San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless: Failure to Enforce Standards Has Made the City Unlivable

City Journal ^ | 10/07/2019 | Heather MacDonald

[SeekAndFind]

Everyone’s on drugs here . . . and stealing,” an ex-felon named Shaku explains as he rips open a blue Popsicle wrapper with his teeth. Shaku is standing in an encampment of tents, trash, and bicycles, across from San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church. Another encampment-dweller lights a green crack pipe and passes it around. A few paces down the street, a gaunt man swipes a credit card through a series of parking meters to see if it has been reported stolen yet.

For the last three decades, San Francisco has conducted a real-life experiment in what happens when a society stops enforcing bourgeois norms of behavior. The city has done so in the name of compassion toward the homeless. The results have been the opposite: street squalor and misery have increased, even as government expenditures have ballooned. Yet the principles that have guided the city’s homelessness policy remain inviolate: homelessness is a housing problem; it is involuntary; and its persistence is the result of inadequate public spending. These propositions are readily disproved by talking to people living on the streets.

Shaku’s assessment of drug use among the homeless is widely shared. Asked if she does drugs, a formerly homeless woman, just placed in a city-subsidized single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotel, responds incredulously: “Is that a trick question?” A 33-year-old woman from Alabama, who now lives in a tent in an industrial area outside downtown, says: “Everyone out here has done something—drugs, you name it.” On Sutter Avenue, a wizened 50-year-old named Jeff slumps over his coffee cup at 7:30 AM, one hand holding a sweet roll, the other playing with his beard.

[jmacusa]

I’ll never understand how people who don’t work always have money for booze and drugs.

[Ann Archy]

THE GAYS RUINED THE CITY..I USED TO LIVE THERE....THEN THE HOMELESS TOOK OVER!

I ALSO LIVED IN SEATTLE AND THE SAME THING HAPPENED!!

I MUST BE THPHOID ANN!!!

[Mr. Jeeves]

The article explains the real reason why - “homelessness” is a big fundraiser for the Left. The more participants, the more they can shakedown businesses and residents for cash to “solve” the problems. The only real fix is for the citizens to vote out the entire Board of Supervisors and start over with a Giuliani-esque mayor. But that was the only real solution a decade ago, when I lived there, and nothing has changed since.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Enforce vagrancy laws.
Remove vagrants to former military bases.
Mandatory1-year drug/mental care.
Skills/trade training.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Thank You Rush]

“” a gaunt man swipes a credit card through a series of parking meters to see if it has been reported stolen yet.””

HUH???? I don’t exactly live in the sticks - Metro Atlanta but what the heck does a credit card have to do with a parking meter? Haven’t seen a parking meter since we moved here 13 years ago.

[Thank You Rush]

It wasn’t until I got to the end of your reply that I figured out what you meant about items you had to “remove” yourself and the trunk of your car. Got’cha...

[TChad]

what the heck does a credit card have to do with a parking meter?

[Thank You Rush]

Where have I been? My sister did say something about parking meters at the end of blocks in Ithaca, NY that you had to go to after parking and put your credit card in but I had no idea what she was talking about. I feel like Rip Van Winkle... Thanks.