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"Punk kids have invaded the Haight, they're mean, it's not what it used to be, etc, etc."
Yeah, that's old hat for those of us that have been in the city for even a short time.
But it's "news you can use" if you're from elsewhere, we suppose. L.A. Times saw fit to publish a feature story on that topic, complete with quotes from actor Peter Coyote, a Marin Resident. (Leave it to the LaLa Times to turn to an actor for quotes . . . they know what their audience is looking for, we suppose).
Old hat? Sure. Even so, we found it pretty interesting and enjoyed this outside look into one of our more well-known neighborhoods.
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They're not even punks. They're just walking reproaches and constant reminders of tragedy.
We need to go Dutch. We need to take the approach they do in Holland and make every neighborhood in the city responsible for the problem. Spread the welfare and outreach centers out more so that one neighborhood doesn't shoulder the entire burden. Let's start with Ed Jew's burnt out house. Offer him a pardon in return for the property, then turn it into a nice, cosy drop in center. I'm not kidding, send the kids to Pac Hights.
But it cuts both ways. Before we do that, we need to start enforcing animal cruelty laws. You never see a gutter punk with an adult dog. Do they run away from the runaways, or do the kids eat them? That's a mystery I want solved.
But seriously, the constant sexual abuse hurled at single women on the Haight needs sorting. The sidewalk blocking, park trashing, and f**cked-up old RV parking needs to stop. The homeless "tourists" need to be turned away, kids from Freemont panhandling because they think it's cool need arresting and their parents addresses circulated to everyone in the Haight so we can throw trash on their lawn when we're in the suburbs. And that bloke who demands money every day off every passenger on the 43 needs a kicking.
Then we can start clearing out the Frat boys.
Pretty sure that one of our weeklies ran that same story about a year ago.
where is the compassion?
Maybe Peter Coyote should let these snotty kids camp on his lawn in Marin. "You do it right in your own neighborhood," right Peter?
Word, Juan. Perhaps Coyote could set up a big screen on his lawn and they could be treated to some of his recent films, oh there haven't been any. I'm f**cking sick of people from outside the neighborhood telling us we need show more of the hippy spirit towards people who do nothing but trash it. It's 2007 not '67 you washed-up numpty.
Was the Summer of Love about shooting up, panhandling and verbally abusing passers by?
The kindness thing works two ways - be kind to residents by not swearing at them and pissing on their doorsteps.
I'm torn. On the one hand, I have little sympathy for street kids who choose to infest the Haight when there's plenty of affordable housing elsewhere, e.g. in the East Bay.
On the other hand, as someone who is forced to live in the East Bay because of SF housing prices, I have little sympathy for paper millionaires who owe their stratospheric paper worth not to any personal virtue of their own, but rather to the machinations of developers and real-estate agents, in collusion with TPTB obviously.
Whatever the real-estate transfer tax is, it's far too low. Slap a 25% "greed tax" on all real-estate transactions in The City, buy a few barges, and dock them along the Embarcadero. Then move all the street kids there.
LOL @ SFist contributors/users' attempts to keep up the tradition of throwing a backhanded dig in at anything and everything LA-related, even this relatively on point article; if there's one thing that might assist SF-centrists in being more functional members of society as a whole (the one beyond 415, nuts as it may sound), it's stepping back every so often to examine its own tired napoleon complex.
though maybe there's nothing to induce TRUE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS and a FINGER ON THE PULSE quite like simply existing in the picturesque, elitist ghetto that is the City! all 18 million of those LA people are the same... they should stick to what they know best, sitting in traffic, obsessing about celebrities, and STAYING THE FUCK OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO! CHRONICLE IS HELLA BETTER THAN THE TIMES, AND DODGERS ARE HELLA GAY
right
Considering the hippie golden age in the Haight was only a couple of years before it was taken over by teenage runaways and speed freaks, it seems like the modern Haight has more in common with the Haight of old than the "summer of love. (which was more than anything, the beginning of the end"
The Haight was ruined before by kids who didn't get the true message and goal of a tight-knit community who didn't live by normal society's rules. Back then, they had the clarity to be self-sufficient and not ask the society they spurned to nurture them back.
Did that commenter just refer to SF as "415"? Dick Aicardi, is that you?
Also, I will personally disemvowel the next person who pretends that "hella" is a word.
What, 50,000 posts on the internet are not enough for Arthur Evans?
Cheryl Brodie is running for office, i.e she's gunning for Ross next year.
As far as the main topic of the article, it misses the biggest problem in the Haight-Ashbury.
Yes, panhandling, homelessness/transients, and drug dealers are major problems, but they're not the ones with the biggest day to day impact.
The largest negative impact on quality of life is Tourism.
The Tourists, including the day-tripping kids from the metro area, are the ones who generally give money to the panhandlers, think the 'street punks' are 'amusing', and they are the ones that feed the street drug trade.
Most importantly it is tourism, directly and indirectly that has driven out businesses that serve residents' needs. The paucity of merchants whose goods and services cater to the residents is the number one quality of life problem in The H-A.
You won't get that from Cheryl Brodie (who lives north of the panhandle away from the heart of the neighborhood)partially because HAIA is a largely a merchant organization. The most of the merchants don't care about the residents. After all, we're not their customers.
The social service providers are a similiar case. They mostly don't live here.
I'll agree with the bashing of Peter Coyote. He's like the Grateful Dead, here a year, partied, trashed, and left. Then has the nerve to lecture those who are here now.
"this ain't the garden of eden
there ain't no angels above
and things ain't what they used to be
and this an't the summer of love"
TURISTA VA A CASA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but disemvowel is a f**kin' brilliant word for using in the comment section of a blog. I think it means that you're going to remove all the vowels from the person you disagree with, thus rendering his comments readable only by Eastern Europeans and Scandos.
Agree with the tourist comments though it's hard to live in the neighborhood and not accept that it is a tourist trap and won't have the kind of services a regular neighborhood has (LIKE A FRICKIN" DRUGSTORE!).
actually saw 2 get arrested today in front of the red vic. some undercover on a bike was there as well as a few usual looking ones. didnt see what they did. but i felt bad for the cop cause he had to search their icky dreads
first off i would like to know if anybody who has posted a comment, have ever been homeless. i am a former street kid and lived part of my life in the park and asking people for money on the haight. i out grew my street life. but i can say for a fact that the kids out here have lots of love for the haight and the park. you guys have not seen them clean up after themselves. it is hard to live on the street, it seems like everybody is focusing on a few people who are causing some problems. it is not fair to judge every houseless kid out there trying to get by day to day, for a small group that is yelling at people. drugs and drinking have always been on the haight and that is never going to change. if you get all of the homeless people out of the neighbor hood more will come, the same with the drug dealers. live and let live. there are plenty of kids out there on the street that do not start trouble, and who do respect the neighbor hood. the kids that are out on the street do not always want to be there. they come from broken homes and have broken dreams. there street family is the only family that love them. no body truly wants to be homeless, it just kinds of happens. when you come from an abuseive home sometimes the only way to get away from it is to hit the streets. for some of the kids it is alot safer than being at home.
Why do runaways head for the Most Expensive City in the U.S.? That's what I don't understand.
I grew up in Berkeley and I had to move completely out of CA - Too effing expensive. :p
While the street kids pose a distinct problem I've seriously had enough of these middle-aged jackasses who just want a ridiculously expensive house in a famous neighborhood. More than anything they're the ones who've destroyed the Haight.
Now, I understand that the hippies didn't have the same problems as the current wave of street kids, but at the same time, you can't just claim that you "grew up" when you have, in fact, sold out and started caring a lot more about maintaining your multi-million dollar property value than anything else.
Genuine help is the answer. You want the solution? Sell your overpriced single-family home, turn it into below-market housing (i.e. something people outside of the top 10% can actually afford) and donate the cash you made to funding outreach programs. Maybe in time we can fix the Haight, but not until we successfully throw out the yuppies and boutiques.
I mean, bloody hell, I'm a libertarian and even I think these bastards have gone too far.