All,
Kamo hit the reason on the head why there are homeless in San Francisco (More like 7500 counted by volunteer census; many more than that uncounted). The People of Boston won't tolerate it past a certain point. San Francisco is near that point but most SanFranciscans are too timid, too scared, too "won't-get-their-own- hands-dirty" (Help me. I can't remember the word for this) or too smart to get caught doing rough deeds at night. About twenty years ago the famous Democratic Mayor, the man who gave us Kamala Harris, made a deal and moved prostitutes out of one district and shoved them into a neighborhood. That neighborhood became a circus. The crowds of louts formed to watch the hooker ply their trade outnumbered the johns. The mess collapsed into a nightmare of a mess. Hookers arrested for their acts were taken to jail and released by the Sheriff who wanted nothing to do with them, The girls were back on the street before the ink on the reports were dry. I talked to older cops who remember arresting the same girls three times in one night. One homeowner had enough made some caltriops out of rebar. Tired of the used condoms littering his driveway, he climbed onto a church tower and hurled the caltrops onto the street where the louts were driving around in their parade of stupidity. One piece hit the roof of the car and the low-life owner jumped out and caught the neighborhood vigilante. The poor soul spent six months in jail. This town will lock up anyone who makes the city look inept (like they need anyone to help).
The famous hippie background, the liberal bastion of crazy, the "we are better for loved trumps hate" has made this city the greatest "Enabler" of homeless. Handouts, great weather, and "Gosh I want to make the world a better place so I will give my change to this poor,poor man" make it easy for the junkies to survive and feed their drug habit. Then the real fun begins. A couple of years ago, the former administration's Department of Justice introduced itself into a lawsuit between Boise and some bum. The DOJ declared that if the city won't give that poor poor man a place to sleep, the cops can't make him move, as he has the right to the public space as any other man. This sent ripples through the major cities,who were almost all aligned with the then current dominant political party, or else dependent on federal money, and curtailed their enforcement policies. People complained that the cops didn't do their job; it was more like the cops were told not to infringe on the bum's right or it would go badly for them. As in the the violation of (a bum's) constitutional rights under the color of authority, which is federal penitentiary time for bad cops.Seattle was sued by the ACLU on behalf of a junkie whose stuff was thrown out by the Public Works crew cleaning out a bad trash infested homeless campsite. The ACLU won, because "Seattle did not properly inventory and store that man's personal private property". $600,000 down the tube. A judge here went further ( I think he is vying for a seat on the 9th Circuit):https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/S-F-judge-explains-why-66-000-arrest-warrants-10645460.php
The decent people here were being out done by the idiots who were vying to be more "Liberal than thou".
The City had a public assistance program designed to aid single mothers. After usurping the Sanctuary City mantle from other places like San Diego, who used it to protect illegals. The illegals, especially the women and kids were easy targets of creeps. The idea was that the illegals could not go to the cops, and therefore were easy prey for the predators. As a Sanctuary City, the illegals could go to the cops and report the crimes and not be complete victims. The baddest of the illegals, if convicted, would be taken by INS. San Francisco screwed this one up by declaring Sanctuary city status for people deserting the first Gulf War, and other such idiocy, to include the famous policy of not cooperating with INS except for the most violent of felons (Our next Governor, the Anointed One, screwed this up badly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Ramos) . They also expanded the aid programs to those without ids, hiding int he shadows. Spend thirty days i the city and you establish residency. Establish residency and you get several hundred bucks in cash monthly, along with an EBT card with three hundred more on it. The bums started flocking here. Then California all but legalizes meth and heroin (see Prop 47, the Safer Neighborhood and Schools Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_47_(2014)), and voila!, these camps were increased.
Steaming piles of feces? You really want me to post pictures of that? We helped our Public Works break down a "tiny house" box where the thugpimp and his working girl stayed with their dog. They were laying on bedding resting on two layers of dogshit. I am still gagging.
http://mochimachine.org/wasteland/Veterans: In the last fifteen years I found only two Vietnam Vets who were homeless, and about two hundred fakers using stolen valor to beg a buck off some fool. One came from the ghetto and went back to it, becoming a mid-level criminal. That is all he knew what to do. The other, a broken man, I met while as he was limping the all night trek to get to the VA Hospital located in the nicer part of town. He needed to go at night so no one would complain about the disheveled old man in their nice manicured neighborhood. He needed his cane to make it. It was not too long after 9-11, and he was angry about it. We talked and I found that he was also a former paratrooper and that we served in the same brigade of the 82 ABN, though thirty years apart. While talking he became fired up, and raising his voice and his cane, shaking with rage , he bellowed that he would still fight for America. The other cops on my shift, not sympathetic to veterans at all (this is San Francisco, and all vets are psychos and bums) raced to our location due to the numerous emergency calls of strange men in the street yelling "AIRBORNE!" and "AMERICA!" at the tops of our lungs. The cops left, some disgusted, some amused, some getting a little more insight to veterans. I gave him a ride to the hospital and my cell number but I never heard from him again.
The only recent veterans I have ran into were entry level separations, basic training washouts, all with war stories from a war they didn't get to, and all with PTSD and getting VA money. I have found a couple of older homeless (real) vets, and God in Heaven Help me, Swords to Plowshares is helping so much more than the understaffed and overwhelmed local VA. I might help get three of them out of their cars and into VA-HUD housing. The VA folks and the HUD folks are working hard with little assets and doing their best, but finding real estate is a real problem. So Seafire, Brother, Friend, thank you for the words of encouragement foir sometimes I feel that I am a pilgrim in an unholy land.
More to come later. I hope I don't lose my job over this.
