July 31, 2007
Home, Home on the Range
C.W. Nevius continues his Homeless Encampment 2007 Tour with a visit to Corona Heights. His verdict? Not so good. He found twenty possible separate campsites as well as broken bottles and needles. Neighbors let it be known that the ever-popular "human feces" could also be added to the list. To make matters worse, there's a school, the Rocky Mountain Participation Nursery School, at the bottom of the hill and, well, won't somebody think of the children?
Neighbors told Nevius that they've called the city plenty of times over the issue but nothing has really been done. Part of the problem is that they're never quite sure who to call as various city agencies handle different parts of homeless encampments and there's not one agency responsible for handling it all.
Nevius has been on a tear lately. Last week, he took a tour of Golden Gate Park and wrote about all the homeless encampments he found there, even proposing a possible solution. Gavin had earlier made a big show of trying to clean up the park, but like almost every Mayor who's dealt with the situation, stopped walking the walk and talking the talk once the cameras left. Nevius' tour of Corona Heights was done after people in the city wrote to him telling him about problems in their nearby parks.
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Nevius sounds like a fool when he writes, "..there's no doubting that the homeless problem in San Francisco is a difficult one. But we can tell you one thing. The homeless shouldn't be camping in public parks. It is that simple."
Actually, it's really not simple at all. When funding is cut for mental health services, where do you think people end up? The lack of compassion in this supposedly 'liberal' city sickens me.
To the litany of Nevius's recent activities on this issue, you can add his appearance this morning on Forum with Michael Krasny on KQED radio (sans Krasny). Plenty of "supposedly" "liberal" "compassion" was "on display."
Poster 1: How about Turlock?
"Where are they going to go" is a pretty important question -- when Frank Jordan instituted the Matrix program that rousted the homeless from Tenderloin and Mission doorways, the homeless just decamped to the adjacent neighborhoods (in some cases, the neighborhoods where Jordan voters lived -- oops!). Certainly SF's enormous homeless problem negatively affects the quality of life in the city, but using our already overextended police force to move Joe Hobo and pals from Park A to Alleyway B to Doorway C and back again without any larger plan to alleviate the problem seems to me a waste of effort.
Homeless people should not be camping in parks?
Since reports were released about a month ago, that our "compassionate" shelters do not provide toilet paper, leaves seem to me, more hygienic!
If one camps, they do not have to pay off a shelter monitor for a blanket.Then they can be fairly sure that their own blankets and clothing, food, and medications will not be stolen. Perhaps if the wealthy homeowners would pass real affordable housing legislation, all could live in a more hygienic and safe environment.
Dear harmreduction, here's the deal. There's abundant affordable housing, it's just not here. End of debate.
harmreduction - do you really think affordable housing helps out mental illness, drug addiction and lack of job skills?
no.
As Frank Lloyd Wright said:
"If America was a dinig room table and you picked one end, everything loose would end up in San Francisco".
Buckminster Fuller noted once that every night there is abundant heated shelter in the downtown office buildings of all American cities.
This is the most compassionate city in the world -- that's why we have so many homeless!
I agree this is the most compassionate City in the world - eat that, Vatican City! I do believe that we're near the end of being so accomodating though.
We are a city of 750K with a massive budget yet some here think we are going to solve the nation's ills These people need to be pushed out of the City. Its either shelter and treatment or bus ticket and that's it. There should be no other option
Or policies prioritize degenerate drug addicts and the mentally ill over children and families and civility
There seems to be a race between the Mayors of Berkeley and San Francisco to see who can be the most offensive to the homeless folks...
Somehow, we can manage to spend $6 billion per month on torturing and murdering Iraqis and Afghanis, but we can be bothered to provide housing for our own citizens.
Is this a great country? No, I think not. If you judge a country and a culture by how they treat their poorest people, we come out near the bottom, below most European countries and even good old commie Cuba.
P. S. That criminal organ-harvesting doctor ought to be shipped back to India ASAP. Brilliant move, dude, now we have to fear being murdered in our own American hospitals. Talk about terrorism...
Oops, change that "can" to "can't" Thank you.
I think you should judge a country by its contributions and its accomplishments, not how it treats its poorest. That's lame and regressive, though it's a very Frisco soundbite.
... and kudos for switching from compassionate lover of the indigent to reactionary anti-immigration activist with the "ship him back to India!" comment.
You're neat.
Anyway. The homeless issue is boiling over, finally. It's not about affordable housing or compassion, never was. It's about mental illness, addiction and crime. I'll be spending my time, money and energy working to ship these deadbeat miscreants the hell out of my town.
We are the greatest Country on earth - nothing's perfect, but no other nation has the same propensity to give to non-profits and charities. These folks' families tossed 'em out, probably tired of dealing with them for one reason or another. IF your family doesn't want you around, who does?
"even good old commie Cuba"
This is the most ridiculous bullshit I have ever read. Most homeless people are mentally ill drug abusers. These are their issues. Our Poor people are so well fed they are obese in this country. Project people have the "dish" Grow up
And I have been to Cuba and their poor (especially blacks-surprising eh comrade) do not live well. There is a reason they die trying to get here
Unless we deal with the real issues which are degenerate drug uses and the mentally ill on our streets rather than conflating working poor, affordable housing and poverty with these types of homeless we make no progress.
NEWSFLASH:
If people stop giving the professional beggars and bums "spare change" they will go away.
There are so many places that are nice and warm in winter [and our foggy summer] like Miami and Phoenix.
We'll miss you and all the wino puke and syringes too!
I am sick of the homeless fetish in this town.
They have a place: they're called shelters. I am in favor of funding shelters. I'm also in favor of funding police to drive them (and their needles) out of the parks.
We focus too much on the self-destructive homeless. We should focus more of our money and care on youth and LESS on the homeless. Jobs and programs for youth. Do you even know that like half of the AfAm youth in this town cycle through juvenile detention? That latino/afam achievement is among the worst in the state?
The focus on derelicts disgusts me. Put the money where it might do some good, on youth who might be saved from a live of dereliction and crime if they
had a tutoring, a decent summer, etc.
We have shelters.
Those camping in the park should be advised that they can either (a) go to a shelter, (b) leave town, or (c) be cited for trespassing, and PAY THE TICKET either in cash or in street sweeping. No exceptions.
Try sleeping in a park in Singapore and see where that takes you.
If we legalized drugs then regulated and taxed them, wouldn't we have plenty of money to put the homeless into work programs and the mentally ill on meds?
Imagine a crack vending machine! There would be no dealers in the city, no one to stand on the corner on Haight St. near McD's and say, "Buds, shrooms; fresh greens, nuggets".
If we legalized drugs, I think we could forget about leaving our homes ... ever.
Sometimes I wonder if the solution is just to have a Beat A Homeless with a Stick Day a la The Simpson's Beat a Snake w/ a stick day.
One day a year, we can legally bring out our Hobo Thumpin' Sticks and go to town until sundown. Any homeless that are able to put up with the wailin' and beatin' deserve to stay.
P.S. I'm kidding.
P.P.S. Sort of.
it's great to see so many people as fed up as i am with the waste of money that is our homeless program. i dont think you can fight that as long as the progressives have anyone in office or a voice to challenge everything that is based upon common sense. you have to get rid of the progressives first, homeless second. they are both part of the same disease.
I think they should fence off about a half-mile of Ocean Beach then give the rousted homeless from the Park a choice: Go to a shelter or camp on the beach.
Our parks are for everyone to use and enjoy safely, without fear of needle pricks, broken beer bottles and the odor of rotting garbage wafting in the wind. They're not and never were meant to be a campground for a bunch of druggies, drunks and losers.
Jesus, these are people folks. Do you really think that they are thrilled that lifes path has taken them to a homeless camp in a public park? I don't know what the answer is, but the absolute lack of compassion is sickening.
@redseca2,
Frank Lloyd Wright made that quote about LOS ANGELES, not San Francisco.
The actual quote is, "If you tilt the whole country sideways, Los Angeles is the place where everything loose will fall."
You cannot buy compassion. It's like the campers say: A fed bear is a dead bear.
daithi, our compassion is what got us into this mess in the first place. We have the highest number of homeless per capita in the entire country, and this is because SF is such a cool place to be homeless. You can get everything free but your booze and drugs. The city even gives you needles.
And as a matter of fact, I do think most of them are quite content with their lifestyle. When interviewed by reporters, none of them seem miserable or suffering any hardship.
Unless you count withdrawal as hardship.
Guest #29, does that not show you how out of touch with reality they are? ALL are either mentally ill, addicts or both. Don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of the staus quo, but to say "kick them out of the park" "shoot them", "beat them with a stick" even if they are tounge in cheek comments, I want nothing to do with them. I support moving them out of the parks, but unless we try to rehabilitate them, they will end up in another park or on a doorstep in one of our neighborhoods. It is easy to get all Lou Dobbs and shout slogans, but slogans don't solve problems.