I just had a week long experience there and I found it to be surreal. I went in thinking "surely conservative media is exaggerating" and sure enough, I took a stroll from my conference at SVN down Market Street to a bar called Local Edition, and well, it was unfortunately as advertised. Rampant homelessness everywhere. Needles and feces on every other block, quite literally. I took pictures like a dumb tourist that I am and texted my spouse, "well what do you know it really is like this here, it's crazy, how can people put up with this?"

I empathize, and it's not always great. In response to "how can people put up with this?", I'm not sure what we can do. Meaning, I'm not sure there's an action I could take to improve things.

Also, not saying it isn't bad, and not saying we shouldn't do something (anything) to make things better, but you probably walked down one of the worst stretches (depending on which part of market street you went down).

The problem is pervasive, and speaking in noncommittal terms perpetuates passive acceptance. We can take action through our democratically elected representatives by re-opening mental health institutions and drug rehab centers. And we can enable law enforcement to lock up violent offenders with the assurance that the defendants will be given due process instead of being released without charges.

And 10 blocks away, where I have lived for 10 years, I see none of what you describe. The city is funny like that. Sad fact is, the homeless are incredibly concentrated around areas with lots of tourism and public visibility, because when you're homeless, you want to be around other people because you have _nothing_.

Market street, Potrero, soma, mission....it goes for 50 plus blocks. It ranges from either bad to extremely bad. I've been to a lot of cities and it's the most wild uncontrolled homeless population I've ever seen.

The smash-and-grab situation alone makes L.A.s homeless look like samaritans.

It varies a lot from street to street, block to block. Living on a steep hill helps a lot where it's difficult to push a shopping cart up. The flat Tenderloin is a human health disaster zone but once you get to the rarified air above sutter street the problems disappear. That's only 8 blocks away from mid market. The rest of the city that's on flat ground has significant or seasonal problems.

Perhaps that contributes to why the problem exists in the first place? Out of sight out of mind?

I live in SF. I consider myself very liberal. I know it's not the political orthodox for people on the left, but I will say, it is bad. It is very bad. You learn to live with it, but it's far worse than any other city i've ever lived in.

I think it's a direct result of a complete and utter lack of real estate development, but the fact of the matter is people shit in the street here, regularly. People shoot up heroin openly here. Needles littered on the streets here is normal. People smoke meth and crack, openly.

If you don't want to see it, you can avoid it with a car, but i bike and take transit.

The tenderloin is drug dealers and junkies. 16th and Mission is mentally ill people. Haight is crustypunks. Besides that, there are more normal things like people in tents in parks and under the highways.

I've seen things more like this in places on the west coast, but i've never seen the type of open and welcome drug dependency except in this region. I definitely am supportive of giving addicts a way to get help or even use in a healthy, non-threatening setting that is safe and separated from the rest of us going about our lives, but that's not what's happening.

I've found it to be about as bad as conservative media makes it out to be. It really depends where you are, but I've seen people smoking crack (I assume, maybe meth), and I've seen people shooting up in plain view in daylight. There are exposed needles and human feces on the ground, and you will absolutely notice it if you walk anywhere. Boots are for sure recommended.

I know that stuff happens everywhere, but it's so far out in the open in SF, you can't avoid it.

Part of it also has to do with the topology of the city. Homeless people don't want to live on hills, but rich people do, so that creates pools of homeless camps in flat areas.

I lived there for 10 months. Walked along market street everyday and can confirm that it is pretty bad.

I visited about a year ago now and I didn’t have that experience at all.

Stopped in at City Lights, bought a couple books, went for lunch, and walked through North Beach to the pier. Walked along Embarcadero to the BART station there and had a great (albeit short) layover there. I saw a few people who appeared to be homeless. No more than I see in Toronto or Hamilton—but I can’t speak to what kind of measure that is anymore.

Go a block or so inland and it gets starkly worse, especially as you get closer to Market. You ain't having fun in San Francisco until you make eye contact with a guy "dropping a bomb" in broad daylight at Sue Bierman Park, or have your car broken into near Levi Plaza because someone wants to try to steal your jumper cables (and fail, in my case, as evidenced by them hanging out of my now-significantly-more-aerodynamic quarterpanel window).

And the stench. Nothing like the glorious smell of ocean breezes and human excrement in the morning!

And to think the Embarcadero is relatively clean by SF standards. The Tenderloin is where it gets real fun.

I've had this thing happen twice now while visiting SF, where I'm following google maps, end up walking through the Tenderloin, and have a bunch of people try to sell me drugs.

The second time I asked one of the guys trying to sell me coke why that was happening, he said it was really the only reason white people walk there.

The whole thing was very different from the super-liberal picture of SF I had in my head.

San Francisco’s homelessness is highly concentrated. You happened to be in areas that are relatively clean.

Where is it largely concentrated? That sort of sounds like Vancouver as well. Toronto has its spots as well.

I just find much of the rhetoric makes it sound like the city is overrun and in shambles and that wasn't my experience. Of course, if I lived in those concentrated locales I might feel that way.

- The whole Tenderloin district (and quite a bit of the surrounding areas, e.g. Polk Gulch)

- Market St.

- Embarcadero & Washington St. intersection

- King St. (esp. around the CalTrain station)

- Pretty much all the BART stations within SF city limits

Those are the areas I'm in pretty frequently, at least.

Take a walk down market street.. by city hall. Disgusting and yet why is it so bad and in your face and not like that in say new york city? Doesn't NYC put the homeless up in hotels.. have a voucher program or something?

San Fran doesn't care how terrible their city looks to tourists nor care for its people like NYC does? I don't get it ... uber super tech rich living in the most expensive houses in the US with human feces outside on their pavements or around the corner.

Whatever San Fran is doing and methodology it's following it doesnt seem to be working out for itself!

It's interesting watching movies from the 70s and 80s depicting New York. It looks like present day San Francisco or Baltimore, and not at all like modern New York.

Yup, gives me hope that one day SF can improve.

>San Fran doesn't care how terrible their city looks to tourists nor care for its people like NYC does?

The way I see it, fundamentally, San Francisco views the homeless as part of it's people, many other places do not.

Their feces that line the street, violent outbreaks, shooting up, the human destitution, shouting crazy one even with a megaphone on my 2013 visit.

I guess that's now considered the charm of San Francisco. Disgusting!

Sorry but I don’t think visiting for a week once is a large enough set of data

I didn’t claim it was anything of the sort. Just adding a singular data point.

People often say the same kinds of things about Toronto but the place is hardly overrun.

I just thought it would be a valuable single data point from a visitor’s perspective. No assumptions, just an experience.

he didn't visit even for a week; it was just a layover.

It’s worse than conservative media makes it out to be because in a wide swath of the country 6 figure incomes are large enough to completely insulate you form the issue.