"At this point all I can say is: go and see it.
Over the past two years, more than 1,360 people have died from drug overdoses in San Francisco. That is more than double the number who have died from Covid.
But you don’t need more stats. You don’t need more numbers about how the tent encampments are exploding. Or about the amount of money that the city is paying for each person doing drugs on the sidewalks. You need to see it.
I’m serious. Everyone in San Francisco should make a trip downtown. Walk around. And do not avert your eyes to the people dying slowly on the streets.
The politicians that run my hometown are relying on you not noticing what’s going on because it’s been bad for so long and who cares if it gets a little worse. Don’t let them. Go see it.
The city is using intimidation. They used it on me when I went to see what was going on at a new addict-services facility, which they’d set up in a public plaza. And they tried to intimidate my friend Michael Shellenberger, as you’ll read below.
The people in charge of homelessness and addiction want to bully people into giving up public streets and parks. They want to take your tax money and let your suffering neighbors die gentle, stoned deaths while they watch and call it justice. They think the mothers who want to get their sons out of the jaws of death are suspect. (It’s conservative to want your kid to live, don’t you know?) The city would like a little privacy please. Fentanyl use is an intimate moment between our officials and our addicts.
Do not listen to the propaganda. Skip Golden Gate Park. Bring your friends downtown instead. Stand in UN Plaza and just watch. Use your eyes, those great weapons.
— Nellie Bowles"
Read the whole thing....
Link: San Fran
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apart from the fact that CA and SF's homeless problem is not entirely "Home Grown", this problem does have some roots going back to when Ronald Reagan was governor of the state...he passed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act that made it very difficult to institutionalize many mentally ill persons...(he later, as President, took the federal government out of the business or assisting the mentally ill)...together, these actions have made it difficult for CA to manage the influx of homeless. I'd also like to add that our burgeoning issue of "Wealth Inequality" is having an effect on the homeless problem as well, in less obvious ways...Oh, and let's not forget CA's population has nearly doubled since 1980.
As to strategies and tactics, it's a very challenging problem...a lot of trial and yes, error, involved...feel free to offer your own "Solution" in light of all the influencing factors...no, really...feel free to share your opinion on how to resolve this...as for myself, I'd need to do a LOT more research before being so bold as to say I knew what the answer was.
I will say, however, that SF and the whole Bay Area is a fabulous environment and at least the equal of any other part of the USA that I've lived in, or visited...
Link: https://marcus-ruiz-evans.medium.com/texas-may-not-be-the-main-source-but-newsom-is-right-a-lot-of-the-homeless-in-california-are-f43a3a2aa84e
s incentivize it.
you or anyone else to come up, right now, with an easy "Fix" to it...care to try?...we're all ears.
Have mental issues. Those with mental issues need help. Those who are simply into drugs and living on the street need discipline. Giving people food and shelter needs to require something. SF doesn’t require anything.
to 'help' them, as you suggest...those professionals need to be paid, as well as program management staff for those services...that takes public funding...i.e. taxes...are you up for that?
Those into drugs are often beyond 'discipline'...they need their 'fixes' and will commit crimes to get them...plus they'll likely end up in ERs for one reason or another...we've had this problem for ages and no one has come up with a 'perfect' solution...do you want to 'corral' them all so that they don't run around committing crimes and getting sick?...if so, be ready to pony up some cash for facilities and staff...again...more taxes...or, continue to let them run free committing crimes, etc.
"Giving people food and shelter needs to require something. SF doesn’t require anything."...you left something out here...NP...the word processing here goes haywire sometimes...but what is it you're suggesting?
Again...CA is a beautiful place with good weather, so it's no surprise that homeless people don't mind coming...even if pushed out of their home states...Google "The Guardian, Bussed Out" for an in depth analysis of how states like CA get inundated with homeless persons...one way to deal with this phenomenon would be for Congress to pass a bill that provided tax funds to states who are being forced to act as "homeless shelters" by irresponsible states...
mile and per resident that probably any city in the country other than Orlando. I paid plenty of taxes and found crappy sheets, horrible infrastructure, horrible schools, crime and homelessness. You imply the need is more money. SF doesn't need more money, it needs to spend what it has more effectively. When I say SF doesn't require anything, I mean it hands out money and food to many homeless. Yes, I do think we should help the mentally ill. If others choose to live on the streets, they can trade food and essentials for street cleaning, pot hole filling, job training and passing drug tests. But, like most, I'm sure your rebuttal will be that those are good union jobs that shouldn't be filled by "slave labor." What you will call slave labor, I will call creating a work-ethic and a foundation for personal growth.
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we have in the WH now and I don't think anything has gotten better. More COVID deaths under Joe and Ho. Not to mention the most police officers killed in the line of duty since '95. But yeah, keep on blaming the guy who is no longer in office while never complaining about the vegetable who sits there now.
Things are great thanks to "the adults in the room".
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their job to help with things like this, right?
It was also the most liberal... but if you include Silicon Valley it is now the most repressive.
Ever at the Cliff House numerous times.
I was up there for a weekend 2 summers ago to go see Eric Church, besides the show it was bad. Filth everywhere. Drug addicts laying in the middle of many streets and that is no exaggeration.
What an absolute shame.