San Francisco is definitely on a whole other level of homelessness

[fluffydelusions]

Just got back from San Francisco and just a few minutes driving into the city there was literally a half naked girl wearing a thong ass up in the air passed out in the middle of the sidewalk and no one cared and just stepped over her. I thought the homeless problem was bad up here in Washington but I never seen anything like that.

 

[fick]

SF always sounds like some capitalist hellhole

 

[Deleted member 2802]

It's quite a shock as a tourist coming to any major US city.

 

[thenexus6]

I'm visiting SF for the first time in October, need to prepare myself for this really.

 

[Bobcats]

I told a recruiter I'm open to relocating there... This could get interesting...

 

[It’s Time To Go]

I'm not American and don't live in the US but all I've heard about Sam Francisco is how many homeless people there are, how expensive the rent is, and how bad the pizza is.

 

[entremet]

SF always sounds like some capitalist hellhole

Click to shrink...

But it's one of the most progressive cities in the country? How does that work?

SF homeless issues are self-inflicted. It's nearly impossible to build more there. We know the solution, build more and provide homes. But SF doesn't want to because they are hamstrung by NIMBYs.

None of this has to do with businesses. Hong Kong is denser. It's doable, but the city wants to keep its "character".

 

[acheron_xl]

But it's one of the most progressive cities in the country? How does that work?

SF homeless issues are self-inflicted. It's nearly impossible to build more there.

Click to shrink...

Other cities have literally shipped their homeless to SF.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

I'm not American and don't live in the US but all I've heard about Sam Francisco is how many homeless people there are, how expensive the rent is, and how bad the pizza is.

Click to shrink...

It's also a gorgeous city, one of the prettiest in the nation. It's got a reputation for that as well. But that's probably why so many of the other problems persist. For like an entire generation, San Fransisco was seen as a destination city for many wealthy people.

It was also at one point basically the gay capital of the nation, although that distinction is sort of fading.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Other cities have literally shipped their homeless to SF.

Click to shrink...

There is a south park episode literally about this

 

[fick]

But it's one of the most progressive cities in the country? How does that work?

SF homeless issues are self-inflicted. It's nearly impossible to build more there. We know the solution, build more and provide homes. But SF doesn't want to because they are hamstrung by NIMBYs.

Click to shrink...

SF Liberalism: "Hey, let's destroy the economy through gig-work, and destroy society through social media."

"..."

"But we love gay people"

 

[Deleted member 32822]

The first time I visited SF I was honestly speechless from how bad the homelessness problem was.

 

[Replicant]

Seattle and SF's homelessness is a problem for sure. Housing is way too expensive. SF especially has a large population of drug addicts and people with mental disability in the streets.

 

[Deleted member 431]

But it's one of the most progressive cities in the country? How does that work?

SF homeless issues are self-inflicted. It's nearly impossible to build more there. We know the solution, build more and provide homes. But SF doesn't want to because they are hamstrung by NIMBYs.

None of this has to do with businesses. Hong Kong is denser. It's doable, but the city wants to keep its "character".

Click to shrink...

Progressive in terms of what metric? Some of the so-called "progressive" places in the US are also the most segregated. Usually where rich white "liberals" reside, and SF is the poster child of that.

Not American, FYI.

 

[Strangelove_77]

California is super cool to the homeless.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

It's bad in DC too. In my neighborhood it's starting to become common to see people blacked out in the middle of the sidewalk.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Seattle and SF's homelessness is a problem for sure. Housing is way too expensive. SF especially has a large population of drug addicts and people with mental disability in the streets.

Click to shrink...

the vast, vast majority of the entire country's homeless population is mentally ill. That's the dirty secret about America. We don't really have facilities for the mentally ill, certainly not free ones. Like in the entire state of Texas, there is only two (or maybe it's one now) mental hospital. For parents of mentally ill individuals, what normally happens is once that individual becomes an adult, the parents spend the rest of their lives hand cuffed to them until they either die or can't bare it anymore, and in the long run, those mentally ill people wind up on the streets. I used to office in down town Houston and would give money to the same homeless people every day, and the vast majority of them were very obviously mentally ill. I'd even had people flip out on me while I was giving them money. It's pretty heart breaking.

 

[entremet]

Progressive in terms of what metric? Some of the so-called "progressive" places in the US are also the most segregated. Usually where rich white "liberals" reside, and SF is the poster child of that.

Not American, FYI.

Click to shrink...

In many.

SF spends tons of money on homeless services:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php

They also have a lottery system for their top public schools, to ensure lower income students have a shot at the better districts.

People confuse SF government with SV and Startup culture. Look up at the initiatives that the SF government has worked on and passed--they boosted minimum wage way before many other states and cities started doing so.

SF is not conservative by any major metric. They tend to lead the way in progressive legislation.

 

[Deleted member 11822]

But it's one of the most progressive cities in the country? How does that work?

SF homeless issues are self-inflicted. It's nearly impossible to build more there. We know the solution, build more and provide homes. But SF doesn't want to because they are hamstrung by NIMBYs.

None of this has to do with businesses. Hong Kong is denser. It's doable, but the city wants to keep its "character".

Click to shrink...

Progressive, yet will scream NIMBY! at the mention of creating new affordable housing in the city.
It is "nearly impossible" because of this.

 

[Socivol]

SF's homeless problem is so massive it made me hate the city. They are everywhere and it is so depressing that I don't even like going to SF. I have never seen so many homeless people ever in any other city. The gap between the haves and have nots is so massive in SF now I really don't know how you fix it.

 

[Deleted member 431]

In many.

SF spends tons of money on homeless services:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php

They also have a lottery system for their top public schools, to ensure lower income students have a shot at the better districts.

People confuse SF government with SV and Startup culture. Look up at the initiatives that the SF government has worked on and passed--they boosted minimum wage way before many other states and cities started doing so.

SF is not conservative by any major metric.

Click to shrink...

I never said it was conservative, but touting it as the beacon of progressivism in the US is silly. It's very much garden variety liberalism.

 

[TheMan]

Haven't been to SF but I was surprised at how bad things were in Seattle when I visited

 

[entremet]

I never said it was conservative, but touting it as the beacon of progressivism in the US is silly. It's very much garden variety liberalism.

Click to shrink...

The factors at play with the homeless crisis are more complex to call it garden variety liberalism. SF spends tons of money on social services.

The biggest obstacle is to defang the NIMBYs.

 

[Rationale]

OP, that is an incredibly subjective take there. Just driving pass one person.

It's funny you mention Washington though. I visited SF and Seattle earlier this year and thought Seattle felt way worse than SF.

 

[fluffydelusions]

OP, that is an incredibly subjective take there. Just driving pass one person.

It's funny you mention Washington though. I visited SF and Seattle earlier this year and thought Seattle felt way worse than SF.

Click to shrink...

There are lots of homeless here for sure but you mostly see them in tents or sleeping in sleeping bags etc. Never seen homeless that were nearly naked passed out in the middle of a busy sidewalk where people just step over you.

 

[lunarworks]

Other cities have literally shipped their homeless to SF.

Click to shrink...

It's also less gruelling to be homeless in a place where it never gets too hot, and never gets too cold. That's another big reason people head there.

 

[thepenguin55]

The first time I visited SF I was honestly speechless from how bad the homelessness problem was.

Click to shrink...

You have people like the Giant Bomb crew talking like LA is some dystopian nightmare compared to SF. Homelessness is a huge growing problem in LA but SF is truly on another level. It's truly unbelievable how bad things have gotten. Until the city can relinquish the stranglehold the NIMBYS and tech companies have on it its only going to get worse.

 

[Kill3r7]

Roughly 1% of SF's population is homeless. They should be aiming to reduce that number 10x. For comparison NYC is at .75% (although the NYC homeless population makes up 15% of the total US homeless population) and Hong Kong is at .015%.

 

[Deleted member 2109]

One of the last times I was there I stepped in human shit. Good times.

 

[Dice]

Other cities have literally shipped their homeless to SF.

Click to shrink...

What's the actual story on this??
How strange.

Won't lie, my trip to LA was made slightly depressing when it came to this. So many homeless, streets smell like piss (some like shit) and a number of anti-homeless measures (no public washrooms, spikes on flat surfaces).

It's terrible and so little seems to be changing against it getting worse....

 

[JaseC64]

I went to Chicago about a year ago and every corner, there was a homeless person or group of them. Really sad.

Is it like 10x worse there? That's what I imagine when ppl talk about sf homelessness.

 

[fluffydelusions]

I went to Chicago about a year ago and every corner, there was a homeless person or group of them. Really sad.

Is it like 10x worse there? That's what I imagine when ppl talk about sf homelessness.

Click to shrink...

Not sure about Chicago but I lived in NYC and a bunch of other places on the east coast and the west coast is definitely worse than any place I've lived there in terms of homelessness.

 

[Deleted member 10908]

It sucks, last time I was there I saw homeless people injecting heroin at 10am in broad daylight on the sidewalk, no one cared

 

[Parthenios]

the vast, vast majority of the entire country's homeless population is mentally ill. That's the dirty secret about America. We don't really have facilities for the mentally ill, certainly not free ones. Like in the entire state of Texas, there is only two (or maybe it's one now) mental hospital. For parents of mentally ill individuals, what normally happens is once that individual becomes an adult, the parents spend the rest of their lives hand cuffed to them until they either die or can't bare it anymore, and in the long run, those mentally ill people wind up on the streets. I used to office in down town Houston and would give money to the same homeless people every day, and the vast majority of them were very obviously mentally ill. I'd even had people flip out on me while I was giving them money. It's pretty heart breaking.

Click to shrink...

My parents used to bitch about Reagan closing the asylums and dumping mentally ill people on the streets without support. But could America in 2019 go back to a system of institutionalizing people for mental health reasons? For lack of a better word, I feel like we're too "woke" for that.

 

[LGHT_TRSN]

Here are the actual numbers for reference.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

My parents used to bitch about Reagan closing the asylums and dumping mentally ill people on the streets without support. But could America in 2019 go back to a system of institutionalizing people for mental health reasons? For lack of a better word, I feel like we're too "woke" for that.

Click to shrink...

I think there is a gulf of difference between the type of people and treatment we are talking about. I'm not really saying we need to lock up the mentally ill in chambers and keep them in cages. I'm talking about facilities to care for people who literally cannot on their own. Like, a place to provide housing for them, medication, etc, without literally being locked away. We have nothing like that in America, no programs for the mentally ill. What I'm saying is coming from a book I read about a woman who was murdered by her deeply autistic 40 year old son who left a diary for people to explain her life and plead for her son to not wind up, essentially, in prison. She had worked her entire life to keep him out of "mental facilities" because they are secretly prisons for the mentally ill, and had become a slave to her autistic son's schedule. She had to tip toe around things that might accidentally set him off, and knew for a long time that she'd probably eventually be killed by him, hence her diary to be found in case of death. She advocated for reform in her diary, saying we needed facilities that were more half-way house and less prison.

Because the alternative is them living on the streets, not being able to afford their meds, or much more likely, going to literal jail.

 

[NookSports]

SF Liberalism: "Hey, let's destroy the economy through gig-work, and destroy society through social media."

"..."

"But we love gay people"

Click to shrink...

I'm now of the opinion Silicon Valley has always just been pure libertarian, it just so happened Democratic goals aligned up with theirs until 2016

 

[FaceHugger]

SF always sounds like some capitalist hellhole

Click to shrink...

It's like those capitalist hellholes envisioned in 80's sci-fi, only the authors had no idea that it would come with a pretty facade and a ridiculous ruthlessness even they couldn't predict.

I'm not American and don't live in the US but all I've heard about Sam Francisco is how many homeless people there are, how expensive the rent is, and how bad the pizza is.

Click to shrink...

They also eat crab cold with no seasoning. I've seen it.

 

[It’s Time To Go]

Here are the actual numbers for reference.

Click to shrink...

Why so many in New York?

 

[fluffydelusions]

Why so many in New York?

Click to shrink...

NYC has a lot more people in it than those other places (~8.6 million) compared to LA (~4 million) or SF (~884k).

 

[Jesse_and_the_rippers]

SF always sounds like some capitalist hellhole

Click to shrink...

Wait til AI and automation disrupt the tech industry and it becomes Detroit 2.0.

Here are the actual numbers for reference.

Click to shrink...

This means nothing without showing the per capita or square miles of the area effected. LA and Seattle include the surrounding county in their figures, for example.

 

[Fxp]

I've read about this problem in SF but recent video from famous Russian travel bloggger was shocking even for me. Homeless persons doing drugs right in city center, WTF?

 

[RoKKeR]

I went for the first time last month and yeah, was utterly shocked at some of what I saw. Even compared to other big cities in the country it was something else to see.

 

[Dennis8K]

Get the 10x engineers on the case.

 

[entremet]

NYC has a lot more people in it than those other places (~8.6 million) compared to LA (~4 million) or SF (~884k).

Click to shrink...

NYC is also way more than Manhattan alone.

 

[fluffydelusions]

NYC is also way more than Manhattan alone.

Click to shrink...

Yep.

 

[Deleted member 11976]

Went there for GDC a year ago and the stories did not prepare me for what I saw. It's worse than (parts of) downtown Vancouver.

 

[Darryl M R]

When I went to SF a year ago I was shocked at the homelessness and how families will go to a beautiful park while homeless individuals roam around. I had to watch every step on the sidewalk while commuting.

It's saddening.

 

[hitme]

20+ years living in SF here and I've seen it all.

but LA has it worse.

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

Here are the actual numbers for reference.

Click to shrink...

LA number is outdated. They have now hit 60k. It's a full blown crisis.