Castro merchants threaten civil disobedience over ongoing homeless problem in SF

[ripcord]

"It's next to impossible to run a successful business in the Castro right now," Dave Karraker, Co-President of the Castro Merchants Association said.

"You shouldn't have to worry about is your window going to get smashed today by a mentally ill person who sees their face and reacts to it, I should be worried about whether I can sell more gym memberships," he said.

"One day we had that guy that was just blocking the door, yelling at the customers and yelling at me, and then I had to shut the door and call the police, but they were like ok yeah well is that an emergency or not, I mean there was not a response at all," he said.

"Safe, clean streets are an entirely reasonable demand, and the city could make a real difference in the Castro with targeted resources including places to take people who are publicly intoxicated or experiencing psychosis, and an increased community policing presence," Rafael Mandelman, a San Francisco Supervisor who represents this district said in a statement.

https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-homeless-castro-district-sf-mayor-london-breed/12144109/

This problem is getting out of hand and ignoring crimes committed by the homeless isn't going to work.

[NBachers]

1. Walk down Mission at 24th St. and observe the open air flea market of stolen and shoplifted goods.

The solution was to fence off the Bart Plaza, so now the stolen good hawkers are stretched all up and down the sidewalk to the point that you can barely walk through.

[eissa]

2. It's not getting out of hand

It’s been out of hand for a long time. Homeless have taken advantage of SF’s welcoming tolerance and turned it against the city. A once vibrant, beautiful and safe city is increasingly unrecognizable.

We live an hour east of the city. We go there regularly and have family there that have run their own ice-cream business for years. It gets continuously broken into by the same homeless junkie, who is apprehended and released. Riding BART at night is risky, particularly for women traveling alone. Union Square is an open air psych ward. The city seems paralyzed to do anything to remedy the situation, and when individuals try they receive pushback from homeless enablers. With other states continuously bussing their homeless into the city, there seems to be no solution in sight.

[IbogaProject]

3. It suits the elite

As it encourages real estate turnover.

[hunter]

5. You'd think we'd forgotten how to build homes in the U.S.A.

Unfortunately people who are unemployable, for whatever reason, migrate to places where they can survive, and away from places they can't.

That's why housing is a federal problem.

Most of the homeless would stay out of trouble if mildly supervised housing was available to them.

Every human being deserves a safe place they can call their own, even people we don't like.

As it stands now jails and prisons are the most common alternative housing option for the unemployable and the social costs of that are high.

What's even worse, many people who are either employed or employable can't find housing either.

[ripcord]

6. Most of the homeless won't go into supervised housing

These places have rules, like no drugs, that the homeless refuse to follow.

[hunter]

8. Milder than that -- not preachy, not some goal to reform people.

For many "rehabilitation" is an impenetrable ceiling, not a floor.

You've got to start with harm reduction, to themselves and others, not "NO DRUGS!"

Homelessness is not a punishment by some asshole god offering a difficult path to redemption.

It's simply the lack of a home.

[ripcord]

9. It isn't just about reform

Drugs in supervised living lead to problems of all kinds from violence to extortion to prostitution.

[hunter]

12. You're projecting some causal relationship.

It's all different aspects of the underlying mess.

[Zeitghost]

13. You can't allow drugs in public housing as a matter of policy

It creates a massive public liability.

[eissa]

14. You can't just give someone a home

without first addressing the root cause of their homelessness: mental illness and/or drug addiction. They’ll be right back on the streets.

The state can’t even deal with the vast number of homeless we have, you start building homes for them and there would be more of an influx, hence their hesitation. Not to mention that there aren’t enough affordable homes for people who work and can pay rent, it’s unfair to overlook them and just give away free housing to those incapable of functioning.

[hunter]

17. It's really hard for people in the U.S.A. to wrap their heads around this.

We've all been raised on the myth that hard work and sobriety will make all things right. God helps those who help themselves. This is the land of opportunity. Blah, blah, blah.

Prosperity gospel is bullshit.

Let's not even talk about "fair."

Like I said above, this problem has to be addressed at the federal level because even completely dysfunctional people can move about, and they do. Hell, Hawaii has a large population of dysfunctional homeless people who weren't born there, didn't grow up there. How does that happen? They didn't swim. How do railroad sidings and highway overpasses in big cities become huge homeless camps? Where is everyone coming from? (Trust me, they all have stories, some more "reality based" than others...)

We can't limit the travel of homeless people, but we can create a uniform basic standard of living throughout the nation so that everyone has a safe secure place to sleep, a place where they won't die of hunger or exposure, a place where they won't be beaten up, raped or murdered, a place where they can safely leave their stuff.

So far as people who are employed or employable goes, this nation's housing situation is totally fucked up. Jobs that don't pay enough to support a secure comfortable life simply shouldn't exist. A universal basic income ought to compete directly with the crappiest employers, even if that means we have to tax the billionaires out of existence.

When did the U.S.A. itself become a dysfunctional "CAN'T DO!" nation, a nation that knows what the problem is, but hasn't got the will to fix it?

[eissa]

18. They end up in places like Hawaii

the same way they end up in SF - sent over by states eager to rid themselves of the problem. A lot cheaper to buy one-way fare than to build tiny homes, mental hospitals and drug clinics.

We CAN do this, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot of resources, and the intervention of the federal government. It’s unfair to put this burden on states like CA who’ve had this issue dumped on them, then point to us and demand we fix it.

[MichMan]

7. Why not match up homeless people with compassionate residents that can provide room in their homes?

Not a long term solution, but in a city the size of SF I would think it could be feasible.

I've only visited SF once about 25 years ago, so I might not understand the potential of getting a decent number of volunteers etc.

[ripcord]

10. Many of the homeless causing problems have mental problems

Do you want the behavior they engage in on the streets in your home?

[hunter]

11. I've interacted with homeless people quite a bit in my life...

... and was homeless myself a few times when I was young.

It's okay to say I don't want them in my home.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I lived in the garden shed of a PTSD Vietnam war veteran. I'm sure he thought he was saving me, and yeah, maybe he was, but we did not part on good terms.

Would I ever let a kid like I was then live in my garden shed, much less my home? No bloody way in hell.

There are better ways to "pay it forward."

[Kaleva]

15. Send them to Texas maybe?

[gldstwmn]

16. You mean ousting Chesa Boudin didn't magically make the homeless people in SF

go away?