For the record, this kind of thing is absolutely happening in San Francisco, and it’s happening in other West Coast cities as well, like Portland. The OP is a l

For the record, this kind of thing is absolutely happening in San Francisco, and it’s happening in other West Coast cities as well, like Portland. The OP is a little off in their attribution. The biggest cause of this is the 9th Circuit ruling in Martin v. Boise, which dictated that cities cannot force a person not to camp on public land unless they can offer a meaningful alternative. Cities have built their own policies to deal with this, and then multiple cities on the West Coast also elected progressive District Attorneys, who explicitly consider things like what the OP is describing to be “non-violent” crimes, and therefore not a priority. Here’s what San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin said about this: “We will not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes," he said. "Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted. Many of these crimes are still being prosecuted; we have a long way to go to decriminalize poverty and homelessness.” That’s a noble goal, but it comes with a HUGE blind spot - namely the intersection of homelessness and criminality. The apparent implication is that the citizens impacted by these “quality of life crimes” can go pound sand.