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by mcrae 1681 days ago
It really is as bad as it sounds. A couple anecdotes:

- Some people without homes pitched a tent on the sidewalk nearby, blocking the sidewalk. The city has a moratorium on clearing tents. I recently walked by and the tent had been consumed by fire, leaving charred furniture and camping equipment behind. It’s been there for a good week now.

- multiple times I’ve seen folks grab armfuls of goods and run out. The staff just watch (I don’t blame them.) as a result, most medicines, alcohol, or other things of value (Tide!) are behind locked barriers.

- my local Safeway has armed guards, but somehow this doesn’t deter about a half dozen folks from loitering outside. Occasionally one will try to get in and make a run for it. Somehow this doesn’t effect the whole foods across the street.

- many streets downtown, including blocks on market, are open drug markets: folks dealing, preparing, and consuming drugs. You literally have to step over passed out bodies.

The whole city has a apocalyptic vibe right now. I’m not clear what the cause or solution to these problems are. But I’m kinda sick of people pretending that it’s normal. It isn’t.

My mom came from abroad recently to visit. She was horrified and I was embarrassed that she had to see all this.

3 comments

I can believe it. I stopped attending conferences in San Francisco. My last conference was in 2017 and I told my boss then I'm never going back. I've had several friends vacationing in SF going back to the 90's and they said they'd never go back and I always said they were over reacting (I've been going to SF on a regular basis for the past twenty years). Not anymore. The homeless were all over the sidewalks and they had added a new feature - aggressive dogs! People follow you into cafes and stand in line behind you and beg for food (which was already 1.5x-2x priced compared to anywhere else in the country). The BART station smells like a latrine. I could go on.

> The whole city has a apocalyptic vibe right now.

Yes - that's a good way to describe it and that's how I felt. It was unreal. Mind you I regularly visit NYC, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. They're all model cities compared to SF. I can tell you one thing - no job is worth living in SF. I'd either find another job or work remote and live elsewhere.

Tide laundry detergent has been an underground currency in the illegal drug trade for years.

https://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/

I’m not clear what the cause or solution to these problems are.

That's what the article is about. Surely the causes and solutions are obvious?! How is this a mystery? The residents voted for that situation!

Rampant property theft and homelessness in SF predated Chesa Boudin and the ballot initiative the article mentions.

I’m not convinced that changing those two things will be a panacea to SF’s problems.