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SF's favorite game is to send ambulances out to a guy sitting on the street, screaming insane things, covered in his own feces and trying to punch people. Ambul

SF's favorite game is to send ambulances out to a guy sitting on the street, screaming insane things, covered in his own feces and trying to punch people. Ambulance shows, guy says "No!" and so everyone says "Oh, this person is doing just fine, leave them alone." And everyone leaves, and the guy goes back to covering himself in his own filth and shouting at people. Definitely a great outcome for all involved. If the people advocating for the homeless and mentally ill have a better solution than leaving them on the streets to rot, then I would like ot hear it. Because 100% of the solutions proposed in SF amount to "Leave them alone, they are fine." So fucking sick of it. It is VERY clear when someone needs help, but our society would rather let them suffer in the streets than do anything. Anyone who tries to help or suggests getting them off the streets is a fascist. Homeless advocacy in the Bay Area amounts to "Maintain the status quo, do nothing to help. Punish those who try to take back their own homes and streets from people covered in filth and perpetually addicted to drugs and violence." SFFD former captain who was beaten senseless this past week in SF is literally in the hospital while 2 of the 3 people who beat him with a crowbar remain on the streets. Even when these people are violent, we do nothing. KRON4 interviewed one of his attackers on TV! Guy's still in his camp on the streets, still angry and dangerous. Attack is even on camera! We live in a society where those who follow the laws are constantly punished for minor infractions like parking tickets and zoning violations, while people who do not participate in society AND completely flout the laws in every way are not only allowed to do so, there is a huge section of our population that encourages and protects their right to do so. It is supremely infuriating to watch the Bay Area be so completely backwards and so utterly dogmatic as to ignore problems and constantly attack people for not being progressive enough. We literally have conservatives disassembling democracy across this nation, and the Left's favorite game to play is "Can we castigate more progressives for not passing the acid test."

bolanyo 3y ago
> If the people advocating for the homeless and mentally ill have a better solution than leaving them on the streets to rot The comment you are replying to put forward exactly such a solution: that treatment should be helpful enough and sufficiently respectful of users' rights, that people who need it don't refuse it.
- pc86 3y ago
  You can't reason the person smearing shit on themselves and screaming at people into treatment.
  - cwmoore 3y ago
    The eagerness to reason from the headline anecdata on this topic is a signal that it is not just the mentally ill who exhibit severe thinking problems. No, you can't reason with that one person at that moment. Get them sedated, cleaned up, new clothes and a haircut, and then ask them what is going on with them. For each one like that there are another 10,000 people in various forms of quiet desperation.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - UncleOxidant 3y ago
      > Get them sedated Kind of tough to get them to that first step willingly. Got any other ideas?
      - cwmoore 3y ago
        <del>Willingly was your idea.</del> As for other ideas, some are in the comment. What about the 10,000 who might be willing if society offered them treatment options even a sane person would accept? EDIT: because sibling comments are willfully ignoring my point EDIT2: public disturbances are frequently halted with police arrest, not whatever willingness could be brought about ahead of time with better systems in place
        pc86 3y ago
        Willingly wasn't necessarily their idea, that's the whole point of this thread - getting people into treatment by their own choice vs. forcing them: > > > ... treatment should be helpful enough and sufficiently respectful of users' rights, that people who need it don't refuse it
notch898b 3y ago
>We live in a society where those who follow the laws are constantly punished for minor infractions like parking tickets and zoning violations, while people who do not participate in society AND completely flout the laws in every way are not only allowed to do so, there is a huge section of our population that encourages and protects their right to do so. At the end of the day it's inconvenient to punish homeless for crimes. They have no money, they're often infected with disease, and they are often unpleasant to deal with. Meanwhile when I did absolutely nothing wrong, federal officers bragged to me what a great vacation it was to drag me to the hospital for the better part of a day on a fraudulent and fabricated search for "drugs" because they said it was better than doing their normal beat, and it paid great overtime. People say you should be polite to law enforcement, but the fact is being unpleasant/unpolite/filthy works. Like most humans, a frightening amount of law enforcement boils down to they did it because it was easiest. Dealing with mentally ill people at their worst moments is not easy, extorting a well to do professional for going 5 over the limit is much easier.
brightball 3y ago
> We literally have conservatives disassembling democracy across this nation, and the Left's favorite game to play is "Can we castigate more progressives for not passing the acid test." I have to say, a rant like that about how things are in SF ending on that note caught me off guard. You explained in detail all of these problems and closed out that you’re worried about conservatives? I have to ask…why?
- VonGuard 3y ago
  The point of SF's progressive movement is to fight back against conservative policies with an example of what progressive politics can accomplish. It's not exactly working out now is it? SF itself is the city where all of the beautiful progressive ideas come together in harmony and make a heavenly place. It is absolutely incorrect in that assessment of itself. Spend 5 minutes at a city council meeting and you will see exactly what I mean. Same thing happens in Oakland. The city spends an awful lot of time commenting on what's going on in conservative areas and passing rules and laws that seemingly address those things but are really just talk. And then they continue to ignore the real problems of crime and homelessness. Oakland and SF love passing support statements for people having issues in other states, but can't get their own Police Departments to even show up to do their jobs. Priorities are entirely wrong.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  I'd guess that the idea is that left wing politics in a lot of places has gotten bogged down in ridiculous notions of "just do whatever you want, everyone has kindness within them" and lets that override the normal concerns about cohesion and wellbeing in society. You can have socialism, redistribution, a progressive society etc., whilst also recognising that no, you can't just park your tent wherever you want and bother people. You can support the fact that people might have unorthodox sex lives in private whilst also believing that people who parade the fact that they "have multiple genders" are attention seekers. The best way that I can describe the feeling I have is that effectively, there's no "upper bound" for compassion/empathy in the modern left-wing framework and that crashes and burns when it hits the real world.
hattmall 3y ago
You worry about conservatives destroying Democracy but all of the most desirable places to live for people who aren't rich enough to afford private segregation are conservative areas. Are there any liberal areas where it's actually nice to live if you are poor or of moderate income? As in not wealthy enough to afford, doormen, gated communities and private schools?
- majormajor 3y ago
  It's hard to answer this question if we don't have any examples of what you think of as conservative "nice places to live." The affordability bar varies wildly even in red states, and you also have red state/blue city stuff going on a lot. So I'll turn the question back like this: what do you think are nice places to live that have demonstrated effective solutions to affordability and mental health problems at scale in a relatively dense city with high property prices from high demand? In my experience, the way this is "fixed" in a city like Phoenix is a combination of: "be able to sprawl outward further and further without yet getting completely blocked by geography so there's always somewhere to put new construction to keep costs down" and "have inclement weather that pushes the homeless out so we don't have to be the bad guys ourselves as much" - but these are basically the opposite of the most common proposed "if only the government could get it together" fixes for SF: denser construction and confinement. Those tools are likely necessary for a city like SF, but it's not like there are Republican cities showing how to get it done.
- jrumbut 3y ago
  Massachusetts (and most of New England) is great. I own a large house with a mortgage that's cheaper than a shared studio in San Francisco and I never worry about locking the door. Neighbors are all friendly, well behaved kids roam the street unsupervised, it feels the same way it did 30 years ago here. It's deep blue territory. The weather is terrible and the Red Sox have gone off the rails, but you can't have everything.
  - hattmall 3y ago
    Ok, so can you be more specific that's a large reason, but my understanding was it's very expensive there? So what is an average home price like, and is there any significant diversity diversity? Massachusetts as a whole looks to be as much as 80% white.
jstarfish 3y ago
> SF's favorite game is to send ambulances out to a guy sitting on the street, screaming insane things, covered in his own feces and trying to punch people. Ambulance shows, guy says "No!" and so everyone says "Oh, this person is doing just fine, leave them alone." And everyone leaves The flip side of this is forcibly transporting people to hospitals and slapping them with $10-15k bills for a glorified taxi ride. Homeless can't pay that, so small wonder they're left there. But you or me? No sir, you're unable to make decisions for yourself; we absolutely need to take you in for evaluation. Your wallet is biopsied on the way to the hospital, where the real fun starts. Be very afraid of an America with forced medical "care."
- blackguardx 3y ago
  There is a public hospital called SF General where people who can’t afford medical care are treated.
- DesiLurker 3y ago
  I dont know why you are downvoted but bad faith compliance is absolutely a thing. whats to stop city from sending such a patient to nearby private hospital in the name of 'medical necessity'. who decides who needs to forcibly hospitalized? if you fall into a puddle and somebody calls an ambulance would you rely on the ambulance driver's judgement to decide if you need the $10k ride to hospital? with healthcare you always have to think about bad faith operators because there is zero transparency and no free market there.
  - CrackerNews 3y ago
    It would come down to the law to dictate who has the final say in sending someone to a hospital. Or else the people making the decision they shouldn't be making open themselves up to being subject to legal punishment. (Which opens up another question of who can afford to...?) The free market could incentivize bad faith operators even more because of the greater potential of the profit motive. Free market doesn't necessarily mean greater transparency or ethics.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
pnathan 3y ago
> SF's favorite game is to send ambulances out to a guy sitting on the street, screaming insane things, covered in his own feces and trying to punch people. Ambulance shows, guy says "No!" Roughly - without the violence - a friend watched this precise scenario last fall in Spokane, WA. If the person had been within hospital grounds, the paramedics & security could have restrained them under grounds of inability to make choice, given them medications, and maybe helped them some. But, since the person was a block away from the hospital, there was no ability to say, "buddy, you have feces all over you and are laying with flies all over. we're gonna take you in, hose you off, launder the clothes, then see what we can do for your mental state". That would have been the kindest thing to do. The crux is that certain "out of your mind" states require external intervention, and there is no legal way to apply that in many jurisdictions today. Note that some jurisdictions require a trial-like apparatus for involuntary holds after some 24/36? hour period - I don't that's inappropriate at all. Being able to see a guy laying covered in filth and take him in to help should be legal; at least for 24 hours. The indigent will have their debt forgiven - hospitals know they don't get blood from a turnip. It is true that some medications don't work for everyone, and some medications produce horrific side effects. So there is some % of people for whom the best medication regimes today do not work. That has to be considered and reflected through. It's also true that there's high correlation with addiction and homelessness. That all has to be considered and addressed. Considering institutions. As I've had a good friend for a long time with mental illness who has been in wards, the quote from the article is very true. > I disliked the hospital, but even with its heavy locked door, I knew it wasn’t a branch of the “carceral state” devised by a power‑mad society to torment him. And this has to be understood by everyone who thinks through this. Mental wards in the United States today are not, conventionally, torture chambers for mad doctors. They are restrictive and often frustrating, for reasons that a little thought should reveal. Aberrant nurses and arrogant & high-handed docs exist there, but they are not, systemically, the norm. It is not a horror movie. TBQH, I don't think the vast majority of mental health writings online by non-experts touch on severe mental illness in anything approximating a realistic way. The status quo is really quite unacceptable. My druthers would be to re-institutionalize and keep a very high legal and regulatory scrutiny on the institutions. Other solutions might work well too. But a key cornerstone of improvement will have to come to changing the shape of the law for involuntary holds and medication for people in high crisis.
jquery 3y ago
Longtime resident here (15 years). It's easy to become frustrated with the complex and persistent issues of homelessness and mental illness in San Francisco. However, it's important to acknowledge that there are numerous groups and individuals who are passionately working to create positive change in the lives of those affected. They're offering essential services, advocating for policy changes, and developing programs to tackle the systemic issues that contribute to homelessness and mental health challenges. It's simply not true that homeless advocates and organizations just want to maintain the status quo. Second, it is not a question of punishing those who follow the law, but rather addressing the systemic issues that contribute to homelessness and mental illness. By focusing on parking tickets and zoning violations, you're missing the bigger picture of societal inequality, lack of affordable housing, and inadequate mental health care. This isn't about passing a "progressive acid test", it's about practical solutions that work and are politically feasible. Lastly, your comment oozes contempt for people who are struggling with addiction and mental health issues. Labeling them as "people covered in filth and perpetually addicted to drugs and violence" is not only dehumanizing but also incredibly counterproductive. We must work together to find compassionate and effective solutions, rather than resorting to name-calling and finger-pointing."
danans 3y ago
> Because 100% of the solutions proposed in SF amount to "Leave them alone, they are fine." The mayor actively supports changes to state conservatorship law that would allow authorities to force people into treatment. https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/san-francisco-treating-mental-illness-17641213.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/san-francisco-treati...
fineIllregister 3y ago
If someone is punching people, that's a legal issue. That's not really something the medical system has tools to address. To the rest of your scenario, no one says they're "fine". Just that the person has the right to choose no medical treatment. You also have that right. If a doctor says you will certainly die without treatment, you can say no. The doctor doesn't write in the note that you are fine, just that they offered and you did not want it. It's not a "game", it is the ethical and legal requirements of the role. You assume your proposed intervention will "help", but what is your basis for that claim? What signals should they be looking at to guide the course of treatment? For doctors, the answer can be vital signs, tests, but those don't help here. Usually, they're looking at patient input. > If the people advocating for the homeless and mentally ill have a better solution than leaving them on the streets to rot, then I would like ot hear it. Properly funded, voluntary community treatment. It is possible to design services such that people want them; I've seen it (yes, even people experiencing psychosis). You have to train providers in engagement skills and actually empower the person receiving services. Traumatizing them with regards to health care is not going to help. Fixing it requires and robust social safety nets at the federal level. A municipality cannot do it alone.
- spaced-out 3y ago
  >Just that the person has the right to choose no medical treatment. You also have that right. If a doctor says you will certainly die without treatment, you can say no. The doctor doesn't write in the note that you are fine, just that they offered and you did not want it. It's not a "game", it is the ethical and legal requirements of the role. The issue is that the people we're talking about don't have the mental faculties to make these decisions. Do you think someone in the state they're in, barely even aware of where they are, unable to even speak or stand up straight, would be allowed to sign a legally binding contract? Of course not, any court would throw out any contract they signed because they're obviously not mentally able to make decisions like that. Same goes for decisions about their health.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
ABCLAW 3y ago
>Ambulance shows, guy says "No!" and so everyone says "Oh, this person is doing just fine, leave them alone." No, no one says 'this person is doing fine'. It's 'we're medical staff and we can't arrest people - they are clearly withholding consent, we can't do anything else'. I've stayed with distressed homeless people trying to hurt themselves while social worker teams, cops and medical staff came to the scene; if the homeless individual doesn't want help and is not an active danger to others there's very very little that can be done to forcibly detain them. > If the people advocating for the homeless and mentally ill have a better solution than leaving them on the streets to rot, then I would like ot hear it. Fund shelters and support groups well enough that trying to get off the streets and get help doesn't require that you bunk next to someone who has a shiv and is experiencing a massive heroin withdrawl event while you try to sleep. There's a reason homeless people dodge a lot of so called 'help'. It's because the help is often worse than the alternative.
- baremetal 3y ago
  I've befriended and fed a certain individual in south San Jose who would stand on a the corner of Bernal and Santa Theresa and yell at the air. Anyone familiar with the area knows who I am talking about. He is extremely lucid most of the time. And a very grateful and warm hearted individual. But he cannot for the life of him access any services, food stamps or healthcare or anything. The police can't even help him. They all know him. No one seems to be able to help him. I've fed him and been his friend, I don't know what else I can do. He has no ID nor way to get ID.

bolanyo 3y ago

> If the people advocating for the homeless and mentally ill have a better solution than leaving them on the streets to rot The comment you are replying to put forward exactly such a solution: that treatment should be helpful enough and sufficiently respectful of users' rights, that people who need it don't refuse it.

pc86 3y ago
You can't reason the person smearing shit on themselves and screaming at people into treatment.
- cwmoore 3y ago
  The eagerness to reason from the headline anecdata on this topic is a signal that it is not just the mentally ill who exhibit severe thinking problems. No, you can't reason with that one person at that moment. Get them sedated, cleaned up, new clothes and a haircut, and then ask them what is going on with them. For each one like that there are another 10,000 people in various forms of quiet desperation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - UncleOxidant 3y ago
    > Get them sedated Kind of tough to get them to that first step willingly. Got any other ideas?
    - cwmoore 3y ago
      <del>Willingly was your idea.</del> As for other ideas, some are in the comment. What about the 10,000 who might be willing if society offered them treatment options even a sane person would accept? EDIT: because sibling comments are willfully ignoring my point EDIT2: public disturbances are frequently halted with police arrest, not whatever willingness could be brought about ahead of time with better systems in place
      - pc86 3y ago
        Willingly wasn't necessarily their idea, that's the whole point of this thread - getting people into treatment by their own choice vs. forcing them: > > > ... treatment should be helpful enough and sufficiently respectful of users' rights, that people who need it don't refuse it

notch898b 3y ago

>We live in a society where those who follow the laws are constantly punished for minor infractions like parking tickets and zoning violations, while people who do not participate in society AND completely flout the laws in every way are not only allowed to do so, there is a huge section of our population that encourages and protects their right to do so. At the end of the day it's inconvenient to punish homeless for crimes. They have no money, they're often infected with disease, and they are often unpleasant to deal with. Meanwhile when I did absolutely nothing wrong, federal officers bragged to me what a great vacation it was to drag me to the hospital for the better part of a day on a fraudulent and fabricated search for "drugs" because they said it was better than doing their normal beat, and it paid great overtime. People say you should be polite to law enforcement, but the fact is being unpleasant/unpolite/filthy works. Like most humans, a frightening amount of law enforcement boils down to they did it because it was easiest. Dealing with mentally ill people at their worst moments is not easy, extorting a well to do professional for going 5 over the limit is much easier.

brightball 3y ago

> We literally have conservatives disassembling democracy across this nation, and the Left's favorite game to play is "Can we castigate more progressives for not passing the acid test." I have to say, a rant like that about how things are in SF ending on that note caught me off guard. You explained in detail all of these problems and closed out that you’re worried about conservatives? I have to ask…why?

VonGuard 3y ago
The point of SF's progressive movement is to fight back against conservative policies with an example of what progressive politics can accomplish. It's not exactly working out now is it? SF itself is the city where all of the beautiful progressive ideas come together in harmony and make a heavenly place. It is absolutely incorrect in that assessment of itself. Spend 5 minutes at a city council meeting and you will see exactly what I mean. Same thing happens in Oakland. The city spends an awful lot of time commenting on what's going on in conservative areas and passing rules and laws that seemingly address those things but are really just talk. And then they continue to ignore the real problems of crime and homelessness. Oakland and SF love passing support statements for people having issues in other states, but can't get their own Police Departments to even show up to do their jobs. Priorities are entirely wrong.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
throwaway22032 3y ago
I'd guess that the idea is that left wing politics in a lot of places has gotten bogged down in ridiculous notions of "just do whatever you want, everyone has kindness within them" and lets that override the normal concerns about cohesion and wellbeing in society. You can have socialism, redistribution, a progressive society etc., whilst also recognising that no, you can't just park your tent wherever you want and bother people. You can support the fact that people might have unorthodox sex lives in private whilst also believing that people who parade the fact that they "have multiple genders" are attention seekers. The best way that I can describe the feeling I have is that effectively, there's no "upper bound" for compassion/empathy in the modern left-wing framework and that crashes and burns when it hits the real world.

hattmall 3y ago

You worry about conservatives destroying Democracy but all of the most desirable places to live for people who aren't rich enough to afford private segregation are conservative areas. Are there any liberal areas where it's actually nice to live if you are poor or of moderate income? As in not wealthy enough to afford, doormen, gated communities and private schools?

majormajor 3y ago
It's hard to answer this question if we don't have any examples of what you think of as conservative "nice places to live." The affordability bar varies wildly even in red states, and you also have red state/blue city stuff going on a lot. So I'll turn the question back like this: what do you think are nice places to live that have demonstrated effective solutions to affordability and mental health problems at scale in a relatively dense city with high property prices from high demand? In my experience, the way this is "fixed" in a city like Phoenix is a combination of: "be able to sprawl outward further and further without yet getting completely blocked by geography so there's always somewhere to put new construction to keep costs down" and "have inclement weather that pushes the homeless out so we don't have to be the bad guys ourselves as much" - but these are basically the opposite of the most common proposed "if only the government could get it together" fixes for SF: denser construction and confinement. Those tools are likely necessary for a city like SF, but it's not like there are Republican cities showing how to get it done.
jrumbut 3y ago
Massachusetts (and most of New England) is great. I own a large house with a mortgage that's cheaper than a shared studio in San Francisco and I never worry about locking the door. Neighbors are all friendly, well behaved kids roam the street unsupervised, it feels the same way it did 30 years ago here. It's deep blue territory. The weather is terrible and the Red Sox have gone off the rails, but you can't have everything.
- hattmall 3y ago
  Ok, so can you be more specific that's a large reason, but my understanding was it's very expensive there? So what is an average home price like, and is there any significant diversity diversity? Massachusetts as a whole looks to be as much as 80% white.

jstarfish 3y ago

> SF's favorite game is to send ambulances out to a guy sitting on the street, screaming insane things, covered in his own feces and trying to punch people. Ambulance shows, guy says "No!" and so everyone says "Oh, this person is doing just fine, leave them alone." And everyone leaves The flip side of this is forcibly transporting people to hospitals and slapping them with $10-15k bills for a glorified taxi ride. Homeless can't pay that, so small wonder they're left there. But you or me? No sir, you're unable to make decisions for yourself; we absolutely need to take you in for evaluation. Your wallet is biopsied on the way to the hospital, where the real fun starts. Be very afraid of an America with forced medical "care."

blackguardx 3y ago
There is a public hospital called SF General where people who can’t afford medical care are treated.
DesiLurker 3y ago
I dont know why you are downvoted but bad faith compliance is absolutely a thing. whats to stop city from sending such a patient to nearby private hospital in the name of 'medical necessity'. who decides who needs to forcibly hospitalized? if you fall into a puddle and somebody calls an ambulance would you rely on the ambulance driver's judgement to decide if you need the $10k ride to hospital? with healthcare you always have to think about bad faith operators because there is zero transparency and no free market there.
- CrackerNews 3y ago
  It would come down to the law to dictate who has the final say in sending someone to a hospital. Or else the people making the decision they shouldn't be making open themselves up to being subject to legal punishment. (Which opens up another question of who can afford to...?) The free market could incentivize bad faith operators even more because of the greater potential of the profit motive. Free market doesn't necessarily mean greater transparency or ethics.
- jstarfish 3y ago

pnathan 3y ago

> SF's favorite game is to send ambulances out to a guy sitting on the street, screaming insane things, covered in his own feces and trying to punch people. Ambulance shows, guy says "No!" Roughly - without the violence - a friend watched this precise scenario last fall in Spokane, WA. If the person had been within hospital grounds, the paramedics & security could have restrained them under grounds of inability to make choice, given them medications, and maybe helped them some. But, since the person was a block away from the hospital, there was no ability to say, "buddy, you have feces all over you and are laying with flies all over. we're gonna take you in, hose you off, launder the clothes, then see what we can do for your mental state". That would have been the kindest thing to do. The crux is that certain "out of your mind" states require external intervention, and there is no legal way to apply that in many jurisdictions today. Note that some jurisdictions require a trial-like apparatus for involuntary holds after some 24/36? hour period - I don't that's inappropriate at all. Being able to see a guy laying covered in filth and take him in to help should be legal; at least for 24 hours. The indigent will have their debt forgiven - hospitals know they don't get blood from a turnip. It is true that some medications don't work for everyone, and some medications produce horrific side effects. So there is some % of people for whom the best medication regimes today do not work. That has to be considered and reflected through. It's also true that there's high correlation with addiction and homelessness. That all has to be considered and addressed. Considering institutions. As I've had a good friend for a long time with mental illness who has been in wards, the quote from the article is very true. > I disliked the hospital, but even with its heavy locked door, I knew it wasn’t a branch of the “carceral state” devised by a power‑mad society to torment him. And this has to be understood by everyone who thinks through this. Mental wards in the United States today are not, conventionally, torture chambers for mad doctors. They are restrictive and often frustrating, for reasons that a little thought should reveal. Aberrant nurses and arrogant & high-handed docs exist there, but they are not, systemically, the norm. It is not a horror movie. TBQH, I don't think the vast majority of mental health writings online by non-experts touch on severe mental illness in anything approximating a realistic way. The status quo is really quite unacceptable. My druthers would be to re-institutionalize and keep a very high legal and regulatory scrutiny on the institutions. Other solutions might work well too. But a key cornerstone of improvement will have to come to changing the shape of the law for involuntary holds and medication for people in high crisis.

jquery 3y ago

Longtime resident here (15 years). It's easy to become frustrated with the complex and persistent issues of homelessness and mental illness in San Francisco. However, it's important to acknowledge that there are numerous groups and individuals who are passionately working to create positive change in the lives of those affected. They're offering essential services, advocating for policy changes, and developing programs to tackle the systemic issues that contribute to homelessness and mental health challenges. It's simply not true that homeless advocates and organizations just want to maintain the status quo. Second, it is not a question of punishing those who follow the law, but rather addressing the systemic issues that contribute to homelessness and mental illness. By focusing on parking tickets and zoning violations, you're missing the bigger picture of societal inequality, lack of affordable housing, and inadequate mental health care. This isn't about passing a "progressive acid test", it's about practical solutions that work and are politically feasible. Lastly, your comment oozes contempt for people who are struggling with addiction and mental health issues. Labeling them as "people covered in filth and perpetually addicted to drugs and violence" is not only dehumanizing but also incredibly counterproductive. We must work together to find compassionate and effective solutions, rather than resorting to name-calling and finger-pointing."

danans 3y ago

> Because 100% of the solutions proposed in SF amount to "Leave them alone, they are fine." The mayor actively supports changes to state conservatorship law that would allow authorities to force people into treatment. https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/san-francisco-treating-mental-illness-17641213.php https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/san-francisco-treati...

fineIllregister 3y ago

If someone is punching people, that's a legal issue. That's not really something the medical system has tools to address. To the rest of your scenario, no one says they're "fine". Just that the person has the right to choose no medical treatment. You also have that right. If a doctor says you will certainly die without treatment, you can say no. The doctor doesn't write in the note that you are fine, just that they offered and you did not want it. It's not a "game", it is the ethical and legal requirements of the role. You assume your proposed intervention will "help", but what is your basis for that claim? What signals should they be looking at to guide the course of treatment? For doctors, the answer can be vital signs, tests, but those don't help here. Usually, they're looking at patient input. > If the people advocating for the homeless and mentally ill have a better solution than leaving them on the streets to rot, then I would like ot hear it. Properly funded, voluntary community treatment. It is possible to design services such that people want them; I've seen it (yes, even people experiencing psychosis). You have to train providers in engagement skills and actually empower the person receiving services. Traumatizing them with regards to health care is not going to help. Fixing it requires and robust social safety nets at the federal level. A municipality cannot do it alone.

spaced-out 3y ago
>Just that the person has the right to choose no medical treatment. You also have that right. If a doctor says you will certainly die without treatment, you can say no. The doctor doesn't write in the note that you are fine, just that they offered and you did not want it. It's not a "game", it is the ethical and legal requirements of the role. The issue is that the people we're talking about don't have the mental faculties to make these decisions. Do you think someone in the state they're in, barely even aware of where they are, unable to even speak or stand up straight, would be allowed to sign a legally binding contract? Of course not, any court would throw out any contract they signed because they're obviously not mentally able to make decisions like that. Same goes for decisions about their health.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago

ABCLAW 3y ago

>Ambulance shows, guy says "No!" and so everyone says "Oh, this person is doing just fine, leave them alone." No, no one says 'this person is doing fine'. It's 'we're medical staff and we can't arrest people - they are clearly withholding consent, we can't do anything else'. I've stayed with distressed homeless people trying to hurt themselves while social worker teams, cops and medical staff came to the scene; if the homeless individual doesn't want help and is not an active danger to others there's very very little that can be done to forcibly detain them. > If the people advocating for the homeless and mentally ill have a better solution than leaving them on the streets to rot, then I would like ot hear it. Fund shelters and support groups well enough that trying to get off the streets and get help doesn't require that you bunk next to someone who has a shiv and is experiencing a massive heroin withdrawl event while you try to sleep. There's a reason homeless people dodge a lot of so called 'help'. It's because the help is often worse than the alternative.

baremetal 3y ago
I've befriended and fed a certain individual in south San Jose who would stand on a the corner of Bernal and Santa Theresa and yell at the air. Anyone familiar with the area knows who I am talking about. He is extremely lucid most of the time. And a very grateful and warm hearted individual. But he cannot for the life of him access any services, food stamps or healthcare or anything. The police can't even help him. They all know him. No one seems to be able to help him. I've fed him and been his friend, I don't know what else I can do. He has no ID nor way to get ID.