Angry, fed-up residents counter that we ought to just round them up and ship them out.Posted on 10/11/2007 7:59:07 AM PDT by SmithL
Versions of such an ordinance are in effect in places like Philadelphia and Portland, Ore. They make it illegal for loiterers to stake out a spot on the sidewalk in front of a business and camp out there for the day.
But mention it, and the reaction is immediate and polarizing.
Homeless advocates insist that such laws criminalize the homeless.
Angry, fed-up residents counter that we ought to just round them up and ship them out.
But at some point we have to confront simple truths. This is not an issue that is going away. For whatever reason, the issue - from Golden Gate Park to the sidewalks of SoMa - has touched off a firestorm of reaction in the city. Rather than attacking and demonizing the other side, it is time to look toward solutions.
In fact, representatives from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and other business leaders are meeting with officials in Portland this weekend to see how their sit-lie ordinance is being administered.
Is sit-lie the answer? It might not be. But right now it is an idea in play, and it would be worth everyone's time to sit down and discuss it without the rhetoric. Surely there is middle ground in here somewhere.
What compromise has meant in other cities is that the angry residents realize and admit that there is a need for homeless counseling and services. But it also means that homeless advocates have to accept that there has to be some kind of an enforcement ordinance that allows police to get people engaging....
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Debra Hibner, homeless for the past five years, packs up on Haight Street to go to a clinic.
I know....give ‘em cell phones....
Sad, sad, sad.... you sow what you reap. But SF has deteriorated to the likes of Sodom & Gommorah... they need some serious repentance or it will get worse.
In the old days, the cops would buy them a fifth of skullbuster, whack them on the head and put them in a boxcar headed somewhere else.
Read todays latimes. The city has agreed to allow homeless to sleep anywhere in the city from 9-6.
They call it camping.
It’s always a treat for me when I have to go to the Superior Court to pass by some animal defecating between parked cars with a smile on his face.
San Francisco created this problem - here’s free money! Of course, when it’s run out after a week of bingeing on crack and alcohol, by all means, harass our citizens as they go to work, ride the bus, ride BART, and use the ATMs. Sidewalks and streets that are in serious disrepair, but heck, let’s give the homeless WiFi!
You asked for this San Francisco, and now you got it.
I believe there is some space still unoccupied on Queen Nancy Pelosi’s front yard.
They just need to pick up their Impeach Bush sign first.
I'm glad I don't live there. The city is reaping what it has sown.
If everyone is entitled to free health care, shouldn’t everyone be entitled to a free home?
I think the answer is so obvious. SF should give MORE money to the homeless. I think they should announce that the City will give each homeless person $50 for each day they are in teh city. This way the homeless can get an education, get an apartment and get proper medical insurance.
This will solve the homeless problem in a matter of days!!!
This is how democrats have solved all of our problems in the past. It will work again.
Go ahead Gavin, make the offer.
Camping? Is the city going to provide each of them with a Coleman lantern and some marshmallows?
>> I think the answer is so obvious. SF should give MORE money to the homeless. I think they should announce that the City will give each homeless person $50 for each day they are in teh city.
$50 a day? Cheapskate! SF has “Living wage” laws, the city should pay THAT rate! :)
That’s a Debra? Must be headed for the “Adadictomy Clinic”.
That’s a Debra? Must be headed for the “Addadictomy Clinic”.
The article’s comments section on the SFChronic website has a slew of entries, some of them quite educational.
SF has a well-funded, well-entrenched Homeless-Industrial Complex of advocates and “non-profit” service providers living off the “taxpayer teat” (an oft-repeated phrase there) who clearly view bums as their bread and butter. The city spends $150 million annually (another oft-repeated phrase) on shelters and services for them. The “advocates” know all about working the media and legal system to keep their gravy flowing and leftys in city government are only too happy to pander to them. Of course, drunks and druggies are not interested in pulling themselves together and living a respectable life. Schizophrenics should be institutionalized if they won’t seek help.
Former bums who weighed in made it clear that the only solution is to make the homeless lifestyle sufficiently uncomfortable that the bums either straighten out or pick up and seek greener pastures. Feeding bums, giving them checks and check-ups and letting them run riot does them do favors. It merely supports them in their self-destructive lifestyle.
The tactical playbook a city government can use to bring heat to bear on these characters is well-known (Rudy was referenced several times). One has but to have the determination and perseverance to use them. Most of the comments for that article seemed well-acquainted with how this system actually worked. I can only assume the ordinary folks (and such people exist even in SF) are not represented in their government.
Right. That is the purpose. What's the problem?
I think bringing the guys from Bum Fights here to ratchet up their filmed extravaganzas to Bum Fight Death Matches might be the solution. Build a geodesic cage, call it Bum Dome. The last bum left after all is said and done gets a lifetime supply of Night Train and a free room for life at Motel 6.
Excellent post
But that doesn't keep them from trying. And the media wonders why their readers flock to the Internet? "Just the facts ma'am." is just an antiquated concept to these modern day "journalists".
They are bums.
In typical liberal fashion they make excuses for inexcusable and deplorable and detrimental behavior instead of dealing with it from the beginning, then by the time they finally realize the folly of their insanity and decide to do something about it, its too late and the problem is too big to be effectively handled.
San Francisco... they place to go if you love the smell of urine and used condoms in the morning.
This is exactly it, and a lot of San Francisco liberal voters who thought they were being kind to the less fortunate at the ballot box are starting to realize they've been had by this troupe of con artists. The big problem is that the local DA's office and the judiciary are full of Leftist ideologues who like seeing bums all over the place because they think it's a commentary on the evils of global capitalism and it furthers the goals of the Revolution. Any attempt to pass no-sit laws will run into ferocious activist lawyers who will be well-paid to defend the miscreats, a DA who won't prosecute, and judges who won't convict - or will throw out the laws on a technicality.
The real solution would be allowing fed-up citizens to take whatever measures they deemed necessary to get the bums off their property and away from their person. But you can imagine how such citizens would be treated by the aformentioned corrupted judicial system.
Arrest them for violating the sit-lie law. Make them serve a mandatory 40 hours of community service cleaning up the mess their ‘comrades’ have caused. Repeat as often as necessary.
The last time I was in SF, some homeless guy decided to take a leak on the sidewalk as I was walking by.
Considering how the City of SF feels about our military and this little incident, I won’t bother going back.
$50 a day pays for education, an apartment and medical insurance?
The sad thing is that the homeless are probably more normal than the the housed residents of SF.
hence fortht e euphamism coinded few years ago...
...urban campers
hence forth the euphamism coined a few years ago...
...urban campers
But isnt’ homelessness just another lifestyle choice. Aren’t some people born with a tendency toward unemployability, attraction to addicting substances and inability to handle life’s routines? Aren’t we being intolerant and homelessphobic if we do not fully embrace and accept our homeless brothers and sisters? Are we turning our backs on the truth of global warming ( praise and blessing upon it) if we demand the use of precious resources to build shelters for these people? After all each shelter will have a negative effect on energy stores. Both in construction and during use.
I say do not think of them as homeless but as urban living artscapes. A happening showing the gritty reality of the 21st century. A statement of the failed policies of globalization. A condemnation of man’s indifference to the Gitmo torture chambers and a demand for a National Che Guevera Day.
Besides SF should just give it up. Anything they do will be overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Surreals.
PS. We might also send Mexico 2 homeless for every 1 illegal immigrant. Seems fair.
“The real solution would be allowing fed-up citizens to take whatever measures they deemed necessary to get the bums off their property and away from their person.”
I would never allow my wife or older kids to go anywhere without a fresh can of pepper spray and I would use it everytime one of these guys came near me. You get a couple thousand fed up locals doing that and before long the bums would get the message.
“Homeless” is PC-speak.
They are bums.”
______________________
You’re too kind....
they are worthless eaters.
Not such a bad idea. I'd bet that SF could send the bums to Mexico with $250 a month and they could live in clover stoned on anything they want while the city would save money hosing a destructive bureaucracy.
It would be an export with a positive cash flow and social benefits to boot. Heck, if the parasite bureaucrats complain, we could send them down there too to feed off their hosts for less than we're paying them now.
After all, it's a free trade zone.
You're right! They're not really people, but living metaphors.
;^)
Sure, they are homeless. What the hell do they know.
All you have to do is offer $50 a day and the all the homeless in a 5 state region will settle in San Francisco.
They can crap on the streets in peace and harmony with the flower children!
“$50 a day pays for education, an apartment and medical insurance?”
No but it does pay for 2-3 rocks or a whole lot of MD20/20 or Night Train.
Mmmmmm. MD20/20. :)
In a raspy voice:
"Bum dome! Two bums enter, but only one bum leaves!
From an old Star Trek episode: "Bags of dirty water."
I found the same thing when I was in SF a few years ago. I went to go biking in Golden Gate Park and had to ride through a homeless shanty town at the park entrance off Steiner (where I rented my bike). Terrible. Scary. Smelly.
What I recall most is the homeless problem.
It’s a beatiful city the ultra-libs/lefties are flushing right down the toilet.
Hey SF, keep doing what you’re doing... it keeps the bums away from us!
“It’s a beatiful city the ultra-libs/lefties are flushing right down the toilet.”
It’s not as beautiful as it used to be, through the gentrification of the .com boom and recent housing boom, a lot of the character of the city was wiped away with new construction and remodels. Add in the never ending construction from the Embarcadero, which has torn up downtown for the new on/off ramps, and it’s just lost it’s flavor. I’ve watched it deteriorate over the last 20 years, it’s really a shame.
I rarely go in anymore, it’s just not worth it. You have to fight traffic in (god help you if there’s a game at Pac Bell or Candlestick), there’s no parking, the bike riders rude, bums everywhere, and we won’t even go into the tourist areas. (Just stay away).
I used to haunt the zoo and Golden Gate Park, but the zoo is not what it used to be, and usually packed with immigrants and baby strollers and kids running wild (almost had my Nikon knocked out of my hands last time), and Golden Gate Park belongs to the homeless now - go into the bushes at your own risk, the city workers refuse to, as they get attacked, and it’s awash in broken booze bottles and used needles.
I’d live in the city or one of the coastal communities like Pacifica of 20 years ago in a heartbeat, now, forget it. That’s if you can afford it, prices there rival NYC.
Great way to run a city, Newsome. Make sure that visitors from around the world have their lasting memories of SF be the smell of urine and feces, and the sound of the insane attacking people on the street.
The last conservative mayor of SF cleaned up the city, and got rid of the homeless. Business went up, SF relies on a heavy traffic of conferences, tourists, and banking, among other things. Now, business is down. The libs that run SF never seem to be able to figure out that connection.
The SF City Council has floated the idea of no private ownership of land or housing in SF. Won’t that be fun, if they ram it through?
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