Homeless 'Shabby Chic' in Pacific Heights: Video
In all my years of traveling home from The Vogue Theater in Pacific Heights after catching a flick, I've never seen a homeless person settling in for the night on the sidewalk or in front of a business. Last Wednesday, February 24, that changed.
I was riding past the Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Couture emporium at Sacramento and Baker Streets, and there was homeless man preparing to bed down in the store's vestibule.
This sight was so odd I had to capture it on video.
Let's place higher taxes on all the profitable tech firms across San Francisco and use the money for enhanced social services and construction of low-cost and affordable housing, to help folks like the man in this video.
Reports, proud muckraking, photos, videos and musings from the veteran LGBT and AIDS human rights advocate Michael Petrelis. Based in San Francisco since 1995. Contact: MPetrelis_at_AOL_dot_com. Vote Petrelis for BART Board District 9 in November!
The trouble with your proposal (to enhance social services and construct housing for homeless people) is that it would not solve the homeless situation in San Francisco -- in fact, it would make it worse, because it would attract more homeless people from other towns and cities. Any city that offers more than the typical amount of social services to improve the lot of the homeless will find itself with more homeless people than before.
ReplyDeleteNo city can afford to provide for unlimited numbers of the down-and-out. This is a national problem and has to be addressed and coordinated on a national level. As long as our worthless U.S. Congress continues to turn a blind eye to the nation's homeless problem, no major progress can be made in dealing with it.
Rich-people's towns don't have homeless people living on their streets because they kick them out instead of providing services for them. For example, there is not a single homeless shelter in Atherton or in Hillsborough. And you won't find many people sleeping on the streets in either town.
A city like San Francisco should consider a policy based on calculating what fraction of the nation's homeless problem is our rightful share to deal with, and then we should deal well with just that share. For example, we could decide that since San Francisco's population is about 2.7% of the U.S. population, we have a duty to assist 2.7% of the nation's homeless, but not more than that. That would come to about 16000 homeless people. We could then spend the resources needed to care properly for16000 people and know that we are doing our share and doing it well. Eligibility could be based on how long a person has lived in SF, or perhaps on a lottery. Those who don't make the cut-off could receive transportation to somewhere else.