'Homeless Island, they call it -- I call it Hell'

S.F. Chronicle ^ | November 30, 2003 | Kevin Fagan

[Cultural Jihad]

'Homeless Island, they call it -- I call it Hell'

San Francisco has the nation's worst problem with homelessness. Thousands are without shelter, and as many as 5,000 spend virtually all their time on the street.

The day everyone learned Tommy's rotting flesh killed him was pretty much like any other day on the traffic island.

[Cultural Jihad]

Maybe if San Francisco didn't subsidize the personal irresponsibility of others, then it wouldn't be first in the nation with the worst problem with homelessness.

[Mike Darancette]

But how can this be in a city so progressive and caring?

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

ok, this is what passes as NEWS? Im assuming this is a editorial...but its really not because its 99% quotes of people...it reads like a piece you'd read in a Readers Digest....you know...BORING.

Quick Summary: There are a bunch of homeless people in S.F.

The End

[hellinahandcart]

I can only read so much about abcesses and pus and scabs and needles and stuff.

This article is the War and Peace of abcesses and pus and scabs and needles and stuff.

[fourdeuce82d]

tissue-dissolving bacterial infection common to junkies all over the city.

gee...and it's establishing a foothoold in an area where the sex practices involce acts that ulcerate mucosal membranes...

coming soon to a town near you.

Actually, maybe an MD could way in on this- is there any way this sort of infection could lay dormant, yet still be infectious? Or is the sort of thing that incapacitates a person relatively quickly, before coitus could spread it?

[ZOOKER]

Seems like every character in this drama came to SF from somewhere else.

Now why do you suppose that is?

[The KG9 Kid]

The picture shows the southbound corner of Van Ness and 12th before you head into the Mission, which is about five blocks down from the Civic Center and grand old gilt-topped City Hall built in the French style.

I hate this particular traffic light more than any other, and will blow this intersection on a stale yellow light just to evade the throngs of homeless that amble up to your vehicle in groups begging for drug money. They get handouts all the time, which keeps them very drugged up.

Across the intersection out of the picture frame is the biggest and best car wash in the city. Police cruisers are there all the time and don't do a thing about the junkies that are in clear sight of the corner.

[Smokin' Joe]

Yep. Somewhere in all this, these people make a choice. Whether that puts them where they are, or simply keeps them there, they choose it. I have lost jobs, been dirt poor, crashed on friends couches, passed one North Dakota winter in a place with no plumbing and a just woodstove for heat, but I stayed away from drugs and booze and got back on my feet, thank God. You gotta want to.

[the invisib1e hand]

another shining example of leftist idealogy in practice. like one amsterdam isn't enough.

[Heatseeker]

Many thanks for the post!

"We want to get off the street, but I got to tell you true," he said. "Unless they take people like us and put us somewhere where we can't keep f -- ing up, we're going to keep f -- ing up."

I find it ironic that the junkies themselves know what the solution is, not the do-gooders who conspire to keep these people in their hellish lives. Too bad he's dead - if he'd lived he could have run for Mayor of SF and been an improvement on the current incumbent, drugged up and all.

[Plutarch]

Heroic formatting job on such a long article.

"If you subsidize something, you get more of it"

[Cultural Jihad]

Exactly. The liberals in San Francisco are sooo compassionate. They hold their nose with one hand while handing over a dollar with the other. Hence they get to walk away thinking: "I did good. I am a good person." But charity is not measured by how good the giver gets to feel about himself. It is measured in how much good actually happens from the giving. In order to be charitable a person has to do the hard work of determining who really needs charity.

[RLK]

A good article. A good picture of a reality.

[RJayneJ]

Quote of the Day by MissAmericanPie

[Squantos]

The weather in San Francisco is too accommodating to a hobo's, bum's, bag lady, panhandlers lifestyle......it's mother natures fault.....:o) Plus the PC atmosphere in that socialist ville pretty much makes em a protected species knowing how the polidiots in that town think.

Stay Safe 4.2 !~

[Heatseeker]

But charity is not measured by how good the giver gets to feel about himself. It is measured in how much good actually happens from the giving. In order to be charitable a person has to do the hard work of determining who really needs charity.

You hit the nail right on the head! Like Smokin' Joe, I've been down and out myself, though for what was probably much less of a good reason - for me it was the early 70's and I was slumming for a couple of months; mostly in SoCal but for a few days in SF. I never did drugs beyond weed, and that ended when I came home, got a job, and grew up. :)

[Porterville]

How could all those rich liberal/communist turn away and not help the poor??? Because they are Godless hypocrites whom allow the poor to grow ill and die right under their collective nose. Shameful.

[ezo4]

The term homeless is lame, These people are the dregs of society. They are 99% wasted on drugs and alcohol. They made there choice.

Regardless of what conditions they came from they could have over come and made something of them selves if they wanted to. Instead they choose to be a bum.

I see the same thing in another west coast city governed by democrats. What a joke liberal socialism is.

[PFKEY]

What sad stories.

A look into the day to day lives of drug addicts.

These people know that it is their fault they are there. The police and social workers know that nothing they do will help these people if they don't want to be helped.

But we are all God's children so some compassion is warranted. Maybe a bag of burgers or a coke a cola.

Giving money to these people is not compassion.

[TheMole]

You wondered about the "flesh-eating" bacteria. Having observed a lot of behavior similar to that described in the article - a very good one by the way - I'd like to give you my $.02 worth. Prolonged use of heroin, cocaine, or amphetamines harms the body's immune system. The bacteria involved in "flesh-eating disease" are actually quite common, but most people are resistant to them. The drug-damaged immune systems of these addicts fail to fight off the bacteria in the way that a healthy immune system normally would. People living on the street doing heroin or cocaine every day do not generally live very long. This is true in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver, wherever. It was also true in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and so on until now. The only thing different is that in most other times and places people cared enough not to tolerate it. They didn't put on a ribbon and then do nothing the way today's progressives do.