No doubt Quinn would spin in his grave though.
Posted on 12/18/2016 12:22:54 PM PST by nickcarraway
California may be the new capital of American liberalism, but everybody who likes the sound of that ought to consider the fate of three recent San Francisco ballot initiatives.
The first, Proposition Q, aimed to eliminate homeless people’s unsightly tent camps by banning sidewalk tents and empowering the police to confiscate them with 24 hours notice so long as occupants were offered beds in shelters. San Francisco has only 1,203 emergency adult shelter beds, for a homeless population of 6,700, but a second initiative, Proposition J, promised to ease that shortfall by earmarking $50 million a year from a small sales-tax increase, proposed in a third initiative, Proposition K.
In an exquisite illustration of California’s core political neurosis — the tension between our attachment to the pretty view and our desire to care for the least among us without personal inconvenience, even as our population and economy explode — we San Franciscans voted yes on Q and J, and no on K. The people spoke, in other words, and we said, “Get rid of those filthy tents and set aside heaps of money to make sure it’s done in a compassionate way so I don’t have to feel guilty, but don’t squeeze me for a dime.”
Similar contradictions were on display this month, after the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland killed 36 people. We lamented the deaths, but it was easier to criticize the warehouse owner and operator than face the desperation that drove so many to live there.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I was asked by my granddaughter’s best friend what I thought of free lunches at their high school. Bear in mind that they go to HS in one of the richest neighborhoods in one of the richest suburbs in the world. They aren’t rich but they are comfortably middle class. I said that if there were kids who’s parents met the criteria then its probably okay but that they should realize that the lunches were not free and that I and my fellow tax payers were paying for them. She then said well what about kids who forget their lunch money - should they go hungry? I said yes, they needed to go hungry so that they would remember their lunch money the next day and I told her what my bring from home lunch was for years. I love these questions. Oh, and probably because she knows I voted Trump, she wanted to know if I was a feminist. I said no, in a strong voice! hehe.
I was interviewing for a job out there when the dot com crash occurred, so it didn’t happen. But, it had gotten far enough along that I was perusing houses for sale. The only thing I could find even then than I could remotely afford that I would even want was a 1,200 sf dinky ranch with a tiny sliver of a Pacific view in Half Moon Bay, needed everything, in dire need of repair. True fixer-upper, handyman special. $350,000, which I thought was insane. No telling what that house would sell for now, though. Probably in excess of a million. I would’ve gone through two price collapses and would have had to maintain a very high paying job to get from then to now, which seems to me a questionable proposition, so it’s just idle speculation. Couldn’t have happened, not for me.
No doubt Quinn would spin in his grave though.
Levy a tax on homosexuality and voila!
Problem solved
Even nearby areas are pricey.
Yep. I was born and raised in SF, have seen a lot of changes. Streets that had parallel parking had lots of empty parking spaces. Now some streets in the old neighborhood wide enough, were converted to diagonal or 90 degree parking, and not a parking space to be found, because of multiple families or occupants stuffed into small housing each with cars. I live in a suburb, but travel into the city often. Very crowded. Old very tall multi-story tenement buildings for low-income housing were torn down (due to rampant crime), and replaced with one or two-story projects - so less space for low income families, but they built more against freeways or on parkland areas formerly off limits to building. It's a mess.
A lot of folks pulled out and moved to towns 50 to 100 miles away because it's cheaper. But the crime and gangs followed them. Result, is less crime in SF and close suburbs. People who cashed out and left, can't afford to come back. One can afford housing 100 miles away, if you don't mind commuting on crowded freeways. Jobs are fewer and crime higher out there, so people do drive to SF jobs. Jobs are what it's all about, if you have the talents they're looking for (hint, illegals and low-lifes need not apply), lots of techies moving in. 100 miles away, fewer jobs.
We've all been through sticker-shock. And then kick yourself later for not buying in. Half Moon Bay is becoming the new Sausalito, with high-prices. Probably over a million now. My daughter and her husband moved to Des Moines, Iowa, because prices are too expensive here in SF Bay Area. They bought a fixer-upper for $80,000, huge 3-story building on a large lot in a nice area. You can't buy a garage space here for that price. She took a job there at half the salary she was getting here, and is happy because expenses are less (they bought the house in cash all paid for, would have been just a down payment in SF).
Kansas to SO Cal to Bakersfield. There are worse places.
Ain't that the truth. Pick your poison, different choices, and what some people enjoy is opposite of others.
For instance, one of my daughters lived in Salina, Kansas for a few years. A lot of people wouldn't be able to stand it, boring small town. But I would probably like it. Wife and I went shopping on the main street, not another soul in sight. Shopkeepers talked our ears off. We asked them when the busy time was. They said this is it. We visited Kansas City, not far away, and totally different. Yes, streets lively, but scary. As a senior, I'll take boring. Daughter and family moved to Austin, TX, more to her liking as it's more lively. As for Bakersfield, yes it's pretty bad, but some like all the open space all around. As much as people knock SF, it's got a lot going for it compared to most places (and no, it's not full of gays as most have been leaving the last couple decades).
Work in SF, live a bit south, but I’ve been really thinking lately about the lib/GOPe position that working class people in “dying” towns in middle America should just move to where the jobs are, like “San Francisco or New York!” What a joke, what awaits them here is a minimum wage job at Starbucks, splitting the tip jar with ten other people, hoping to make rent on a $3000 a month apartment, no hope of every owning a house. Oh, but, “well, that’s because you’re not educated, you should go to school!”. Great, waste four to eight years doing that, and at the end of it, the same scenario as above except add $100K in debt that can’t be bankrupted.
Don’t get me wrong . . . for those with a high level of skills, education, experience, life is good here. Double income families, one or both spouses making north of $200K, get with a start up and maybe make millions. But that’s 10-20% of the total tops, and it’s not available to anything less than a savant from Peoria.
A big part of the problem is that liberals just can't get their minds around the concept that people are not simply allowed to live anywhere they want, whether they can afford it or not. In San Francisco it's worse - because they see themselves as a sanctuary not just for illegals, but any misfit who wants the rebel against the mainstream. There is also the cynical motive - a plethora of homeless allows the Board of Supervisors to shake down downtown businesses for ever more revenue to buy sinecures for their friends and allies.
Isn’t Barbara boxer closer? I don’t understand why they aren’t just donating vacation mansions to the homeless. Wouldn’t the tent people’s pursuit of happiness be complete with a swimming pool or three, a beautiful view and some tennis courts? /sar
People who can’t think have no way to think through things.
Right on all counts. The problem is the politicians running City Hall. Despite recurring budget crisis problems every so often, they pour more and more money down the sewer on the homeless problems. Departments are forced to cut back, unless it's money dumped on homeless. Homeless shelters all across the city, but they can handle only a small fraction of homeless to take in each night. Shelters have not only beds, but laundry facilities at some, free telephone and TV use, free drugs and condoms, food - plus city van vehicles that pick up and bring homeless to shelters and then back to the streets. Word gets out, and more homeless flood in, so forever they'll only be able to handle a fraction of the homeless. Then there are the illegals, who get lots of "free" services. I'm in a suburb 15 miles away, and we don't see any homeless - because we don't offer services.
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