
San Franciscans raise $46,000 to stop homeless shelter in wealthy area - ar0
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/28/san-francisco-gofundme-homeless-shelter-embarcadero
======
oppositelock
We're heading for a showdown in San Francisco between the homeless and
residents.

For those of you not from this area, it'd be hard to believe just how bad the
SF homeless situation really is, and how it's tied to drug use and mental
illness.

SF has a lot of resources for homeless people, so functional homeless folks
who want help can get it. Shelters and low income housing up and down the
peninsula don't allow drug use, don't allow people with criminal records, and
some don't allow men. Cold weather shelters make exceptions, but those are
very temporary. Those conditions exclude a lot of the homeless who would like
to use them. Then, you have the issue of the homeless who are heavy drug
users, mentally ill, or simply don't want to be in a shelter. These three
groups are most of the homeless you see in the streets. San Francisco (and San
Jose's) big homeless problems are exacerbated by the fact that peninsula
cities crack down on homeless people by buying a bus ticket to SF or SJ,
whichever is cheaper, and police escorting them to the bus.

So, as someone who's lived in the area for over twenty years, I'm sick of San
Francisco's lack of action on this problem. On one side you have shelters, but
on the flip side is utter lack of enforcement of loitering, since being on
public land isn't illegal. These people need help, rehab, or even
institutionalization, but you can't force that, and nobody's willing to pay
for it. It's a mess, and the more money SF throws at homeless people in the
form of food, shelters, and safe injection sites, the more homeless people it
"hires" from abroad.

edit: That article is disingenuous. The homeless on the streets of SF are not
due to displacement by tech, though I'm sure that contributes. They come from
all over for the perks. The weather is mild, food is available, police turn a
blind eye to minor crimes and shooting heroin on Market street, so as far as
being homeless goes, it's not the worst place to be.

~~~
flukus
> Shelters and low income housing up and down the peninsula don't allow drug
> use, don't allow people with criminal records, and some don't allow men.

So they're explicitly designed to not shelter the majority of people needing
them, that seems counter-productive. Is smoking crack in the shelter somehow
worse than doing it in the street? Are they supposed to work out their
addiction problem while they've got no where to live and no job?

If you're going to run shelters like that then they're just a feel good
measure to make people think there's help available and nothing more.

~~~
pintxo
> Is smoking crack in the shelter somehow worse than doing it in the street?

Certainly it is going to be a lot worse for the politician who approved/backed
this shelter, once this is packaged into a nice little media story like „X
pays for smoking crack“.

There are not many politicians out there willing to do the right thing and
being prepared to handle the expected uninformed outrage.

~~~
flukus
True, but when I said "feel good measure" I was referring to the voters that
will be swayed by that sort of crap. It's a societal problem not a political
one.

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conroy
NIMBYism in its purest form.

Navigation Centers are far more than homeless shelters. They take people in as
they are (pets, belongings, partners, etc.) and provide on-site services.
Unlike traditional shelters, occupants are not forced back on the streets in
the morning just to wait in line for a bed that night.

I have one in my neighborhood. I took a tour with a few other neighbors last
year. I can’t imagine how you can argue that it would be better for the people
I saw to be living outside on the streets.

Every district in San Francisco should have at least one Navigation Center.

~~~
dagw
Oh I'm sure everybody agrees that they're fantastic and the there definitely
should be more of them. Just, not right here. Over there would be a much
better place for one.

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justboxing
The headline is click-baity and tailored to create outrage.

If you don't live here, you probably don't know that the Embarcadero area is,
as the article says, right by the bay bridge. Heavily tourist-y area. The
"wealthy people" of San Francisco actually live a mile or so away, in Russian
Hill, Pacific Heights, Lake District (by Bakers Beach) etc. Embarcadero is
also right by the FiDi / downtown area where Salesforce, Affirm, BlackRock,
Lending Club and several other startups and major Corps have offices. So it's
also a safety concern for the workers in downtown as the homeless population
in SF is generally more aggressive than in the rest of the country.

A lot of homeless people in San Francisco also are drug users. It's not common
to walk in downtown and step on a used needle. So building the housing in the
downtown, touristy area is only going to deter people from coming to San
Francisco, and deter companies from holding their conventions[1]. There's
already 1 such example of a major medical convention cancelled from Moscone
cos they were concerned with safety of their attendees due to homeless person
crimes. That area has a lot of homeless people around there, many of who are
quite aggressive, mentally ill etc.

This is not a case of NIMBY. It's far more complex than that.

I'm just calling it as I see it.

[1] Major medical group cancels San Francisco convention due to safety
concerns => [https://sf.curbed.com/2018/7/3/17531240/convention-
moscone-c...](https://sf.curbed.com/2018/7/3/17531240/convention-moscone-
center-homeless-crime)

~~~
brianpgordon
I'm not sure I buy the whole "homeless person crimes" angle. I've lived here
for about four and a half years, in a _real_ sketchy part of the city (SoMa,
south of mid-market) and I've never had a problem with homeless people. Yes
they sleep in doorways or in tents on the sidewalk, and yes you see people
shooting up without trying to hide it. Sometimes they yell at night when I'm
trying to sleep and it's annoying.

But I have a real hard time making the mental leap from "these people are an
eyesore" to "I think we should force these people to leave." They're just
living their lives, trying to make it day to day. They're people. I pass the
same homeless people on the way to work and back every day. They're as much a
part of the community as I am.

The crime angle seems transparently like dog whistling for people who are
really concerned with property values, or for people who turn up their nose at
the powerless and wish they'd go be someone else's problem. A few decades ago
"crime" and "safety" were euphemisms deployed against urban youth who made
middle-class white people nervous. It's depressing to see another generation
of the same prejudice, now applied to a different marginalized group.

------
valleyjo
I find a lot of criticism and hate of homeless people in our tech world. Which
I kind of don’t get because a lot of tech people are quite liberal. I would
expect a softer heart to follow as well as concern for these (and all) people.

~~~
zdragnar
There are different types of homelessness, and different levels of visibility
and effects on the community.

On one end of the spectrum, temporary homelessness typically garners the most
sympathy, and brings the least trouble in terms of drug use and other petty
crime.

On the other end, the chronic homeless are harder to deal with. My ex who
worked with the local metro homeless population was frustrated by these, who
through mental illness and / or drug use were simply not capable of dealing
with the responsibilities needed to maintain a home or apartment; things like
getting a job and not getting evicted for various bad behavior reasons. The
hardest to deal with were those who refused to get help; no medicine, no job
training program, no finance management couse, nothing accepted but food and
cash.

These are the ones who are often the most visible- defecating on sidewalks,
drugs, harassing people who are just going about their day.

You can have the biggest heart in the world, and you still won't be able to
help them short of bringing back forced institutionalization, which no one
wants either.

~~~
oppositelock
A good start might be a requirement to be an SF resident, homeless or
otherwise, for some period of time, say 1 year, before being eligible for
homeless benefits. It'll keep the area's homeless from flooding in from less
generous cities.

~~~
zdragnar
It's an interesting idea, but I have no clue how to establish a person's
residence when they don't have a street address to receive mail, utility
bills, etc. Practically by definition, the homeless _do not have residence_.

People who recently have become homeless would qualify, assuming they could
provide mail or something from a year ago, but even that seems like a stretch
for most people, I think.

Also, I don't know about SF, bit quite a few of the services provided here in
the Midwest are privately run (I.e. in association with churches or otherwise
non-profit), and I don't know that such a ban could be imposed on them.

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pbreit
Unpopular opinion: there are a lot of other locations than the heart of the SF
waterfront.

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purplezooey
_...the father of a two-year-old who lives two blocks from the proposed site
... against the project out of concerns for his family’s safety._

"Family safety" has to be the most overused euphemism for "property values".

~~~
loco5niner
Not true. Family safety is much more important than property value and is not
a stand-in for "property value". I'm surprised to hear you claim that it is
not being legitimately used.

~~~
wyclif
Easily proven by asking people who have small children but are renters, not
property owners.

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RickJWagner
I am truly surprised by what's happened to San Francisco.

It will be interesting to see how it unfolds. I imagine the city will either
find a way to return to greatness or descend into further dystopia. Which will
it be? How will it be accomplished? Truly amazing.

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jancsika
I'd love to see someone with social media skills ramp up a campaign in
"solidarity" with these residents and "help" them hit 10x their stated goal.

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SamReidHughes
Makes sense. One of my personal rules is to only give money to the homeless in
other people's neighborhoods.

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mnm1
Absolutely disgusting. How can someone be so cruel as to spend money to stop a
project meant to help people and save people's lives? It's just unbelievable
how cruel and nasty people with even a little money can be towards others.
There should be a way for state governments to counter such nimby actions when
it's in the best interests of society. This also includes local zoning and all
the other stupid nimby shit that makes the bay area unlivable.

~~~
purplezooey
The state needs to step in a lot more. Hopefully this is starting.

