6 ms·

I found it to be pretty bad when I was there. Not as bad as the conservative media makes it out to seem but still bad. Had my drink knocked out of my hand by

I found it to be pretty bad when I was there. Not as bad as the conservative media makes it out to seem but still bad. Had my drink knocked out of my hand by a couple of guys,had to buy boots because of the human feces, saw smashed in car windows daily. Im super tolerant but that felt like alot.

52-6F-62 7y ago
I visited about a year ago now and I didn’t have that experience at all. Stopped in at City Lights, bought a couple books, went for lunch, and walked through North Beach to the pier. Walked along Embarcadero to the BART station there and had a great (albeit short) layover there. I saw a few people who appeared to be homeless. No more than I see in Toronto or Hamilton—but I can’t speak to what kind of measure that is anymore.
- pentae 7y ago
  Sorry but I don’t think visiting for a week once is a large enough set of data
  - tarikozket 7y ago
    he didn't visit even for a week; it was just a layover.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    I didn’t claim it was anything of the sort. Just adding a singular data point. People often say the same kinds of things about Toronto but the place is hardly overrun. I just thought it would be a valuable single data point from a visitor’s perspective. No assumptions, just an experience.
- zamfi 7y ago
  San Francisco’s homelessness is highly concentrated. You happened to be in areas that are relatively clean.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    Where is it largely concentrated? That sort of sounds like Vancouver as well. Toronto has its spots as well. I just find much of the rhetoric makes it sound like the city is overrun and in shambles and that wasn't my experience. Of course, if I lived in those concentrated locales I might feel that way.
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      - The whole Tenderloin district (and quite a bit of the surrounding areas, e.g. Polk Gulch) - Market St. - Embarcadero & Washington St. intersection - King St. (esp. around the CalTrain station) - Pretty much all the BART stations within SF city limits Those are the areas I'm in pretty frequently, at least.
- paul7986 7y ago
  Take a walk down market street.. by city hall. Disgusting and yet why is it so bad and in your face and not like that in say new york city? Doesn't NYC put the homeless up in hotels.. have a voucher program or something? San Fran doesn't care how terrible their city looks to tourists nor care for its people like NYC does? I don't get it ... uber super tech rich living in the most expensive houses in the US with human feces outside on their pavements or around the corner. Whatever San Fran is doing and methodology it's following it doesnt seem to be working out for itself!
  - thrower123 7y ago
    It's interesting watching movies from the 70s and 80s depicting New York. It looks like present day San Francisco or Baltimore, and not at all like modern New York.
    - ummonk 7y ago
      Yup, gives me hope that one day SF can improve.
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    >San Fran doesn't care how terrible their city looks to tourists nor care for its people like NYC does? The way I see it, fundamentally, San Francisco views the homeless as part of it's people, many other places do not.
    - paul7986 7y ago
      Their feces that line the street, violent outbreaks, shooting up, the human destitution, shouting crazy one even with a megaphone on my 2013 visit. I guess that's now considered the charm of San Francisco. Disgusting!
- yellowapple 7y ago
  Go a block or so inland and it gets starkly worse, especially as you get closer to Market. You ain't having fun in San Francisco until you make eye contact with a guy "dropping a bomb" in broad daylight at Sue Bierman Park, or have your car broken into near Levi Plaza because someone wants to try to steal your jumper cables (and fail, in my case, as evidenced by them hanging out of my now-significantly-more-aerodynamic quarterpanel window). And the stench. Nothing like the glorious smell of ocean breezes and human excrement in the morning! And to think the Embarcadero is relatively clean by SF standards. The Tenderloin is where it gets real fun.
  - cmoscoe 7y ago
    I've had this thing happen twice now while visiting SF, where I'm following google maps, end up walking through the Tenderloin, and have a bunch of people try to sell me drugs. The second time I asked one of the guys trying to sell me coke why that was happening, he said it was really the only reason white people walk there. The whole thing was very different from the super-liberal picture of SF I had in my head.
tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
I just had a week long experience there and I found it to be surreal. I went in thinking "surely conservative media is exaggerating" and sure enough, I took a stroll from my conference at SVN down Market Street to a bar called Local Edition, and well, it was unfortunately as advertised. Rampant homelessness everywhere. Needles and feces on every other block, quite literally. I took pictures like a dumb tourist that I am and texted my spouse, "well what do you know it really is like this here, it's crazy, how can people put up with this?"
- ahuth 7y ago
  I empathize, and it's not always great. In response to "how can people put up with this?", I'm not sure what we can do. Meaning, I'm not sure there's an action I could take to improve things. Also, not saying it isn't bad, and not saying we shouldn't do something (anything) to make things better, but you probably walked down one of the worst stretches (depending on which part of market street you went down).
  - djklanac 7y ago
    The problem is pervasive, and speaking in noncommittal terms perpetuates passive acceptance. We can take action through our democratically elected representatives by re-opening mental health institutions and drug rehab centers. And we can enable law enforcement to lock up violent offenders with the assurance that the defendants will be given due process instead of being released without charges.
- thrax 7y ago
  And 10 blocks away, where I have lived for 10 years, I see none of what you describe. The city is funny like that. Sad fact is, the homeless are incredibly concentrated around areas with lots of tourism and public visibility, because when you're homeless, you want to be around other people because you have _nothing_.
  - tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
    Perhaps that contributes to why the problem exists in the first place? Out of sight out of mind?
sorenn111 7y ago
I lived there for 10 months. Walked along market street everyday and can confirm that it is pretty bad.
anon9001 7y ago
I've found it to be about as bad as conservative media makes it out to be. It really depends where you are, but I've seen people smoking crack (I assume, maybe meth), and I've seen people shooting up in plain view in daylight. There are exposed needles and human feces on the ground, and you will absolutely notice it if you walk anywhere. Boots are for sure recommended. I know that stuff happens everywhere, but it's so far out in the open in SF, you can't avoid it. Part of it also has to do with the topology of the city. Homeless people don't want to live on hills, but rich people do, so that creates pools of homeless camps in flat areas.
scoofy 7y ago
I live in SF. I consider myself very liberal. I know it's not the political orthodox for people on the left, but I will say, it is bad. It is very bad. You learn to live with it, but it's far worse than any other city i've ever lived in. I think it's a direct result of a complete and utter lack of real estate development, but the fact of the matter is people shit in the street here, regularly. People shoot up heroin openly here. Needles littered on the streets here is normal. People smoke meth and crack, openly. If you don't want to see it, you can avoid it with a car, but i bike and take transit. The tenderloin is drug dealers and junkies. 16th and Mission is mentally ill people. Haight is crustypunks. Besides that, there are more normal things like people in tents in parks and under the highways. I've seen things more like this in places on the west coast, but i've never seen the type of open and welcome drug dependency except in this region. I definitely am supportive of giving addicts a way to get help or even use in a healthy, non-threatening setting that is safe and separated from the rest of us going about our lives, but that's not what's happening.
d-sc 7y ago
It’s worse than conservative media makes it out to be because in a wide swath of the country 6 figure incomes are large enough to completely insulate you form the issue.

52-6F-62 7y ago

I visited about a year ago now and I didn’t have that experience at all. Stopped in at City Lights, bought a couple books, went for lunch, and walked through North Beach to the pier. Walked along Embarcadero to the BART station there and had a great (albeit short) layover there. I saw a few people who appeared to be homeless. No more than I see in Toronto or Hamilton—but I can’t speak to what kind of measure that is anymore.

pentae 7y ago
Sorry but I don’t think visiting for a week once is a large enough set of data
- tarikozket 7y ago
  he didn't visit even for a week; it was just a layover.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  I didn’t claim it was anything of the sort. Just adding a singular data point. People often say the same kinds of things about Toronto but the place is hardly overrun. I just thought it would be a valuable single data point from a visitor’s perspective. No assumptions, just an experience.
zamfi 7y ago
San Francisco’s homelessness is highly concentrated. You happened to be in areas that are relatively clean.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Where is it largely concentrated? That sort of sounds like Vancouver as well. Toronto has its spots as well. I just find much of the rhetoric makes it sound like the city is overrun and in shambles and that wasn't my experience. Of course, if I lived in those concentrated locales I might feel that way.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    - The whole Tenderloin district (and quite a bit of the surrounding areas, e.g. Polk Gulch) - Market St. - Embarcadero & Washington St. intersection - King St. (esp. around the CalTrain station) - Pretty much all the BART stations within SF city limits Those are the areas I'm in pretty frequently, at least.
paul7986 7y ago
Take a walk down market street.. by city hall. Disgusting and yet why is it so bad and in your face and not like that in say new york city? Doesn't NYC put the homeless up in hotels.. have a voucher program or something? San Fran doesn't care how terrible their city looks to tourists nor care for its people like NYC does? I don't get it ... uber super tech rich living in the most expensive houses in the US with human feces outside on their pavements or around the corner. Whatever San Fran is doing and methodology it's following it doesnt seem to be working out for itself!
- thrower123 7y ago
  It's interesting watching movies from the 70s and 80s depicting New York. It looks like present day San Francisco or Baltimore, and not at all like modern New York.
  - ummonk 7y ago
    Yup, gives me hope that one day SF can improve.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  >San Fran doesn't care how terrible their city looks to tourists nor care for its people like NYC does? The way I see it, fundamentally, San Francisco views the homeless as part of it's people, many other places do not.
  - paul7986 7y ago
    Their feces that line the street, violent outbreaks, shooting up, the human destitution, shouting crazy one even with a megaphone on my 2013 visit. I guess that's now considered the charm of San Francisco. Disgusting!
yellowapple 7y ago
Go a block or so inland and it gets starkly worse, especially as you get closer to Market. You ain't having fun in San Francisco until you make eye contact with a guy "dropping a bomb" in broad daylight at Sue Bierman Park, or have your car broken into near Levi Plaza because someone wants to try to steal your jumper cables (and fail, in my case, as evidenced by them hanging out of my now-significantly-more-aerodynamic quarterpanel window). And the stench. Nothing like the glorious smell of ocean breezes and human excrement in the morning! And to think the Embarcadero is relatively clean by SF standards. The Tenderloin is where it gets real fun.
- cmoscoe 7y ago
  I've had this thing happen twice now while visiting SF, where I'm following google maps, end up walking through the Tenderloin, and have a bunch of people try to sell me drugs. The second time I asked one of the guys trying to sell me coke why that was happening, he said it was really the only reason white people walk there. The whole thing was very different from the super-liberal picture of SF I had in my head.

tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago

I just had a week long experience there and I found it to be surreal. I went in thinking "surely conservative media is exaggerating" and sure enough, I took a stroll from my conference at SVN down Market Street to a bar called Local Edition, and well, it was unfortunately as advertised. Rampant homelessness everywhere. Needles and feces on every other block, quite literally. I took pictures like a dumb tourist that I am and texted my spouse, "well what do you know it really is like this here, it's crazy, how can people put up with this?"

ahuth 7y ago
I empathize, and it's not always great. In response to "how can people put up with this?", I'm not sure what we can do. Meaning, I'm not sure there's an action I could take to improve things. Also, not saying it isn't bad, and not saying we shouldn't do something (anything) to make things better, but you probably walked down one of the worst stretches (depending on which part of market street you went down).
- djklanac 7y ago
  The problem is pervasive, and speaking in noncommittal terms perpetuates passive acceptance. We can take action through our democratically elected representatives by re-opening mental health institutions and drug rehab centers. And we can enable law enforcement to lock up violent offenders with the assurance that the defendants will be given due process instead of being released without charges.
thrax 7y ago
And 10 blocks away, where I have lived for 10 years, I see none of what you describe. The city is funny like that. Sad fact is, the homeless are incredibly concentrated around areas with lots of tourism and public visibility, because when you're homeless, you want to be around other people because you have _nothing_.
- tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
  Perhaps that contributes to why the problem exists in the first place? Out of sight out of mind?

sorenn111 7y ago

I lived there for 10 months. Walked along market street everyday and can confirm that it is pretty bad.

anon9001 7y ago

I've found it to be about as bad as conservative media makes it out to be. It really depends where you are, but I've seen people smoking crack (I assume, maybe meth), and I've seen people shooting up in plain view in daylight. There are exposed needles and human feces on the ground, and you will absolutely notice it if you walk anywhere. Boots are for sure recommended. I know that stuff happens everywhere, but it's so far out in the open in SF, you can't avoid it. Part of it also has to do with the topology of the city. Homeless people don't want to live on hills, but rich people do, so that creates pools of homeless camps in flat areas.

scoofy 7y ago

I live in SF. I consider myself very liberal. I know it's not the political orthodox for people on the left, but I will say, it is bad. It is very bad. You learn to live with it, but it's far worse than any other city i've ever lived in. I think it's a direct result of a complete and utter lack of real estate development, but the fact of the matter is people shit in the street here, regularly. People shoot up heroin openly here. Needles littered on the streets here is normal. People smoke meth and crack, openly. If you don't want to see it, you can avoid it with a car, but i bike and take transit. The tenderloin is drug dealers and junkies. 16th and Mission is mentally ill people. Haight is crustypunks. Besides that, there are more normal things like people in tents in parks and under the highways. I've seen things more like this in places on the west coast, but i've never seen the type of open and welcome drug dependency except in this region. I definitely am supportive of giving addicts a way to get help or even use in a healthy, non-threatening setting that is safe and separated from the rest of us going about our lives, but that's not what's happening.

d-sc 7y ago

It’s worse than conservative media makes it out to be because in a wide swath of the country 6 figure incomes are large enough to completely insulate you form the issue.