[pnathan]

My perspective is that the tech community at large - quite some time ago - abdicated integrating into the rest of the world. I invite a careful read of Barlow's bombast[1] from the early '90s and consider how that has played out into today.

With the techie desire to remove politics and marketing and the overweening wish to be logical instead of emotional comes the abdication of dealing with the messy, compromising, and non-technical parts of the world and thus, the disengagement.

My one experience in SF was generally negative: homeless people were sleeping all over the sidewalks, and the beggars were aggressive. There was a great deal of wealth in evidence, but I didn't see the wealth translated into meaningful assistance.

I guess I would expect to see some sort of mission building in the area I was in where people could sleep & use restrooms and not be on the sidewalk.

Anyway, I think it's time the tech community grokked that the Internet is and is not a separate space and really got serious about engaging with the world (again).

[1] https://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

[simoncion]

You say that the beggars were aggressive. Does this mean that they asked everyone for change, and even asked you whenever they saw you, or does it mean that they would touch you and/or get in your face and speak violently to you?

If the latter, I'm terribly sorry for your bad experience. I've been living here for nearly three years now and hope that you find some comfort in the knowledge that your experience was a radical outlier. Every hobo, pusher, and prostitute that I've run into gracefully accepts "No, I'm sorry/thank you." for an answer. If the former, I suspect that "persistent but non-violent and/or polite" is a much clearer label for these sorts of folks. When you describe someone as "aggressive", it also carries connotations of "violent".

Also, the city's nested web of ineffectual homeless outreach/support programs is an entirely separate issue. (As is the city's "Make $60->$80k per year? Get a condo for 1/6th to 1/8th market price!" program. [This is their "low income housing ownership" program, BTW, which is entirely separate from their low-income housing rental program. (The rental program actually serves a pretty appropriate segment of the population.)])

EDIT: It's widely reported that free-of-cost meals are available to anyone who wants them in SF. I've seen documentation that indicates that -as long as one can get moving by 0700- one can roam the city and never be without three squares a day. I know that I live within four blocks of two active food banks that serve the homeless, and within eight of a very large church-run organization that does the same. See also, this guy's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5297419

I've never seen anyone actually starving in the city, and I've walked through almost all parts of it, at all hours of the day and night. Folks get clothed and folks get fed. Folks often don't get psych medications or hospitalization that they need, but that's a whole other story. :/

[pnathan]

They were... I guess the word is rude? Hustling with an edge? A sort of enterpenurial, even. This is not common in my experience with beggars. No violence, mind you. Just real pushy to close their deal.

I'm glad to hear that the meals organizations are effective. There were so many homeless. :-/

[simoncion]

Honestly, there are so many homeless in the city in part because of the "effectiveness" of the various homeless outreach programs. (Don't get me wrong. I'm very glad that there are very few people in the city that go unfed or unclothed.)

[seanmcdirmid]

They are panhandling for drug/alcohol money probably, given that food is not that hard to come by. The same is true in almost any big city, though.

Aggressive panhandling to me is having little kids grab onto my legs and try to drag me. That only happens to me in non-developed countries.

[simoncion]

Some are very likely panhandling for drug money. Others are probably panhandling for better food than they can find from the outreach shelters. (I've seen many folks in this coffee shop that I frequent from the nearby homeless shelter.)

I would be supremely unhappy if some little kid latched on to my leg and tried to drag me. How is one supposed to handle that sort of situation?