Free Republic

Friday December 08, 2006 By JUSTIN M. NORTON Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An effort to clean up some of the city's seedier neighborhoods and rid the streets of junkies, hookers and runaways has run headlong into San Francisco's free-to-be-who-you-are ethos. Nearly four decades after the Summer of Love, residents and merchants frustrated with what they regard as blight are turning to the city for help or taking revitalization into their own hands. But other residents of the Tenderloin district and Haight-Ashbury contend a crackdown would rob their neighborhoods of their identity and violate everything San Francisco stands...

The San Francisco Chronicle's four-part series on sex trafficking exposes the harsh reality that trafficking in human beings is a lucrative and ruthlessly exploitative enterprise. Reporter Meredith May describes in haunting detail the story of You Mi, a Korean college girl whose attempts to settle her credit card debt land her in the middle of a sex slavery ring in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. May's reporting shines the harsh light of truth on the reprehensible sex trade and the morally outrageous behavior of the pimps, johns and criminal networks that are getting rich by exploiting girls like You Mi....

Steve Williams returned to his Golden Gate Park campsite just in time Saturday morning to retrieve all his belongings from the back of a Department of Public Works pickup truck. New to San Francisco, he hadn't heard about the push to clear the park of homeless encampments until someone at the Haight Street McDonald's advised him to check on his stuff. "I only slept there one night," said Williams, 33, who arrived last week in San Francisco from Baltimore by bus. "This wasn't what I was expecting." Within minutes, workers from the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team had made arrangements...

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Carolyn Abst moved into this city's harsh Tenderloin district several years ago, she thought she would be welcomed. As owner of an architecture firm, she was bringing in jobs and ideas to revitalize the area. Instead, some of her neighbors called for her head. "Wanted" posters went up around the Tenderloin last year, featuring Ms. Abst's photo. Someone circulated pamphlets disparaging her. Residents yelled at her in the street. Ms. Abst's offense: trying to plant 400 trees in the area. "I had no idea that cleanliness, beauty and safety could get people so riled up," the...