 in food stamps every month. To get that money you have to be a CA resident, so of course people are going to report they are from CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Francisco is NEVER going to solve the homeless crisis because if they house 10,000 people overnight by some miracle, then 10,000 more will arrive from across the country. This is why places like California, New York, DC, Portland, etc. are going to always have homeless people. Lax laws such as no drug enforcement, cheap cost of drugs - fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, plus generous handouts means people from across the country will continue to pour into SF and other cities like it.

Doesn't help that all of the western red states are sending their own homeless, their own drug addicts and so on to San Francisco rather than dealing with it themselves. And then they have the gall to point at the people THEY SENT THERE and say "oh look, how disgusting San Francisco is with all those homeless and drug addicts on the streets."

This is just false and is being pushed as a narrative to try to somehow make excuses for the homeless problem in SF.

Seventy-one percent of those surveyed reported living in San Francisco, 24% in other California counties and 4% outside California.

Of those with a prior residence in the city, 17% said they had lived in San Francisco for less than one year, while 35% said they had been in the city for 10 or more years. The remaining 52% of those respondents said they lived in the city between one and 10 years before becoming homeless.

https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/#

The chief of police just said out of the last 45 people arrested for public drug use in SF (there behavior must have been atrocious to get arrested ) only 3 out if the 45 had SF addresses. Even the article states:
Others argue that the data is flawed because it’s self-reported and that it still finds that more than 2,200 people of the city’s total 7,754 unhoused population were homeless before they moved to San Francisco.

My brother lives there and says must residents know that homeless are encouraged to say they are from SF even when they are not. There are plenty of journalists who have filmed themselves asking homeless where they are from and if the response is SF. But then they ask them what high school they went to and they don’t respond or then admit they aren’t from SF and recently arrived. Often they add how easy it is to be homeless there 650 dollars in general assistance plus $250 in food stamps every month. To get that money you have to be a CA resident, so of course people are going to report they are from CA.

The homeless go to SF on their own free will because it is a magnet for homeless people. They receive benefits that other states don't provide. They have access to free drug paraphernalia and they know they won't be arrested for public vagrancy. It is the policies there that is making this problem worse - not other states "sending" their homeless there.
When you make it "comfortable" for homeless to stay drug addicted and to live the way they want, more homeless will come.

[Anonymous]

In order to get $687 in cash from SF adult assistance you have to say you are a SF resident. The form asks if you are a resident of SF and says you only have to have been there 15 days. You can get your $687 as fast as the next day plus you get food stamps.
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=z8LVIj7OPUSaf9_MAjH3P-z_4Z99uutCj8aY7eCVtqxUQTFVM0NPUktVSjJLOVJLWktBTkRHWDlRSC4u

Plus fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, the police don’t harass you, the city wants to set up more areas to do drugs, there are a ton of support services and places to get free food, they don’t arrest you for shoplifting.,

Really if you are a drug addict there is nowhere better to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SF is ripe for investing in now

It’ll fall somewhat from here but it’s not gonna become Detroit

is sf a dump? Yes

Would I personally live in sf? No

If you aren’t too over levered and can stomach some volatility, people getting into sf now are gonna make a killing in 15-20 years

I think you seriously underestimate SF’s risk for complete meltdown due to commercial RE implosion. If companies flee, which they’re already doing in SF, RE values tank. What’s SF going to tax then? They’ll try to dramatically hike taxes on residents, who will just leave. Is a death spiral due to their overly progressives politics. They’re following the same self destructive behavior as Baltimore. I bet if you asked people in the 1920s if Baltimore could ever become a rundown murderpit they would never be able to comprehend it because Baltimore was so wealthy back then. Yet here we are in the now with Baltimore more murders some years than NYC.

+1

I think people are really sleeping on the upcoming commercial real estate implosion.

However, unlike Baltimore, San Francisco is breathtakingly beautiful. People will always pay a premium for that. The base of bad things is just going to be higher.

But what makes San Francisco unusual is tech. I lived in the area for a couple of decades. In 1999, San Francisco was a real city. By 2019 it was a bedroom community for tech bros. They don't give a damn about community. That's the problem.

The dynamics of San Francisco are different than most cities. There is a finite amount of real estate. It's a peninsula. The younger people that can afford to buy something are almost always FAANG types or PE or similar. No teacher is buying a home in San Francisco.

So the voting base has become a bunch of 30 year old millionaires who just don't care. They're not living in the Tenderloin. Crime is an existential problem or a minor inconvenience. And since no one goes "downtown" at all anymore for work, people don't care. Tourist problems

The whole thing is sad. But I think geography and the reality of tech people means that San Francisco remains an expensive dystopia for a good while longer.

You can't be serious. If SF was tech bro politics then the homeless would be forcibly removed to LA and fined if they ever returned. The tech bro libertarians most definitely would not be giving them cash and free tools to use drugs. I think what you mean by not caring is donating money to things but not really voting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Francisco is NEVER going to solve the homeless crisis because if they house 10,000 people overnight by some miracle, then 10,000 more will arrive from across the country. This is why places like California, New York, DC, Portland, etc. are going to always have homeless people. Lax laws such as no drug enforcement, cheap cost of drugs - fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, plus generous handouts means people from across the country will continue to pour into SF and other cities like it.

Doesn't help that all of the western red states are sending their own homeless, their own drug addicts and so on to San Francisco rather than dealing with it themselves. And then they have the gall to point at the people THEY SENT THERE and say "oh look, how disgusting San Francisco is with all those homeless and drug addicts on the streets."

This is just false and is being pushed as a narrative to try to somehow make excuses for the homeless problem in SF.

Seventy-one percent of those surveyed reported living in San Francisco, 24% in other California counties and 4% outside California.

Of those with a prior residence in the city, 17% said they had lived in San Francisco for less than one year, while 35% said they had been in the city for 10 or more years. The remaining 52% of those respondents said they lived in the city between one and 10 years before becoming homeless.

https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/#

The chief of police just said out of the last 45 people arrested for public drug use in SF (there behavior must have been atrocious to get arrested ) only 3 out if the 45 had SF addresses. Even the article states:
Others argue that the data is flawed because it’s self-reported and that it still finds that more than 2,200 people of the city’s total 7,754 unhoused population were homeless before they moved to San Francisco.

My brother lives there and says must residents know that homeless are encouraged to say they are from SF even when they are not. There are plenty of journalists who have filmed themselves asking homeless where they are from and if the response is SF. But then they ask them what high school they went to and they don’t respond or then admit they aren’t from SF and recently arrived. Often they add how easy it is to be homeless there 650 dollars in general assistance plus $250 in food stamps every month. To get that money you have to be a CA resident, so of course people are going to report they are from CA.

Exactly this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:San Francisco is NEVER going to solve the homeless crisis because if they house 10,000 people overnight by some miracle, then 10,000 more will arrive from across the country. This is why places like California, New York, DC, Portland, etc. are going to always have homeless people. Lax laws such as no drug enforcement, cheap cost of drugs - fentanyl is cheaper in SF than other areas, plus generous handouts means people from across the country will continue to pour into SF and other cities like it.

Doesn't help that all of the western red states are sending their own homeless, their own drug addicts and so on to San Francisco rather than dealing with it themselves. And then they have the gall to point at the people THEY SENT THERE and say "oh look, how disgusting San Francisco is with all those homeless and drug addicts on the streets."

This is just false and is being pushed as a narrative to try to somehow make excuses for the homeless problem in SF.

Seventy-one percent of those surveyed reported living in San Francisco, 24% in other California counties and 4% outside California.

Of those with a prior residence in the city, 17% said they had lived in San Francisco for less than one year, while 35% said they had been in the city for 10 or more years. The remaining 52% of those respondents said they lived in the city between one and 10 years before becoming homeless.

https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-homeless-people-from-the-city/#

The chief of police just said out of the last 45 people arrested for public drug use in SF (there behavior must have been atrocious to get arrested ) only 3 out if the 45 had SF addresses. Even the article states:
Others argue that the data is flawed because it’s self-reported and that it still finds that more than 2,200 people of the city’s total 7,754 unhoused population were homeless before they moved to San Francisco.

My brother lives there and says must residents know that homeless are encouraged to say they are from SF even when they are not. There are plenty of journalists who have filmed themselves asking homeless where they are from and if the response is SF. But then they ask them what high school they went to and they don’t respond or then admit they aren’t from SF and recently arrived. Often they add how easy it is to be homeless there 650 dollars in general assistance plus $250 in food stamps every month. To get that money you have to be a CA resident, so of course people are going to report they are from CA.

The homeless go to SF on their own free will because it is a magnet for homeless people. They receive benefits that other states don't provide. They have access to free drug paraphernalia and they know they won't be arrested for public vagrancy. It is the policies there that is making this problem worse - not other states "sending" their homeless there.
When you make it "comfortable" for homeless to stay drug addicted and to live the way they want, more homeless will come.

There are also many many instances that have been documented where mentally ill people and drug addicts were sent to San Francisco and Sacramento and other places. Here is an example where a Nevada mental institution was dumping patients on the streets of San Francisco.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/21/nevada-california-patient-dumping/2681593