
San Francisco tech worker: 'I don't want to see homeless riff-raff' - frostmatthew
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/san-francisco-tech-open-letter-i-dont-want-to-see-homeless-riff-raff
======
cubano
I've been on so many sides of this issue it really almost sounds like
bullshit.

You see, I was addicted to heroin, and basically homeless, for three years
living in Vegas after my mom passed and I divorced.

My beautiful co-junkie girlfriend ODed and died, literally in my arms, in a
room at the MGM Grand the first time she ever shot up. I thought she was doing
meth like she always did. She was such an amazing soul and I still cry when I
think of her and that horrible night.

I allowed a bunch of homeless "friends" to stay with me as I was blowing
through my money. I fed them all the time; gave them money for dope sometimes.

Several of them ended up robbing me for money, clothes, computers etc etc. I
ended up in the Tunnels for about 6 months before I could finally get out of
town.

I finally kicked cold-turkey on the floor of a county jail medical cell back
here in Florida as I had missed court dates and had warrants. This was 5 years
ago and I have worked hard to pull my life back together.

Before this, my 5yo daughter was physically grabbed by a homeless person in
the streets of downtown Chicago, off Michigan Ave., and to this day she still
talks of the fear she felt that day.

Who knows what could have happened if I wasn't 6'3" and prison-hardened from
the 22 months I did for selling MDMA in 2001?

So I feel I see all sides of this situation from real experience. It's hard
writing this because I try not to remember all that garbage and pain.

I think this guy has the right to express himself and his fears without being
knee-jerk dogpiled by the offense mobs, but that's just me.

[edits]

~~~
JabavuAdams
Keep it up, man. Does it get easier? I look at what I need to do to fix my
broken mind and sometimes I think I'd rather lie down in the snow than keep
climbing. Do you ever get to stop climbing?

~~~
evincarofautumn
As someone who has dealt with addiction, I would say it’s similar to exercise.
It doesn’t exactly get easier, but you do get stronger—that is, better
practiced at dealing with cravings, coping with stress, managing your mental
health, and so on.

You’re never really out of the woods, but you get better at finding your way
out and choosing not to venture too deep.

------
pmiller2
It always amazes me when people are stupid enough to post stuff like this in a
public forum. I support Justin Keller's right to believe and say these things,
but he has to know he's going to get crucified in the court of "teh
internets."

Here's the deal, Mr. Keller: I don't want to see homeless people in SF any
more than you do. But, I'd rather we help them _not be homeless_ rather than
sweep them away like so much sidewalk trash. People become homeless for a
variety of reasons: job loss, addiction, mental illness, criminal record, etc.
Homelessness becomes a trap, because it's really hard to get a job, get sober,
get competent medical care, etc. when you're homeless. These things can be
done, but it takes a certain amount of skill to navigate the web of
bureaucracy necessary to get any help.

Some people don't want help, and that's sad, but we live in a society where we
can't force these things on people. One of the tragedies of homelessness is
that it's really, really damn difficult to help them-- even the ones who want
help. I know this from experience.

But, still, rants like this are nothing but counterproductive. If you want to
see fewer homeless on the street, try helping instead of ranting.

~~~
mylons
[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/S-F-
spendi...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/S-F-spending-on-
homeless-exceeds-many-5416839.php)

SF is 'trying' and isn't succeeding. Stop spending my unaccounted for tax
dollars on this if it isn't going to solve the issue and is just going to make
SF a mafia wife enabling the homeless.

------
alexandercrohde
It's unfortunate that such a callous performance has to become the icon for
his case.

Living in SF, I agree there is a problem. In fact there are two.

1) There are the schizophrenics who need some help (but nobody knows exactly
what or how).

2) And there is the unfortunate reality of downtown: \- smells of piss \- no
public bathrooms (because they become campsites) \- escalators break on public
transportation often because people excrement on them \- trashcans get dumped
out so people can find cans for recycling \- people walking across certain
busy streets ignoring traffic \- various campsites especially in soma

I don't think this has to be an either-or issue. Helping the homeless is not
an opposite of keeping downtown clean. I seem to notice people giving up on
the latter though because they assume that the only way to do so is to blame
the former, which is a no-no.

~~~
mylons
3) SF has spent more than 30k per homeless person per year in the city to do
'something' about it. It's typically unaccounted for money and an area
ripe/putrid for corruption.

~~~
raddad
Maybe put that $30K into a cheap dwelling for said homeless person and problem
solved, no longer homeless.

~~~
mylons
don't disagree at all. I admire what salt lake city is doing and think it
should be a model for SF

------
teen
I'm not sure it's possible to have a civil discussion about the homeless issue
in SF. Many of the 'homeless' really enjoy their lifestyle- it never gets that
cold, they can hang out all day and do drugs, and have lots of social services
available to them if anything ever gets too bad. Mix those people in with
people who are genuinely struggling to survive, and a bunch of wealthier
residents, you get a perfect storm on the internet. Criticize one group, and
you're instantly an asshole. Or maybe you were an asshole to begin with. The
internet loves the drama though.

~~~
pmiller2
> Many of the 'homeless' really enjoy their lifestyle- it never gets that
> cold, they can hang out all day and do drugs, and have lots of social
> services available to them if anything ever gets too bad.

I don't see too much wrong with that. If someone's living on the streets
because they like it, more power to 'em. As far as services go, it's almost a
logical consequence of having them that a certain few are going to abuse them.
I'd rather accept that than have people who truly need and want help not get
it.

~~~
kelnos
I've gone back and forth on this, and I'm still not sure how I feel. On one
hand, I do believe we should let people live how they want, as long as that
doesn't negatively impact other people (simple Golden Rule type thing).

But then that's it -- out of the homeless people who genuinely prefer that
lifestyle, does that negatively impact other people? And it's hard to answer
that, because I think a lot of the discomfort about homeless people surrounds
people defecating on the sidewalk, people asking for money, and the mentally
ill yelling obscenities and freaking people out... etc.

So the the question becomes: if we could help the people who do not want to be
homeless, including those who have mental health issues, and get them off the
streets and into places where they can heal, what would be left? If the
remainder is just people who like the homeless lifestyle, would that be ok?
Would non-homeless people feel comfortable with that? I don't know the answer
to that, even on a personal level.

------
tptacek
How important to us is it to watch some random doofus set fire to his own
reputation?

~~~
MCRed
To be honest, I'm at a loss for why articles from this publication, and other
similar ones whose primary output is.. spin and politics... are on the front
page here.

Not news, not for hackers, not tech, not startups.

This article is purely about trying to perpetuate class warfare.

~~~
tptacek
I'm mostly on The Guardian's side regarding class warfare (though not on some
other issues), but I agree: important stories for which The Guardian is the
best possible source for HN are rare.

I think if you had played your political cards closer and left out that last
sentence, you wouldn't have gotten downvoted so quickly; as it stands, you
allowed your comment to be a proxy vote for whether inequality is an important
issue.

~~~
DrScump
<I'm mostly on The Guardian's side regarding class warfare>

If only they were more concerned with class warfare _within the British Isles_
than mocking the rest of the world's politics.

------
GuiA
Yeah, the way he phrased his blog post is terrible. The guy is clearly not a
writer.

But my parents are visiting me from abroad in a few months (I've lived in the
Bay Area for about 5 years now), and I'm legitimately afraid something dumb
will happen. I usually just walk fast around town, pre emptively avoiding
people who seem to be in a universe of their own (and I'm a pretty tall/wide
guy, so i've never had a problem fending off loud/obnoxious people when they
confront me individually), but my parents will be in leisure visitor mode, and
I don't want my mom to have to deal with a coked up naked guy yelling at her.

Is that entitled? Yeah, maybe. But I'm not mad at the homeless people - I feel
for them. I'm mad at the politicians of SF, who can't properly give a support
network to the mentally ill in our streets. Other major world cities aren't in
the state of disarray that SF is, so it seems like something that can largely
be improved on.

~~~
tptacek
The problem isn't that he's wrong about the San Francisco homeless problem.
The problem is that the first half of his letter is lists legitimate concerns
about the problem, and the second half is a temper tantrum about how he feels
he's earned a station in life where he shouldn't have to be bothered with
those problems.

It's a terribly stupid letter.

But it's also pretty silly that we're paying attention to it. It's self-
evidently stupid.

------
yardie
_The wealthy working people have earned their right to live in the city. They
went out, got an education, work hard, and earned it. I shouldn’t have to
worry about being accosted. I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and
despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day._

Wow, what a real piece of work this guy. He honestly believes the most
offensive thing in his post is him calling them "riff-raff".

~~~
belovedeagle
Which part of this quote is untrue? That it's not worded tastefully is a
different matter.

~~~
moises_silva
The part where he says the wealthy earned it. Did they earn it? this is the
part where I often disagree with people. We all love to think we've earned
what we've got. Just crying out loud 'we worked hard! we earned it!' doesn't
make it true.

I'm at the top 10% income earners in a wealthy country and I don't feel think
I've necessarily earned it more than the other 90% of the population. I lucked
out. I had loving parents that guided me and pushed me to have an education. I
don't suffer from any mental or physical disease. Seriously, going to school
to get a degree and learning on my own how to build software systems, that's
the easy part and wouldn't have been possible if I didn't have the luck of
being born in the right social circumstances and with the right biology traits
(health and smarts).

~~~
AjithAntony
I feel like there is a lot of disrespect for our ancestors when we try to
apologize for our "luck" or "privilege".

If one's own parents labored and suffered to create value and provide for
their child, does that child not deserve to enjoy the fruits of that labor? If
that child honors their parents by continuing a tradition of hard work, albeit
more comfortably, why does he need to feel ashamed of his success? At which
generation do we disinherit the sacrifices of those who came before us?

~~~
moises_silva
I am not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that I implied we should feel
ashamed. It's about being grateful for how lucky we are we inherited
something, not ashamed. You also completely disregarded the biological factors
I mentioned that have nothing to do with the "hard work" of my ancestors, it's
just "random" luck with good genes/biology that allows us to learn things
faster and to be healthy (yes, eating habits help, but your biology helps just
as much).

There's a difference between not feeling ashamed and feeling entitled to it
and superior to the others that didn't inherit those fruits.

------
meddlepal
I don't have a opinion on this situation, but there is going to be a point in
time when tech workers need to stop thinking that there government is going to
do what they want it to do and instead need to actively get into the political
process, for example, by running for office. Politics has an effect on
everything from poverty to transportation.

~~~
HillRat
Ah, but it's so much easier for us to stand by the side of the road and
complain that the emperor's clothes have the wrong fringe on the hem. Politics
is boring, it's messy, it's tedious, and it demands compromise -- in other
words, it takes a genuine and deep investment in time, effort and knowledge to
shift any degree of change. (Me, I just comment on HN.)

But, hey, Internet. Used to be you'd just write cranky letters that the
_Chronicle_ interns would auto-bin; today, you can catch the international
media's attention, become the poster boy for clueless gentrification, and feed
your startup's reputation into the dumpster fire, all in a few hours. Truly an
age of miracles and wonders.

------
plcancel
I was wondering why the headline refers specifically to "tech worker".

It seems like the motivation for the article is to call attention to a
stereotypical "tech bro". Is "tech bro" in common usage?

I guess I didn't realize that appending "bro" to create a pejorative term has
become so common.

~~~
alexandercrohde
I agree. I'd even go so far as saying it's appealing to the audience's basest
desire: to perpetuate an iconic enemy.

You could do the same thing by changing "Tech Worker" to "White Man," that is:
pick some group he belongs to and try to blame the whole for his callous
delivery.

------
tga_d
As someone who was raised in the bay area, the idea that these experiences
meant that homelessness was at an all-time high in the city struck me as the
thoughts of someone whose rose tint was fading from their glasses. One of my
earliest memories is of a grizzled homeless man on Market asking me if I'd
seen his spaceship anywhere, and I can't remember ever spending more than a
few hours in the downtown area without seeing some sort of display of
intoxication, mental disability, or both. So I looked it up, and indeed, crime
and homeless rates within the city have stayed relatively consistent over the
past decade, both in terms of sheltered and unsheltered homeless (crime is up
slightly, but still well below what it was in the 90s). Just in case anyone
was wondering.

------
kevcampb
A far more erudite take on the situation

[http://programmingisterrible.com/post/50421878989/come-
here-...](http://programmingisterrible.com/post/50421878989/come-here-and-
work-on-hard-problems-except-the)

------
grubles
"Rich white entitled computer developer can't understand the less fortunate."
Is this some news bulletin from Sim City?

~~~
DrScump
I missed in the article where the author's race is mentioned. Do you know him
personally?

~~~
grubles
It's pretty easy to google his name and come up with a picture.

------
goodJobWalrus
This cannot be real. It must be some kind of avant-garde performance, I am not
able to understand.

------
slmyers
While he sounds reasonable, his assertions of superiority are tone-deaf and
quite irritating.

Sure he's been exposed to some obscene behavior and perhaps mentally unstable
homeless people, but I don't think he has considered that there is undoubtedly
thousands of otherwise normal people in very unfortunate circumstances that
don't deserve to be lumped with "those people".

------
pjdemers
[http://www.glide.org/feedthehungry](http://www.glide.org/feedthehungry)

~~~
PavlovsCat
Not to knock you or that wonderful project, I actually upvoted your post, but
I still have to add this:

> "Charity is the drowning of rights in the shithole of mercy." \-- Johann
> Heinrich Pestalozzi

People have the _right_ to a fair shot at life. When that is achieved, we will
not have "done good", we will merely have ceased to do atrocious evil. By
which I don't mean to knock generosity and volunteering at all, I really hope
my reply doesn't come across that way. Of course it does a lot of good, for
all involved parties, and every life saved and every meal or even smile given
counts. I still would call it a workaround rather than a solution, in the
context of "mercy vs. rights", but it's a workaround that doesn't keep us from
looking into long-term fixing of things, so I don't mean it as a "yes, but",
but really as an addition.

------
stillsut
One person heard a racial slur yelled from a pickup truck on the UMissouri
campus? The president of the school has to go.

Psychotic and not uncommonly violent people are attacking citizens apparently
everyday for the past decade? Suck it up!

------
vacri
Pity - this is the first I've heard of commando.io, and it looks like I could
have used this tool as my current setup is a touch unwieldy. I would have at
least tried it out, and likely would have bought it. Oh well, they can do
without my $100/mo.

~~~
pmiller2
Yep. Scratch one startup off the list of "companies I'll ever work for," too.

------
fweespeech
[http://justink.svbtle.com/open-letter-to-mayor-ed-lee-and-
gr...](http://justink.svbtle.com/open-letter-to-mayor-ed-lee-and-greg-suhr-
police-chief)

I think this would be a better link than the OP as the OP is an interpretation
of the original work.

While its clearly a shitty blog post, it seems like his concern is largely
stemming from the number of altercations he personally experienced and the
Guardian is interpreting it much harsher than is truly necessary.

Shitty blog posts happen but private blogs shouldn't be attacked by a news
publication so blatantly.

~~~
pmiller2
> I think this would be a better link than the OP as the OP is an
> interpretation of the original work.

Maybe so, but how much do you want to bet that blog post comes down within the
next few days?

~~~
fweespeech
[http://archive.is/3uny8](http://archive.is/3uny8)

Better?

------
mappu
_> Madeleine McCann, 27, had some more pointed words for tech bros who
disapprove of her. McCann has been living in a tent under the highway for
about a month, ever since her van was towed, leaving her without a roof._

This name surprised me.

I assume it's a fake name for the reporter, or at least, unrelated to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McC...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann)
.

~~~
cballard
Some people have the same name as other people.

------
brotherjerky
What a clickbait-y headline, makes the original author sound insensitive when
he's trying to shame public officials into action to help the homeless. (Not
that the messaging or content is perfect, but the title is definitely trying
to fit a narrative)

~~~
yardie
Did you read his post. The headline was correct and "riff-raff" was one of the
least offensive things he wrote.

------
Jach
Move to Redmond.

