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Posted on 03/05/2008 7:58:38 AM PST by SmithL
When San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom initiated a program in conjunction with Google last month to provide phone and messaging facilities to the homeless, it was the latest chapter in the city's seemingly never ending quest to tackle homelessness. While the program may prove useful for those inclined to better their situation, it is unlikely to have an impact on the chronically homeless.
San Francisco has the highest per capita number of homeless in the nation, and city officials have quite a challenge on their hands. And to hear Mayor Gavin Newsom or Angela Alioto, his appointee to chair the Homeless Ten-Year Plan Council, tell it, they are making great strides. City officials seem determined to put on a happy face when it comes to combating homelessness. But it's hard to believe any of them actually live here.
For the residents of San Francisco, the blight of homelessness has only gotten worse over the years, and today it has reached critical mass. One is hard pressed to walk around just about any neighborhood without having to run a gantlet of panhandlers, step over passed-out drunks or drug addicts, maneuver around the mentally ill or try to avoid the stench of urine and the human feces littering the sidewalk. These days, the streets of San Francisco resemble the streets of Calcutta.
Having lived in San Francisco since the early 1990s (with the exception of a year spent in the East Bay), I've witnessed my fair share of street scenes involving the homeless. I've seen the same apparently homeless people standing on the same street corners doing the same panhandling routines...
...I've spoken to several of them and discovered that they are actually able to make a living this way: professional panhandlers, as it were.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I wonder when the SF liberal elite are going to open their homes to the homeless?
It was when the city government gave a $400 a month stiped for all homeless that they all flocked to SF. They cancelled that program, but now they’re stuck with them.
Illustrates that the “liberals” really have no clue about the concept of “incentive”.
It’s the core of why they promote stupid policies.
the latest chapter in the city's seemingly never ending quest to tacklemultiply homelessness
Do what other cities do... give them one-way bus tickets to anywhere! ;)
The homeless industry in Sanctuary Francisco would require that the bus tickets be round-trip.
Does this mean that the Tree Guy at Pier 39 has a cell phone now? What’s his number?
I wonder when the SF liberal elite are going to open their homes to the homeless?
++++++++++++++++
In a sense they’ve been doing it for years. They live in the filth that they created. They deserve the results.
For my part I’ll refer homeless and illegals there at any opportunity to do so. I lived there for over 30 years and moved when I retired. I just couldn’t take it anymore.
When you start tolerating the bums and illegals more than your city government it’s time to move.
“never ending quest to tackle homelessness”
Doesn’t seem as if they are trying to tackle it, but rather enable it.
The problem is that in most cities across the country, the one-way bus tickets are to San Francisco.
This is an incredible out of the box idea! The bums er I mean homeless could setup PayPal accounts and solicit donations via email!
Liberalism is truly a mental disorder.
I’d say they need to open the mayor’s mansion and the homeless director’s residence to the homeless first, then start with the rest of the elected officials in SF until they get so pissed that they actually DO something EFFECTIVE about the situation.
I am sure they’d not do the right thing, but probably get a bunch of buses and drop them off in LA or Sacramento somewhere...
“Does this mean that the Tree Guy at Pier 39 has a cell phone now? What’s his number?”
Is this the guy who hides behind a tree branch and jumps out and scares tourists at fisherman’s warf?
I love how packs of people will stand across the street just to watch him scare people!
Same routine, but I don't know if it's the same guy. I was out there in the late 80's and saw him at work. A homeless looking black man.
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