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I'm living in Toronto, Canada, and the SF crack-head thing is always a shock. If I'm in SF, it's for conferences and it's always strange that literally one blo

I'm living in Toronto, Canada, and the SF crack-head thing is always a shock. If I'm in SF, it's for conferences and it's always strange that literally one block away from our expensive hotel, there are zombies shambling about -- and this is totally normal! For those who know Toronto: it's like you're in Yorkdale, you walk one block and you're in the worst part of Parkdale. The other odd thing is that I seem to pay about the same in taxes, given the author's figures.

craigyk 14y ago
Must be a west coast thing. One of the first things I noticed when I visited Vancouver for the first time was how many crackheads were just sitting about, and how friendly they were when asking for directions.
mcrider 14y ago
But what you say shouldn't be generalized to Canada; Gastown, which is probably the heart of Vancouver's tech scene, is spitting distance from the poorest postal code in Canada. Homeless people migrate to places like Vancouver and San Fran for their temperate winters and progressive attitudes.
run4yourlives 14y ago
It's more a west coast thing. I grew up in Toronto and I can tell you the same thing shocked me about moving to Vancouver. Crackheads/street people don't like to freeze, so they move to the warmth is. I'd imagine this is as true in the US as it is in Canada.
- JabavuAdams 14y ago
  Good point! I'd heard about this, but didn't realize the significance. So my dream of becoming a homeless programmer in Hawaii is still alive!
- kafkaesque 14y ago
  This is anecdotal, so I guess you can take it with a grain of salt. But as someone from Vancouver who has visited SF quite a bit, SF always seemed to have more homelessness (it does have a warmer climate than Van) and more parts that smelled really bad. I might be desensitised to it already, though. Also, throughout my time living in Vancouver, I've never witnessed a robbery/theft/crime, whereas visiting SF last month I witnessed a random theft from a homeless at a Walgreens and they were really abusive towards him. What I'm saying is, it still feels like a different country with a different culture, instead of it only being a west coast thing.
  - run4yourlives 14y ago
    I lived downtown in Vancouver for 5 years - I think I had my car broken into about 200 times, no exaggeration. It got so bad I just left the damn thing open. Everything in the US is basically X 10, so you have to allow for that in the similarities.
    - kafkaesque 14y ago
      Wow. That's awful. Sorry to hear. I only know a few people with cars in Vancouver, and none ever had their cars broken into except one who lived on the Drive. Now, I know a bunch of people who own bicycles. Vancouver is notorious for their bicycle thieves!
    - geebee 14y ago
      I tried that too, but then I discovered people will sleep in unlocked cars.
- absconditus 14y ago
  Chicago has a huge homeless problem. http://www.chicagohomeless.org/faq-studies/ http://www.chicagohomeless.org/faq-studies/
  - GiselleDarlene 14y ago
    They must "hide" them well. I've lived in Chicago all of my life and there's no comparison to SF.
    - brandnewlow 14y ago
      Agreed 100%. I lived on Division and Wells for 4 years and never saw homelessness like I see walking from our startup office in SF to visit our bank. That said, Chicago's true poor are cached away far south of the places where people who read Hacker News would likely live.
      - absconditus 14y ago
        I live in Chicago and see them every single day. They are usually on buses and trains or at the stops and stations. I also see them digging through the trash in the alley behind my building.
  - batiudrami 14y ago
    I visited Chicago and SF recently, and (at least down town) you're talking several orders of magnitude. Being in SF was really sad for me - sitting in a niceish cafe/restaurant and looking out the window to see a homeless person sifting through a bin. It's not at all what I'm used to. Chicago, on the other hand, is a beautiful city. I was only in the Loop/Greektown area, but it was super clean, full of really friendly people, and lovely art installations and park areas. It was a pity that I could only stomach the food for a few days.
- ry0ohki 14y ago
  It's half warmth, half social services/laws. You see way more homeless people in Seattle and San Francisco then you'll see in Houston or Jacksonville. The social services and laws for homeless people are way more generous on the west coast.
  - bilbo0s 14y ago
    There are HUGE numbers of homeless in Houston. The city center is crawling with them. Homelessness is just another one of those difficult problems.
    - polarix 14y ago
      Difficult? Call it houselessness and you'll start to see that no, it's not actually hard to solve.
martinshen 14y ago
Absolutely agree as I guy from Toronto living in SF. San Francisco has a very large number of drug related homelessness. The weather is a contributing factor but additionally, the programs that cater to the homeless are all in major areas for some reason (especially around Moscone). Unlike West Queen West (Ossington & Dundas hood), SF has not tried to pretty up their shelters etc.
georgeorwell 14y ago
Calling people crack-heads and shambling zombies is pejorative. You don't casually use words like fag, dyke, tranny, bitch, ho, nigger, Indian (for native / aboriginal), and kyke, right? If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person". We're talking about the most badly abused people in our society and you and the author are simply abusing them more with these words. Surprise, they aren't there to say anything back, not that they care at this point. Although I hope at least you'd get a couple fuck you's if you tried it in person. 1/3 of homeless people in the US have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia. Do you think that if they aren't able to distinguish between reality and fantasy and are constantly being told to take pills by a health professional that they will miraculously decide not to take other drugs on the advice of a drug dealer? If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right? Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well? Do you think that anybody living on the street addicted to drugs is feeling happy and fulfilled about it? I mean, it just doesn't go down like this: "I've decided that despite the fact that drugs are bad for you, I'm going to totally allow them to fuck up and control my life and be homeless." It's more like: "I'm in a lot of pain, and hey for a couple hours if I do this I feel better. Fuck my life is getting bad now and nothing I do is working, I need some more of those things that make me feel good." Fuck you and your expensive hotel. edit: I was mean here, so I apologize. It probably didn't do any good, I think I just felt like getting angry at someone.
- jquery 14y ago
  This comment does not belong on HN. It's angry, self-righteous, and unproductive. Comparing people who defecate, urinate, shoot-up, stink, and leave needles on your front porch to other minorities is really offensive. Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation. Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from.
  - georgeorwell 14y ago
    > This comment does not belong on HN. Just as you petitioned SF to get rid of the homeless people from your precious neighborhood, you can downvote my post, flag it, and petition PG to ban my account if you don't want me to post comments like this. If it fails, just as your real life petition failed, you can always find another web forum. What's becoming clear is that I don't belong on HN. There's just no real sense of belonging that I have. Despite understanding all of the technical stuff, I just don't seem to fit in with you guys, and I don't really share a lot of your views, including PG's. It's almost like I come here just to differentiate myself from what I am not, and to show off technical knowledge once in a while.

craigyk 14y ago

Must be a west coast thing. One of the first things I noticed when I visited Vancouver for the first time was how many crackheads were just sitting about, and how friendly they were when asking for directions.

mcrider 14y ago

But what you say shouldn't be generalized to Canada; Gastown, which is probably the heart of Vancouver's tech scene, is spitting distance from the poorest postal code in Canada. Homeless people migrate to places like Vancouver and San Fran for their temperate winters and progressive attitudes.

run4yourlives 14y ago

It's more a west coast thing. I grew up in Toronto and I can tell you the same thing shocked me about moving to Vancouver. Crackheads/street people don't like to freeze, so they move to the warmth is. I'd imagine this is as true in the US as it is in Canada.

JabavuAdams 14y ago
Good point! I'd heard about this, but didn't realize the significance. So my dream of becoming a homeless programmer in Hawaii is still alive!
kafkaesque 14y ago
This is anecdotal, so I guess you can take it with a grain of salt. But as someone from Vancouver who has visited SF quite a bit, SF always seemed to have more homelessness (it does have a warmer climate than Van) and more parts that smelled really bad. I might be desensitised to it already, though. Also, throughout my time living in Vancouver, I've never witnessed a robbery/theft/crime, whereas visiting SF last month I witnessed a random theft from a homeless at a Walgreens and they were really abusive towards him. What I'm saying is, it still feels like a different country with a different culture, instead of it only being a west coast thing.
- run4yourlives 14y ago
  I lived downtown in Vancouver for 5 years - I think I had my car broken into about 200 times, no exaggeration. It got so bad I just left the damn thing open. Everything in the US is basically X 10, so you have to allow for that in the similarities.
  - kafkaesque 14y ago
    Wow. That's awful. Sorry to hear. I only know a few people with cars in Vancouver, and none ever had their cars broken into except one who lived on the Drive. Now, I know a bunch of people who own bicycles. Vancouver is notorious for their bicycle thieves!
  - geebee 14y ago
    I tried that too, but then I discovered people will sleep in unlocked cars.
absconditus 14y ago
Chicago has a huge homeless problem. http://www.chicagohomeless.org/faq-studies/ http://www.chicagohomeless.org/faq-studies/
- GiselleDarlene 14y ago
  They must "hide" them well. I've lived in Chicago all of my life and there's no comparison to SF.
  - brandnewlow 14y ago
    Agreed 100%. I lived on Division and Wells for 4 years and never saw homelessness like I see walking from our startup office in SF to visit our bank. That said, Chicago's true poor are cached away far south of the places where people who read Hacker News would likely live.
    - absconditus 14y ago
      I live in Chicago and see them every single day. They are usually on buses and trains or at the stops and stations. I also see them digging through the trash in the alley behind my building.
- batiudrami 14y ago
  I visited Chicago and SF recently, and (at least down town) you're talking several orders of magnitude. Being in SF was really sad for me - sitting in a niceish cafe/restaurant and looking out the window to see a homeless person sifting through a bin. It's not at all what I'm used to. Chicago, on the other hand, is a beautiful city. I was only in the Loop/Greektown area, but it was super clean, full of really friendly people, and lovely art installations and park areas. It was a pity that I could only stomach the food for a few days.
ry0ohki 14y ago
It's half warmth, half social services/laws. You see way more homeless people in Seattle and San Francisco then you'll see in Houston or Jacksonville. The social services and laws for homeless people are way more generous on the west coast.
- bilbo0s 14y ago
  There are HUGE numbers of homeless in Houston. The city center is crawling with them. Homelessness is just another one of those difficult problems.
  - polarix 14y ago
    Difficult? Call it houselessness and you'll start to see that no, it's not actually hard to solve.

martinshen 14y ago

Absolutely agree as I guy from Toronto living in SF. San Francisco has a very large number of drug related homelessness. The weather is a contributing factor but additionally, the programs that cater to the homeless are all in major areas for some reason (especially around Moscone). Unlike West Queen West (Ossington & Dundas hood), SF has not tried to pretty up their shelters etc.

georgeorwell 14y ago

Calling people crack-heads and shambling zombies is pejorative. You don't casually use words like fag, dyke, tranny, bitch, ho, nigger, Indian (for native / aboriginal), and kyke, right? If you want a name, say "drug-addicted homeless person". We're talking about the most badly abused people in our society and you and the author are simply abusing them more with these words. Surprise, they aren't there to say anything back, not that they care at this point. Although I hope at least you'd get a couple fuck you's if you tried it in person. 1/3 of homeless people in the US have a serious mental illness like schizophrenia. Do you think that if they aren't able to distinguish between reality and fantasy and are constantly being told to take pills by a health professional that they will miraculously decide not to take other drugs on the advice of a drug dealer? If I called you a zombie for just blindly going along with the crackhead term that the author used, you would be offended, right? Are the thank-god-for-the-lowest-caste-so-that-I-can-not-belong-to-it opiates treating you well? Do you think that anybody living on the street addicted to drugs is feeling happy and fulfilled about it? I mean, it just doesn't go down like this: "I've decided that despite the fact that drugs are bad for you, I'm going to totally allow them to fuck up and control my life and be homeless." It's more like: "I'm in a lot of pain, and hey for a couple hours if I do this I feel better. Fuck my life is getting bad now and nothing I do is working, I need some more of those things that make me feel good." Fuck you and your expensive hotel. edit: I was mean here, so I apologize. It probably didn't do any good, I think I just felt like getting angry at someone.

jquery 14y ago
This comment does not belong on HN. It's angry, self-righteous, and unproductive. Comparing people who defecate, urinate, shoot-up, stink, and leave needles on your front porch to other minorities is really offensive. Especially when these people have all the resources in the world to get out of their situation. Often they have better apartments than the people they are begging money from.
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  > This comment does not belong on HN. Just as you petitioned SF to get rid of the homeless people from your precious neighborhood, you can downvote my post, flag it, and petition PG to ban my account if you don't want me to post comments like this. If it fails, just as your real life petition failed, you can always find another web forum. What's becoming clear is that I don't belong on HN. There's just no real sense of belonging that I have. Despite understanding all of the technical stuff, I just don't seem to fit in with you guys, and I don't really share a lot of your views, including PG's. It's almost like I come here just to differentiate myself from what I am not, and to show off technical knowledge once in a while.