11 ms·

The impact of homelessness and the opioid crisis on San Francisco streets

88 points by daegloe 8y ago

gamma-male 8y ago
Man this is sad... I just moved in SF a few months ago and I’m starting to get used to it... my parents want to come visit but I don’t want them to see all of this. I’m thinking of just meeting them in san diego and touring california while avoiding SF. This is not a SF problem. This is an American problem.
- burlesona 8y ago
  Opioids are an American problem, but homelessness across the US has been mostly decreasing over the past decade(1). The situation in SF and Seattle (to name two) has a lot to do with how bad the overall housing situation is in those places. 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/homeless-population-usa-states-2018-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/homeless-population-usa-stat...
  - pstuart 8y ago
    And the problem of SF being a magnet for homeless to either be shipped to from other locales or "migrating" from the greater bay area. My mother was one of the latter.
  - gamma-male 8y ago
    I don’t agree with you. Inside a country homeless people will generally tend to stick together in specific regions. This is what is happening here, what you can see in San Francisco is a consequence of many decisions the US has been taking over the years, no universal health care being one. The housing situation in many places is bad, it doesn’t mean it will attract homeless people from all over the place.
- sloanedavids 8y ago
  It is indeed a US problem. Just look at the depressed areas of the US on the east coast and south. However, SF brands itself as the city of the future, innovation, and progress. Because it is the epicenter of the worlds technology startup scene. But this darker aspect of the city contradicts that positive brand. You can’t be the city of progress and innovation if half of your people are subsisting in third world pits of despair. I mean you can try to be, but it doesn’t quite work. Something is wrong.
  - wallacoloo 8y ago
    > However, SF brands itself as the city of the future, innovation, and progress. Because it is the epicenter of the worlds technology startup scene. I think what you describe are mostly business-related things. As an outsider, SF’s brand is about [mostly young] people claiming their opportunity to make a lot of money. None of the branding I see is about improving wellbeing. If something is wrong, I think it must be more general, perhaps that money and wellbeing aren’t so coupled. But unless SF is totally misrepresenting its brand to me, I’m not seeing any contradiction in its brand.
    - YuriNiyazov 8y ago
      I think the misunderstanding here is between what San Francisco supposedly used to be (a haven for hippies, LGBTQ, and other misfits) and what it is now (a haven for young people with business ambitions)
  - gamma-male 8y ago
    Yup. They are propositions to solve the problem (prop C) but hilariously people are against them because it means more money being spent. Screw the people living in the streets if that means I can’t buy the next iPhone am I right?
- gnulinux 8y ago
  I came to US ~5 years ago and spent most of my time in SF. In my home country we had no homeless (ok, probably not like 0 but nowhere near close to SF, I've never seen a homeless person in my childhood) ao I thought this is an American problem. Now I'm living in Boston and there are surprisingly few homeless people. It's obviously not 0, I still get to see homeless sleeping in subway, streets etc but the difference between SF and Boston is day and night. SF has a ridiculously concentrated homeless population.
babyslothzoo 8y ago
Homelessness is a legitimate crisis that needs addressing, it is severe in every west coast city. There is no 'opioid crisis', it is a new moral panic fed by hysteria from media and politics. There have always been drug addicts and drug users, and there always will be.
- gamma-male 8y ago
  There is definitely a drug problem here. If you live in SF you WILL see people shooting up in the street.
  - babyslothzoo 8y ago
    That's because the city is overly tolerant to blatantly harmful activities, public indecency, and antisocial behavior, not because of drugs.
    - FreakyT 8y ago
      Agreed -- it seems ridiculous that there's no meaningful crackdown on antisocial behavior. If laws regarding public drug use, loitering, etc. were actually enforced in a meaningful way, I think we'd see some actual improvement.
- brchr 8y ago
  This comment is both unhelpful (dismisses the original claim using zero evidence) and completely incorrect. Please look at the trendlines for "heroin deaths" and "synthetic opiod deaths" in the following graph of US CDC data, and note that from the turn of the millennium to 2017, opioid-related deaths in the US have increased more than 10x: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
  - babyslothzoo 8y ago
    Your link largely supports my statement. For example this graph: https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/od2017-slide06.jpg https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/od2... Overdoses have increased because of fentanyl being sold falsely as other drugs or mixed with other drugs, and that happens because it's cheaply imported from China by anyone with internet access and the desire to do so. Overdoses are NOT because of a marked increase in use of drug use or addiction, there is always a segment of society that will use drugs, be addicted, and participate in these activities. We're deep in a moral panic while simultaneously ignoring the real problem (imported fentanyl), thus the complete inefficacy of the ongoing overreactions form society and governments.
CorvusCrypto 8y ago
One if the things I don't understand is how San Francisco is the majority exposure of this problem. Apparently New York has the most homeless at a whole magnitude more[1] than San Francisco, but there seems to be less of a focus on the problem with the homeless population there. Los Angeles as well, news tends to SF in my experiences. It's also discussed more (for instance in Sweden SF and the west coast in general gets more focus by searching t.ex. "hemlösa USA") That's not to take away from this and I hope they can do something for those folks, but it also strikes me as amazing this city in general has the largest focus and not even close to the largest homeless population. 1. https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-the-most-homeless-people/ https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-the-m...
- lainga 8y ago
  Different behaviour? More homeless per capita (how large is the NY "Continuum of Care" and how large is SF's) ? Your last sentence, by eye, would make more sense if you were comparing it to Seattle. ED: also, as your posted link says, "New York can at least claim that 65 percent of its rough sleepers are given sheltered accommodation" - what is that figure for SF?
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    IIRC, California has by far the highest percentage of rough sleepers in the nation, in part due to the mild year-round temps and relatively dry weather.
  - CorvusCrypto 8y ago
    Yeah this is all stuff I'd like to know. It could point to potential frameworks for solutions. Maybe they have implemented something that mitigates problems associated with homeless in SF. This is kinda where my mind is taking me with this kind of interesting deviation in exposure.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  A little context for those stats: San Francisco · Population 884,363 (2017) New York · Population 8.54 million (2016) https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-statistics-on-homelessness.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...
kbrisso 8y ago
I was in the city this month and it is very sad to see this first hand. I think this is why we need to legalize drugs and get these people help. I live north of San Francisco and the homeless problem is worse here too. It seems like the 2008 recession left a whole bunch of people unemployable and they are officially off the "books" now and out in the streets. This is just my observation but it seems like homelessness increased and not decreased and with unemployment % going down.
- burlesona 8y ago
  I’m not sure I understand how legalization would help. There’s nothing stopping access or use of these drugs now. Honest question: is any place enforcing drug laws against heroin, and is it making things worse somehow? Intuitively it seems to me like the opposite would be better, if you could not get heroin you couldn’t get addicted to it. But my minimal understanding is it’s too easy to make for enforcement to be practical.
  - GrumpyNl 8y ago
    If they cant get heroine , they will find something else. People need drugs. That's how kingdoms have blossomed.
    - taobility 8y ago
      That's funny. The cities have most homeless are the places where Marijuana be legalized states: SF(California) and Seattle (Washington).
      - almostdeadguy 8y ago
        lol I think if you try hard enough you can think of other features of these cities that might be to blame.
  - scythe 8y ago
    I think a slightly less risky version of legalization would be to legalize selling buprenorphine/naltrexone (Suboxone) and extended-release methylphenidate under-the-counter at pharmacies without a prescription.
burlesona 8y ago
SOMA has been hit really hard. I used to work there and now I work in the financial district. The difference is night and day. It’s really sad.
partycoder 8y ago
Other cities offer one way tickets to CA cities to get rid of their homeless.
- blang 8y ago
  I read comments like this frequently (also about Seattle, where I live), but have never seen data to back it up, do you have any?
  - vichu 8y ago
    It's not an uncommon tactic to give homeless one-way tickets to other cities. In fact, San Francisco actively does it as well [0]. It doesn't seem like San Francisco and cities like it are particularly targeted for this kind of activity. The only case I can recall is in the case of Nevada intentionally sending mental patients to SF which was settled out of court[1]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/... [0] HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18375280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18375280 [1] http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposal-in-nevada-patient-dumping-case/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposa...
  - dexwiz 8y ago
    I talked to someone who worked at a shelter about this. He was able to provide several cases of someone calling the shelter from another city informing them someone else was on a bus on on their way to SF and that they needed a bed. He had to inform them that a person had to be present that day to request a bed, and the other person on the phone going, "Whatever, they are your city's problem now." So it does happen, but they don't want to publish it out of fear that it will just legitimize the practice for other cities.
manigandham 8y ago
Let's call it for what it is: poor planning and management by both the state and local government and some of the world's biggest companies which have absolutely failed at anything resembling civic duty. There needs to be proper leadership that understands how people live and work to build a city that can cater to everyone outside of the upper/middle class at major companies.
- malmsteen 8y ago
  Or people should move and not do drugs. Oh right no its the government that is responsible of that. Move to france. We have free healthcare and few opiod medications.
- testfoobar 8y ago
  Allocating social resources to address social needs is the foundational purpose of government. Voters elect governments to focus, prioritize and implement solutions. Ultimately any failure falls at the feet of voters.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    I think we all know that it's just not that simple. There are too many things to vote for which is half of the reason for delegating to officials in the first place. However there's no real way to know what people are going to do in office and it seems they are increasingly unpredictable and ineffective, led astray by apathy and greed rather than any duty to the people. A large part of it is likely the vast isolation they see from the actual issues. More skin in the game would greatly change things if they actually had to face these problems themselves instead of just answering public feedback with empty platitudes.
- tresil 8y ago
  I don't know if it's wise or helpful to lay this at the feet of government and big companies. They are big beasts that do well with defined budgets and defined directives, but they rely on their constituents and shareholders heavily for both of those two things. While that may not seem ideal, it's practical and what we have always seen in reality. I think many in government knew this was going on, and becoming an increasing issue/epidemic in recent years, but until the public becomes outraged and is willing to support a big shift in policy and budget, what they can do is limited. It might be some of the people in government that we should feel most sorry for - they've been witnessing it for years and voicing concern, but few in the public will listen or do anything about it. Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I see government and big institutions as behaving very much like computers, with much less intelligence and autonomy than the general public might think.
sayno3 8y ago
I hope everyone realizes the grassroots 'solutions' to these problems involve encouraging people to use drugs and then contriving situations so people end up dead. I hadn't used in 8 years, but the 'community members' kept giving me free meth and heroin until I broke down and used again after being hardcore homeless for 4 years. You hypocrites dare to even give lip service to morality but really would rather see homeless murdered than anything else.
awakeasleep 8y ago
How does one clean up a snarl of used, uncapped drug syringes like this picture shows? I imagine you could use a snow shovel and a long push broom to get them into the shovel, but where do you put them afterwards? A garbage bag seems to be a bad idea, as it'd conceal the neon orange warning color of the syringes, while allowing the points to stab and infect anyone who handled the bag. Do you put them directly in a metal garbage can? Afterwards how do garbage collectors in SF deal with this? Are thick leather gloves and maybe chaps enough to protect people?
- tommoor 8y ago
  I work and live in the tenderloin – usually the street teams use one of those telescoping grabbing poles to pick up needles. I heard one of those folks excitedly shout "jackpot" as they came across a bunch of needles on the floor the other day! I guess they're getting some pleasure out of cleaning up the neighbourhood at least…
- dickeytk 8y ago
  they put them into hard plastic containers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharps_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharps_waste
- Tempest1981 8y ago
  Would this work? (And scrape off the needles somehow?) https://www.harborfreight.com/30-inch-magnetic-sweeper-with-wheels-93245.html https://www.harborfreight.com/30-inch-magnetic-sweeper-with-... (They make a 12" version too) Or this (stick)? https://www.harborfreight.com/15-lb-capacity-telescoping-magnetic-pickup-tool-95933.html https://www.harborfreight.com/15-lb-capacity-telescoping-mag...
TomMckenny 8y ago
It should be noted that almost no for profit developer willingly builds housing targeting anyone but the highest income. Maybe if the big tech companies set up non-profit housing organization at various price points, it would help. Maybe even at least get the working homeless off the street. After all, a huge percent of bay area corporate expense just flows through employees into rent or mortgage interest.
- pjscott 8y ago
  When people move into expensive housing, they also move out of wherever they used to be living -- often some place cheaper where they lived when their income was lower. Any increase in supply helps.
  - dexwiz 8y ago
    That doesn't account for all of the people moving into the city from other parts of the State or Country. Also if they are moving within the city and the previous location is rent controlled, then the landlord will likely raise the rent for the next tenant.
    - TomMckenny 8y ago
      Indeed, generally people do not move a short distance to different rental with vastly a higher price.
    - BryanBigs 8y ago
      Except San Francisco has a net outward domestic migration now. This is nothing new BTW. I remember back when training for a marathon in 2001, I had a conference in San Francisco. Dude dropped a duece outside a pay toliet (I guess you tried them for awhile in SF) while I was running at 6am. From working with homeless people in my state, mental illness is usually a contributing factor. Self-medicating that condition often manifests itself as drug abuse.
- nradov 8y ago
  Charities like Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley already exist and do good work. Any company that wants to help improve the low income housing situation would probably achieve better results by contributing to an existing charity rather than reinventing the wheel. https://www.habitatebsv.org/ https://www.habitatebsv.org/
ag56 8y ago
"a woman urinates on the sidewalk" "human excrement on the sidewalks" "urinating near his restaurant" "human feces lies nestled in front of a doorway" "going to the bathroom in the street" "The city has also launched the so-called "poop patrol," a team that responds to complaints of feces on city streets." "put up a video interview with a homeless man talking about how difficult it is to find a place to go to the bathroom after dark" Why not just put porta potties -- on a temporary basis -- on street corners in the worst areas? It seems such a stupidly obvious quick fix for half the problem that I feel I'm missing something. It would surely be cheaper than paying clean up teams? More humane for the homeless? Healthier for local residents?
- tomjen3 8y ago
  I wouldn't want those near where I live, it would a) stink and b) become permanent (no such thing as a temporary government measure). A better solution would be the German solution: actual pay toilets, where somebody is on premise to ensure cleanliness and that nobody takes drugs there. The last and most expensive German toilets I have used were about 50 cents a visit, so within pay range of homeless persons. Also, and I can't emphasizes this enough, they were nice, clean and safe. But America hates pay toilets, so instead there are no toilets.
  - gamma-male 8y ago
    I’m not paying to pee. I’d rather pee in the street.
- dexwiz 8y ago
  This already exists. Its called Pit Stop (https://sfpublicworks.wixsite.com/pitstop https://sfpublicworks.wixsite.com/pitstop). But they are only open during certain hours, because they require a full time attendant. If these locations were left unattended they would quickly become unusable because someone would either decide to camp out in one, destroy it, or both. The same goes for the permanent public toilets that spread throughout the city. Additionally most businesses will no allow homeless to use their facilities out of fear. Even if most would be respectful, it only takes one person to disrupt or destroy a restroom and cost business owners thousands of dollars. But as the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. You can provide the toilets, but you cannot make people use them. Many of these people have mental or drug related problems. So even if you provide a toilet, there is no guarantee they will use it.
account222234 8y ago
I'm still convinced that the key to eliminating the homelessness problem is cracking down on it -- hard. I'm completely in favor of programs to help people who currently are facing a poor situation (recently unemployed, etc), but for the chronically homeless, mentally ill, or drug addicted? Lock them up and throw away the keys.
awareBrah 8y ago
I kept hearing about the problem but until I visited SF myself I never truly understood the severity. Honestly don’t understand why more drastic measures aren’t taken, and I mean rounding them up and shipping them off somewhere to a rehab center far far away from any civilized people
malcolmgreaves 8y ago
Gotta move homeless people out of ultra expensive SF and into cheap housing. And make sure they go to therapy/take their perscribed drugs/etc. so they aren't a problem for everyone else AND they get the help they desperately need.

88 points by daegloe 8y ago

Man this is sad... I just moved in SF a few months ago and I’m starting to get used to it... my parents want to come visit but I don’t want them to see all of this. I’m thinking of just meeting them in san diego and touring california while avoiding SF. This is not a SF problem. This is an American problem.

burlesona 8y ago
Opioids are an American problem, but homelessness across the US has been mostly decreasing over the past decade(1). The situation in SF and Seattle (to name two) has a lot to do with how bad the overall housing situation is in those places. 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/homeless-population-usa-states-2018-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/homeless-population-usa-stat...
- pstuart 8y ago
  And the problem of SF being a magnet for homeless to either be shipped to from other locales or "migrating" from the greater bay area. My mother was one of the latter.
- gamma-male 8y ago
  I don’t agree with you. Inside a country homeless people will generally tend to stick together in specific regions. This is what is happening here, what you can see in San Francisco is a consequence of many decisions the US has been taking over the years, no universal health care being one. The housing situation in many places is bad, it doesn’t mean it will attract homeless people from all over the place.
sloanedavids 8y ago
It is indeed a US problem. Just look at the depressed areas of the US on the east coast and south. However, SF brands itself as the city of the future, innovation, and progress. Because it is the epicenter of the worlds technology startup scene. But this darker aspect of the city contradicts that positive brand. You can’t be the city of progress and innovation if half of your people are subsisting in third world pits of despair. I mean you can try to be, but it doesn’t quite work. Something is wrong.
- wallacoloo 8y ago
  > However, SF brands itself as the city of the future, innovation, and progress. Because it is the epicenter of the worlds technology startup scene. I think what you describe are mostly business-related things. As an outsider, SF’s brand is about [mostly young] people claiming their opportunity to make a lot of money. None of the branding I see is about improving wellbeing. If something is wrong, I think it must be more general, perhaps that money and wellbeing aren’t so coupled. But unless SF is totally misrepresenting its brand to me, I’m not seeing any contradiction in its brand.
  - YuriNiyazov 8y ago
    I think the misunderstanding here is between what San Francisco supposedly used to be (a haven for hippies, LGBTQ, and other misfits) and what it is now (a haven for young people with business ambitions)
- gamma-male 8y ago
  Yup. They are propositions to solve the problem (prop C) but hilariously people are against them because it means more money being spent. Screw the people living in the streets if that means I can’t buy the next iPhone am I right?
gnulinux 8y ago
I came to US ~5 years ago and spent most of my time in SF. In my home country we had no homeless (ok, probably not like 0 but nowhere near close to SF, I've never seen a homeless person in my childhood) ao I thought this is an American problem. Now I'm living in Boston and there are surprisingly few homeless people. It's obviously not 0, I still get to see homeless sleeping in subway, streets etc but the difference between SF and Boston is day and night. SF has a ridiculously concentrated homeless population.

babyslothzoo 8y ago

Homelessness is a legitimate crisis that needs addressing, it is severe in every west coast city. There is no 'opioid crisis', it is a new moral panic fed by hysteria from media and politics. There have always been drug addicts and drug users, and there always will be.

gamma-male 8y ago
There is definitely a drug problem here. If you live in SF you WILL see people shooting up in the street.
- babyslothzoo 8y ago
  That's because the city is overly tolerant to blatantly harmful activities, public indecency, and antisocial behavior, not because of drugs.
  - FreakyT 8y ago
    Agreed -- it seems ridiculous that there's no meaningful crackdown on antisocial behavior. If laws regarding public drug use, loitering, etc. were actually enforced in a meaningful way, I think we'd see some actual improvement.
brchr 8y ago
This comment is both unhelpful (dismisses the original claim using zero evidence) and completely incorrect. Please look at the trendlines for "heroin deaths" and "synthetic opiod deaths" in the following graph of US CDC data, and note that from the turn of the millennium to 2017, opioid-related deaths in the US have increased more than 10x: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
- babyslothzoo 8y ago
  Your link largely supports my statement. For example this graph: https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/od2017-slide06.jpg https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/od2... Overdoses have increased because of fentanyl being sold falsely as other drugs or mixed with other drugs, and that happens because it's cheaply imported from China by anyone with internet access and the desire to do so. Overdoses are NOT because of a marked increase in use of drug use or addiction, there is always a segment of society that will use drugs, be addicted, and participate in these activities. We're deep in a moral panic while simultaneously ignoring the real problem (imported fentanyl), thus the complete inefficacy of the ongoing overreactions form society and governments.

CorvusCrypto 8y ago

One if the things I don't understand is how San Francisco is the majority exposure of this problem. Apparently New York has the most homeless at a whole magnitude more[1] than San Francisco, but there seems to be less of a focus on the problem with the homeless population there. Los Angeles as well, news tends to SF in my experiences. It's also discussed more (for instance in Sweden SF and the west coast in general gets more focus by searching t.ex. "hemlösa USA") That's not to take away from this and I hope they can do something for those folks, but it also strikes me as amazing this city in general has the largest focus and not even close to the largest homeless population. 1. https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-the-most-homeless-people/ https://www.statista.com/chart/6949/the-us-cities-with-the-m...

lainga 8y ago
Different behaviour? More homeless per capita (how large is the NY "Continuum of Care" and how large is SF's) ? Your last sentence, by eye, would make more sense if you were comparing it to Seattle. ED: also, as your posted link says, "New York can at least claim that 65 percent of its rough sleepers are given sheltered accommodation" - what is that figure for SF?
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  IIRC, California has by far the highest percentage of rough sleepers in the nation, in part due to the mild year-round temps and relatively dry weather.
- CorvusCrypto 8y ago
  Yeah this is all stuff I'd like to know. It could point to potential frameworks for solutions. Maybe they have implemented something that mitigates problems associated with homeless in SF. This is kinda where my mind is taking me with this kind of interesting deviation in exposure.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
A little context for those stats: San Francisco · Population 884,363 (2017) New York · Population 8.54 million (2016) https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-statistics-on-homelessness.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...

kbrisso 8y ago

I was in the city this month and it is very sad to see this first hand. I think this is why we need to legalize drugs and get these people help. I live north of San Francisco and the homeless problem is worse here too. It seems like the 2008 recession left a whole bunch of people unemployable and they are officially off the "books" now and out in the streets. This is just my observation but it seems like homelessness increased and not decreased and with unemployment % going down.

burlesona 8y ago
I’m not sure I understand how legalization would help. There’s nothing stopping access or use of these drugs now. Honest question: is any place enforcing drug laws against heroin, and is it making things worse somehow? Intuitively it seems to me like the opposite would be better, if you could not get heroin you couldn’t get addicted to it. But my minimal understanding is it’s too easy to make for enforcement to be practical.
- GrumpyNl 8y ago
  If they cant get heroine , they will find something else. People need drugs. That's how kingdoms have blossomed.
  - taobility 8y ago
    That's funny. The cities have most homeless are the places where Marijuana be legalized states: SF(California) and Seattle (Washington).
    - almostdeadguy 8y ago
      lol I think if you try hard enough you can think of other features of these cities that might be to blame.
- scythe 8y ago
  I think a slightly less risky version of legalization would be to legalize selling buprenorphine/naltrexone (Suboxone) and extended-release methylphenidate under-the-counter at pharmacies without a prescription.

burlesona 8y ago

SOMA has been hit really hard. I used to work there and now I work in the financial district. The difference is night and day. It’s really sad.

partycoder 8y ago

Other cities offer one way tickets to CA cities to get rid of their homeless.

blang 8y ago
I read comments like this frequently (also about Seattle, where I live), but have never seen data to back it up, do you have any?
- vichu 8y ago
  It's not an uncommon tactic to give homeless one-way tickets to other cities. In fact, San Francisco actively does it as well [0]. It doesn't seem like San Francisco and cities like it are particularly targeted for this kind of activity. The only case I can recall is in the case of Nevada intentionally sending mental patients to SF which was settled out of court[1]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/... [0] HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18375280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18375280 [1] http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposal-in-nevada-patient-dumping-case/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-reaches-400k-settlement-proposa...
- dexwiz 8y ago
  I talked to someone who worked at a shelter about this. He was able to provide several cases of someone calling the shelter from another city informing them someone else was on a bus on on their way to SF and that they needed a bed. He had to inform them that a person had to be present that day to request a bed, and the other person on the phone going, "Whatever, they are your city's problem now." So it does happen, but they don't want to publish it out of fear that it will just legitimize the practice for other cities.

manigandham 8y ago

Let's call it for what it is: poor planning and management by both the state and local government and some of the world's biggest companies which have absolutely failed at anything resembling civic duty. There needs to be proper leadership that understands how people live and work to build a city that can cater to everyone outside of the upper/middle class at major companies.

malmsteen 8y ago
Or people should move and not do drugs. Oh right no its the government that is responsible of that. Move to france. We have free healthcare and few opiod medications.
testfoobar 8y ago
Allocating social resources to address social needs is the foundational purpose of government. Voters elect governments to focus, prioritize and implement solutions. Ultimately any failure falls at the feet of voters.
- manigandham 8y ago
  I think we all know that it's just not that simple. There are too many things to vote for which is half of the reason for delegating to officials in the first place. However there's no real way to know what people are going to do in office and it seems they are increasingly unpredictable and ineffective, led astray by apathy and greed rather than any duty to the people. A large part of it is likely the vast isolation they see from the actual issues. More skin in the game would greatly change things if they actually had to face these problems themselves instead of just answering public feedback with empty platitudes.
tresil 8y ago
I don't know if it's wise or helpful to lay this at the feet of government and big companies. They are big beasts that do well with defined budgets and defined directives, but they rely on their constituents and shareholders heavily for both of those two things. While that may not seem ideal, it's practical and what we have always seen in reality. I think many in government knew this was going on, and becoming an increasing issue/epidemic in recent years, but until the public becomes outraged and is willing to support a big shift in policy and budget, what they can do is limited. It might be some of the people in government that we should feel most sorry for - they've been witnessing it for years and voicing concern, but few in the public will listen or do anything about it. Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I see government and big institutions as behaving very much like computers, with much less intelligence and autonomy than the general public might think.

sayno3 8y ago

I hope everyone realizes the grassroots 'solutions' to these problems involve encouraging people to use drugs and then contriving situations so people end up dead. I hadn't used in 8 years, but the 'community members' kept giving me free meth and heroin until I broke down and used again after being hardcore homeless for 4 years. You hypocrites dare to even give lip service to morality but really would rather see homeless murdered than anything else.

awakeasleep 8y ago

How does one clean up a snarl of used, uncapped drug syringes like this picture shows? I imagine you could use a snow shovel and a long push broom to get them into the shovel, but where do you put them afterwards? A garbage bag seems to be a bad idea, as it'd conceal the neon orange warning color of the syringes, while allowing the points to stab and infect anyone who handled the bag. Do you put them directly in a metal garbage can? Afterwards how do garbage collectors in SF deal with this? Are thick leather gloves and maybe chaps enough to protect people?

tommoor 8y ago
I work and live in the tenderloin – usually the street teams use one of those telescoping grabbing poles to pick up needles. I heard one of those folks excitedly shout "jackpot" as they came across a bunch of needles on the floor the other day! I guess they're getting some pleasure out of cleaning up the neighbourhood at least…
dickeytk 8y ago
they put them into hard plastic containers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharps_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharps_waste
Tempest1981 8y ago
Would this work? (And scrape off the needles somehow?) https://www.harborfreight.com/30-inch-magnetic-sweeper-with-wheels-93245.html https://www.harborfreight.com/30-inch-magnetic-sweeper-with-... (They make a 12" version too) Or this (stick)? https://www.harborfreight.com/15-lb-capacity-telescoping-magnetic-pickup-tool-95933.html https://www.harborfreight.com/15-lb-capacity-telescoping-mag...

TomMckenny 8y ago

It should be noted that almost no for profit developer willingly builds housing targeting anyone but the highest income. Maybe if the big tech companies set up non-profit housing organization at various price points, it would help. Maybe even at least get the working homeless off the street. After all, a huge percent of bay area corporate expense just flows through employees into rent or mortgage interest.

pjscott 8y ago
When people move into expensive housing, they also move out of wherever they used to be living -- often some place cheaper where they lived when their income was lower. Any increase in supply helps.
- dexwiz 8y ago
  That doesn't account for all of the people moving into the city from other parts of the State or Country. Also if they are moving within the city and the previous location is rent controlled, then the landlord will likely raise the rent for the next tenant.
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    Indeed, generally people do not move a short distance to different rental with vastly a higher price.
  - BryanBigs 8y ago
    Except San Francisco has a net outward domestic migration now. This is nothing new BTW. I remember back when training for a marathon in 2001, I had a conference in San Francisco. Dude dropped a duece outside a pay toliet (I guess you tried them for awhile in SF) while I was running at 6am. From working with homeless people in my state, mental illness is usually a contributing factor. Self-medicating that condition often manifests itself as drug abuse.
nradov 8y ago
Charities like Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley already exist and do good work. Any company that wants to help improve the low income housing situation would probably achieve better results by contributing to an existing charity rather than reinventing the wheel. https://www.habitatebsv.org/ https://www.habitatebsv.org/

ag56 8y ago

"a woman urinates on the sidewalk" "human excrement on the sidewalks" "urinating near his restaurant" "human feces lies nestled in front of a doorway" "going to the bathroom in the street" "The city has also launched the so-called "poop patrol," a team that responds to complaints of feces on city streets." "put up a video interview with a homeless man talking about how difficult it is to find a place to go to the bathroom after dark" Why not just put porta potties -- on a temporary basis -- on street corners in the worst areas? It seems such a stupidly obvious quick fix for half the problem that I feel I'm missing something. It would surely be cheaper than paying clean up teams? More humane for the homeless? Healthier for local residents?

tomjen3 8y ago
I wouldn't want those near where I live, it would a) stink and b) become permanent (no such thing as a temporary government measure). A better solution would be the German solution: actual pay toilets, where somebody is on premise to ensure cleanliness and that nobody takes drugs there. The last and most expensive German toilets I have used were about 50 cents a visit, so within pay range of homeless persons. Also, and I can't emphasizes this enough, they were nice, clean and safe. But America hates pay toilets, so instead there are no toilets.
- gamma-male 8y ago
  I’m not paying to pee. I’d rather pee in the street.
dexwiz 8y ago
This already exists. Its called Pit Stop (https://sfpublicworks.wixsite.com/pitstop https://sfpublicworks.wixsite.com/pitstop). But they are only open during certain hours, because they require a full time attendant. If these locations were left unattended they would quickly become unusable because someone would either decide to camp out in one, destroy it, or both. The same goes for the permanent public toilets that spread throughout the city. Additionally most businesses will no allow homeless to use their facilities out of fear. Even if most would be respectful, it only takes one person to disrupt or destroy a restroom and cost business owners thousands of dollars. But as the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. You can provide the toilets, but you cannot make people use them. Many of these people have mental or drug related problems. So even if you provide a toilet, there is no guarantee they will use it.

account222234 8y ago

I'm still convinced that the key to eliminating the homelessness problem is cracking down on it -- hard. I'm completely in favor of programs to help people who currently are facing a poor situation (recently unemployed, etc), but for the chronically homeless, mentally ill, or drug addicted? Lock them up and throw away the keys.

awareBrah 8y ago

I kept hearing about the problem but until I visited SF myself I never truly understood the severity. Honestly don’t understand why more drastic measures aren’t taken, and I mean rounding them up and shipping them off somewhere to a rehab center far far away from any civilized people

malcolmgreaves 8y ago

Gotta move homeless people out of ultra expensive SF and into cheap housing. And make sure they go to therapy/take their perscribed drugs/etc. so they aren't a problem for everyone else AND they get the help they desperately need.