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Able Dart |
The Homeless, Again |
Lead | |
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The Wall Commentary on Public and Private Life in San Francisco
http://www.sfwall.net
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RandySF |
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This past week at 6:30 in the morning, I stopped by the ATM before hopping the BART. No sooner had I placed my card into the machine than a panhandler walked
up to me asking for money. I retrieved my card and walked away immediately. One day, a panhandler is going to get hurt very badly approaching someone like
that.
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Chrysippus |
Failure of Leadership | ||
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I spend most of my time in the Haight and the Castro. Both neighborhoods are now thonged with nomadic addicts and alcoholics, to a degree that I haven't
seen in many years.
Most are males. They are becoming increasingly hostile and aggressive. In recent years, two friends of mine - both getting on in years - were physically assaulted while watiing for Muni buses. One incident occurred in the Haight, another in the Castro. Both friends were injured. From what I've observed, the nomadic addicts target mostly women, gay men, and the elderly when they want to unload violence on others. The city's governing class is guilty of a gross failure of leadership in getting the nomadic addicts under control. The situation is an outrageous disgrace. It's unlikely that there will be any improvement - along the lines suggested by Able above - any time soon.
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Uncle Miltie |
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I know this may sound crazy, but if the definition of insanity is "continuing to do the same thing while expecting different results", than we as
a city are actually crazy.
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Funny, I still see an overwhelming number of chronic homeless on Downtown's streets. I doubt any progress has been made at all.
It goes without saying that any social service case management regime requires a way to track the process of clients. We have similar programs with GA clients and other programs. There are safeguards in those programs. SFPD can't just demand the GA or SSI address records of a given client who may have warrants, for instance.
The Board will never contribute to solving the homelessness problem because they receive endorsements and campaign assistance from homeless-oriented NGOs who want to be able to keep their service contracts. Downtown wants to see the homeless "moved along" someplace else, which is impossible. The Mayor has turned the issue into a cruel Potemkin Village sideshow with a program that allows corporations and constituents to feel better about themselves on the issue by letting them donate free massages.
The only answer to chronic homelessness is intervention. Implementation of Laura's Law, increased cooperation between MAP and SFPD, and the opening of transitional shelters for cumpulsory committment cases. And the program needs to be run directly by DSS/DPH, not contracted out.
Of course, that would violate the sensibilities of our City's political class, who use the ethical fiction "people have a right to live without money" to defend the presence of the homeless, which they in turn use to propagandize their constituents about the continuing need for their brand of social change - which never seems to arrive despite the fact that they were supposedly elected to enact it.
Richard Ramirez once said "In the absence of government strategies of how to help the lunatic or the destitute, or the addicted, we pass out quarters. In return, the homeless give us the assurance that we live in San Francisco."
http://sfappeal.com/news/2009/03/homeless-policy-progress-made-more-accountability-needed-grand-jurors-say.php