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Interesting how the article completely leaves out the Heroin/Fentanyl/Meth epidemic. SF is another example of what happens when public policy gets it wrong, ou

Interesting how the article completely leaves out the Heroin/Fentanyl/Meth epidemic. SF is another example of what happens when public policy gets it wrong, our false compassion is killing people and city leaders are doing less than nothing about it.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Opioids are at most a companion to the homeless epidemic. If we're on the subject of compassion, millions who are no longer able to acquire effective pain relief could use some.
- bifrost 5y ago
  In SF our homelessness is driven by drug abuse and the lack of ability to put addicts and the mentally ill into conservatorship, its well documented. > If we're on the subject of compassion, millions who are no longer able to acquire effective pain relief could use some. Could you clarify what you mean by that?
  - olliej 5y ago
    What on earth? In SF homelessness is caused by the lack of housing. Mental illness is courtesy the Reagan era dismantling of mental health services in CA, and is over-represented for sure. However, the driving factor for homelessness in SF, is the fact that there is no where for people to live. Thats part of why eviction is so stupidly hard in SF. Once you become homeless it is functionally impossible to get out.
    - bifrost 5y ago
      Its not caused by lack of housing, the people on the street are incapable of supporting themselves much less maintaining a dwelling - have you ever been here? Our homeless are mostly drug-seeking tourists who are from elsewhere. The Reagan canard is also just that; The Supreme court ruling sought by the ACLU during the Carter administration is why people are out on the street, the govt can't legally commit people like that anymore. Evictions are hard here for the same reasons that its trivial to get fentanyl in front of the federal building that houses the DEA - failed govt policy.
      - tomnipotent 5y ago
        Maybe do some research. https://www.pacificresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/HomelessBrief_final_web.pdf https://www.pacificresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/H... "Roughly 34 percent of the homeless in San Francisco are homeless due to direct economic factors, such as evictions and job losses. Another 12 percent became homeless when they lost the safety net of family or friends." "About 15 percent are due to drug addiction or substance abuse."
        bifrost 5y ago
        I've spoken with several people working directly with the homeless, 95% of the people on the street are not from SF, most of them are told to say they're from SF so they can get services. There are tons of fake/stilted reports from special interest groups, they're trying to feed the "Homeless Industrial Complex" which has been growing rapidly since 2003. The City has even had to sue other counties for dumping: https://www.ktvn.com/story/30191022/nevada-san-francisco-reach-400000-patient-dumping-settlement https://www.ktvn.com/story/30191022/nevada-san-francisco-rea... Its very well known that SF has drug tourists, its so obvious if you're on the streets here...
        tomnipotent 5y ago
        > I've spoken with several people working directly with the homeless And somehow this makes you an expert or informed on the matter? > 95% of the people on the street are not from SF This is likely the case for every metro in the world. And? > well known that SF has drug tourists Facts and research, please. You seem keen to peddle the homeless as drug-addled perpetrators stereotype.
        bifrost 5y ago
        Yes, speaking with experts makes one informed. Even the Mayor of SF has talked about how SF has drug tourists and how they need to be prevented from receiving services. You don't seem to be very informed about SF.
    - Turing_Machine 5y ago
      Reagan hasn't been Governor of California for 45 years. Why haven't they fixed it since then?
      - bifrost 5y ago
        Because its illegal to commit someone to an institution who hasn't comitted a crime. San Francisco is trying a new approach but has only managed to get ONE person into conservatorship in the last 2 years because of all the roadblocks put up by a group called "The Coalition on Homelessness". https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/conservatorship-off-to-a-slow-start-with-just-one-person-in-court-ordered-treatment/ https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/conservatorship-off-to-a-slo... To give you an idea, you have to be 5150'ed (aka put on a psychiatric health hold) 8 times in order to receive inpatient treatment. 8 times. If you told someone they'd have to try to kill themselves 8 times before they got help, they'd probably call you nuts.
        Turing_Machine 5y ago
        > Because its illegal to commit someone to an institution who hasn't comitted a crime. I'm still not seeing what that do with "Reagan". If it's a law he instituted, that law could be changed back, yes?
        bifrost 5y ago
        No, the ACLU sued and its now the law of the land, its probably impossible to undue. Uninformed people blame Reagan for "closing the institutions" but you can't have an institution and nobody to put in it...
  - swiley 5y ago
    As someone looking at you guys from across the continent: at least part of your problem appears to come from a refusal to build dense housing which would allow people making something nearer average wage to sleep indoors.
    - bifrost 5y ago
      Housing has very little to do with it. SF has always been an expensive city to live in and its surrounded with suburbs with affordable housing. There are almost no homeless people in the surrounding areas because they come to SF for drugs and they know they won't be prosecuted for living their lifestyle. We're literally killing people by tolerating their bad behavior.
- celticninja 5y ago
  You have legalised cannabis in the states, that's a better pain relief option.
  - thrill 5y ago
    And your medical degree is from where?
    - celticninja 5y ago
      https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/12/e043400 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/12/e043400
    - chakhs 5y ago
      It's probably sarcasm
- bifrost 5y ago
  They're really not. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-cri...
staticautomatic 5y ago
What is the nature of this “false compassion”?
- bifrost 5y ago
  Unclear. From what I can tell people seem to think that letting people languish/die on the street by choice is the right thing to do. I'd prefer that we look at addiction as a disease and a public health risk and that we get those people off the street - either into treatment or into the justice system because of the crimes they commit to maintain their addictions. If you look at what a lot of european countries do - they force people off the streets, while thats not very legal here, maybe that is what we should do.
- bifrost 5y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-cri... Here's a current article written by a local advocate, its unfortunately paywalled but you're probably aware of ways around that. Here's a snippet: I called Thomas Wolf, one of the loudest critics of the city’s policies, to run past him what I was hearing from professors and other experts who have spent their lives studying drug use. “Forgive me for saying this,” Mr. Wolf politely told me, “but those people who you said you talked to — the experts — they have never shot dope, man. They never stuck a needle in their neck. They never spent a night on the street.” Mr. Wolf has done all of those things, which makes him one of the most poignant voices in the debate over what San Francisco should do to address an epidemic that claimed 713 lives last year, more than twice as many as died from the coronavirus in the city in 2020. “You can study homelessness and addiction in a book all day long,” Mr. Wolf told me. “But until you have experienced the power of addiction and the things you thought you would never resort to, you don’t really understand.”
giantg2 5y ago
Don't forget alcohol and other legal drugs.
- bifrost 5y ago
  SF always had a "skid row" area that was mostly alcoholics, but it was a fraction of the size it is now (it was basically a block or two). Now we have an entire neighborhood besieged with people openly using drugs, needles in their arms, smoking fentanyl with anything they can get their hands on. Alcohol and "legal drugs" are not the problem.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I think a block or two is not correct, especially when you correct for population growth and the policy that started shipping them in from other parts of the city. Can you show me population statistics for skid row and overall city homeless compared to the rest of the city/state/country over time? I don't doubt that opioids have contributed, but alcohol and other legal drugs are a major problem too. If this ruling is based on government caused harm, then it would require investigating the availability of alcohol due to policy too.
    - bifrost 5y ago
      I'm from SF, I know exactly where "skid row" was, and I also worked there for about a decade. Nobody was shipped in from other parts of the city either unless you count people moving from other counties to where meth/heroin/fentanyl was easily available. You can count the number of people on the street, maybe 1 in 15 has an alcoholic beverage, the rest are smoking meth/fenty/heroin. SF's problems are all about drugs.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        Oh, when they say Skid Row, they mean the 50 block one in LA (the most famous one). Maybe SF is different. It seems alcohol is still the most abused substance in the homeless population. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29852450/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29852450/

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

Opioids are at most a companion to the homeless epidemic. If we're on the subject of compassion, millions who are no longer able to acquire effective pain relief could use some.

bifrost 5y ago
In SF our homelessness is driven by drug abuse and the lack of ability to put addicts and the mentally ill into conservatorship, its well documented. > If we're on the subject of compassion, millions who are no longer able to acquire effective pain relief could use some. Could you clarify what you mean by that?
- olliej 5y ago
  What on earth? In SF homelessness is caused by the lack of housing. Mental illness is courtesy the Reagan era dismantling of mental health services in CA, and is over-represented for sure. However, the driving factor for homelessness in SF, is the fact that there is no where for people to live. Thats part of why eviction is so stupidly hard in SF. Once you become homeless it is functionally impossible to get out.
  - bifrost 5y ago
    Its not caused by lack of housing, the people on the street are incapable of supporting themselves much less maintaining a dwelling - have you ever been here? Our homeless are mostly drug-seeking tourists who are from elsewhere. The Reagan canard is also just that; The Supreme court ruling sought by the ACLU during the Carter administration is why people are out on the street, the govt can't legally commit people like that anymore. Evictions are hard here for the same reasons that its trivial to get fentanyl in front of the federal building that houses the DEA - failed govt policy.
    - tomnipotent 5y ago
      Maybe do some research. https://www.pacificresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/HomelessBrief_final_web.pdf https://www.pacificresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/H... "Roughly 34 percent of the homeless in San Francisco are homeless due to direct economic factors, such as evictions and job losses. Another 12 percent became homeless when they lost the safety net of family or friends." "About 15 percent are due to drug addiction or substance abuse."
      - bifrost 5y ago
        I've spoken with several people working directly with the homeless, 95% of the people on the street are not from SF, most of them are told to say they're from SF so they can get services. There are tons of fake/stilted reports from special interest groups, they're trying to feed the "Homeless Industrial Complex" which has been growing rapidly since 2003. The City has even had to sue other counties for dumping: https://www.ktvn.com/story/30191022/nevada-san-francisco-reach-400000-patient-dumping-settlement https://www.ktvn.com/story/30191022/nevada-san-francisco-rea... Its very well known that SF has drug tourists, its so obvious if you're on the streets here...
        tomnipotent 5y ago
        > I've spoken with several people working directly with the homeless And somehow this makes you an expert or informed on the matter? > 95% of the people on the street are not from SF This is likely the case for every metro in the world. And? > well known that SF has drug tourists Facts and research, please. You seem keen to peddle the homeless as drug-addled perpetrators stereotype.
        bifrost 5y ago
        Yes, speaking with experts makes one informed. Even the Mayor of SF has talked about how SF has drug tourists and how they need to be prevented from receiving services. You don't seem to be very informed about SF.
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    Reagan hasn't been Governor of California for 45 years. Why haven't they fixed it since then?
    - bifrost 5y ago
      Because its illegal to commit someone to an institution who hasn't comitted a crime. San Francisco is trying a new approach but has only managed to get ONE person into conservatorship in the last 2 years because of all the roadblocks put up by a group called "The Coalition on Homelessness". https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/conservatorship-off-to-a-slow-start-with-just-one-person-in-court-ordered-treatment/ https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/conservatorship-off-to-a-slo... To give you an idea, you have to be 5150'ed (aka put on a psychiatric health hold) 8 times in order to receive inpatient treatment. 8 times. If you told someone they'd have to try to kill themselves 8 times before they got help, they'd probably call you nuts.
      - Turing_Machine 5y ago
        > Because its illegal to commit someone to an institution who hasn't comitted a crime. I'm still not seeing what that do with "Reagan". If it's a law he instituted, that law could be changed back, yes?
        bifrost 5y ago
        No, the ACLU sued and its now the law of the land, its probably impossible to undue. Uninformed people blame Reagan for "closing the institutions" but you can't have an institution and nobody to put in it...
- swiley 5y ago
  As someone looking at you guys from across the continent: at least part of your problem appears to come from a refusal to build dense housing which would allow people making something nearer average wage to sleep indoors.
  - bifrost 5y ago
    Housing has very little to do with it. SF has always been an expensive city to live in and its surrounded with suburbs with affordable housing. There are almost no homeless people in the surrounding areas because they come to SF for drugs and they know they won't be prosecuted for living their lifestyle. We're literally killing people by tolerating their bad behavior.
celticninja 5y ago
You have legalised cannabis in the states, that's a better pain relief option.
- thrill 5y ago
  And your medical degree is from where?
  - celticninja 5y ago
    https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/12/e043400 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/12/e043400
  - chakhs 5y ago
    It's probably sarcasm
bifrost 5y ago
They're really not. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-cri...

staticautomatic 5y ago

What is the nature of this “false compassion”?

bifrost 5y ago
Unclear. From what I can tell people seem to think that letting people languish/die on the street by choice is the right thing to do. I'd prefer that we look at addiction as a disease and a public health risk and that we get those people off the street - either into treatment or into the justice system because of the crimes they commit to maintain their addictions. If you look at what a lot of european countries do - they force people off the streets, while thats not very legal here, maybe that is what we should do.
bifrost 5y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/san-francisco-drug-cri... Here's a current article written by a local advocate, its unfortunately paywalled but you're probably aware of ways around that. Here's a snippet: I called Thomas Wolf, one of the loudest critics of the city’s policies, to run past him what I was hearing from professors and other experts who have spent their lives studying drug use. “Forgive me for saying this,” Mr. Wolf politely told me, “but those people who you said you talked to — the experts — they have never shot dope, man. They never stuck a needle in their neck. They never spent a night on the street.” Mr. Wolf has done all of those things, which makes him one of the most poignant voices in the debate over what San Francisco should do to address an epidemic that claimed 713 lives last year, more than twice as many as died from the coronavirus in the city in 2020. “You can study homelessness and addiction in a book all day long,” Mr. Wolf told me. “But until you have experienced the power of addiction and the things you thought you would never resort to, you don’t really understand.”

giantg2 5y ago

Don't forget alcohol and other legal drugs.

bifrost 5y ago
SF always had a "skid row" area that was mostly alcoholics, but it was a fraction of the size it is now (it was basically a block or two). Now we have an entire neighborhood besieged with people openly using drugs, needles in their arms, smoking fentanyl with anything they can get their hands on. Alcohol and "legal drugs" are not the problem.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I think a block or two is not correct, especially when you correct for population growth and the policy that started shipping them in from other parts of the city. Can you show me population statistics for skid row and overall city homeless compared to the rest of the city/state/country over time? I don't doubt that opioids have contributed, but alcohol and other legal drugs are a major problem too. If this ruling is based on government caused harm, then it would require investigating the availability of alcohol due to policy too.
  - bifrost 5y ago
    I'm from SF, I know exactly where "skid row" was, and I also worked there for about a decade. Nobody was shipped in from other parts of the city either unless you count people moving from other counties to where meth/heroin/fentanyl was easily available. You can count the number of people on the street, maybe 1 in 15 has an alcoholic beverage, the rest are smoking meth/fenty/heroin. SF's problems are all about drugs.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Oh, when they say Skid Row, they mean the 50 block one in LA (the most famous one). Maybe SF is different. It seems alcohol is still the most abused substance in the homeless population. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29852450/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29852450/