San Francisco was a cesspool clear back in the '80s. I know; I lived there.
"Homelessness" had already become an established lifestyle and was (unsurprisingly) hastily annexed by the cynical Democrat Party as an under-privileged political class in need of major federal and state funding.
I moved away within a week of enduring the following episodes:
1. Upon exiting a Russian Hill bistro one evening I was accosted by a mammoth woman demanding food. As I'd not even touched my meal (and had therefore had it boxed to take home), I handed it to her, explaining what a fine dinner she'd be having. The woman, enraged, threw my expensive meal into the gutter: "I don't want that sh*t!" she bellowed, "gimme some money!" Then she hiked up her filthy skirt and urinated on the food I'd so kindly offered her!
2. President Reagan had just made Edwin Meese Attorney General and a HUGE banner went up near the corner of Market and Castro Streets, draping an entire building and visible to all the traffic along that heavily travelled corridor: MEESE IS A PIG
3. Some hop-head broke into my Russian Hill flat in the middle of the night, clad in nothing but a t-shirt. I climbed out my second-story window with a portable phone and called the police from the window ledge. To their credit, they arrived within two minutes, but then trained their guns on ME! (Later, when I contacted the D.A.'s Office preparatory to filing charges, I was 'advised' that the hop-head had simply 'made a mistake': Look, he was high, he meant to go to another flat in your building (there were only four, and none of my neighbors were hop-heads, so how could that be?) He got turned around an entered your place by accident.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
That guy BROKE INTO my flat, half-naked, and I endangered MYSELF by escaping onto a window ledge to get away from him! For all I knew, he was gonna kill me! And then, the police came and drew their guns on ME!
Are you seriously refusing to prosecute him??
He was.
So I said Bye-bye to the City-by-the-Bay.
It's no sanctuary except for the depraved and criminal, imo.
wow! glad you got out of there. so many places change for the worse when people get into office that care more about votes and perks for themselves then really making the lives better for those in the community who take their responsibilities and lives seriously.
People would be more willing to help others if those others truly wanted help. Sadly too many just want hand out and life made easy as they continue to disobey laws and disrespect those trying to help them.