Shop Owners Forced to Take Extra Precautions as Thieves Hit SF Chinatown Businesses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSwlSQf0LkA
San Francisco Chinatown Camera Shop Owners Fight Back Against Smash-and-Grab Robbery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idy30hxat7M
Community Group Hands Out Pepper Spray To San Francisco Chinatown Businesses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNsc3j1-d1I
Volunteer Foot Patrols In SF's Chinatown After Shop Owners Fight Off Robbers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTPYhey3ea4
Yet we keep hearing that this isn't happening. Things are fine. It's exaggerated. Even in this very thread. I can't help but think of this quote, "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
People say “the data” show that crime is actually decreasing! It’s bizarre because the data I’m collecting with my very own eyes is staggeringly contradictory. The amount of crime I witness daily is heartbreaking and sometimes frightening.
I understand the knee jerk response, which is to defend your home, but the moment I propose the data are being manipulated/spun, I’m called a conspiracy theorist. There’s a concerning lack of curiosity, critical thinking, and skepticism when it comes to this topic.
The only explanation I have for the discrepancy is the normalization of crime. We have gotten so accustomed to theft, assault, drug use, public camping, illegal immigration, and property damage that we no longer count these as crimes. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy. I’m saying our standard of living has shifted down dramatically and we have adjusted our metrics down, too.
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance
The mods and too many of the members believe that discussing actual crime would make San Francisco look bad in the eyes of "Trump supporters"/"Rethuglicans", so must be suppressed. (Check out the subreddit's rules sometime.)
I’m really not sure, it’s an emotional subject, especially after the home invasion, but I feel entitled to be skeptical and angry about how dysfunctional the government is here.
It used to be that I'd even gotten my roof rack stolen off the top of my car. Then without much to steal during the pandemic, and with drug use off the charts, things just became unsafe. People I knew started carry mace. There was a firearm homicide in the Civic Center station (yes, really, in the station). You have to be absolutely crazy to go back to the office right now.
Those left who are still apologizing for SF have either never experienced anything else or are in denial.
Trust me, it breaks my heart the extent to which SF has let itself go. As bad as it was a decade ago, there was still a lot to like about it and it was a fun place to be as a young guy. I criticize SF because I want to love it, not because I hate it.
As much as there's also a lot to criticize about places like New York and Los Angeles (my hometown), they really have nothing on San Francisco in terms of social issues. Yeah, LA probably has the largest homeless encampments, but in my whole life I've rarely or never have seen what can be seen in SF. SF is the only city in America I've been to so far that's featured drug use in public parks during broad daylight, huge packs of rats running around, fentanyl zombies that actually resemble fictional zombies, elevators covered in urine, poop smeared on walkways and walls, gutters overflowing with rotten restaurant food, gangs spraying graffiti with bystanders around and no fear of being caught, and of course public displays of nudity (and occasionally other distasteful displays).
It's really amazing what the human mind can be conditioned to accept. We can become accustomed to anything.
I was wondering if that had to do with the profit chain of helping the homeless. The city spent $1.1B on homeless for year 2021-2022. I'd assume many people want the government to spend like that: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-has-an-unpre...
For the record, they do try to crack down on those. I witnessed a couple of pissed off cops coming down on some kids doing graffiti at Battery Crosby last month.
The nudity thing seems mostly tied to some pockets of the LGBTQ+ community, my impression is that people generally don't want to criticize it out of respect for freedom of expression for those communities.
The drug abuse and rampant theft in broad daylight though are definitely disturbing though, for sure.
My wife and I just visited, the parts that were bad parts are worse, and the nice parts still seemed fine.
Says the top reply to the top comment of the thread.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On a single trip from my hotel about 4 blocks away to our offices, I saw a guy tweaked out unconscious against a parking meter with the needle still in his leg, was accosted by a mentally ill dude trying to get me to take dope to a guy on the next block, saw a pretty obvious pimp give a stack of money to a young girl who should have been in school to run it somewhere, and two open drug deals happening literally right on Market by the Westfield Mall. I also saw a couple of tent encampments, folks starving on the street, and an incredibly long line for food at a soup kitchen. I was so...perturbed? Upset? by the whole experience that I kind of lost it in the bathroom when I got to work. The amount of human suffering one can witness in a 15 minute timespan there is just...galling.
I don't think folks who live in SF have Stockholm Syndrome as much as it just becomes part of the scenery in some weird disconnected way. When I brought all that up to folks at work, they were like, "Oh yeah that's just how it is here" and dismissed it. I remember seeing two of my co-workers sipping coffee looking out the window of our expensive, air-conditioned office surrounded by pricey furniture and motivational posters, pointing out the various tweakers and drug dealers who were harassing folks trying to get food from the shelter nearby. It was just a snapshot of a mindset of disconnection about it that I still don't really understand.
I guess at some point you just have to shut your brain off to the horror you're witnessing in real time or you will eventually snap, but I just couldn't do it. I asked on my next trip to stay at a much closer hotel, and when I left that company, if I'm honest, that was a not-inconsequential part of why.
These cities seem to have a lot of fundamental societal problems and they have no idea whatsoever how to solve them.
Seattle had aggressive people on the street. This didn't worry me so much, though they had many of them. Again, more than a few mentally ill.
I recall SF from the late 90s/mid 2000s. It was nice then. As was Seattle. Something happened.
Similar things happened in NYC, after Bloomburg left.
Its not hard to find the policy proximate causes that rendered these once great cities into steaming sh!tholes with rampant crime. My question is, when will people move beyond their political tribalism and virtue signalling and start addressing the core issues?
FWIW, I live near Detroit MI USA. It is on a long slow recovery from decades of terrible policy, horrible and criminal politicians. It is showing signs of growth and recovery. Cost of living is low. Crime is falling.
All it took was jailing some pols, electing competent (non-ideologue) management, and forming public-private partnerships. It may take another 20 years or so before its really showing what it could be. But its changing.
And as someone who has lived in the area for 30+ years, you kinda root for Detroit. It was destroyed by grifters and ideologues, by bad and corrupt management, and many other things. But it has character. It has a presence. And you like to go to the Science Museum (my wife used to be director of education there), and the programs at the universities. And the parks (yes, really). And the restaurants.
I hope, one day, that SF, Seattle, NYC, and others can elect competent non-ideologue management, sweep out the grifters, implementing good policy, and help hasten the rebuilding of these once great cities. But then again, this also requires doing the same at the state level. Here in Michigan we had a pro-growth governor and traded down to an ideologue. That person doesn't look likely to remain in office, so here's hoping we don't get yet another grifter.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-11/amazon-sh...
It does seem counterintuitive, but when your local economy is shit (i.e. panhandling in ghettos), you're going to emigrate somewhere with more opportunity.
>> 70% of people homeless in San Francisco in 2019 reported becoming homeless while living in San Francisco: 22% came from another county within California, and 8% came from another state.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Fran...
Seriously though, I can't imagine what point you're trying to make here, other than to share a deep insensitivity to other people's suffering.
I lived in Hoboken, NJ for nearly five years and had some friends who volunteered at the homeless shelter through church that entire time. The homeless there had pretty good access to food, water, shelter, and drugs (mostly cigarettes and alcohol but I'm sure others). At some point there was talk of a program to move some of the chronically homeless into government housing; when asked if they wanted to participate nearly all of them said no.
Think about that. In a city with very little housing where students and young families are clamoring to make rent payments, and the temperature in the winter gets below zero, they were offered free housing (on taxpayer dime) and turned it down. They actively preferred to be homeless.
Why? Maybe there were too many carrots being given out, and not enough threatening with sticks. (Mind you, the sticks do not have to be cops and jail, although those are pretty big sticks. Forced rehab sounds pretty good.)
0: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/v74y3j/this-is-why-homel...
1.5. Full disclosure, "shelter" was probably the wrong word because I don't think anyone was sleeping at the church. There were definitely some people eating multiple meals a day there, though. So I don't know if you would call that temporary housing. That makes it even wierder (to me) that they would refuse permanent housing.
2. "Punished" might not quite be the right word here. I remember there was a guy - I think his name was Don - who was very mentally ill and very scary. Well over 6 feet tall and looking absolutely wild, he would roam the streets shouting incoherently at people, usually women. He interacted with one of my friends at the shelter so often they were on a first name basis and several times he would just approach our group screaming at him. He had little sense of his surroundings and would often wander right into oncoming traffic, it was a miracle he live through my time at college.
Whether you think scooping Don up and sticking him in a mental hospital is "saving" him or "punishing him" depends on your worldview, but I lean towards thinking that Don's situation wasn't good for him or anyone else and that someone should have done something. And give his nature, I would expect that to require force...
I assume you're referring to the former church at 3rd + Bloomfield? AFAIK it's legitimately a shelter with 50 beds. The building was still an active church until 5-10 years ago so maybe it wasn't fully a shelter before then, not sure.
> he would roam the streets shouting incoherently at people, usually women
Sadly there are multiple people here who fit this description! My guess would be either Nicky or Chuey, as these guys are well-known in town -- they've been doing this for over a decade. But especially since the pandemic, a few additional unhinged shouty guys have appeared.
I don't know what the solution is. Clearly the local government doesn't know either, because I've personally seen them arrest one of these guys quite a few times, usually when he gets particularly riled up or violent. He's always back though, sometimes in just a few days.
So instead, poor systems are put in place, forcing the police to deal with these situations using the few tools they have at hand, including arrest, sweeps, etc.
Concretely, what ethical solution do you propose in the situation of a violent schizophrenic who refuses to take their medication, or a violent meth addict who won't stay clean? These people want to remain in their local community, but their community isn't large enough to have specialized facilities for their problems. And even if such facilities were local and taxpayer-funded, these people repeatedly refuse to remain in any voluntary treatment facility anyway. So what do you do, even if you had unlimited funding?
As for an ethical solution, I can’t say concretely in either of the cases you’ve listed because they are hypotheticals with no actual human details. Therein lies one of the biggest issues: social services do not scale easily. The only solution I’ve seen work is to get more professionals out and solving each case, one by one, according to their specific needs. This costs a fortune, but I guess we agree money isn’t a problem.
Also the link you provided is about why they don't want to move to shelters. GP is talking about people who are in shelters but do not want to move to permanent housing.
0: https://cdn.monarchhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/njcounts20...
Occasionally, it seemed maybe once per year, they would actually get a task force to go sweep it out. But that was mostly only in response to outrage from residents of the adjacent Beacon Hill neighborhood. And then they would go back to ignoring it. And a month later the whole camp was back.
This is just one anecdotal example of Seattle's long history of indifference, even tolerance, of "shanty towns" and homeless camps. I don't know how it is now, but King County in general used to be littered with these things and people just seemed to think it was normal.
It is absolutely _not_ normal.
The Seattle Police Department is woefully understaffed and has given up on responding to many quality of life and public order calls. In addition to drug use, car prowls, etc there is a thriving shoplifting-fencing business going on in spots throughout downtown. Enforcement has been very limited, so the problem has gotten out of hand. I have no clue why the Target near Pike Place remains open - they must be locked in their lease.
The National Parks system knows this, but cities like SF and Seattle do not.
> The National Parks system knows this, but cities like SF and Seattle do not.
It should be noted that homeless people are people, not animals.
Also, don't park systems kill "problem bears" (e.g. https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/waterton-lakes-national-park-staf...)?
It should be noted that people are animals too.
I think you knew what I meant.
That should scare people more than anything. Right/left/center/up/down doesn't matter, I don't know anyone from any "side" that genuinely believes things are improving or will improve.
This is true of everybody who takes a position first and finds arguments for it second. Their position is irrational to begin with. It's the same thing with baltimore: people defend it up and down as an amazing city, when in my opinion it's a nightmare of a place to live. SF sounds similar in that regard. The worst part is when people eventually get fed up and leave, their stockholm syndrome will cause them to repeat the mistakes that made their previous place so bad to begin with.
My gf lives near Castro, and she got her rear window smashed (nothing stolen because nothing in the car), and had to clean up a pile of human shit on her lower stoop, both this year alone.
I love SF, but I'm not one of those people who pretends this is normal. This biggest misconception is danger. It's a very safe city, that said, the anti-social behavior is really, really totally unbelievable to me. Only comparable to other west coast cities really.
It's got a chilling effect (I don't take mass transit to Downtown Denver, and I pay for my son to park on-campus at Metro, specifically due to similar crime happening on the light rail systems.)
With all the shuttered businesses, downtown is basically dead right now. Whole blocks of nothing.
But the tide is shifting. Traffic is back, farmers market is packed, morning sidewalks are full of commuters. A few mor months and it will only be as bad as it was a few years ago.
Leaving the sign leads people who might be considering theft to believe that (1) there is something inside that you are trying to protect, and (2) the car is locked and wasting time trying to open the locked door will set off an alarm and reduce the chance of them getting the thing you are trying to protect before being noticed. So, yes, of course it has that effect.
Stockholm syndrome is a fake condition invented on the spot, with no supporting scientific evidence or other basis, by the person most responsible for a particular incident of excessive police violence unnecessarily endangering hostages to leverage misogyny to discredit criticism of that event.
It being cited by advocates of increased violent policing as an explanation as to why the people who would be subject of that policy don’t support it is…perfectly on-brand.
My one point of contention is that I didn't advocate for more violence, or even policing. I didn't advocate for anything at all! The comment was meant to frame the underlying topic without proposing a solution.
I was in the city all last weekend, in a hotel right on market street, and we walked everywhere (ferry building, chase center, SFDC) and it was safe, pleasant and delightful.
I live just outside the city and have for 12 years and while there is plenty of room for improvement, it’s always a joy to be there.
I love cities and I love SF in particular.
I mean, you would have to refute the sources in some of the comments about the increasing crime in San Francisco then. [0] [1] [2] [3] If you think they are 'wrong' that is.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30958359
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30958414
If you think about it critically, it's similar to the manufactured panic around bail reform in New York.
The data shows it is working, but the police / entrenched folks are putting a lot of propaganda / money into reversing it.
There are always going to be loud folks proclaiming the end of times, especially when things change. And especially when there's money involved (policing has boatloads of cash involved, they don't want to see things change).
The in your face human suffering is awful but things are a lot less bad in other parts of the city. SF has a similar proportion of homeless people as other big cities but with no right to shelter (as in NY) far too few shelter beds are provided.
SF is fairly safe by American standards with a homicide rate half that of the country as a whole.
Sadly most of the country has even weaker gun control so doesn't enjoy the relative safety of living somewhere like San Francisco where there are only four times the number of homicides compared to the UK/France/Germany. (4.5 homicides per 100k in SF vs 6.3 homicides in the US and 0.8-1.2 homicides per 100k in UK/France/Germany.)
Edit: Fixed SF crime rate to use full year figures since Wikipedia incorrectly links to half year figures.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
I would argue that our lack of stricter gun control laws is why we are safer here. Almost everyone I know is armed in their home, and at least 33% of folks I know concealed carry. I realize that here on HN that statement will likely get me downvoted, but there is a reality to the preventative nature that being able to provide deadly defense to crime that I have experienced.
As an example: Illinois may have lax state laws, but Chicago has strict gun laws, and lots of homicides. If you removed Chicago from Illinois statistics, how would that affect the state’s statistics
Chicago is bad at 18.26 homicides per 100k. I guess citywide controls have limited impact if people can just drive out to the burbs to buy a gun.
There do seem to be a whole lot of people around CA with outright delusional ideas about Scandinavian cultures and policy choices. For all their much vaunted "socialism" (with Scandinavian characteristics) Stockholm is a lot less dysfunctional than San Francisco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
TIL there's a Helsinki syndrome: https://www.scandinaviastandard.com/what-is-helsinki-syndrom...
Edit: I was being sarcastic, role playing an evangelist with Stockholm Syndrome, and was actually quite impolite to him, once I finally managed to get his attention!
Edit 2: Once I was lucky enough to observe the iconic green Art Nouveau neon sign of HOTEL ESSEX in the Tenderloin when just the right letters were burnt out to spell "HOT SEX".
Hotel Essex, at the corner of Ellis St. and Larkin St., in The Tenderloin, San Francisco.
https://gedris.org/node/327.html
Close but no cigar:
https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/479000110337911544/
Up from the deep: The Tenderloin
https://upfromthedeep.wordpress.com/uptown-tenderloin/commen...
>Hotel Essex. 684 Ellis Street. Hotel with 128 rooms and seventy-two baths. Architects: Righetti and Headman. 1912.
>Though unique amid the surrounding architecture, the Art Nouveau-inspired facade of the Essex was nevertheless crafted to blend in by its designer, James Francis Dunn. The hotel’s neon blade sign is especially fine. Now owned by the Community Housing Partnership, the Essex began undergoing renovation late in 2006.
>Night-Sign---Essex
>By the end of April 2008, its renovation was complete. The paint job is unfortunately garish and unbecoming, but the new marquee and restored blade sign are spectacular, although it seems the latter may still have some electrical problems. Even so, the corner of Ellis and Larkin is utterly transformed after dark by the torrid glow of neon.
Why people keep staying there instead of the hundreds of other and safer hotel locations? Maybe hotels need better regulated ratings to take into account the surrounding area.
Solution: go elsewhere and add regulations to hotel rating about the surrounding area??
I'm sorry, but that is one of the most defeatist options I've ever heard
Best thing you can do as a tourist is know where you are. It's no different than unsafe areas of Mexico and LA? You gonna stay near skid row?
SF weather and wealth is going to attract homeless and drugs, and unless you want to break the law to stop it, adapting is the next best thing.
Actually NVM it's just easier to shit on SF and act like everyone there is an idiot and the solution is simple.
I've lived in rough neighborhoods before but even I was clutching my pearls! I can handle gangsters and cold shoulders, but this is another breed of degenerate. They're like zombies, slowly losing humanity!
The caveat being I met many kind folks too, homeless or otherwise.
[edit: I now remember I actually did see human biowaste.]