Life on the Dirtiest Block in San Francisco

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/san-francisco-dirtiest-street-london-breed.html

by veidr • 8 years ago

70 55 8 years ago

nytimes.com

a2tech• 8 years ago

Lax homeless laws+unreasonable apartment costs+temperate weather=filthy streets filled with feces and homeless people.

matthewmacleod3• 8 years ago

What are "lax homeless laws"?

vowelless• 8 years ago

A euphemism some people use to partly blame the victim.

diogenescynic• 8 years ago

Cops don’t enforce most drug laws and property crimes here, I suspect that’s what he means. So the SFPD is really uninvolved and doesn’t like to cite or arrest homeless people unless they are violent. It’s like a low level state of anarchy being allowed. If a homeless person decides to camp on your property, good look getting the cops to remove them. You need a special sign displayed that you have to apply for and pay for to even remove trespassers... the whole city is structured to allow petty crimes.

louisswiss2• 8 years ago

I made the mistake of staying in a hotel in the Tenderloin district the first time I visited SF.

As a European who has visited many different countries on multiple continents (including time spent living in NY and London), I was truly shocked. It wasn't just the filth though - rather the shocking part is the contrast of such filth/destitution juxtaposed on a background of prosperity, and the way SFers almost nonchalantly accept it as 'normal'.

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

Rest assured, Americans from 49 other states find it equally unsettling.

wallace_f2• 8 years ago

SF is as bad as I have seen, but many other US cities have scary homeless scenes. No other country in the world that I've been to have I seen this phenomenon. It's similar to no-go zones in American cities. Everyone just pretends it doesn't exist.

yellowapple2• 8 years ago

As do those of us Californians who didn't originally hail from San Francisco.

nradov3• 8 years ago

Parts of San Jose are equally bad now. But the homeless camps there are mostly along the Guadalupe River where tourists and residents don't typically visit. Out of sight, out of mind.

bliblah• 8 years ago

I'm going to be blunt; there is no reason for there to be so much HUMAN SHIT on the ground. Just straight up HUMAN SHIT. I have gone to countries all over the world, and even in the most desolate and rural areas there was an unspoken rule of not shitting in the streets. Urination is one thing but having to keep a lookout for human shit is just...I felt like i was taking crazy pills!

dang• 8 years ago

Can you please stop using uppercase for emphasis in HN comments? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

closeparen• 8 years ago

Not just normal, essential to the character of the city, and the freedom and human dignity of the people living in it. The Tenderloin’s status quo is vigorously protected by a large and passionate activist community.

louisswiss2• 8 years ago

essential to the character of the city, and the freedom and human dignity of the people living in it.

I find that difficult to believe.

There is a central district in Copenhagen, Denmark, for example which also 'allows' the use of drugs, homelessness etc. As fair as I'm aware, police don't even enter this neighbourhood unless a serious crime (eg murder) takes place.

Yet it's clean, friendly, welcoming and often visited by tourists. Definitely no needles or faeces visible anywhere.

I don't see why the Tenderloin should necessarily be any worse than this.

yellowapple2• 8 years ago

There is no "human dignity" in the Tenderloin. If rampant homelessness and poverty is "essential to the character of the city", then that only goes to show that the character of this city is a shithole.

I've only been living here for two months (a few blocks north of Tenderloin). I already want out at the earliest opportunity. Why anyone voluntarily lives here is beyond me.

narrator• 8 years ago

It's worth looking into the idea that a lot of San Francisco's problems are connected to local court judges who appear to be very lenient on property crimes[1].

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Le...

claydavisss2• 8 years ago

Prop 47 imposed this state-wide. Its why package theft is such a huge problem now - its a catch-and-release crime.

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

I agree. It's one thing to have a catch and release policy for victimless crimes like drug possession or contempt of cop but getting nothing more than a slap on the wrist for a crime that victimizes someone else is not acceptable, especially for repeat offenders. Unfortunately it looks like other states are slowly implementing similar policies.

jpochtar• 8 years ago

SF is just worse at running itself than NY, Tokyo, and every other major city in the world. If we could accept that, we could could learn from and copy them to fix the city.

YIMBY is too incremental— turn SoMa into mini-Manhattan to jump SF 100 years into the future!

jefflombardjr4• 8 years ago

Just a 15-minute walk away are the offices of Twitter and Uber, two companies that along with other nameplate technology giants have helped push the median price of a home in San Francisco well beyond a million dollars.

The article didn't even mention Dreamforce, where no kidding there was a surplus of clean food, water, and even clothing/swag just a 10-15 minute walk abject poverty. The whole thing kind of made me think of the following quote

“The greatest crimes in modern history resulted not just from hatred and greed, but even more so from ignorance and indifference.” ― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

I took a couple of extra socks and shirts from software vendors to give out, but man... Heroin is an ugly drug. There was alot of talk about hoping the new mayor would do something. Like set up safe injection sites, but this feels to me like a bandaid for the problem.

claydavisss2• 8 years ago

What does Dreamforce have to do with it? The homeless problem in SF has nothing to do with access to food, water or clothes.

jefflombardjr4• 8 years ago

The root cause of the problem yes, unrelated.

But many homeless lack access to these basic necessities that were in such abundance/wasted just 10 minutes away. To juxtapose the two extremes was unsettling.

nradov3• 8 years ago

Gov. Brown vetoed a bill that would have allowed for legal safe injection sites. https://sf.curbed.com/2018/8/22/17768842/sf-senate-safe-inje...

resters2• 8 years ago

What people misunderstand about this is that while it is tragic, it is mainly the result of an overly restrictive immigration policy.

The blighted areas should be thriving and bustling, full to the brim with immigrants from all over the world, but we turn them away.

prepend2• 8 years ago

This is an interesting idea. What makes you think better immigration would apply to this problem?

Do you think more cultures would displace the homeless? Or they would be more able to care for the vulnerable population? Immigration is less restrictive now than 50 years ago, but this problem seems worse now than in 1970, right?

I’m all for improved immigration policy, don’t don’t see the connection.

resters2• 8 years ago

It depends on one's perspective of the cause of the tenderloin being the tenderloin.

My view is that the land and infrastructure in the tenderloin is being horribly misused.

Not only does it provide shelter for some people, but it is also an environment where hard drugs and crime are rampant.

Immigrants would be willing to settle in some of the more grungy areas, and would quickly clean them up through investment in little things that make a big difference, such as reporting crimes, cleaning up messes, warding off those who have no concern for the value of the neighborhood.

There will still need to be housing and treatment for the indigent and addicted, but there is no reason that miles of productive urban space should be blighted for decades due to being overtaken by squalor and crime.

Immigrants would revitalize it by filling it with non-addicted and ambitious people who would strive to make it their home.

nickthemagicman• 8 years ago

There's spots off Market St. where the homeless set up large markets. They lay down blankets and peddle whatever they've stolen/found/made. Its really fascinating how they've started their own market with their limited resources. San Francisco is like Calcutta.

dmode• 8 years ago

The problem with Tenderloin is it is located in the heart of SF. Every city has its squalor. For example, Skid Row in DT LA or south side of Chicago. But tourists wouldn’t stumble upon them

lovehashbrowns• 8 years ago

There are tons of awful areas in Chicago--I used to live in a pretty ghetto area of the south side. In the 1990's, the whole area I lived in was a battleground between two major gangs. Walking down the alley past a certain part of the night was practically a guarantee that you'd get robbed, at gun point, by a passing car. Gangs used to recruit kids in my elementary school, and the nearby high school was completely overrun by gangs.

Still, that area of Chicago was pretty damn clean compared to what I have seen in SF. Living here is so depressing, even more so than what I've encountered in Chicago. Walking past literal hobo shanty towns on the sidewalk; seeing god damn used needles on the sidewalk across the street from my office; having coworkers visiting from out-of-state harassed by homeless people; SHIT EVERYWHERE. Not even just downtown. I live in the Richmond District and there's constantly shit on the sidewalk. This is easily the grossest city I've ever been in.

The most maddening thing about all of this is how much it costs to live here. Fucking hell. AND HOW MUCH THEY CHARGE FOR SECURITY DEPOSITS! This is all so crazy to me.

opwieurposiu• 8 years ago

Is there some way to pay the homeless people to clean up the city?

I am thinking of something like a smartphone app that logs which blocks you spend time on. If you spend time on a block and it's cleanliness improves you get money. This idea does have some problems regarding minimum wage laws and funding but the concept could be worth a try at least.

PretzelFisch• 8 years ago

Is homeless the right word? Many of the people who live on the streets of sf have other issues. Is lumping all people without homes together detrimental to those that just need little stability and shelter to get back on their feet.

Life on the Dirtiest Block in San Francisco

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